Going clean can be tough

As India’s Kudankulam nuclear plant gets set for producing power, doubts still remain on both sides of the nuclear argument. The World Health Organization estimates that preventable deaths from air pollution, meaning soot and smog from burning wood, coal, oil and gasoline, total more than two million per year worldwide. James Hansen, a prominent climate scientist, calculates the positive benefit of nuclear power as having saved about 1.84 million lives by reducing such pollution. Natural gas — methane — which anti-nuclear environmentalists lately seem to be embracing, is a greenhouse gas more than 20 times as potent as carbon dioxide.

Meanwhile, Germany's push to radically remake its energy system by abandoning nuclear and embracing clean energy is threatened by delays in grid investments and, paradoxically, the success of its solar industry. After the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan, Germany adopted a policy of phasing out nuclear energy by 2022 and ensuring that 80 percent of the country's electricity supply comes from clean energy by 2050, or more than three times the level of 2010.

Even as the government is cutting back on once-generous subsidies for solar technology, the country is expected to reach a total solar installed capacity of 52,000 MW by 2017 or 2018. That is up from 6,000 MW in 2008, almost a ninefold increase.

The 17 nuclear reactors that were operated in Germany at the time used to produce about a fifth of the country's electricity. One piece of the new system to take their place will be 5,000 wind turbines installed nearly 100 miles out at sea, in water as deep as 130 feet. Another piece will be thousands of megawatts of gleaming rooftop solar panels.
Wind parks, for now mainly located onshore, already represent 17 percent of the country's installed generating capacity. But the expansion of offshore wind has been slowed by grid problems.
Meanwhile, Germany's solar boom is depressing energy prices and hurting the bottom line at the nation's big utilities such as RWE AG and E.ON SE. Germany needs nearly 1,000 miles of new high-voltage power lines in the coming years, according to plans approved by the federal government. Yet less than 155 miles has been built so far. In another blow to the government's plans, E.ON and RWE are reducing spending on renewable energy to cut down debt.

If and when wind and solar capacity double their outputs from current levels, base-load plants, which have to run constantly to ensure grid stability, will start to suffer financially as well and risk becoming uneconomical.
Going clean also comes with its handicaps. But if one can make it work, there are lessons for many in that.

Revisiting the n-issue

We need more power. No one can argue that. With only 53% of the rural population having access to grid electricity, no doubt we need more power. The Central Electricity Authority shows that the gap in average supply and demand varied from 8 to 11% between 2007 and 2012, while the peak varied from 9 to 18%. Both the peak and base deficits will, in fact, increase to 14% and 20% respectively by 2017 at the current rate of growth in India.

But, while we need any kind of clean power, the question is whether we can afford nuclear. Managing nuclear plants can even be dangerous. But isn’t handling lead-acid batteries also a dangerous hazard? Even generating solar power is not without its toxic hazards. Think inverter and battery store! Of course, not as hazardous as a nuclear plant but many such will add up to create their own problems.

Now consider that nuclear plants have been functioning pretty well except for the couple of mishaps. Can we rule them out? Or call them only dangerous? Since nuclear has been around for around 60 years, how about a comparison with fossil fuels and their cumulative damage down 60 years? The water they have used and polluted, the carbon they have emitted, the flyash they produce, etc. Can one then dismiss nuclear, especially if the safeguards are established? Perhaps we need to look at smaller plants rather than big ones with their potential for large mischief.

However, instead of constantly producing more power, wouldn’t it help if we learnt to get more from less? Also to turn off the switch when we can afford to. An energy expert was saying that even if every house in India turned off just one light for 5 hours a day, the country would have no power problem!

Food vs energy

Not just what we eat, but how we produce our energy has impact on water. China’s and India’s plans to build more coal-fired power plants to meet electricity needs aren’t feasible according to GE because of a lack of water needed to cool the plants World Resources Institute reports that 79 percent of India’s new power capacity is being built in areas of limited water availability.

Coal-fired power plants are extremely water intensive, particularly in India where typical plants consume 5-7 cubic meters of water per Megawatt hour, while plants built more recently with the latest technology use 3.5-4 cubic meters of water/Mwh.

Almost 71 proposed coal plants in drought-prone Vidarbha in Maharashtra would consume water enough to irrigate more than 410,000 hectares of land. But guess what, the clean alternative, nuclear plants, need 25% more water than coal  based plants! Where will the water come from in various parts of the water-stressed country? Does anyone make these calculations or analysis before commissioning a nuclear plant? With falling agriculturing productivity, can we afford diverting more water away from irrigation?

Taking the heat off a reactor

Those looking at a future hydrogen powered economy have hot upon a hot idea. Heat from existing nuclear plants could be used in the more economical production of hydrogen, with future plants custom-built for hydrogen production. This was announced by a scientist working with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, Austria.

Hydrogen could have a beneficial impact on global warming, since burning hydrogen releases only water vapor and no carbon dioxide, even if water vapor is also a warming agent. Scientists and economists at IAEA and elsewhere are working intensively to determine how current nuclear power reactors -- 435 are operational worldwide -- and future nuclear power reactors could be enlisted in hydrogen production.

Most hydrogen production at present comes from natural gas or coal and results in releases of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. On a much smaller scale, some production comes from a cleaner process called electrolysis. This electrolysis becomes more efficient and less expensive if water is first heated to form steam, with the electric current passed through the steam.

Nuclear power plants are ideal for hydrogen production because they already produce the heat for changing water into steam and the electricity for breaking the steam down into hydrogen and oxygen. Yes, the economics need to be improved. Some countries are considering construction of new nuclear plants coupled with high-temperature steam electrolysis (HTSE) stations that would allow them to generate hydrogen gas on a large scale in anticipation of growing economic opportunities.

Instead of building more of these reactors, better in some way to harness the heat for hydrogen production. We agree.

Meanwhile, the French Court of Auditors recently found that nuclear power costs more than what electricity consumers in the country are charged! The study found that the cost of constructing a nuclear plant has risen from 1.07 million euros per megawatt in 1978 to 1.37 million euros per megawatt in 2002. The average cost of a megawatt of nuclear capacity for France’s current 58 reactors stands at 1.25 million euros.

Nuclear big designs

We just crossed the first anniversary of the massive earthquake and tsunami that left approximately 20,000 dead or missing and triggered a meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan. It was the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. About 326,000 Japanese residents remain homeless, including 80,000 evacuated from the vicinity of the Fukushima facility. Residents evacuated from the zone set up in a 12-mile radius around the nuclear plant are still struggling to rebuild their lives.

In the Fukushima area—in Fukushima, there are two million people living in the prefecture, the state, and about three-quarters of those people are living under levels of very serious radioactive contamination. There are prefectures in—hot spots in surrounding areas that also have high levels. About 350,000 children are living under these conditions. The decontamination has started, but how effective it can be—some areas have been decontaminated only levels—the radiation went down 10 percent, 20 percent.

And yet, nations (except Germany) are scrambling to up their nuclear energy tally. In the UK it is the current season favourite with the ruling party. At the time of the Fukushima disaster, only four countries (China, Russia, India and South Korea) were building more than two reactors. In these four nations, citizens pay for the new reactors the government chooses to build through direct subsidies or energy price hikes.

That is because nuclear power is a private investor's nightmare. Given its long gestation period, no new nuclear-power project has ever bid successfully in a competitive energy market anywhere in the world. As said by an expert in The Guardian, 'big nuclear programmes only happen when citizens sign blank cheques..'

French company Areva working on a new Olkiluoto 3 reactor in Finland without government support is four years behind schedule and more than €2 billion over budget!

Will a price on carbon help level the playing field? Not really, as solar and wind would turn out cheaper and faster than nuclear.

Yet why are governments like the UK, US and India backing nuclear?

Nuclear fears

After a glimpse into the future, perhaps it is not out of sync to think back on the past, especially the single-most disastrous event of 2011 - the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe.

First, its unprecedented scope--three reactor partial meltdowns, two hydrogen explosions that destroyed outer containment buildings, and a raging fire in a spent-fuel pond--all beyond human control.

Second, badly amplifying that image, was the incompetence and haplessness of the corporate and governmental response. While the CEO of TEPCO, owner and operator of the reactor complex, reportedly fell into a fugue state, unable to make decisions and issue orders for days, onsite representatives of Japan's nuclear regulator fled the stricken reactors, only to be ordered back. No single voice took responsibility as the crisis unfolded.

All that gave credence to the anti-nuclear argument that all reactors are subject to unexpected mishaps, and that those operating and regulating reactors are not as fit to react in emergencies as one would like to believe.

Nuclear energy can do more than any other technology to sharply reduce greenhouse gas emissions; taking all environmental ramifications of competing technologies into account, nuclear is probably the cheapest source of baseload electricity; the volume of nuclear wastes is tiny compared to all the waste products of coal combustion; per megawatt capacity, the geographic footprint of reactor complexes is small compared to those of wind or solar complexes.

And yet, the even more obvious risks of nuclear energy have come to dominate perceptions in the rich countries. Nuclear will not make a positive contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in North America, Europe, or Japan. Only in fast developing countries like China and India are nuclear prospects still positive. And yet these are so densely populated countries that can ill-afford the outcome of nuclear disaster.

Opposition and fear of nuclear energy seems reasonable. How does one tackle a Kudankulam tussle?

Nuclear ambitions

Amidst all the brouhaha over the Kudankulam nuclear project, the Indian government is seeking to dismantle the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, proposing to abandon the long-standing independent regulator in favour of a new body directly controlled by the central government.

Critics have condemned the move, arguing the new regulator will be captive to government and unable to properly pursue safety concerns.

Presently, India has 20 operating nuclear power reactors, built, owned and run by the state-owned Nuclear Power Corporation. They provide about 3 per cent of the country's energy. But 44 more reactors are either slated for construction or already being built, and India is keen to attract foreign investment.

On the plans is the creation of five massive ''Nuclear Energy Parks'', each capable of producing 10,000 megawatts of electricity, three times the power used by India's biggest city, Mumbai. India plans to treble its nuclear output by the end of the decade, and to get a quarter of its energy from nuclear sources by 2050.

A group of eminent Indian citizens are challenging the new legislation in the Supreme Court, arguing a diminished and capped liability ''puts to grave and imminent risk the right to safety, health, environment and life of the people of India''. On another front, the law is also controversial over discriminatory compensation to be awarded to the poor or female victims of any nuclear disaster.

The opposition from certain sections of public to the Kudankulam plant arises out of the fears from the Fukushima disaster in which the emergency cooling system itself was damaged by the earthquake. But proponents say the plants in Kudankulam have a double contaminant system which can withstand high pressure and over Rs 14,000 crore has been spent already.

Is nuclear the way? When a nation like Germany sets out to shut down all 17 of its reactors, should India be looking to expand nuclear energy? is there a comparison?

Nuclear sees negative growth

Due to increasing costs of production, a slowed demand for electricity, and fresh memories of disaster in Japan, production of nuclear power fell in 2011, according to the latest Vital Signs Online (VSO) report from the Worldwatch Institute. Despite reaching record levels the previous year, global installed nuclear capacity—the potential power generation from all existing plants—declined to 366.5 gigawatts (GW) in 2011, from 375.5 GW at the end of 2010.

Not surprisingly, this drop in installed capacity corresponds with a decline in global consumption of nuclear energy. Nuclear’s share of world commercial primary energy usage fell to around 5 percent in 2010, having peaked at about 6 percent in 2001 and 2002. Only four countries—the Czech Republic, Romania, Slovakia, and the United Kingdom—increased their share of nuclear power by over 1 percentage point between 2009 and 2010.

Much of the decline in installed capacity is the result of halted reactor construction around the world. Although construction on 16 new reactors began in 2010—the highest number in over two decades—that number fell to just two in 2011, with India and Pakistan each starting construction on a plant. In addition to this dramatically slowed rate of construction, the first 10 months of 2011 saw the closing of 13 nuclear reactors, reducing the total number of reactors in operation around the world from 441 at the beginning of the year to 433.

“It’s too early to conclude that nuclear energy is beginning a long-term decline, but these numbers can hardly encourage the industry,” said Worldwatch President Robert Engelman. “The high cost of nuclear electricity generation and the widespread public perceptions that it poses unacceptable safety risks make it unlikely this form of power will help slow human-caused climate change or offer an attractive alternative to rising fossil-fuel prices any time soon.”

China is an exception to the global slump in nuclear electricity generation, in terms of both the number of plants being built and installment capacity levels. The country accounted for 10 of the 16 reactor construction starts in 2010, and that year it initiated the installment of nearly 10 GW of capacity, representing 62 percent of capacity construction worldwide. China currently is home to 27 reactors and has some 27 GW of capacity under construction.

The United States, too, does not appear to be abandoning nuclear power just yet. In 2010, the Obama administration approved $8.3 billion in loan guarantees for construction of nuclear reactors; in February of 2011, the administration’s budget proposal upped that amount by an additional $36 billion.

Although many factors are behind the decline, it is largely the result of high costs, slowed electricity demand, and lower natural gas prices in recent months. The reactor meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima plant seven months ago also likely added to the severity of the decline. Only 10 of Japan’s 54 reactors are currently connected to the grid, China froze construction on 25 reactors immediately after the Fukushima explosions, and both Germany and Switzerland announced plans to phase out nuclear power following the disaster.

Although nuclear power remains an important energy source for many countries, including Russia and France, it is likely that its prominence will continue to decrease.

Needed safe technologies

Now that it is official that radiation from Fukushima reactors have leaked into the ocean, fresh fears have been triggered. How will this affect the food chain, especially for those who consuming fish? Nothing much to fear say experts. But anyone willing to take a chance?

Meanwhile, more nuclear proponents are coming out saying that nuclear is the safest bet! You bet. For instance, there is the UK's former chief scientist David King who sees nuclear as far less dangerous than coal plants. Hydro is no less dangerous, some say.

One of the chief arguments is the balance of energy demand and supply. Can renewables step up significantly from the 5 percent or so they comprise? Storage needs apart, they require storage which is still a challenge.

The real issue for the world, according to some analysts, is the “energy-spent” versus the “energy-paid-back”. The “energy-spent” includes the energy needed to grow or find the resources (like ore or vegetation), mine or harvest the resources, refine the resources, transport the resources, build the energy sources, maintain the energy sources (like windmills or solar facilities), and refurbish or remove the sources after their nominal life.

These calculations have not been done for any of the new technologies and without it, there is not much of a change in the scanario. It will be coal, gas and nuclear that will meet the kind of demand that is constantly on the rise. Perhaps, all we can do for now is to make these technologies safer and cleaner. Easier said than done? What do you think?

Coal plants and radiation? Really?

China to reconsider nuclear power plans. Is that good or bad news? In the light of Japan disaster, it seems good. But some people think not. Like George Monbiot at The Guardian. And why?

'Even when nuclear power plants go horribly wrong, they do less damage to the planet and its people than coal-burning stations operating normally. Coal, the most carbon-dense of fossil fuels, is the primary driver of manmade climate change. If its combustion is not curtailed, it could kill millions of times more people than nuclear power plants have done so far. Yes, I really do mean millions.'

He goes on to say that deaths from Chernobyl and Fukushima cannot be ignored but remain 'a tiny fraction of the deaths for which climate change – through its damage to the food supply, its contribution to the spread of infectious diseases and its degradation of the quality of life for many of the world’s poorest people – is likely to be responsible.'

Coal also causes plenty of other environmental damage, far worse than the side-effects of nuclear power production: from mountaintop removal to acid rain and heavy metal pollution. An article in Scientific American points out that the fly ash produced by a coal-burning power plant “carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy.” But we are not panicking about our coal plants, as we are right now with the winds blowing south or eastwards from japan!

Nuke the only option?

After the Japan disaster, the question has come back to haunt us - whether the planned addition of more than 60,000 MW of nuclear power by 2031-32 (as per
Integrated Energy Policy) is in the interest of our society? What are risks associated with nuclear parks like Jaitapur, and other ones in West Bengal, Gujarat, in a nation as populated as India? This is besides the huge cost involved in nuclear power production. Not to forget the problem of waste - Tarapur has 40 years of nuclear waste accumulated and not knowing what to do with it!

Proponents say the explosion at Japan's reactors is not relevant to India where we have safer concrete domes. Well, Kaiga dome did collapse! Also, they say that In India nuclear plants are not placed close to inhabitation.?? If it is about self-sufficiency and 'clean' (can nuclear waste ever be clean?), then nuclear is the best choice, some say.

India's nuclear programme is of 3 stages. At present we are using natural uranium. From it we get plutonium which will be used in 2nd stage reactor. From outcome of 2nd stage reactor we will be getting thorium which will be used in third generation reactor. India has a vast source of thorium which is expected to last for minimum of 460 year. The plan and design is ready for third generation reactor.And then, the nation will be self sufficient. That is the claim.

Is nuclear the only clean option? Or does the solution lie in deploying small, distributed energy sources using those available locally? Or is it in aggressively adopting renewables?

Join the discussion

Time to get some discussion into this forum! How about taking on the 'hottest' topic these days? The Jaitapur nuclear park!

A sseries of six nuclear plants to be set up by French company Areva, this will generate 10,000 MW of power and will get going by 2014, claims the government.

India with its 19 nuclear power plants is just about able to produce 4000 mw of power. In contrast to this, the proposed park will double the production of nuclear energy in next four years.

The cost will come to Rs 60,000 crore or about Rs 9 per unit of power.

First, there are the accusations that the park is to come up in a biodiversity hotspot like the Western Ghats. The environment ministry has called for certain safeguards but how much will be adhered to, has to be seen.

As the nation gets ready to go nuclear power shopping in a big way, what do you think? Is it a good idea?

We need power, yes. But is nuclear fission the best way to heat water and send the turbines rotating?

How clean is nuclear? It does not emit carbon dioxide. But what about the waste it generates? If we plan to increase generation in this route, how much waste can we handle?

How safe is it to transport nuclear material across the nation?

Join in with your thoughts.

Let's go Uranium shopping!

All the world loves to hear of abundant fuel sources. And when an institution like MIT promises there is more than plenty of Uranium to run more than ten times the present number of 400 nuclear plants, everyone will want to go nuclear. Right?

The report, which comes in the backdrop of the US administration deliberations on whether to go full-scale nuclear or not, finds that uranium resources are not likely to run out in the next century, even if the U.S. alone builds as many as 1,000 nuclear reactors. Therefore, either reprocessing or recycling spent nuclear fuel, as the French and Japanese do, is likely to be a waste of money better spent on improving the light-water reactors presently in use.

Light water reactors are what the report calls attention to, with regard to improvisation while arguing against complicating the fuel cycle in considering alternate fissile fuels such as thorium. The M.I.T. report predicts that even if the world's fleet of more than 400 nuclear power plants grew to be 4,000 such plants that then operated for a century, the cost of the electricity from those facilities would rise by a mere 1 percent as a result of the increased demand for uranium.

Regarding spent fuel reprocessing, the report suggests a cycle involving light-water reactors, reprocessing of the spent fuel, and disposal of small "packages" of highly radioactive nuclear waste in deep boreholes. And to tackle proliferation, a leasing program, in which countries with the capability to enrich uranium fuel supply it to other countries and then take back the spent fuel for disposal in one form or another at the end of its useful life.

Fuel reprocessing like the kind it suggests have proved cost prohibitive, and the leasing issue has its own problems. The central issue still remains the 'abundance' of uranium and waste disposal from 4000 plants!

The nuclear dilemma

An interesting TED debate saw two experts take up cudgels for and against nuclear energy. The audience that began loaded on the 'for' side saw some converts at the end!

Of course, the main premise for nuclear was the reductions in greenhouse emissions as against fossil fuels. The other one, rather ridiculous, was that nuclear energy development was one way of checking nuclear arms proliferation! And in the case aaginst nuclear, Jacobson of Standford chose to pick on the considerable carbon footprint of a nuclear plant through its life cycle, the long gestation time as also the waste problem. As a member of the audience pointed, transportation of nuclear fuel would constitute a security issue.

But now, the IEA has it that greenhouse gas emissions could be slashed by tripling the capacity of nuclear power over the next 40 years. The Nuclear Energy Technology Roadmap, which has been drawn up together with the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), sets an “ambitious but achievable” target of generating nearly a quarter of the world’s electricity using nuclear power by 2050.

“Nuclear energy is one of the key low-carbon energy technologies that can contribute, alongside energy efficiency, renewable energies and carbon capture and storage, to the decarbonisation of electricity supply by 2050,” said IEA executive director Nobuo Tanaka, speaking from the East Asia Climate Forum in Seoul.

The technology is a mature one, says the report, but the new reactor designs being constructed now will have to be established as reliable and competitive before being substantially expanded after 2020.

For such as expansion to take place, governments around the world will have to make a clear and long-term commitment to nuclear power and encourage public acceptance.
While new technological breakthroughs are not required to support a major expansion effort, says the IEA, progress on the disposal of high-level radioactive waste will be essential.

Funding will be one of the major hurdles to expansion, warns the report, and could require government-backed supporting mechanisms such as loan guarantees. Governments will also need to invest in developing and training the necessary workforce to build, operate and maintain a new generation of nuclear power stations.

The security issue still remains, in an increasingly polarised world. So what's your vote?

Nuclear energy parks

India will set up five energy parks by 2032 to raise the generation of nuclear energy. The selected sites for the energy parks are Haripur in West Bengal, Mithi Virdi in Gujarat, Jaitapur in Maharashtra, Kovvada in Andhra Pradesh and Kudamkulam in Tamil Nadu, chairman of Atomic Energy Commission and secretary, Department of Atomic Energy, Srikumar Banerjee has indicated.

The country plans to have 35,000 MW of installed capacity by 2020 and 60,000 MW by 2032, Banerjee said. Out of this, 40,000 MW to 45,000 MW would come from energy parks and the balance from the other installations. The current generation level was around 4500 MW.

He said going by the present economics, nuclear power was more competitive than other sources of energy like thermal. But is price alone to be the deciding factor, as we have been asking? What about the waste? What about the long gestation time? How can the generation be raised over eight times in a decade? What about security concerns in transporting the fuel across the country? And the fuel imports required? According to Banerjee, India can generate at most 10,000 MW of nuclear energy from its assured uranium reserves.

Are the people willing to have nuclear plants dotting the countryside?

Nuke issues

The Kaiga nuclear scare has once again put the nuclear issue on the front burner. Yes, it was not radiation leak but an equally relevant problem. Access to radiation material. Do we need nuclear in the energy mix? How well can we handle it, especially in a country notorious for fuel pilferage, corruption, and not to say the least, poverty which often drives the action?

As we had raised the question earlier, in a scenario of hundreds of reactors dotting the landscape, and given the fuel transport issue, are we competent this potent source?

Meanwhile, indigenous development of reactors that combine uranium and thorium proves India’s technological prowess. Bhabha Atomic research center in Mumbai, India offers a detailed description of the AHWR300-LEU reactor now under development.

This has significant implications for the less well developed nations of Asia, Africa and Latin America. The design of the AHWR300-LEU contains numerous cost saving features. And India hopes to deliver these reactors to less well developed countries at a cost that will be at an order of magnitude lower than that of renewables.

AHWR300-LEU possesses several features, which are likely to reduce its capital and operating costs alongwith an emphasis on simplicity, low cost, safety and longevity. The AHWR-300-LEU will also produce a modest amount of fresh water in the cooling process.

The AHWR-300-LEU is designed primarily for export. It is provided with a double containment. Safety aspects also are taken care of with passive safety systems, removal of heat from core by natural circulation, independent shutdown systems, etc

The design of the AHWR300-LEU fuel mix prevents nuclear proliferation from spent fuel, as also minimises problems related to the long term storage of spent fuel.

Do we need nuclear?

UK Energy and Climate Secretary Ed Miliband recently unveiled the Government’s long-awaited National Policy Statements (NPSs), which promise an expansion of renewables, nuclear power and clean coal technology. Quoting the threat of climate change, he called for a transition from a system that relies heavily on high carbon fossil fuels, to a radically different system that includes nuclear, renewable and clean coal power.

One of the statements deals with clean coal as per which any new coal power station over 300 MW will have to demonstrate full carbon capture and storage (CCS) to be allowed.

However, environmental groups are unhappy about the ambitions to expand nuclear generation capacity. How does one justify building more nuclear power stations when there is no solution to radioactive waste and when international regulators are saying there are huge uncertainties surrounding the basic safety of new reactor designs, they ask.

Of late there has also been a global call for nuclear supplying ‘clean’ base load power. How necessary is this baseload?

Any modern electricity system doesn’t rely on any plant’s ability to run continuously; rather, all plants together supply the grid, and the grid serves all loads. All power plants fail, varying only in their failures’ size, duration, frequency, predictability, and cause. Not just renewables.

Intermittence of coal and nuclear plants also occur, except that it affects less capacity at once, more briefly, far more predictably, and is easier and cheaper to manage, point experts.

Instead of building a surplus which is left idle often, a better idea may be to go for diverse sources spread over large geographical areas but managed by a reliable, intelligent power grid.

Do we need to go for massive expansion of nuclear plants? Has anyone thought about the security implications, say during the transport of fuel? Especially in a country like India where waylaying and siphoning fuel from tankers is a well-known occurrence?

Double trouble

It smacks of irresponsibility of the highest kind what Russia plan to do. It is prospecting for oil in the caving Arctic ice and doing it, using floating nuclear reactors! The United Industrial Corporation is planning to build a series of such floating stations to extract oil and gas offshore in some of the remotest oil and gas fields in the world in the Barents and Kara seas. To go into operation by the end of 2012, the ship will accommodate two 35 MW reactors.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Russian Federation dumped radioactive waste from more than 160 decommissioned nuclear submarines into the Arctic. In 1993, per Nuclear Power Daily 16 nuclear reactors and 10,000 containers of nuclear waste were dumped in the Kara and Barents sea.

During the Cold War, the Soviet arctic was a nuclear test zone with pollution from the Soviet military program leaving a “slow-motion Chernobyl” in excess of 3 billion curies of radioactivity. (By comparison, Chernobyl itself released only 100 million curies)

Will this be return to the Cold War times? Will dwindling energy be the driving force for the next big conflict on the planet? What will be the effect of drilling the Arctic for oil?

Star power

Fossil fuel was abundant once upon a time. Not anymore. The search is on for a new source of energy which is clean and abundant.

Some argue that nuclear power could be the answer. Nuclear is the best technology available, they say, for producing reliable, carbon-free electricity at base-load scale. Critics insist that nuclear power will indeed help us reduce CO2 emissions, but only at a high cost and to a very limited extent.

Leaving that argument aside, the next question is how abundant is the fuel, and what about the waste? Terrestrial Uranium found in the earth’s crust, if used at current rates will last for 100 years and if nuclear were the sole energy powering earthlings, it will last 15 years. But there exists an ‘inexhaustible’ supply in seawater which could eventually be tapped and provide energy for all for 1000s of years, claim some!

As to waste, all the waste generated to date will hardly fill a single football stadium, say the proponents. Anyway, advanced nuclear fuel recycling technologies are being developed which reduce the volume, heat and toxicity of used fuel and also recover the unused energy that remains in the fuel.

Now, the laser facility at Livermore lab in California is all set to begin its experiments with nuclear truth. Using very high laser energy, they plan to make hydrogen fuse in a reaction similar to what happens in stars. The small amount of hydrogen pellet will reach a temperature of 100 million °C and a density 100 times that of lead, which is enough to start a fusion reaction.

While the output is ten times greater than the energy of the lasers, the aim is to multiply it further so that the energy spent in creating the lasers is discounted. For this, the scientists are toying with the idea of fusing this experiment with fission (what happens in our nuclear reactors.) The stream of neutrons from the fusion can not only extract more energy out of the fission fuel (normally only 1 percent of its energy is used!) but also decrease the waste substantially.

Laser focus, containment process, sustainable fusion, etc are technical hurdles but the scientists are focused!

What do you think? Will star power be the future of energy?

The low-carbon platform

The Wall Street Journal reports that energy ministers from the world's eight richest nations said on May 24 they would work to create a common low-carbon technology platform as solution to climate change and energy security. And in that scheme of things, nuclear will be given a big role!
The oil-producing nations are also concerned that a future run up of the price of oil could tank global demand and with it their own investment strategies.

The meeting, held in Rome, saw the energy ministers from the Group of Eight leading nations, plus the European Commission, say, "In the opinion of a growing number of countries, the use of nuclear energy can contribute to energy security while reducing greenhouse emissions."

The group called for international collaboration among countries interested in the civil use of nuclear energy. The G8 statement was endorsed by Saudi Arabia, India and China, all fast developers of nuclear energy.

Contrast this with the recent statement of Jon Wellinghoff, the new chairman of the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Wellinghoff said that the U.S. will never need to build another coal or nuclear power plant. He claims that all of the new capacity that is required could be delivered by new wind, solar, and biomass plants.

Nuclear and coal plants are too expensive. A new nuclear power plant costs $7,000 a kilowatt, which is more than solar energy. Coal plants are sort of in the same boat, although they are not quite as expensive, as an expert put it.

To the common refrain that renewables cannot provide the baseload energy, Wellinghoff retorted that the 'baseload' concept comes from the time when we had cheap but inflexible nuclear and coal plants, and flexible but expensive natural gas plants. But when wind is the cheapest source, it will be dispatched first, and that requires a completely different approach. We will have 'distributed generation' just like we have 'distributed computing'.

Solar and wind electricity systems have been seen as disadvantageous as they must be backed-up 100 percent by other forms of energy to ensure against blackouts. But, is that true?

Big nuclear and coal plants require more 'back-up' than wind farms, say some. The spinning reserve on the grid must indeed be tuned to the size of the biggest single generator. If that generator unexpectedly drops out, back-up should still be provided. If wind farms are spread over a large enough geographical area, they are less likely to drop out all at once and thus require less back-up.

Is nuclear being given undue prominence? Is the ‘clean’ aspect of its zero emissions balanced out by its costs and timeframes?