(R) MO legislature pushes nuclear and coal while shifting risk to consumers

[kristopher]

Measures would strip consumer protections
Why should state legislators reject House Bill 124 and Senate Bill 50? Let me count the reasons.

The bills, which are identical, would repeal a fundamental consumer protection by allowing Ameren Missouri and other electric monopolies to recover from customers the cost of an “early site permit” to build a second nuclear power plant. The result of the legislation would be higher rates for families and businesses — at a time when everyone is struggling to recover from the recession.

Current law forbids a utility for charging its customers for a new plant until the plant is producing energy.

In 1976, the public put that law on the ballot through the initiative petition process. The voters passed it overwhelmingly, by a nearly 2-to-1 ratio...

http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2011/feb/20/braycallaway022011/

From a previous post about the financial viability of nuclear power as judged by the CBO:

CBO estimate on nuclear loan guarantees

For this estimate, CBO assumes that the first nuclear plant built using a federal loan guarantee would have a capacity of 1,100 megawatts and have associated project costs of $2.5 billion. We expect that such a plant would be located at the site of an existing nuclear plant and would employ a reactor design certified by the NRC prior to construction. This plant would be the first to be licensed under the NRC’s new licensing procedures, which have been extensively revised over the past decade.

Based on current industry practices, CBO expects that any new nuclear construction project would be financed with 50 percent equity and 50 percent debt. The high equity participation reflects the current practice of purchasing energy assets using high equity stakes, 100 percent in some cases, used by companies likely to undertake a new nuclear construction project. Thus, we assume that the government loan guarantee would cover half the construction cost of a new plant, or $1.25 billion in 2011.

CBO considers the risk of default on such a loan guarantee to be very high—well above 50 percent. The key factor accounting for this risk is that we expect that the plant would be uneconomic to operate because of its high construction costs, relative to other electricity generation sources. In addition, this project would have significant technical risk because it would be the first of a new generation of nuclear plants, as well as project delay and interruption risk due to licensing and regulatory proceedings.

Note the price - $2.5 billion was to be only for the first plant. Future plants were, according to the assumptions provided by the nuclear industry, expected to have lower costs as economy of scale resulted in savings.

In fact, since the report was written (2003), the estimated cost has risen to an average of about $8 billion.

Wonder what that does to the “risk is that … the plant would be uneconomic to operate because of its high construction costs, relative to other electricity generation sources”?

Does that risk diminish or increase when the price rises from $2.5 billion to $8 billion?

[AtheistCrusader]

1. Questions and thoughts.

1. How many megawatts of production will 2.5bn in new constrution wind/solar produce? (Including land and permits, an approximate or average value is fine)
2. Where did you get 2.5 to 8bn? Sounds like 1 reactor core and the associated housing/turbines totals 2.5bn, and double that gets you two functioning plant cores. (Did you mean 5bn rising to 8bn?)

I agree, it's a risky business plan, or it sure sounds like it from the description. Still, once complete, and the CO2 investment is sunk into its construction, it represents significant high reliability, around the clock power, with no further CO2 investment, until some frech uranium needs to be mined. (may be some time before that's necessary, given reprocessing deprecated warheads)

[kristopher]

2. That really doesn't address the topic of risk transfer

Republicans are pushing coal and nuclear (as usual) and they are using their newfound political muscle to at the state level to screw the consumers in the process.

While there are *some* carbon benefits to nuclear it is replete with other problems that make it a poor choice as core element in responding to climate change. The cited article gives a good where-the-tires-meet-the-road example by pointing out what has been happening in Florida. "In December 2006, Florida Power & Light Co. introduced a plan to build a nuclear power plant that would cost $6 billion and begin operating in 2016. As of May 2010, the cost was projected at $22.5 billion and the operational start date moved back to 2021. It is hard to know if the project will ever be completed, but huge prepayment costs are being charged on customers’ bills."

Again, the CBO predicts "the risk of default on such a loan guarantee to be very high—well above 50 percent. "

The CO2 costs are far from being totally embodied in the construction; they definitely are not over when the plant is completed. While the once through fuel cycle is currently delivering low carbon electricity there is every reason to believe that the numbers would rise dramatically to the level of natural gas as we build a larger nuclear fleet and deplete the best quality ores.

Quoting John Holdren, if we want nuclear to deliver even 1/3 of the global electric supply "nuclear capacity would have to grow from 350 GWe in 2000 to 1700 GWe in 2050 which would mean 1,700 reactors of 1,000 MWe each. If these were light-water reactors on the once-through fuel cycle and enrichment of their fuel will require ~250 million Separative Work Units (SWU)" which would "produce enough spent fuel to fill a new Yucca Mountain every two years". It would also dramatically increase the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation.

[AtheistCrusader]

3. Actually, once the plants are complete

their carbon profile will be quite low for a very long time, using offlined and decomissioned nuclear weapons as fuel.

Overall, the blending down of 500 tonnes of Russian weapons HEU will result in about 15,000 tonnes of LEU over 20 years. This is equivalent to about 152,000 tonnes of natural U, or just over twice annual world demand.

From 2000 to 2013 the dilution of 30 tonnes of military HEU is displacing about 10,600 tonnes of uranium oxide mine production per year, which represents some 13% of world reactor requirements.

Under the 1994 Agreement, USEC recognised the need to release the diluted military uranium to nuclear utilities in such a way as not to impact negatively on the US uranium market.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf13.html

But yes, the plant construction is even more carbon-intense, by a LOT, than equivalent MW in coal or biomass or whatever. There is no more expensive form of plant to construct, to my knowledge, in terms of CO2 (or, for the most part, money).

Coal is right out, I think we agree on that.

Financial cost, and the high failure rate of planned reactors, is my major concern. Storage of the fuel post-primary burn is not. We are already closing in on multiple re-processing technologies. Plus, there is a chance that standing waveform reactor technologies might make even Gen3 reactors completely obsolete.

BUT.. finacial risks aside. We just don't have the generating capacity coming down the pipe, anytime soon, in solar and wind. And we can't really expand hydro. Lack of suitable real estate.

Lets assume all the current reactors come offline, and we build no more, forever. By your numbers, that leaves us needing 2050GWe of capacity by 2050, in renewables. In the last two years, we've brought online 65GWe of non-hydro renewable power, of all types.

I am still curious about the cost per GW of solar and wind.

Edit: Holy crap, I just realized that in the last 2 years, we brought more power online in hydro, than in ALL other renewable forms of power combined. 95GWe, to 65GWe. And that's still mostly in upgrades to existing dam turbines and generators.

Edit 2: Dam construction MIGHT be more CO2 intensive than a reactor, just due to all the concrete, but I sort of doubt it. I'll scope it out.

[kristopher]

5. We aren't working on a 10 year horizon

If we expand nuclear enough to make a dent in climate change, then the demands on fuel on going to soar and the once-though fuel cycle is going to result in CO2 emissions are going to rise to levels similar to natural gas.

If we try to avoid that with reprocessing, the costs rise significantly above prices that are already the highest out there for new generation.

There is no nuclear technology in the present or near term that is a good solution to climate change.

[bananas]

4. Obviously, the actual default rate would have been 100%

If anything, the CBO analysis was extremely optimistic.