The case for nuclear power

In My Humble Opinion
41

Nuclear power cannot be considered purely in terms of its generation costs and performance characteristics in Europe.

There is a lot of post WW2 geopolitics involved in the efforts the UK and France expended on building a civilian nuclear industry. Both countries were anxious to become independent military nuclear powers rather than being caught in the middle between the US and USSR. But how to justify the huge costs involved? Rather than have a huge defence budget, it was much more acceptable to simply cross subsidise nuclear defence with civilian nuclear power generation.

France went further than the the UK in response to the 1970s Middle East Oil crisis and put nuclear power at the heart of its power generation strategy. The UK was fortunate enough to discover large Oil and Gas deposits under the North Sea and developed a large domestic gas network.

France now has 56 nuclear plants that are at the end of their planned operational life and is facing huge decommissioning costs. The UK faces replacing all its gas domestic heating with heat pumps.

The cost of nuclear power plants is huge and could not exist without government subsidies and guarantees.

The nuclear power industry has a formidable political lobbying organisation that has managed to persuade successive governments to keep nuclear power as part of the energy generation mix, despite it costs.

So blame the costs on tree hugging environmentalists and an overbearing health and safety culture……

But really, the real reason is one the public do not want to contemplate. Nuclear missiles and submarines are a important strategic asset that provided an insurance policy against the Soviets.

If anything this is even more true today with an expansionist Russia. Ukraine gave up its nukes and look what happened? Would Putin have invaded if Ukraine had retained a nuclear missile capability?

Nuclear power design and development capability is a huge strategic asset, but it is also ruinously expensive and is an economic liability. The UK and France justify it by claiming the power generation technology can be sold around the world. But the technology choices they made were not marketable. Whatever happened to the UK Advanced Gas Cooled reactor or the Fast Breeder Reactor? These were abandoned in favour of Pressurised Water Reactors which became the international standard design. But instead of small versions that can be more easily manufactured and sold, they have decided on huge versions costing £10Billion or more that are facing development problems and cost over runs.

Nuclear power makes little economic sense and it renewable technology is steadily getting better and cheaper.

The nuclear PR machine says it is too intermittent, it needs grid storage and huge extensions to the electricity grids.

This is rather like the push back from ICE auto manufacturers lobbying against EVs. That boat has now sailed but the nuclear story will go on as long as it is linked to geopolitics where a domestic nuclear industry is a trump card.

42

Here is a long article from 2017 about nuclear power in the UK and France.

The efforts of the UK politicians to stitch together some kind of commercial rather than publicly owned finance have been remarkable. Chinese financial involvement is has been scuppered by growing fears about their influence in strategic technologies. The Japanese companies have pulled out. That leaves the French and the EDF company who are building the current Hinkley Point and now the Sizewell projects.

EDF is pretty much dependent on the French public finances and this burden will now be shared with the UK. A nuclear ‘follie a deux!’

Nuclear power generation is a money pit used to prop up nuclear defense budgets. It is not really a commercial proposition that makes much sense.

If small modular nuclear reactors ever get to be a commercial proposition, I would a more optimistic. But these behemoths? It is throwing good money after bad. The numbers are eye watering and all that investment could have been directed towards renewables or just simple solutions to reduce demand like insulating homes.

43

I heard people arguing in the 80s that “every true environmentalist is pro nuclear power”. What’s changed since then?

44

Cleaner, less environmentally damaging solar and wind technologies have developed to be viable at grid scale for power generation. We also know a great deal more about climate change and the effects of gases we pump into the atmosphere.

In the 1980s nuclear was being compared to other fossil fuel energy sources and the often highly visible pollution they created. Coal in particular was so dirty and open cast mines degraded huge areas. In fact, it still does in Poland and Germany.

Coal mining in the UK was the focus of huge political schism between between labour unions and the government. Coal and the miners lost that battle and was replaced with a policy known as the ‘Dash for Gas’ and Nuclear was very securely under givernnent control.

Politics, either domestic or international are very important factor in energy policy. The existential threat of climate change has only recently become mainstream policy.

45

It seems to me that many places with less sun have more wind. Quebec gets nearly all its power from hydro and all heating is moving towards electric.

46

Yes, that’s why I said that the right mix for Alberta was about 70% wind and 30% solar, together making a total of 30-40% of our power. Wind is far more reliable, and is usually available at night. Solar is a good complement since its max generation often comes when winds are low. But even together they just can’t do the job in northern countries.

I have mentioned several times that Germany gets 10-12 ‘dark doldrums’ per year, each ladting at least 24 hours and can last up to several weeks. They are most common in winter when power demands are highest… During those petiods they make almost no solar OR wind power. Canada has similar doldrums. We went the entire month of January in Alberta with almost no solar or wind generation at all.

The last energy crunch in Europe was due to wind dropping off offshore for some time, which was unexpected. They still had lots of gas then, though, so they got through it.

Any grid power design HAS to take into account situations like this, when there is no solar or wind. No one disputes that wind and solar can provide lots of energy when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing. But grid design is all about handling the edge cases, and for wind and solar there are many edge cases that will cripple a country and kill people if they are not solved. See: Europe this winter.

47

Many countries have natural gas storage facilities that can provide a buffer for several weeks should solar and wind renewables prove insufficient. These can be replenished through LPG.

Bear in mind that new wind turbine designs are getting steadily larger capturing a greater sweep of air space. The technology is still improving.

Those located far off shore get greater wind speed because of the absence of topographical obstacles normally found on land.

Floating wind turbines can be located in deep water and can be situated in locations in the Atlantic that have the best wind reliability.

Undersea power cable distances are also getting longer. The longest so far is the 720km North Sea 1.4GW link between UK and Norway which exports hydro power. There are plans for a power cable all the way south to the solar farms in Morocco.

Shorter interconnectors cross the North Sea and Baltic Sea and these help to move power back and forth between grids creating a trading network for power just as there is with natural gas pipelines.

The capacity and resilience of these networks can be steadily improved and I am sure now there is every incentive to do so.

Investment in huge nuclear power plants carry the risk of becoming very poor value for money by the time they become operational. Those timeframes are measured in decades.

There is a very established offshore construction industry in Europe for Oil and Gas. Those skills are transferrable to constructing offshore Wind farms and laying undersea power cables between grids. Networks can be made fault tolerant using multiple, diversely routed cables. More links between grids, the more options grid operators have to buy and sell power and not be dependent on any one supplier.

The European natural gas pipeline network has similar benefits, but its design was biased towards moving gas from Russia to Europe. That proved to be a strategic mistake that will be corrected.

Networks with redundant links of similar capacity are the answer to worries over the intermittency of renewables or despots like Putin turning the taps on and off.

Building hugely expensive nuclear plants is not an economic answer. They are certainly a political advantage to have such a nuclear design industry for a nuclear military power like the US, UK and France. But most countries do not have the need to maintain that military capability and can buy in the expertise and choose the most commercially viable design without having to be concerned about subsidising the military.

In the UK the future of its nuclear submarine deterrent, Trident. And in France, maintaining its nuclear ‘Force de Frappe’. Both are the ‘Elephant in the Room’ that they do not wish to talk about lest the public realise just how much they having been paying.

Better to blame environmentalists and health and safety concerns for the expense. Accusing them of a lack of courage and ambition to embrace the ‘opportunities’ presented by nuclear. Boris Johnson ended his tenure as PM by committing the UK to major investments in nuclear power plants. His reasons were science and economics. He did not mention keeping up a nuclear deterrent.

48

How about extracting energy from superhot rocks in the Earth?

49

If you have the geology with hot rocks near the surface, geothermal can be viable. But it involves pumping water underground and sometimes this causes earth tremours. It is big in Iceland, where the earth is never still. But in normally stable areas, people get freaked out. This is the case in the UK with fracking and an experimental geothermal project in the south west. Geothermal power generation has been around a long time in areas that are suitable.

I guess deep ground source heat pumps are a small scale version. Their day will come.