The Importance of Innovation to the Nuclear Industry

Milton,

Information about improvements in the Nuclear Industry is really hard to come by, maybe it’s just me?

As a supporter of Nuclear Power, it is disappointing, although not surprising to read your exposition of the attitudes of some US agencies to Nuclear Power, it is also unfortunate that the Nuclear industry itself seems to do almost nothing in the arena of public relations, or just keeping us informed about progress in the area. It almost seems that the only hope for breakthroughs and innovations have to come from China.

However I’d still like to say thanks for this update.

There isn’t much innovation in the nuclear industry because innovation simply isn’t allowed in the nuclear industry, nuclear being almost unique in that regard.  Haven’t you heard?

Any innovation (i.e., any change at all, in design, technology or procedures), requires decades of review, beard stroking and analysis paralysis (as well as a cubic mile of paperwork).  It’s almost impossible to grasp the degree to which extreme, suffocting over-regulation has utterly destroyed this industry.

That is the reason that all of the “innovative” designs the author mentions have remained on the drawing board for decades.  Heck, you can’t even get a new LWR, with slightly different technology, approved without review that takes years and hundreds of millions of dollars.  Even a getting approval to build a carbon copy of an approved, even already built, reactor design takes years of review and hundreds of millions of dollars.

It’s almost enough to make many of us feel that it is all deliberate and intentional, a way to suppress any and all nuclear development, as that would be a threat to the rich, powerful and well established fossil fuel industry, which has tremendous influence on government, as well as the media.

Improved technology (innovation) will not be the path to salvation for nuclear.  Its problems are not inadequate technology.  Its problems are with policy, regulation and public prejudice.  The regulatory/policy playing field is tremendously stacked against it, and unless that changes, it is doubtful that any technology (reactor design) will be able to compete.

I agree that nuclear is struggling in the US.  But the reason to support nuclear is because of its potential, not its current trajectory.  As environmentalists, we should all look forward to a future in which our decendents can continue to live energy-rich lives, and do so in a way which is sustainable and has minimal negative impact to the environment.

In other words, we must build a world which can survive without fossil fuels.  With today’s technology, there are only three energy sources which are large enough to power our society: solar, wind, and nuclear (hydro, biomass, and geothermal help, but are small).  When the required energy storage and power transmission is included, nuclear is by far the cheapest of the three.  When seasonal demand matching is consider, only desert solar and central plains wind are feasible, which further degrades the appeal of renewables (note Europe will face strong pressure to use the much cheaper solar energy in the Middle East and North Africa).

So the non-nuclear path has a very high risk of prolonging our dependence on fossil fuels, with all of the environment destruction and political strife that entails. 

By the way, there is no such thing as a negative learning curve nor negative gravity.  If you think you see either, there is probably another effects at work which is being ignored.  For example, perhaps the rising cost of nuclear power are caused by political interference by fossil fuel lobbyists (and at some points in history, inflation of materials cost which effect all energy production, and shrinking unit volumes).

But seriously are you not abusing the word “Exponential”?

Does wind andsolar incerease by an exponent of 1.1, 1.3, 1.4…or what exactly? I am just merely asking you to justify the claim of exponentials.

Also, I saw NNadir challenge the futility/utility of wind and solar in spite of the money invested, but I can’t say I saw any ad-hominem remarks, considering that you likened him to the Titanic’s Captain.

Be careful with the claims for exponential growth, or decay.  As I recall exponential growth infers that we’ll find the curve representing numbers of instalations approaching infinity, and prices approaching zero. Somehow I just don’t believe the growth of wind or solar, or their prices will get that good.

Exaggerated claims will only lead to skepticism.

Right, exponential growth is a quite poor description, because it misses the most important features; the theoretical positive exponential goes towards infinity.  Any real technology grows with an S-curve: exponentially at first, then linearly, then asptomptically towards a limit.

So the important question to ask about energy system is what limit are they growing towards?  For non-dispatchable electrical generators, the limit is reached when the market penetration matches the capacity factor.   So wind and solar PV in Germany, which respectively get about 18% and 10% capacity factor can only produce about 18% and 10% of their electricy.   If Germany were so huge that the output of its wind farms were uncorrelated, the total penetration could be somewhat higher, but no, Germany is only about the size of Texas.

Because nuclear is dispatchable (particularly when blended with a much smaller amount of hydro or pumped hydro), the growth limit is up around 90% (it’s 100% when dispatchable desalinization or fuel synthesis is used).

So if your goal is to protect the market share of the fossil fuel industry, renewable are the way to go.

@Paul O. I invented WindSolars, joined CSP (Concentrated Solar Power) type Solar and my new fully reactive and at least 4x more effective Wind Power Stations based on new kind of turbine. Beside working 24/365 guaranteed without any backup, WindSolars would produce electricity at cost of less than 10€ per MWh in Solar and 5€ from WPSs. WindSolar PSs would use Wind with speed of 5m/sec.  that could be found nearly everywhere, so they can be Distributed baseload PSs where long distance transmision is not mandatory, so actually electricity would be still cheaper than usually.

I would say that they can replace all existing Fossile Fuels burning Power Stations, together wih Nuclear PSs. without much investment as ROI (Return Of Investment) time would be 8 months for factories that have to pay electricity just for 3 months while WindSolars would be built and use 8 months worth of electricity expenditure to build it. After this, they get electricity basically for free.

So, this is closest to “Infinite” growth of Alternative Energy instalations and zero cost of electricity.

Nifty, huh?

Regards from Croatia, the homeland of Engineer Nikola Tesla! 

Seems to me nuclear power is running into a ceiling typical of mature technologies, where improvements tend to be incremental and of diminishing returns. Strikes me the restraint is rooted in physics, being constrained by the temperature of the water used to cool the reactors and subsequently produce power. That limitation makes it difficult to overcome the steadily improving technical and economic advantages of the competition, namely the combustion turbine.

The underlying physical limitation is coupled with: (1) a bureaucratic straight jacket (that would be overly zealous and ponderous government regulators); (2) “short-range-thinking” financial environment; and (3) overreliance by the nuclear industry on a highly political (and more-or-less inept) government for “innovation” money. The government only provides “help” for “politically-correct” innovation in a “pay-to-play” game. Combustion turbines do not generally face these kinds of obstacles as innovation is much more directly linked to the economics of the competitive marketplace.

Not really surprising that nuclear power is struggling in the US.

There are limitations on the ability to reduce costs at nuclear power plants, most of which are well run. Embedded fixed cost cannot be magically made smaller in order to beat competitive resources that are just plain more cost effective (that would be very efficient combined cycle plants with low-cost natural gas).

By the way, renewable energy is not remotely cost effective.

I don’t think physics is to blame.  

This 2005 paper from the University of California at Berkeley compares the amounts of concrete and steel used in several nuclear plant designs, per unit output.  It finds that starting from the 1970s Gen II reactors, material inputs went up for Gen III reactors like the EPR (70% more concrete and 20% more steel), but are coming back down to slightly below the 1970s levels in Gen III+ reactors like the ESBWR (the new additions to the Vogtle plant are a different Gen III+ design, theAP1000).

The Berkeley paper finds that nuclear in general uses half the steel of coal plants and an order of magnitude less than wind power (for the same average power output).  Other material from the same author shows similar ratios for concrete as well.

I’d say we just need to keep building them; if we had better public and political support, I bet the learning effect would drive the price down.

The coal plants operate at much higher temperatures (about 1100 F versus say around 600F for nuclear), thus possessing a distinct advantage. The coal plants can be built at a cost of less than half that of a similarly sized nuclear plant. Bottom line is a new coal plant can produce power at about 60% of the cost of a nuclear plant, while a natural gas plant is 45% of a new nuclear plants power cost. These differentials are very difficult to overcome from a competitive standpoint.

Actually, the lower temperature make nuclear unsuitable for production of concrete and steel, but for electricity, it’s just fine.  According to the US government EIA, the levelized electricity costs for new builds are predicted to be:

• nuclear – $0.108/kWh
• coal (PC) –  $0.100/kWh
• coal w/ CCS – $0.136/kWh
• natural gas CC – $0.066kWh
• natural gas w/ CCS – $0.093/kWh

So no, coal is not particularly cheaper than nuclear, and entails a large regulatory risk (that the government could force addition of expensive new pollution controls).  Note that this appears to be true in China and India too.

Natural gas is cheaper, but the price is volatile, so the prudent utility will not want to be over-exposed (40% of electricity from natural gas would scare utilities, and 70% would be unacceptable). 

I think a careful review of the EIA data shows an uneven application of basic assumptions used in the economic analysis. Anomalies include: the lifetime of the asset; inflation associated with fuel costs; duration of loans; finance methods; owner equity percentage; indirect costs; discount rates, etc. Many of these elements can and do vary significantly over time.

In my opinion, “Levelized cost” is a poor method for comparing options because the probabilities associated with the variables become more uncertain as time marches on. A more accurate assessment relies on looking at much shorter time horizons, which is more consistent with current financial practice.

The numbers I provided are basically “overnight” costs.

A prudent utility would not make massive investments in facilities that vastly exceed costs of competitive alternatives.

I have only commented on the economics of power, observing that conventional nuclear plants are not competitive with coal or natural gas in the US. I would further observe that the money spent on renewable energy has been a monumental waste. A superior approach would have (and is) reliance on investments in conservation and better efficiency in energy production.

Countless tens-of-millions owe their lives to reasonably priced power provided by coal. Figure that in your “externalities”.

I get a little tired of arguments that paper over the extremely high cost of nuclear power. Provide a more cost effective product, stop expecting handouts and compete in the marketplace. There are other approaches to the current generation of nuclear power plants that are attempting to do just that.