US Renewables Output Exceeds Nuclear Plant Output

Subtitle:  Renewables Output Grows While Nuclear Slows

The US electrical grid is going through massive changes as several things happen.  This article shows EIA data for the past few years, with combined monthly renewable energy (electricity) output exceeding the combined output of all the nuclear plants in the US. 

source:  EIA, "Today In Energy" website

The data and chart are from US Energy Information Agency, EIA, covering the years 1980 through first half 2017.  see link

The significance of this chart is how much wind energy (the green area of the chart) has grown since approximately 2008.  In only just under 10 years (2008-2017 inclusive), wind has grown from not visibly noticeable on the chart to approximately one-half the total renewable energy generated in the US.  Many authoritative sources have been saying this for years, of course.  There are, though, many nay-sayers who simply cannot fathom how airplane wings twirling in the wind can produce electrical power into a grid.  And yet, the chart above shows this clearly.   The amount at the far right-hand part of the chart shows approximately 30 billion kWh for the month, just for wind energy.    That is approximately the same output as all the hydroelectric plants produced.  The hydroelectric plants are having a banner year, with the El Nino rains placing an above-average amount of water in the combined reservoirs that feed the hydroelectric plants.  

Meanwhile, the other big trend in the US shows up as a tiny step-change in 2012 in the top line, the line for nuclear plant output.  That downward blip represents the closing of the SONGS nuclear plant in California, San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.  SONGS had a major leak in the new steam generators they purchased and installed, and elected to shut down the plant rather than investigate the cause of the leaks and report on that cause to the NRC.  The NRC determined that the leaks were from an unknown cause, not seen in all the hundreds of reactor-years in more than 400 nuclear plants world-wide.  

Now that SONGS is shut down, more nuclear plants are also shutting down but for slightly different reasons.  The main reason is they are losing money with each month they operate.  The Fort Calhoun nuclear plant in Nebraska shut down for exactly that reason at the end of 2016.  More nuclear plants have disclosed they are losing money at a horrendous rate and will also close if they do not receive adequate subsidies from the state governments.   The nuclear plant fleet in the US is rapidly approaching an average age of 40 years.  Almost every nuclear power plant in the US has already closed by the age of 40 years from startup. 

The next decade in the US will no doubt see at least one-half of the nuclear plants shut down.  With 99 still running, that is approximately 50 shutdowns.  

Meanwhile, wind turbines are being built in record numbers and enjoying profitability with power sales prices below 5 cents per kWh.  The design improvements, larger sizes, and taller support towers all combine to make wind energy extremely efficient and economic.  

Thus, when such a graph is created again in 5 years, and 10 years from now, the top line for nuclear power will be substantially lower.  I expect that by 2027, nuclear output per month will be no more than half that of today, or 32 billion kWh per month.   In sharp contrast, wind energy output will likely be 70 billion kWh per month or more.   At that rate of output, 70 billion kWh per month, wind energy would represent only 20 percent of the total US electricity production.  That, 20 percent, is well below the level that any grid stability problems are predicted to occur.  

The long-term business opportunity in the US lies in decommissioning nuclear plants, with an average of 5 per year shutting down over the next decade.   Another long-term opportunity is in the construction and installation of large wind turbines.  The next generation of wind turbines will be the 4 MW, 6 MW, and 8 MW per turbine output.  

A famous singer said it well:  "The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind."

Roger E. Sowell, Esq.

Marina del Rey, California
copyright (c) 2017 by Roger Sowell - all rights reserved

Topics and general links:

Nuclear Power Plants.......here
Climate Change................here  and here
Fresh Water......................here
Engineering......................here  and here
Free Speech.................... here

Renewable Energy...........here  

NuScale Small Modular Reactor Begins Safety Certification

The nuclear cheerleaders should be cheering like mad over this one:  see link.  That's a welcome thing in their world, given the recent disastrous news of Westinghouse Electric filing for bankruptcy earlier this week.  see link to SLB article 

NRC To Begin Full Certification Review of NuScale Small Modular Reactor

“The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has docketed for review NuScale Power LLC’s
application to certify the company’s small modular reactor design for use in the United States.

“The company submitted its application Jan. 12 for the design, in which the reactor building holds 12 co-located pressurized-water reactor modules for a total output of 600 MWe. NuScale is the first company to submit a small modular reactor (SMR) design for certification. SMR designs seek to meet NRC safety requirements through smaller reactor cores and passive safety features. The NRC, after completing its acceptance review, has concluded NuScale’s application is complete enough for a full design certification review. The staff soon will provide a review schedule.

“The NRC’s certification process determines whether a reactor design meets U.S. safety
requirements. Companies can then reference a certified design when applying for a Combined License to build and operate a reactor in the United States. The NRC’s Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards provides input on design certification reviews. If issued, certifications are valid for 15 years.

“The NRC has most recently certified Westinghouse’s AP1000 and GE-Hitachi’s Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor designs.”

Sowell Commentary

The certification process evaluates only the safety aspects and has zero concern over economics, costs to construct, time to construct, costs to operate, reliability or onstream factor, costs to decommission, etc. SMRs have zero chance of producing economically attractive electricity.  An earlier article on SLB see link discussed the economics of SMRs, and concluded they must have very short construction times to have any advantage over conventional, large (1000 MWe or greater) plants.  

Excerpts from that earlier SLB article include:

"The analysis for two 600 MW plants shows construction must be finished within 5.5 years to break even with the costs to build a 1200 MW plant.  Similarly, for SMRs of 300 MW, where four plants would be required to produce 1200 MW of power, and 200 MW, where six plants would be required.  The results are as follows.  The 300 MW plants must be constructed in 4 years to have zero savings, with any savings produced only if construction time is 2 or 3 years.  The 200 MW plants must be constructed in 2.1 years to have zero savings over the cathedral design.    It seems highly unlikely that small, modular plants can be built on such short timescales."  (end excerpt)

The NuScale design purports to have twelve, 50 MWe reactors in the same containment building to produce 600 MW electricity.  From the NRC documents filed by NuScale, 

"A NuScale Power Module (NPM). . . is a collection of systems, sub-systems, and components that together constitute a modularized, movable, nuclear steam supply system (NSSS). The NPM is composed of a reactor core, a pressurizer, and two steam generators integrated within a reactor pressure vessel (RPV) and housed in a compact steel containment vessel.

"The NuScale advanced small modular reactor plant design is scalable, such that from one (1) to twelve (12) NPMs operate within a single Reactor Building."

So, the question is, can this design result in lower construction costs and operating costs compared to, e.g. AP-1000?   There are orders of magnitude more equipment.  For 1100 MW output, the AP-1000 has one reactor, while the NuScale has 22.  Similarly, the AP-1000 has 2 steam generators, and NuScale has 44.  The amount of piping to connect all that equipment is magnitudes greater for NuScale.  That means many more welds, pipe supports, which greatly increases costs. 

As is the usual case with nuclear, it will be years and years before anyone knows the answers based on an actual, operating plant.  The design certification review will require some years.  Finding a suitable utility to invest will require more time, then fabrication and construction will require more years.  

Only then will we truly know how much SMR-produced electricity costs.   My bet is it will be twice or three times the cost of renewable-based electricity with grid-following storage technology. 

Roger E. Sowell, Esq.

Marina del Rey, California

copyright (c) 2017 by Roger Sowell - all rights reserved

Topics and general links:

Nuclear Power Plants.......here
Climate Change................here  and here
Fresh Water......................here
Engineering......................here  and here
Free Speech.................... here

Renewable Energy...........here  

US Monthly Power Generation Capacity Factors

Subtitle:  EIA Shows Actual Capacity Factors

A part of the ongoing debate over renewable energy vs coal, nuclear, and natural gas-based energy has to do with capacity factors.   The wind, and solar detractors (one is tempted to call them ignorant, but one refrains) constantly complain that wind has a capacity factor of only 20 percent, and solar is even worse at 25 percent.   The math behind those observations is just staggering.  

Despite having actual data from reputable, objective sources that show the true state of

Source: http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=14611#

affairs, the anti-renewable crowd continue to push the false figures.   The chart shows actual monthly capacity factors for several forms of electric power generation in the US over a recent few years 2011-2013.  Data is from the US Energy Information Agency, EIA.   see link    The EIA writes that capacity factor is "the ratio of a fleet's actual generation to its maximum potential generation."  Here, "fleet" is the combined set of power generation plants that have identical fuel. 

Several things are apparent from the chart.   First, in direct contradiction to the nuclear cheerleaders who constantly claim that nuclear "runs at 100 percent baseload," it is quite clear that the top line, the nuclear power capacity factors, never reaches 100 percent but oscillates between 79 percent and the mid-90s.  

Second, coal-powered plants also do not run "at 100 percent baseload" as their cheerleaders insist, but oscillate between approximately 50 to 70 percent.  Both coal and natural gas combined-cycle plants increase output in each summer due to the greater electric loads from air conditioning.  

Third, the blue line for hydroelectric averages about 40 percent with peaks in the Spring, corresponding to snowmelt and rainfall.  

Fourth, and quite importantly, the green line for wind shows maximum capacity factor of 40 percent (April of 2011 and 2013) and 39 percent three times in late 2011 and early 2012.   Wind capacity factor is at a minimum of 21 percent in the summer for each year.   As I have stated before, the wind energy capacity factors are approximately the same as for hydroelectric in many months.   What is not shown here is the actual electricity delivered in MWh.  In recent months (end of 2015), wind power produced the same MWh as did hydroelectric power.   The average capacity factor for wind in the US is 34 percent. 

Fifth and last, the bottom (gold color) line for combustion turbines is for those plants that are used for peaking power.  As expected, such turbines run most often in the hottest months of July and August.  Their capacity factors average approximately 3 to 4 percent, with peaks of 10 to 11 percent.   

None of this is surprising to those of us who are knowledgeable in matters of power grids, generation technologies, and the relative merits of renewables and legacy power plants.   This is entirely consistent with what we have known for decades.   What is surprising to me is the lack of knowledge of those who write such strong opinions, those who apparently dream up their facts without any basis in reality.  

Roger E. Sowell, Esq.
Marina del Rey, California

copyright (c) 2016 by Roger Sowell, all rights reserved

US Electricity Generating Plant Costs - 2013

Subtitle: Wind and Natural Gas Form an Unbeatable Combination

Figure 1.  http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/

A report from US Energy Information Agency, EIA, provides the average installed cost of new electrical power generating plants in 2013, grouped by type of fuel or energy input where no fuel is consumed.  The capacity installed is also shown in the length of the blue bars.  See chart, Figure 1.  A few things are notable on this chart, especially what is not shown.  No data are present for nuclear power, and none for coal 
power.  No nuclear plants started up in 2013, and coal power plants are on the decline as they are closing, not opening.   Also, Figure 1 shows the types of fuel or energy input in decreasing order of capacity installed.   

Figure 2.   Nuclear cost based on AP-1000 under construction at Vogtle
chart by R. Sowell 

A different version of the chart, using the same data but including the US cost to build nuclear, is shown as Figure 2.  This shows the different fuel, or motive energy type, in order by increasing cost per kW.   

An interesting result from Figure 2 is the combined cost of wind power, $1895 plus natural gas power, $965.  The total is $2,860 per kW, less than one-third the cost of nuclear power at $9,000 per kW.    The net operating cost of the combination, wind plus natural gas, is also quite interesting.  With natural gas at approximately $2 per million Btu, and the combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) technology, fuel costs amount to approximately $0.012 per kWh.  Or, $12 per MWh for those who prefer

Figure 3.   Updated costs for 2015 per EIA
Wind, Solar, and Natural Gas much lower than in 2013

that unit of measurement.   The wind, of course, costs nothing per kWh, although there are small operating costs for labor and parts.  If one takes the case of 33 percent wind and 67 percent natural gas for the power provided from the two forms, the average cost of fuel then is only two-thirds of $12 per MWh, or $8 per MWh.   That provides a fuel bill for generation that is far less than from a nuclear power plant.  The total installed cost, as above, is less than one-third that of a nuclear plant.  Even if one accounts for wind power providing approximately 33 percent output on average compared to the nameplate capacity, the combined cost remains at one-third less than nuclear.  The best benefits, though, are no danger of nuclear radiation, and the combined plants easily follow the grid load.   There is also a substantial reduction in cooling water used.  

UPDATE 7/23/2017:  Added Fig. 3 with updated costs for 2015 for various power generation types.  Note the continued decline in costs to construct.  Data from same source, EIA.   - end update

Nuclear proponents, or cheerleaders as they are known here at SLB, will try to point out that nuclear plants last for 60 years.  They do not, however, as the world data clearly shows.   The nuclear plants are shut down at or barely over the 40 year age.   

The natural gas plants last 40 years with proper maintenance and care, and wind power plants last about 20 to 25 years before requiring major repairs.  Even with wind turbines rebuilt to like-new condition after 20 years, the cost per kW is steadily declining and the total cost over 40 years is still far below that of nuclear plants. 

The future is quite clear: coal plants are shutting down, nuclear plants are shutting down as uneconomic, while natural gas and wind are being built in great quantities.   

Roger E. Sowell, Esq.
Marina del Rey, California

copyright © 2016 by Roger Sowell, all rights reserved. 

Coal, Wind, And US Energy

Subtitle:  Coal Falters as Wind Excels

Data from Energy Information Agency
Black line highlights 50 percent point - not a trend line

The long history of electric power production, and the pollution caused by that production, has always been a story of coal and all the others.    The abundant statistics show that coal provided more than 50 percent of US power for decades, from the mid-1950s until 2005 (see chart at right).  The decade of the 1970s had a bit less than 50 percent due to the ill-timed start-up of dozens of oil-fired power plants.   By mid-decade in the 1970s, nuclear power plants were producing approximately 10 percent of all US power, and oil-fired plants were shutting down after OPEC increased the price of oil in the early part and again at the end of 1979.  Coal was again on the rise, reaching the peak in the late 1980s of production as a percent of all US electricity. 

Meanwhile, an ominous warning came from some who (misguidedly) believed that oil and natural gas were in short supply and would soon be exhausted.  There were two opposing camps holding that belief, those who wanted nuclear power to provide the planet's electricity, and those opposed to nuclear and in favor of wind and solar power.  

A notable member of the believers of an oil and gas shortage was President Jimmy Carter, who infamously took to the TV in April, 1977 and warned us about the need to conserve energy.  He wore a sweater in the White House to emphasize the point.   He was, of course, very wrong.  There is more than abundant oil and natural gas world-wide, in fact, there is a glut that has driven prices down to a fraction of what they were in the Jimmy Carter days.  Improved oil and gas exploration and production methods, including precision directional drilling (PDD) and hydraulic fracturing have opened up oil and gas fields world-wide. 

The nuclear power industry of course came to an abrupt halt after the true dangers of meltdowns and explosions became obvious, first with the Three Mile Island meltdown, then the Chernobyl explosion.  Even with almost 100 percent government subsidy and indemnity from public nuclear radiation, the costs to make the plants nominally safe gave utilities pause. 

Meanwhile in all of this, the US environment became an issue and the Clean Air Act was passed in 1970.  However, coal-fired power plants were exempted from most of the provisions of the CAA by various means.  In practice, while other industries such as smelters, chemical plants, and refineries were required to install air pollution abatement systems, the coal-fired power plants did not.   This, as it turned out, was a mistake. 

Coal-fired power plants, and nuclear power plants enjoyed substantial profits while their chief rival, natural gas, was at a high price during the decades after passage of the CAA.  That was the time to spend some of the profits to install pollution reduction systems.  Now, when natural gas prices are low, coal-fired plants cannot afford the pollution reduction systems.   Also, the US EPA has finally closed the loopholes on coal-fired power plants and required them to reduce their air pollution. see link to "The Tragic Flaw of the Clean Air Act."   The response, predictably, is for the owners of the coal-fired power plants to close the plants.  (Note the rapid decline in coal percentage in the graph above, from 2005-2015; from 50 percent to 38 percent)  see link to  SLB article "Coal Power Plant Shutdowns Ahead of Pace in 2015: Gas and Renewables Replace the Coal Power."

The growth in wind power is also a key to the coal industry's woes.  Wind power also impacts the nuclear power industry, and not to nuclear's advantage.  It has always been known that windmills, and later wind turbines, can spin in the wind and do useful work.  Millions of windmill water pumps existed across the US, bringing water from wells to the surface so that cattle could drink.   Some of the first wind-turbines to produce electricity were installed in California's Altamont Pass near San Francisco.   The wind-turbines were expensive, however, and Altamont Pass is not a particularly good location, but it was one of the best in California.  

The next few decades show that wind-turbines were developed, tested, and improved.  These efforts were supported by modest government subsidies, typically 1.5 cents for every kWh produced, with the value adjusted for inflation.  Surveys of US wind potential revealed that there is enormous untapped wind energy, both onshore and offshore.  see link  to SLB article "Renewables in Outer Continental Shelf."  

 If a low-cost means to capture that wind energy could be found, and a means to store the energy then release it when needed, there would be no need to ever burn dirty coal or build dangerous nuclear plants again.  

Which brings us to today, where almost all of the requirements are in place.   The wind industry has developed larger and more economic turbines, so that it is now common to see 3 MW turbines onshore.  The first US offshore wind power project is installing 6 MW turbines, which are on schedule to start up in fourth quarter 2016.  There is an 8 MW turbine operating offshore in Europe.   Onshore wind economics are such that 5.3 cents per kWh is sufficient to entice owners to build.  Of that, 3 cents is from the utility and 2.3 cents is from government tax credits.   With additional cost reductions occurring annually, the tax credits are reduced to zero over the next five years.   Offshore economics are not as good as onshore, due to much higher costs to install the turbines in shallow ocean water.  However, the offshore wind is stronger and more steady so each turbine is more productive.  

The storage problem is also solved.  Many will scoff at that statement, but the reality is that technology has improved dramatically.  The four leading technologies for grid-scale energy storage are high-speed flywheels, pumped storage hydroelectric, advanced batteries, and rail gravity storage.  The first three are already installed in grid-scale service.  Pumped storage hydroelectric has been used for decades.  Batteries are in use on Santa Catalina Island offshore California.  There are better batteries forth-coming, an example of which is the halogenated polyacetylene battery from BioSolar Inc.   Finally, the low-tech gravity storage by ARES is under construction in Nevada.  There, electricity is drawn from the grid during periods of excess, such as with wind power at night, to send heavy electric trains up an incline of several miles length.   The electricity is produced when needed by sending the heavy trains down the incline with the brakes on, where the brakes are wheel-motor/generators operating in generator mode.  The efficiency is high, at better than 80 percent.  

Finally, pumped storage hydroelectric is no longer limited to those few locations with an elevated lake and a low-level lake within a few miles of each other.  Instead, engineers at MIT developed underwater hollow spheres to be positioned in the shallow ocean and near wind-turbine projects.  Electricity is used to pump sea water out of the spheres during night-time excess electricity production.  During the day when demand increases, water from the ocean flows through conventional hydroelectric systems into the spheres, producing power on-demand and in load-following mode.  

The result, for now, is what we see happening today.  Nuclear plants are shutting down due to the inability to compete in the wholesale electricity markets.  Very efficient natural gas power plants that use combined cycle gas turbines (CCGT), and low-cost wind power production have driven the price of electricity down below the point where nuclear power is profitable.  Several nuclear plants have announced closures due to this.  

Coal-fired plants are shutting down because they cannot afford the costs of air pollution control systems, again with low wholesale prices.  Coal also has the problem of limited resources, where low prices for coal have limited the economically recoverable reserves to less than 50 years worldwide, and approximately 25 years in the US.    One might wonder if this is a false shortage, as was the prediction related to oil and gas in the 1970s.  There are significant differences between coal reserves, and oil and gas reserves.   The primary difference is the cost to extract.   If a huge oil reserve is discovered, perhaps thousands of feet deep and offshore a few miles, it will be economic to drill and produce the oil.  ExxonMobil is doing exactly that with their huge oil field offshore Russia's east coast, the Sakhalin Island field.   This oil field required drilling more than 7 miles deep and with the drilling rig located on the island, more than 7 miles horizontally under the seabed.  

Coal cannot be economically mined under such conditions.  Per USGS experts, deep coal mines are uneconomic at more than 4000 feet from the surface.  Also, for surface mines, or near-surface mines, no more than 10 tons of overburden can be removed for each ton of coal mined. This limits coal production to far less than the known amount of coal in the world.  

Coal miners world-wide have a serious problem.  If they use efficient means of mass production, they mine through their reserves quickly.   Also, the efficient production reduces the cost of the coal, which reduces the amount of coal they can recover.   The best thing that could happen to coal miners is for natural gas to run short and its price skyrocket.   That may have seemed likely before the oil and gas industry perfected precision directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing.   From now on, the era of natural gas with low prices is here.  Coal mines are shutting down.  

Even more importantly, wind power reduces the amount of natural gas required in the gas-fired power plants.  As the saying goes, When the wind blows the power flows.   This reduces the demand for natural gas and reduces the demand-driven price.   Wind power also extends the lifetime of natural gas reserves.  

In a perverse way, the same holds true for nuclear power plants.   The more nuclear power that is installed, the less natural gas is burned in gas-fired power plants.  This, like wind power, reduces the demand for, and price of natural gas.  Nuclear power plants simply cannot compete with low-price natural gas.  

Even worse for nuclear power, there are now technologies to produce synthetic natural gas from carbonaceous waste products, such as the process developed and patented by Professor Chan Park of University of California at Riverside.  see link

Over the next few years, one can expect most of the nuclear power plants in the US to shut down due to unprofitable operations.  Also, more and more coal-fired power plants will close as they refuse to install costly pollution controls while knowing that their coal supply is limited to a few years.   CCGT power plants will be installed in great numbers, along with larger and more efficient wind-power projects across the great heartland of America where the wind is strong and free, from north Texas to the Canadian border.   

Offshore wind power projects will also increase, as the Block Island project offshore Rhode Island is but the first of many.  The success of the ARES gravity rail storage system in Nevada will open that technology to every place that has a suitable slope.  Surely the planners in UK will be pondering how to capture the wind there, store it in heavy trains on suitable slopes, and re-capture the power on-demand.   

A brief excursion on the OPEC moves over the decades, but this is a topic for its own article.  What better way for the Saudis to find out once and for all where the world's oil reserves are, than by temporarily increasing the price of oil so their competitors explored and drilled all over the world.  Even better, if the competition produced those new reserves to exhaustion, leaving OPEC firmly in control of oil.  That worked very well for oil in the North Sea and Alaska.  Alas, it will be a very long time before the oil in shale deposits is exhausted.  

Roger E. Sowell, Esq.
Marina del Rey, California

copyright © 2016 by Roger Sowell, all rights reserved

Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster 30 Years After

Subtitle:  No More Chernobyls - Build Wind-Turbines and Solar Power

The greatest nuclear disaster of all-time occurred 30 years ago next Tuesday, April 26.   I do not re-post my own articles, as a rule, however the article from Truth About Nuclear Power series from 2014 is posted below.  The article is about the Chernobyl explosion and nuclear fallout, describing what happened and the impacts.  

With 30 years distance, it is appropriate to review where we were then and where we are now in terms of our knowledge, our need for electricity, and the options we have.  

Then vs Now

In 1986, the world had essentially five technologies for electricity generation: coal, natural gas, nuclear via fission, oil, and hydroelectricity.   Some interesting statistics are available from EIA on electricity production world-wide: First, as much electricity from renewable sources was produced in 2014 as was produced by nuclear power in 1986, both at 1520 tWh for the respective years.  Yet, the renewable energy sources were almost zero in 1986, at 95 tWh.  

 Hydroelectric generation has almost doubled, from 1991 tWh to 3769 tWh in 2014.  Electricity from oil-burning has remained almost constant, at 1000 tWh.    Nuclear-based electricity increased by approximately 2/3, from 1518 tWh to 2417 tWh in 2014.  Electricity from coal almost tripled in the 30 years.   Electricity from natural gas increased by almost 7 times, from 750 tWh in 1986 to 4933 tWh in 2014.  

The interesting thing is to rank the electricity generation sources by relative amount of increase over almost 30 years (1986 to 2014):  

Oil                 --       0 percent increase (production remained constant)

Nuclear          --     67 percent increase

Hydroelectric  --   100 percent increase (production doubled)

Coal               --   200 percent increase (production tripled)

Natural Gas    --   600 percent increase (production increased 7-fold)

Renewables    -- 1500 percent increase (production increased 16-fold)

Options Available Today

The point of the above is that no longer are we, as the human race, constrained by electricity sources so that nuclear power must be a part of the mix.   With coal now known to becoming scarce, and mines running out of economically extract-able product within 20 years in the US and 50 years worldwide, the nations of the world must embark on a rational plan to replace the electricity production that formerly was based on coal-burning.   That is a huge task, with coal providing 39 percent of all the world's electricity in 2014. 

When one combines the task of replacing coal-fired plants with retiring and replacing the aging nuclear reactors that were built primarily 40 years ago, which is another 11 percent of world electricity, that is 50 percent, one-half, of all the world electricity production within the next 50 years.    The essential question is, what technology will replace one-half of the world's electrical power generation over the next 50 years?  

The lesson from Chernobyl is not that that particular technology was accident-prone, and will never be built again.  The lesson is that humans make errors.  Even nuclear power plant operators make errors.   The proof is not just in Chernobyl's explosion, where operators certainly made errors, but also in the massive meltdown of the Three Mile Island reactor in Pennsylvania, USA.  That meltdown was entirely due to operator error, making one bad decision after another.  Only pure, dumb luck prevented the core meltdown from rupturing the reactor pressure vessel.  

 Yet more proof exists in the triple-reactor meltdowns just 5 years ago in Japan at Fukushima Dai-Ichi.   Bad decisions at the design phase set the stage for nuclear plant operators to be unable to pump, thus circulate, cooling water to safely shut down after a predictable earthquake, and a predictable and foreseeable tsunami.  What kind of idiots put emergency generators in the basement of nuclear reactors, where flood-waters will disable them?  

Building more nuclear plants is not the solution.   In any event, it is impossible to design, obtain permits, and construct enough nuclear power plants in the 50 years.  For the US alone, replacing the coal-fired and aging nuclear power plants within 20 years requires approximately 320 new, 1,000 MWe nuclear plants.   Clearly, that is not possible given the licensing and construction requirements.  

World-wide, one can expect that constructing new coal-fired power plants will cease in a very short time-frame, most likely within 5 years.   No one will want to build a coal-fired plant that will run out of coal before the plant's effective life of 45 to 50 years is reached.  For coal reserves, see link. 

The best solution, then, is to continue the path already established over the past 30 years, with investing in renewable energy projects, especially wind-turbines where the wind is adequate, and solar where so much sunshine falls daily on either side of the Equator.   Intermittency issues are no longer a concern, with subsea pumped storage hydroelectric for storing either wind energy, or solar energy, for all consumers that are near the ocean.  For inland consumers, the new-generation battery storage systems recently announced in California hold great promise.   For subsea storage, see link.  For the new-generation battery, see link.   

Below is the original article on the Chernobyl disaster.  

----------------------------------------

Subtitle: Chernobyl Meltdown and Explosion

This article 20 begins five articles on what may be the most serious nuclear plant disasters and near-disasters: Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, Fukushima, San Onofre, and St. Lucie.  Many 

Radiation Plume from Chernobyl
credit: BBC

others could be included, from countries around the world.  One reference lists more than 80 serious nuclear power incidents.   The US’ Nuclear Regulatory Commission lists 70 incidents in the past four years in the US alone that required the NRC to send a special investigation team to the plant, or an augmented investigation team.   The Chernobyl article begins with a brief summary or overview of the facts, taken from the NRC's "Report on the Accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station 1986," then commentary afterward.

Chernobyl Overview, from NRC Report, Section 4.1 (pg 124)

(quote) “The accident occurred during a test of the turbine generator system.  This test was designed to demonstrate that following a reactor trip, with the resulting loss of onsite power and isolation of the steam supply to the turbine, the rotating inertia of the turbine generator would be sufficient to generate enough electrical power to energize certain safety systems until the diesel generator system could be started and accept the electrical loads.  This test had been performed earlier at similar plants (Russian).  The specific purpose of this test was to determine if a new generator magnetic field regulator would maintain the voltage output from the generator for a longer period.

In the process of establishing the test conditions for the reactor, the operators brought the plant to an unstable operating condition.  However, for a number of reasons, the operators chose to run the test from this unstable condition.  To prevent the reactor from automatically shutting down, the operators purposely bypassed several systems important to safety.  The role of the operator in this accident is discussed in Chapter 5.

With the safety systems bypassed, the plant was in an unstable and vulnerable condition.  The most prominent parameter of this unstable condition was the positive void reactivity coefficient.  This coefficient allowed the reactivity to increase as the volume of steam increased in the core.  Other significant parameters included the low initial power level, low subcooling, low initial steam void fraction in the core, fuel burnup condition, and control system characteristics.  The design characteristics of the Chernobyl plant are detailed in Chapter 2.

The initiation of the test caused the steam volume in the core to increase.  Under the unique test conditions (for which the plant was not designed), and with the safety systems bypassed, a significant insertion [? Increase?] of reactivity resulted.  The resulting power increase produced additional steam voids which added reactivity and further increased the power.  Evaluations to date indicate the reactor was brought to a prompt critical condition.  Assessment of Soviet (and other) analyses also indicates that the energy deposition in the fuel was sufficient to melt some of the fuel.   The analyses to date suggest the following possible sequence of events.  The rapid expansion associated with melting, quickly ruptured the fuel cladding and injected fragmented and molten fuel into the coolant channel.  The interaction of the coolant with the hot fuel fragments produced steam very rapidly.  The high temperatures and rapid production of steam quickly over-pressurized the pressure tubes in the core region.   The pressure tubes then failed and over-pressured the cavity region around the graphite blocks.  Sufficient force was generated to lift the top plate off the reactor and possibly to fail the reactor building and eject core material.  This postulated sequence of events can be associated with the first “explosion” heard by operators at the plant.  A second “explosion” was reported to have occurred approximately 3 seconds after the initial one.

Various speculations on the source of this noise include a second criticality, a hydrogen detonation, or even an echo or reverberation. 

In summary, the event was caused by a combination of procedural and management deficiencies, human errors, and unique design characteristics. “  (end quote)   see link

Analysis

For the non-technical readers on SLB, a brief deconstruction of the above is in order. The test was to determine if the generators had enough inertia to keep spinning and generate power, even though steam was shut off to the turbine, to keep emergency systems energized until the diesel-powered generators could be started and brought up to speed.  

The plan was to run the reactor at part-load, which would have tripped the existing safety systems into a shut-down.  The safety systems were therefore disabled.  However, the reactor load was far below the planned load.   The reactor went into a mode that had more steam bubbles than normal, which is dangerous because steam does not slow down fission products such as neutrons.  This is the "positive void reactivity coefficient" mentioned above.  Also, the operators pulled the control rods, almost all of them, out of the reactor.   The resulting power surge caused the reactor to go critical, which melted down part of the nuclear fuel and caused not only an explosion, but the graphite parts of the reactor to catch fire.   

Radiation Worldwide

The core explosion, fire, and residual heat from the burning reactor core (that lasted several days) released huge amounts of radioactive materials into the atmosphere.  The plume of airborne particles flew high above the Earth, in a westerly and northerly direction, and tripped radiation monitors in several countries as it circled the globe.   One of the first countries the plume reached was Poland on April 26 and 27, 1986.   Almost all of Europe was impacted with radiation levels many times higher than normal.  The radiation plume eventually reached almost every northern hemisphere country. 

Personally, I was working doing consulting engineering with a contract in West Germany near Dusseldorf.  I finished the initial visit by March 1 of 1986, then returned to the US to do the office work.  A second visit to Germany in July made me quite nervous, particularly in the food we ate while there.  Everyone was very upset over the radiation cloud that rained deadly particles down on the entire continent.  

From a nuclear power plant safety standpoint, the important point is that the nuclear power industry has always insisted that their power plants are safe.  Even after Chernobyl blew up, the argument was “well, that is a Russian design and nobody has any of those.  Besides, the operators went rogue and operated the plant improperly, which made it explode.  That can never happen here.”

The proper response is, “A nuclear plant can never be made fool-proof.  Fools are just too ingenious.”   As shown in part 16 of TANP, operators in western nuclear plants make plenty of mistakes, not only in design but in operation, training, maintenance, parts replacement, security measures, even mundane chores like tightening bolts to the proper torque. 

Health Issues

At Chernobyl, 28 workers died from acute radiation poisoning within 4 months of the explosion.  Many others have died since, but a direct link to Chernobyl radiation exposure is unclear.   The World Health Organization, WHO, estimates 240,000 workers were exposed to high levels of radiation while cleaning up the radioactive debris.  Another 346,000 people were evacuated and relocated away from the radioactive zone near the plant.  see link   

WHO states that greater incidence of thyroid cancer was caused by Chernobyl.   There also is almost a doubling of leukemia cases.    In addition, the radiation caused cataracts in the eyes, increased deaths from cardio-vascular disease, mental health and psychological trauma.  

UPDATE - 6/11/2014 

So much more could be written about the Chernobyl disaster.  In fact, an internet search turns up nearly 5 million websites with the term "Chernobyl."   Hundreds of books about Chernobyl have also been written.   Until the multiple-meltdowns at Fukushima, Japan in 2011, Chernobyl was the greatest nuclear disaster of all-time.  

From an institutional safety standpoint, Chernobyl refutes many of the nuclear proponents' arguments.  First, the plant was subject to regulations in its own country, the USSR.   International regulations apparently were largely ignored.  Who is to say that future nuclear power plant operators will not do something equally devastating, especially as nuclear plants are built in more and more countries?   

Nuclear apologists or proponents are fond of saying that modern plants are secure, have safety systems and backup systems, and have designs that would never allow such an event to happen again.  That is mere talk; as mentioned in the Conclusion below, it is only too easy for operators to disable safety systems or ignore warnings, and run the plant in manual mode.   What is also apparent from the NRC report linked above is the very, very rapid change from quasi-normal operation to reactor criticality, meltdown and explosion.  At Chernobyl, the change required only a few seconds.  Operators tried desperately to insert some of the control rods, but it was too late.  

It is also clear from the NRC even reports that many, if not all nuclear plants in the US run some of their systems in manual mode at times.  Nothing can be made to run forever, as parts degrade and fail and must be replaced or repaired.  A control system normally has an automatic mode and a manual mode, and only well-trained operators should be allowed to run the systems in manual mode.  

What is also apparent from Chernobyl is the industry did not speak out in a timely manner about what happened and the risk to other countries from the radioactive cloud that was headed their way.  It is true that the operators in the plant had more things on their mind right about then, if they were still alive after the explosion.   However, it was radiation detectors in other countries that first gave the alarm internationally.   The extent and magnitude of the event was not known for days.  The psychological impact on billions of people was not small.   What of the parents of small children, who needed to drink milk?  What worries did couples have about future children?  What worries did other people have about radiation sickness, or long-term illnesses such as thyroid cancer and other cancers?    

The next two articles in TANP discuss two more disasters involving core meltdowns: Three Mile Island and Fukushima.  In both instances, like at Chernobyl, a combination of bad design and human error caused major disaster.  Fukushima was a bit more complex because a natural disaster, and earthquake with tsunami initiated the events.  

-- end update

Conclusion

Nuclear power advocates insist that the plants are safe, that modern designs cannot have catastrophic meltdowns.  However, it is clear that human error can easily defeat the best designs, and natural events can overwhelm even the best operators.  Chernobyl operated quite safely until human plans and human errors created the enormous disaster that affected millions of people around the world.

--------------- End of 2014 article on Chernobyl ---------------

Roger E. Sowell, Esq.

Marina del Rey, California

copyrignt © 2016 by Roger Sowell, all rights reserved

Energy Outlook 2016 from ExxonMobil

Subtitle:  World Cannot Build More than 500 Nuclear Plants in 25 Years

An Energy Outlook for the next 25 years (to 2040) is published and available for downloading, this one is from ExxonMobil (EM).  see link    It has some interesting points, and this article discusses the nuclear plant aspect.   Another article will discuss the coal aspect.   Essentially, EM anticipates 65 percent growth in electricity demand over the 25 year period, from approximately 20 thousand TWh to 33 thousand TWh (TWH is terra-Watt-hours).   Is the 65 percent growth reasonable?  One can quickly determine that a 2 percent annual growth rate yields 1.64 when compounded 25 years, which is close enough for such endeavors.  

Growth in nuclear plant output is described as: "Nuclear capacity to grow by 85 percent 2014-2040, led by China" - pg 46 of the Outlook.   The implications of this statement, if true, are staggering.   First, the number of nuclear power plants that must be completed and started up, per year on average, is 20 plants per year.    There must be approximately 520 new power plants (a few more or a few less, depending on output) in only 25 years.   The 520 is arrived at as follows.

At present, there are 437 nuclear power plants operating in the world, and 85 percent more is then 808 plants.  However, many of the existing plants are old and will shut down well within 25 years, such as almost every plant in the US, Western Europe, and Japan.  With a conservative estimate of 150 such plants shut down due to old age, that then gives 808-437 + 150 equals 521.   There very well could be more plants shut down due to old age.  

The challenge, then, is how to design, obtain approval to construct, then build and place into operation 20 nuclear power plants per year in each of the next 25 years.   For perspective, World Nuclear Report stated that only 5 new reactors started up in 2014.  (Two of those had construction periods of 31 years (Russia), and 33 years (Argentina).  The other three reactors were all in China).  

One can safely assume that the world will NOT build 520 new nuclear plants over the next 25 years.  The logistics and manufacturing required to support building 20 reactors per year simply does not exist.  To mention merely one of those, there are simply too few manufacturing plants to build the heavy-wall, nuclear-grade reactors to turn out 20 new reactors per year.    In addition to the reactors, the plants also require heavy-duty heat exchangers, large pumps, steam turbines, and very large generators.  

For most countries, the time required to construct a new nuclear power plant is approximately 10 years.   Some, as shown above, require far longer.    

In addition, the cooling water required for the nuclear power plants is enormous.  An earlier article on SLB discussed this see link, showing that nuclear plants consume approximately 4 times the amount of cooling water compared to combined-cycle gas turbine power plants.   

Also, finding suitably safe locations is a serious concern for 520 new nuclear power plants, given the earthquake and tsunami risks, as well as radiation releases and their hazards for populated areas.   Professor Derek Abbot discussed this in his excellent article from 2011, published in Proceedings of the IEEE, Vol. 99, No. 10, pp. 1611–1617, 2011.  The article title is "Is Nuclear Power Globally Scalable?"    see link The list of problem areas that Professor Abbot discusses includes:

1.  Not enough plant sites (away from population, near cooling water, etc)
2.  Land area required per plant
3.  Embrittlement problem
4.  Entropy problem
5.  Nuclear waste disposal
6.  Nuclear accident rate problem 
7.  Proliferation
8.  Energy of extraction (mining dilute ores for uranium)
9.  Uranium resource limits
10. Seawater extraction for uranium
11. Fast Breeder Reactors
12. Fusion Reactors
13. Materials Resources (materials of construction, rare alloy metals)

14. Elemental diversity

Conclusion

ExxonMobil usually has conservative, reasonable publications, however this one seems a bit off on the nuclear power projections for the next 25 years.   Even if nuclear power plants were accepted as safe and economic alternatives to conventional power generation technologies, there are enormous and insurmountable logistics and regulatory issues to overcome to install the requisite number of plants, more than 500 total in only 25 years.  


Roger E. Sowell, Esq.
Marina del Rey, California
copyright (c) 2016 by Roger Sowell, all rights reserved