Does nuclear power cost massive billion gov subsidies?

[Morbius]

Well that's true as far as it goes, but there are a number of costs that scale at less than proportional to the power - and that means that (in crude terms) building and operating two 500 MWe plants is going to cost more than one 1000 MWe plant. To pick a trivial example, the application costs to get a license are not based on the output of the unit. Neither are the payroll costs to run it - that's one big reason you see so many dual units. But the big difference is probably in construction. Take the containment vessel - its volume scales with power; but its construction probably scales closer to its surface area (material cost). That kind of thing pushes the economics to higher power units.

All that said, keep in mind that W designed and licensed the AP600 before they did the AP1000; if you'd really rather have a 600 MWe unit I am sure they would be glad to build one for you.

gmax,

Yes - I'm WELL AWARE of the scaling of costs - I've had to do that PROFESSIONALLY!

That's just one of the things that goes into the decision as to plant size. If you want the cheapest
operating costs per megawatt - then you go with a large plant. However, the down size to that is
that you have "a lot of eggs in one basket".

One the other hand, if the utility doesn't want so many eggs in one basket - they can opt for more
flexibility by having multiple smaller plants. However, as you correctly point out; you pay for that
flexibility in increased cost per megawatt.

It's a choice for the utility. However, too many say that a nuclear power plant HAS to be large. It's
like Al Gore's comment that "nuclear power plants only come in one size - extra large". NO they don't.
Utilities CHOOSE the large plants because of the lower cost and they NEED the capacity.

But if a utility would rather have more flexibility for more money - they certainly can be accommodated.

Dr. Gregory Greenman
Physicist

 

[mheslep]

...Utilities CHOOSE the large plants because of the lower cost and they NEED the capacity...

Linking capacity and demand to largeness doesn't follow, as the same demand could be met with more and smaller plants.

 

[Morbius]

Linking capacity and demand to largeness doesn't follow, as the same demand could be met with more and smaller plants.

mheslep,

GADS - this is like pulling teeth.

The utilities that order large plants are the ones that have a large demand, AND opt for the
lower cost per megawatt of the larger plant as opposed to having smaller plants.

As gmax137 very correctly explains there are fixed costs that don't scale with the size of the
plant. Therefore, one gets a lower cost per megawatt for the larger plant.

That is what most utilities are opting for - they want the lower cost per megawatt of the larger
plant - and hence CHOOSE not to meet the demand with multiple smaller plants.

If the utility wants some more flexibility; they can get smaller plants - but it does cost them.

When a utility is ordering a large plant - it means they have both the demand for that capacity;
AND they choose to opt for the lower cost per megawatt of the larger plants.

Dr. Gregory Greenman
Physicist

 

[mheslep]

For nuclear plants, yes the twenty filings with the NRC are all large. As for all general types of power plants like coal, EIA records show power providers opt for much smaller plants. See attached figure - 42 US plants, with coal as the primary power source, brought on-line in the ten years 1995 to 2005. Total nameplate capacity: 6321MWe, average plant size 152 MWe, median 82 MWe, largest 591 MWe, smallest 0.4MWe. The size is lower still for recent gas fired plants.
Source:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/page/capacity/existingunits2005.xls

 

[russ_watters]

It is important to note, though, mheslep, that most of the plants on that list under 100 mW are not owned by power companies but by industry and institutions. If you remove those, the median is much larger. That's probably still not the best way to cut the data though, as those above the median have a significantly larger total capacity than those below. A better way would be to find the point at which those above have the same capacity as those below.*

No, large plants aren't feasible everywhere or for every company. It does require a large market and high growth. But IMO, that's a flaw in the structure of the energy industry that needs to be dealt with via regulation. Energy would be cheaper if the government encouraged/helped companies take advantage of economies of scale.

[edit] *When I sliced the data, I found 38 plants with a total capacity of 5096 MW. Not sure the reason for the difference. In any case, the largest 5 have a capacity equal to the smaller 33 and the cutoff is between 329 and 395 MW. Ie, even without cutting off the non-utility plants, most of our generating capacity is in plants 395 MW and greater.

In other words, electric companies typically opt for plants of 395 MW and larger rather than multiple smaller plants of equal capacity to satisfy their capacity needs.

 

[mheslep]

It is important to note, though, mheslep, that most of the plants on that list under 100 mW are not owned by power companies but by industry and institutions. If you remove those, the median is much larger.

<shrug> Their Watts are as good as anyone's. Even the so called 'power companies' are into multiple games. Duke Energy does telecom, real estate, etc.

That's probably still not the best way to cut the data though, as those above the median have a significantly larger total capacity than those below. A better way would be to find the point at which those above have the same capacity as those below.*

Good point, I started to slice by 100MW increments but ran out of time.

No, large plants aren't feasible everywhere or for every company. It does require a large market and high growth. But IMO, that's a flaw in the structure of the energy industry that needs to be dealt with via regulation. Energy would be cheaper if the government encouraged/helped companies take advantage of economies of scale.

Edit: Regards economies of scale, I'm reminded of another driver - cogeneration of electric power and facility heating. Some of these cogeneration gas electric and heat plants reach very high system efficiencies, 70-80%. It is difficult to see how a distant electric-only plant even 50x larger could compete economically with a local cogeneration facility.

[edit] *When I sliced the data, I found 38 plants with a total capacity of 5096 MW. Not sure the reason for the difference.

Hm. 42 in the snapshot I attached. I used five different types of coal: BIT, LIG, SUB, WC, SC (2nd tab in the spread sheet)

In any case, the largest 5 have a capacity equal to the smaller 33 and the cutoff is between 329 and 395 MW. Ie, even without cutting off the non-utility plants, most of our generating capacity is in plants 395 MW and greater.

In other words, electric companies typically opt for plants of 395 MW and larger rather than multiple smaller plants of equal capacity to satisfy their capacity needs.

Apparently, though IIRC the power companies increasingly take stakes in these smaller operations - at least the construction end.

 

[vanesch]

I guess each technology has its preferred scale. Former nuclear power plants were more around 300 MW, but, as has been pointed out, nuclear plants are typically things which win in economy of scale until something of the scale of 1 GW. Note that you don't see 10 GW plants either (yet ?). Maybe coal power plants are somewhat smaller because you get logistics problems (just a wild guess on my side) ? And gas plants because turbines are not practical beyond a certain size ?
Wind turbines also come in typical sizes of a few MW.

I guess that the question is: if there were a size-independent power tech, what would be the size of the preferred unit by utilities ?

There have been designs for smaller nuclear power plants like the 4S of Toshiba (on which a hoax is based of your private nuke in your basement), which taps more in the 10 MW range. So all this is possible (at least on paper).

 

[cesiumfrog]

I guess that the question is: if there were a size-independent power tech, what would be the size of the preferred unit by utilities?

If plant cost-efficiency were size-independent, they would almost put one at each consumer's meter to cut transmission losses. If each person uses 1KW (and current nuclear plants are good for the base 50%) then at least 1GW could be built for every city with population above two million, but there might be trouble whenever that fraction of the local supply all goes down for maintenance..

 

[Morbius]

Edit: Regards economies of scale, I'm reminded of another driver - cogeneration of electric power and facility heating. Some of these cogeneration gas electric and heat plants reach very high system efficiencies, 70-80%. It is difficult to see how a distant electric-only plant even 50x larger could compete economically with a local cogeneration facility.

mheslep,

By quoting an efficiency of 70-80%; you are lumping heat and electric energy together.

Thermodynamically; that is really DISHONEST - because it ignores the fact that electricity
is a high quality / zero entropy form of energy - while heat is a lower quality and non-zero
entropy form of energy.

I would refrain from lumping these two dissimilar quantities in a single metric.

Dr. Gregory Greenman
Physicist

 

[mheslep]

Well I guess one man's rejected waste heat makes another man's office warm and cozy.

 

[Topher925]

because it ignores the fact that electricity
is a high quality / zero entropy form of energy

Isn't this dishonest? Electricity is far from zero entropy, although it does generate much less than most other forms of power transmission. If your end product is going to be energy in the form of heat anyway, then why is co-generation dishonest?

 

[Andrew Mason]

Thermodynamically; that is really DISHONEST - because it ignores the fact that electricity
is a high quality / zero entropy form of energy - while heat is a lower quality and non-zero
entropy form of energy.

I thought mheslep made a good point. We are talking about thermal energy, not electricity. Nuclear and fossil fuels produce heat. If the goal is to produce energy that saves CO2 emissions and reduces fossil fuel consumption, co-generation can provide a solution.

Consider this scenario where a community that needs 1000MW of heat and 500 MW of electricity. If fossil fuels are used to meet this need, a total of 2500MW of fossil fueled heat is needed. If co-generation is used, I build a 500 MWe fossil fuel plant that uses 1500 MW of heat and I use the waste heat for heating. I save 1000 MW of fossil fuel.

If I build a 500 MWe nuclear plant I have to continue burning 1000 MW of fossil fuel. So I end up saving 1500 MW of fossil fuel, or only 500 MW more than the co-generation model. So a 500 MWe nuclear plant only saves 500 MW of fossil fuel (ie. 500 MW more than the co-generation model).

AM

 

[mheslep]

I've always been interested in knowing whether a good use of nuclear might be to throw up a 4000MW thermal only plant in the Rockies in the midst of one of those colossal shale oil deposits, then most all of that thermal energy could be used to separate out the oil, instead of rejecting 60-70% up the cooling tower.

 

[Topher925]

What is the cost of nuclear disposal with respect to economies of scale? I think everyone has acknowledged that in the future our transportation will no longer be powered by fossil fuels and that energy will have to come from the stationary power infrastructure. Just using some very rough hand calculations and some numbers from 2004 I calculated the US uses about 8 trillion kWh's of energy to power our cars, trucks, and airplanes for an entire year. Assuming nuclear power takes on this load along with the load from station fossil fuel power, would the cost of waste per kg decrease by sharing fixed costs or would it increase similarly to economies of scale of precious materials?

 

[mheslep]

More EIA plant size slicing:
Attached pie chart for all ~16000 US power sources, of all types, broken out in 100MW increments.

Here's the associated breakout numbers in GW, (100MW increments)
0-100MW: 248.2GW, 23.3%
<200: 240.9, 22.6%
<300: 118.3, 11.1%
<400: 66.4, 6.2%
<500: 50.6, 4.7%
<600: 69.4, 6.5%
<700: 63.1, 5.9%
<800: 38.8, 3.6%
<900: 61.0, 5.7%
<1000: 29.9, 2.8%
<1100: 5.2, 0.5%
<1200: 25.5, 2.4%
<1300: 44.2, 4.1%
<1400: 5.6, 0.5%
Total US nameplate capacity 1067GW

 

[vanesch]

Assuming nuclear power takes on this load along with the load from station fossil fuel power, would the cost of waste per kg decrease by sharing fixed costs or would it increase similarly to economies of scale of precious materials?

I don't have any numbers, so this is some general answer, but waste treatment will drop seriously in cost by upscaling, until a certain (large) capacity is reached, I would guess. The reason is that a single reprocessing facility, or a single repository, can in principle deal with the spend fuel from several tens of plants. For instance, France has one single reprocessing factory (La Hague) for its entire fleet, and has several foreign customers too (Germany used to be a customer until they decided for political reasons not to reprocess anymore).

Also, I think that if you go for geological disposal, all the research needed to make sure that the geology is suited and so on needs to be spread over a substantial use of that knowledge, meaning, once you've found a suited geological structure (which is the hardest part), you can just as well use it for a large repository than for a small one. Again, we are talking on the scale of several tens of power plants.

I consider this BTW as one of the most serious drawbacks of nuclear power: it only makes sense on a large scale, and on relatively long times. It is not something that is suited to small scale, and whimsical change of mind.

 

[mheslep]

...I consider this BTW as one of the most serious drawbacks of nuclear power: it only makes sense on a large scale, and on relatively long times. It is not something that is suited to small scale, and whimsical change of mind.

Is 'commitment' a more appropriate term than scale? Yes the commercial power utilities are driven to large scale probably because of the regulatory hurdles and resulting costs (in the US anyway), but obviously the military continues to operate smaller naval reactors (~100MW?).

 

[mheslep]

... Just using some very rough hand calculations and some numbers from 2004 I calculated the US uses about 8 trillion kWh's of energy to power our cars, trucks, and airplanes for an entire year. Assuming nuclear power takes on this load

I'd scratch airplanes:
One large airport = 50 jumbo jets/day, 130ton jetfuel each.
Replace w/ 50t each liquid H2 obtained from electrolysis, requires 8GWe + 22,500M^3 water/day, all dedicated to the airport. That is: eight dedicated 1GWe nuclear reactors per airport.
http://www.efcf.com/reports/E22.pdf

 

[signerror]

Note that you don't see 10 GW plants either (yet ?).

"Output: 8,212MW"

http://www.power-technology.com/projects/kashiwazaki/

There have been designs for smaller nuclear power plants like the 4S of Toshiba (on which a hoax is based of your private nuke in your basement), which taps more in the 10 MW range. So all this is possible (at least on paper).

I think that is very interesting. At that scale (10 MWe), you could have tiny reactors all over the place - apartment buildings, communities, villages - and cogeneration would become very cheap.

Looking up some space-satellite reactors (not RTGs - fission reactors), they go down to 30 kW thermal. Not very economic I imagine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNAP-10A

 

[signerror]

I'd scratch airplanes:
One large airport = 50 jumbo jets/day, 130ton jetfuel each.
Replace w/ 50t each liquid H2 obtained from electrolysis, requires 8GWe + 22,500M^3 water/day, all dedicated to the airport. That is: eight dedicated 1GWe nuclear reactors per airport.
http://www.efcf.com/reports/E22.pdf

Not so fast. 6,500 tons of jet fuel costs something like $2.5 million. Every day.

http://www.iata.org/whatwedo/economics/fuel_monitor/index.htm

Under optimistic economics, if new reactors go down to $1/W(e), then the cost of 8 GWe is something like $8 billion up front. Over an optimistic 100 year lifetime, they will yield the equivalent of $92 billion of jet fuel.

Current costs are somewhere between $2-3/W(e), and lifetimes (?) 40-80 years. That is still a pretty big profit margin, if the other costs of hydrogen production are low.

Anyway, the important thing is the relevant quantities here, costs per unit energy, are intensive, not extensive. If hydrogen can feasibly replace petroleum in a small car, then all other things being equal, a thousand times more hydrogen can replace a thousand times more petroleum in a jet airplane. Pointing to the incredible scale of jet airplanes is not an argument against their use of nuclear hydrogen - it is perhaps a fallacy.

 

[Mister V]

I think the thing that makes most private companies that don't already own a set of nuclear power plants, hesitate to do so, is the fear of red tape, and ultimately the fear of not being able to use their investment fully. For nuclear, you pay upfront, and you get your money through the lifetime of the plant. As there is, in many countries, a political uncertainty about the possibility of using nuclear power (phase outs decided in certain countries for instance) this means that you might have to close down - for political reasons - a plant that didn't come through its lifetime ; or not even be able to start it up. That's too much of a risk for many private companies. If it is a state-owned company, that's less of a problem, because then the state (and hence the people) is responsible for its own decisions.

I'm not a physicist, so I won't argue about the physical topics.
I am an economist, though, and here's my 2 cents on the economical subject.

You're statement is correct, but not complete. You have to add the risk related to advancing technology and changing economic circumstances and time-value of money (not the same as inflation)

In financing projects, a lot of projects are decided using NPV (net present value), payback period, ... . These techniques always have one thing in common: money gained in a few years is worth considerably less than the same amount of money payed now. In this view, projects with a long lifespan - and therefor, long payback period - are always considered a lot more of a risk than projects with shorter lifespans, even though the former might be more profitable. The same goes for costs: costs paid in the future are "worth" less money than the same costs paid now.
If you combine this with political instability, advancing technology and changing economic circumstances, you get a bit of a nasty business project. Nuclear power requires a lot of capital investment, and lower operational costs. This is, economically speaking, a huge disadvantage to for example gas or fossil fuel plants. This is the main reason why nuclear power plant might need some form of government intervention.

I hope my English is somewhat readable, since it isn't my first language.

 

[russ_watters]

I thought mheslep made a good point. We are talking about thermal energy, not electricity...

Consider this scenario where a community that needs 1000MW of heat and 500 MW of electricity. If fossil fuels are used to meet this need, a total of 2500MW of fossil fueled heat is needed. If co-generation is used, I build a 500 MWe fossil fuel plant that uses 1500 MW of heat and I use the waste heat for heating. I save 1000 MW of fossil fuel.

It is a valid point, but analyzing cogeneration is pretty complicated, as the infrastructure to distribute the heat simply doesn't exist. Because of that problem, cogen is rarely viable, which is why it is only typically used in large corporate or university campuses.

 

[mheslep]

Not so fast. 6,500 tons of jet fuel costs something like $2.5 million. Every day.

http://www.iata.org/whatwedo/economics/fuel_monitor/index.htm

Under optimistic economics, if new reactors go down to $1/W(e), then the cost of 8 GWe is something like $8 billion up front. Over an optimistic 100 year lifetime, they will yield the equivalent of $92 billion of jet fuel.

Current costs are somewhere between $2-3/W(e), and lifetimes (?) 40-80 years. That is still a pretty big profit margin, if the other costs of hydrogen production are low.

?
Current new plant capital costs are at least $6/W(e).

Levelized nuclear energy cost (per kW-hour): 6 cents amortized plant capital + 1 cent O&M + 0.5 cents fuel + 2.5 cents transmission and distribution = ~10cents/kW-hour. For these dedicated-to-H2 reactors assume no trans/dist, so 7.5cents/kW-hour.
8GW*24hr/day*$0.075/kw-hr=$14.4M/day electrical costs (6x jetfuel cost), and we still have to address that huge daily water demand. This isn't really a comment about nuclear power, it is more about problems of using hydrogen as a fuel, so I'll drop this here.

 

[mheslep]

It is a valid point, but analyzing cogeneration is pretty complicated, as the infrastructure to distribute the heat simply doesn't exist. Because of that problem, cogen is rarely viable, which is why it is only typically used in large corporate or university campuses.

+New York City, 105mi of steam mains.
http://www.coned.com/steam/pdf/Steam_ops_overview.pdf

 

[signerror]

?
Current new plant capital costs are at least $6/W(e).

Oh my!

France, Flamanville #3 (EPR):

State-owned electricity giant EDF is already building an EPR in the north of France, near Flamanville, which will have capacity of 1,650 megawatts. It will now cost 4 billions euros ($5.20 billion), at 2008 euros, after an upward revision of the 3.3 billion euro initial budget.

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/afx/2009/01/22/afx5951077.html

$3.15/W(e)
China, Tianwan #1 & #2 (VVER):

The two generators at Tianwan are expected to produce 2.12 MW each year for east China, which boasts the fastest economic growth in the country.

The construction of Tianwan Nuclear Power Station began in 1999 and has cost 26.5 billion yuan (3.3 billion US dollars). Both generators feature Russian pressurized-water technology.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-05/13/content_4542917.htm

$1.56/W(e)

Levelized nuclear energy cost (per kW-hour): 6 cents amortized plant capital + 1 cent O&M + 0.5 cents fuel + 2.5 cents transmission and distribution = ~10cents/kW-hour. For these dedicated-to-H2 reactors assume no trans/dist, so 7.5cents/kW-hour.
8GW*24hr/day*$0.075/kw-hr=$14.4M/day electrical costs (6x jetfuel cost), and we still have to address that huge daily water demand.

One levelized cost I found, from the (UK) Royal Academy of Engineering, is 3.4c/kWh, half yours.

http://www.raeng.org.uk/news/publications/list/default.htm?Text=Costs+of+generating+electricity+report+&Publication=&Search=Yes

Also, I think thermochemical hydrogen generation is far more efficient than electrolysis.

 

[mheslep]

For comparison I am using 2008 dollars:

France, Flamanville #3 (EPR):
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/afx/2009/01/22/afx5951077.html
$3.15/W(e)

That's Flamanville 3, an addition to an existing site, so I'd expect some discount. Still good to have cost data.

One levelized cost I found, from the (UK) Royal Academy of Engineering, is 3.4c/kWh, half yours.

Taiwan numbers interesting.

I usually go here:
http://web.mit.edu/nuclearpower/
Table 5.1, 40yr economic life, 85% capacity factor, 2003 dollars,
Nuclear 6.7 cents/kWe-hr
and assume the 2003 MIT numbers are a little conservative after going here:
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/newsarticle.aspx?id=24250

 

[signerror]

The MIT study is for US reactors, which I understand are much more costly than anywhere else, even Western Europe. I'm not sure why that is.

Another US study (Univ. of Chicago) says 3.1c-4.6c/kWh range, for Nth-of-a-kind new reactors:

Economics of Deploying the Next Series of Nuclear Plants

• With the benefit of the experience from the first few plants, LCOEs are
expected to fall to the range of $31 to $46 per MWh; no continued financial
assistance is required at this level.

http://www.nuclear.gov/np2010/reports/NuclIndustryStudy-Summary.pdf

That's Flamanville 3, an addition to an existing site, so I'd expect some discount. Still good to have cost data.

Well, you get a new reactor and a new steam turbine. Seems meaningful.

 

[mheslep]

Another US study (Univ. of Chicago) says 3.1c-4.6c/kWh range, for Nth-of-a-kind new reactors:

http://www.nuclear.gov/np2010/reports/NuclIndustryStudy-Summary.pdf

Thanks, had not seen this

 

[mheslep]

MIT just released an http://web.mit.edu/nuclearpower/pdf/nuclearpower-update2009.pdf" for instance.

Points of interest:
-Tthey claim a doubling of the overnight capital cost of nuclear from $2k/kW (2003) to $4k/kW(now), fuel costs increased by ~one-third, resulting in a new base energy cost of $0.08/kWh, making nuclear (as in 2003 ) more expensive than coal or gas. They state that some form of carbon tax would change that cost order. (Table 1)

-Japanese incurred fairly high costs in starting a reprocessing plant: $25B for an $800tonne/yr plant. (Note 19)

-U ore supply still good to supply 1000 new reactors for another 'half century' (pg 12)

-Non-proliferation. Update ... lists enrichment and reprocessing as the 'most sensitive' areas, and they're still particularly concerned about how these would be handled by developing nations. (As am I) Update ... positively notes that the idea that the current nuclear supplier states offer all the fuel services to these countries was advanced by the US in 2005 G-8 meeting. They also predict that "the closed-fuel cycle vision ... will be more expensive than today's once through fuel cycle.." (pg 16) ? My take is that this must partly because little cost is currently assigned to permanent waste disposal.

-R&D. Update ... notes that the 2003 report recommended focusing on LWRs and HTGRs, but they note that the DOE has emphasized GenIV research. The GenIV program includes some HTGR money w/ a focus on H2 generation from thermal generation alone.

 

[talk2glenn]

The MIT study is for US reactors, which I understand are much more costly than anywhere else, even Western Europe. I'm not sure why that is.

Infrastructure costs. The US does not have any existing capacity to build commercial reactors. The reactors and supporting structures would need to be either imported, at huge expense, or new production facilities established domestically.

This represents a huge initial cost for any new domestic nuclear plants, but could be amortized over the life of a viable programs, reducing long-run costs but necessitating some kind of short-run government intervention. The same phenomenon is observed in large military projects (since assembly infrastructure is often program-unique), and is why the Navy makes sure it is always building at least one capital ship at any given time.

For perspective, Palo Verde NGS in Arizona had to bring its new reactor from Korea, I believe, by ship to Mexico and then overland. Hugely expensive. The only people building commercial reactors (and/or capable of building them) are the Europeans, and the East Asians. Maybe the Russians?