Nuclear energy in USA: why only 19%

[Joshua McAnaney]

No, it isn't (and never has been):

http://www.brookings.edu/research/testimony/2012/04/~/media/Research/Images/0/123/0426_chart2.png It once held promise to be cheap, but it has never been efficiently enough regulated to be cheap. A lot of that has to do with politics.

So the basic answer to your question is that nuclear power is limited due to a combination of unfavorable economics and politics.

WOW, just realized how much the energy companies are ripping us off. Not that I blame them, that's capitalism at it's finest, but seriously, that's a huge profit per kWh, especially when you consider just the baseline amount of energy required at any given time for, say, the US or the UK. That's a huge profit margin.

 

[mheslep]

The majority of the typical electric rate in the US (12¢/kWh) goes to creation and maintenance of a grid which is 99.999% available. Fuel costs for instance have long been a minority of the bill. Nuclear fuel costs are less than 1.2¢/kWh per EIA, coal fuel less than 3¢/kWh. The balance of the bill goes into maintaining existing power plants, including spare plants to absorb planned and unplanned outages, yes building some new plants, and especially the last mile of wiring and transformers to private residences which is typically repaired 24/7 within hours after the latest isolated fallen tree.

Given the above, one of the most outrageous subsidies at the moment is net metering for rooftop solar PV. PV owners can drive their net energy drawn from the utility to zero but pay nearly nothing for the grid connection to their home, given the traditional bill structure which is based on kWh usage at the residential level. Net metering as it exists can't continue much longer.

 

[QuantumPion]

WOW, just realized how much the energy companies are ripping us off. Not that I blame them, that's capitalism at it's finest, but seriously, that's a huge profit per kWh, especially when you consider just the baseline amount of energy required at any given time for, say, the US or the UK. That's a huge profit margin.

What you are talking about? The profit margin on electricity generation is quite slim, only a few percent. The reason why it is economical is that it is stable, predictable market for the most part.

 

[Joshua McAnaney]

What you are talking about? The profit margin on electricity generation is quite slim, only a few percent. The reason why it is economical is that it is stable, predictable market for the most part.

Yes, but bearing in mind that the current power demand in the UK alone is 30.57GW right now, spread out over that amount, that's a huge amount of money.

 

[QuantumPion]

Yes, but bearing in mind that the current power demand in the UK alone is 30.57GW right now, spread out over that amount, that's a huge amount of money.

If power companies operated at zero profit, then no one would invest in the company and they would not have any money to expand to meet increasing demand, upgrade, or maintain facilities. They would instead have to borrow the money and pay the banks interest, which would be passed down to the customer. Or, if the government ran the power companies at zero profit, then the money would come from taxes. So profit, interest, or taxes, you're paying for it one way or another. There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.

 

[gmax137]

Yes, but bearing in mind that the current power demand in the UK alone is 30.57GW right now, spread out over that amount, that's a huge amount of money.

Yes, it is huge amount of money, but it is also a huge amount of electricity.

I'm not sure where that 30.57 GW value comes from, is it the average grid load in the UK?

Assuming that's what it is, go ahead and figure out the annual profit being made by selling that 30.57 GW

Not sure what you pay in the UK say 0.15 GBP per kw-hr? And if the power company is making 10% profit (certainly it is less than that), then they'd be making
30.57E6 * 0.15 * 0.1 * 24 * 365 = 4 E9 GBP/yr. sounds like a lot (it is!)
But compare to, say, annual profits of Exxon Mobil at 32 Billion USD = 22 Billion GBP -- now who is doing the rip off?

If you still think the power companies are treasure troves, buy some of their stock, and get your share of the riches.

 

[DEvens]

http://www.brookings.edu/research/testimony/2012/04/~/media/Research/Images/0/123/0426_chart2.png

[snips]

This graph is clearly not accurate. When required to pay their property tax on the cost of their installations, solar in Ontario loses money at 40 cents/kWhr. Clearly they are doing some kind of jim-jam average on solar and natural gas.

 

[mheslep]

At 50deg N Ontario might not be a good representative of solar costs

 

[russ_watters]

WOW, just realized how much the energy companies are ripping us off. Not that I blame them, that's capitalism at it's finest, but seriously, that's a huge profit per kWh, especially when you consider just the baseline amount of energy required at any given time for, say, the US or the UK. That's a huge profit margin.

No, those numbers tell you nothing at all about profit margin because they do not include the cost of distributing the electricity, only the cost of making it.

 

[Joshua McAnaney]

Yes, it is huge amount of money, but it is also a huge amount of electricity.

I'm not sure where that 30.57 GW value comes from, is it the average grid load in the UK?

Assuming that's what it is, go ahead and figure out the annual profit being made by selling that 30.57 GW

Not sure what you pay in the UK say 0.15 GBP per kw-hr? And if the power company is making 10% profit (certainly it is less than that), then they'd be making
30.57E6 * 0.15 * 0.1 * 24 * 365 = 4 E9 GBP/yr. sounds like a lot (it is!)
But compare to, say, annual profits of Exxon Mobil at 32 Billion USD = 22 Billion GBP -- now who is doing the rip off?

If you still think the power companies are treasure troves, buy some of their stock, and get your share of the riches.

Yeah, that's the average baseline according to the National Grid. I do of course understand that you'd have to factor in distribution and maintenance costs, etc. on top of that but it's still a very lucrative sector (at least until fusion comes along and puts them all out of business). As an afterthought on money, though, we have a 3kWh solar panel system and sell the excess back to the grid. We've made around £43 so far this week, although I'm not sure how much power we generated. I'll take a look sometime and find out how much the scheme pays as a feed in tariff.

 

[analogdesign]

You are right, but I don't think there's a word for what you describe. It's like a "NIMBY Doughnut": in the hole in the center are where the people close to the plant who benefit from it live. Further away are people close enough to complain but not close enough to receive much economic benefit. Nevada is that way with the Yucca Mountain repository: the locals are in favor, the rest of the state against.

I'm a bit late to this, but in case you're interested, there is a word (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NIMBY#BANANA).

My father (now retired) was a civil engineer specializing in water projects and built plants throughout the world. Every single water project he worked on in the USA, Canada, or Europe had to deal with lawsuits. Every. Single. One. He called the people that sued "BANANAs", for "Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anybody". I'm not sure if it is a general term but I sure heard it a lot as a kid.

Interestingly, the projects he worked on in the Middle East went smoothly. He even got large cash (!) bonuses on the way home. As in thousands of dollars of cash to put in his pocket before he left for the airport. Imagine that after a project in Manchester or New York...

 

[Cumberland]

I'm a bit late to this, but in case you're interested, there is a word (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NIMBY#BANANA).

My father (now retired) was a civil engineer specializing in water projects and built plants throughout the world. Every single water project he worked on in the USA, Canada, or Europe had to deal with lawsuits. Every. Single. One. He called the people that sued "BANANAs", for "Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anybody". I'm not sure if it is a general term but I sure heard it a lot as a kid.

Interestingly, the projects he worked on in the Middle East went smoothly. He even got large cash (!) bonuses on the way home. As in thousands of dollars of cash to put in his pocket before he left for the airport. Imagine that after a project in Manchester or New York...

If you he worked on hydropower projects, there is legitimate reason for opposition. Excluding environmental concern, displacement of families by flooding is a strong reason for opposition.

 

[analogdesign]

If you he worked on hydropower projects, there is legitimate reason for opposition. Excluding environmental concern, displacement of families by flooding is a strong reason for opposition.

That's fair enough, but he worked on wastewater treatment plants, which is something everyone needs but nobody wants.

Interestingly, in my opinion, one of the driving forces of environmental injustice (that is, locating toxic waste dumps, power plants, and the like in poor neighborhoods) is simply the fact that people in those neighborhoods complain less and are not as organized so placing the facilities in their neighborhoods is an example of taking the path of least resistance.

 

[DEvens]

At 50deg N Ontario might not be a good representative of solar costs

Toronto is 43N, cos(43) = 0.55. Tilting them and spacing them out of each other's shadows gets you by this quite well.

However, it is night and clouds that are the primary problems with solar.

The graph presented up-thread is clearly label rating power, not delivered power. Solar plants "enjoy" a capacity factor well under 50%, often as little as 10%. There are often week-to-month long cloudy periods where solar produces next to nothing. That means the price on that graph should be at least doubled. And when you include the backup power, usually methane, it can often be a lot worse than that. And if you include the added grid capacity required by the diffuse nature of solar, the cost goes up even more. I would estimate about 70 cents per kWhr.

Wind is similar. The label rating is, say, 100 MW, but that is often delivered for less than 10% of the time. And it is not rare for the wind power in Ontario to fall below 1 percent of rated capacity across the province.

 

[gmax137]

Toronto is 43N, cos(43) = 0.55. Tilting them and spacing them out of each other's shadows gets you by this quite well.

However, it is night and clouds that are the primary problems with solar.

...

The cost issue in the high latitudes is just that -- there's more night. Tilting the panels won't help with that...

 

[Astronuc]

However, it is night and clouds that are the primary problems with solar.

And snow perhaps.

 

[Lok]

Well the main reason USA or most of the nuclear countries don't go far from 20% nuclear capacity is the long shutdown time of a nuclear facility.
What I mean is best shown in this link from Romania (I hope there is no translation neccesary):
http://version1.sistemulenergetic.ro/
Power necessity varies a lot during one day. So when Coal plants can be shutdown in a few hours, wind and hydro in a few minutes while photo is usually to small to matter, nuclear plants need days to power down (not an expert). When you produce more you either waste or sell the energy to some other less fortunate country. Yet any less fortunate country knows you are in surplus and will buy your energy at a low price. And as a down side there is a priority between producing nuclear which corroborated with high precipitation is followed by hydro (nobody wants floods) so that coal plants need to vary their power production and sometimes end up working at only 10% capacity for a week or so. This is a brutal hit on their profit and as one can see above it is not like we can stop using them.
So this would be a no contest, Nuclear vs Economy 0-1.

 

[QuantumPion]

Well the main reason USA or most of the nuclear countries don't go far from 20% nuclear capacity is the long shutdown time of a nuclear facility.
What I mean is best shown in this link from Romania (I hope there is no translation neccesary):
http://version1.sistemulenergetic.ro/
Power necessity varies a lot during one day. So when Coal plants can be shutdown in a few hours, wind and hydro in a few minutes while photo is usually to small to matter, nuclear plants need days to power down (not an expert). When you produce more you either waste or sell the energy to some other less fortunate country. Yet any less fortunate country knows you are in surplus and will buy your energy at a low price. And as a down side there is a priority between producing nuclear which corroborated with high precipitation is followed by hydro (nobody wants floods) so that coal plants need to vary their power production and sometimes end up working at only 10% capacity for a week or so. This is a brutal hit on their profit and as one can see above it is not like we can stop using them.
So this would be a no contest, Nuclear vs Economy 0-1.

That is not entirely accurate. As discussed previously in another thread about nuclear peaking, nuclear power plants can change their power whenever and by however much they want. The reason why they do not want to is because nuclear plants have an almost fixed operating cost regardless of power, so it makes sense for them to run at full power whenever possible. You are right that hydro plants typically have first dibs when there is an excess of supply since that power is really free.

Note that France produces more than 70% of their power from nuclear. The reason why the US has not built more nuclear plants in the past is mainly due to politics. today the limitation is economics - natural gas is just cheaper and easier.

 

[Lok]

That is not entirely accurate. As discussed previously in another thread about nuclear peaking, nuclear power plants can change their power whenever and by however much they want. The reason why they do not want to is because nuclear plants have an almost fixed operating cost regardless of power, so it makes sense for them to run at full power whenever possible. You are right that hydro plants typically have first dibs when there is an excess of supply since that power is really free.

Note that France produces more than 70% of their power from nuclear. The reason why the US has not built more nuclear plants in the past is mainly due to politics. today the limitation is economics - natural gas is just cheaper and easier.

I stand corrected. Although our sole nuclear power plant is old and slow in comparison to modern ones. Still a huge power variation in one Nplant is not as "detrimental" as a mean power variation in Frances 59 reactors (although not all have such variability). And France is kinda obligated to export about 10% of electricity around itself in all directions. The Swiss being especially careful to by the power during nighttime (cheaper) and store it by refilling their hydro, as it does work with decent profits during some periods of the year.