Political Roundtable Part XXXI

[dobrojim]

Interesting thread on nuke power waste "nonproblem"

This is completely new to me, and I was in energy policy for a bit in 2008-2010, any nuke engineers in the audience who can confirm/deny this?

Read on Twitter

Back from my self-imposed day off...

Any economists in the house to tell us why private industry doesn't want to fund new plants?

I think that is the elephant in the room - you can have a group saying it is safe but if they aren't funded then it doesn't matter, right?

I've followed this issue for some time. Amory Lovins (founder of RMI) is my go to source for this.
He has pointed out for more than ten years that venture capitalists do not see nuclear as a good investment.

I think (if memory serves) this is an observation that has been made for a long time.

Bottom line - nukes just are not good investments and for a number of very good reasons, 3 of which are:

Their exorbitant cost

They take forever to build (which increases risk)

the power they produce is not competitively priced compared to renewables.

Catherine Rampel had some interesting comments in a column published today in WaPo.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/21/heat-energy-crisis-would-be-worse-without-solar/

That’s because there has been an enormous ramp-up in solar investment in recent years. This has been driven by multiple factors, including government incentives, customer demand and especially technological advancements that have made solar astonishingly cheap. Sun-drenched Texas — not exactly known for its bleeding-heart liberals — has nearly triple the solar capacity this summer than it had last summer.

and

Renewables have gotten a bad rap. Many voters still perceive solar and wind as an expensive indulgence, foisted upon them by tree-huggers. In reality, these technologies have become extremely competitive on price. As I’ve noted before: It’s cheaper to build and operate an entirely new wind or solar plant than it is to continue operating an existing coal plant.

In fact, investment in renewables has (modestly) helped keep a lid on painfully high energy prices lately, says Ethan Zindler, a BloombergNEF analyst.

Note that the above comment/comparison is to coal which was long regarded as the cheapest source of energy.

this last quote is from a piece she wrote in Oct 2020 following up a 'gaffe' Biden made saying
he would transition away from fossil fuels.

Sure, it was an inelegant (and politically damaging) representation of Biden’s views, as evidenced by cleanup work his campaign needed to do over subsequent days. But Biden’s underlying claim — that fossil fuels will eventually need to be supplanted by renewables — is only radical if you’re still working off of decades-old facts.

Bottom line - there is a F-ton of blather ie misinformation to be heard by know nothings about renewables

PS - I'm unaware that any solution to nuclear waste storage has been developed. I don't see how
that is possible in an economic manner. AE fans have frequently retreated to the position that on-site waste
storage is the solution.

Not a very good fix if you ask me.

[dobrojim]

relatively recent piece by Lovins

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/environment-and-energy/why-nuclear-power-is-bad-for-your-wallet-and-the-climate

The world already invests annually $0.3 trillion each, mostly voluntary private capital, in energy efficiency and renewables, but about $0.015–0.03 trillion, or 20–40x less, in nuclear—mostly conscripted, because investors got burned. Of 259 US power reactors ordered (1955–2016), only 112 got built and 93 remain operable; by mid-2017, just 28 stayed competitive and suffered no year-plus outage. In the oil business, that’s called an 89% dry-hole risk.

Renewables provided all global electricity growth in 2020. Nuclear power struggles to sustain its miniscule marginal share as its vendors, culture, and prospects shrivel. World reactors average 31 years old, in the U.S., 41. Within a few years, old and uneconomic reactors’ retirements will consistently eclipse additions, tipping output into permanent decline. World nuclear capacity already fell in five of the past 12 years for a 2% net drop. Performance has become erratic: the average French reactor in 2020 produced nothing one-third of the time.

Does anyone without a pro nuke conflict of interest believe that global energy investors
are uniformly that badly informed about the economics of nuclear?

China accounts for most current and projected nuclear growth. Yet China’s 2020 renewable investments about matched its cumulative 2008–20 nuclear investments. Together, in 2020 in China, sun and wind generated twice nuclear’s output, adding 60x more capacity and 6x more output at 2–3 times lower forward cost per kWh. Sun and wind are now the cheapest bulk power source for over 91% of world electricity.

[Zonkerbl]

"the power they produce is not competitively priced compared to renewables."

hm, hard for me to take seriously someone who says random renewable power and base power are interchangeable. That is just incorrect, engineering-wise. Even with smart grid technology.

I can believe nuclear might not be competitive with coal, but last time I saw the math (in 2010) that wasn't true. Marginal cost of nuclear power production is very low. It's the fixed investment costs ("overnight costs") that are high, but in the same magnitude as coal fired plants.

[Zonkerbl]

Here's the DoE's latest estimates of fixed and variable costs for all the various energy sources:

https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/assumptions/pdf/table_8.2.pdf

Variable costs for USC (coal) is $4.71/mwh, for nuclear it's $2.48 or $3.14 depending on which technology you use.

Overnight costs are much higher for nuclear power plants, $7000-$7500/kw vs. $4k for coal, you have to make that up by charging a higher price, which is really what makes it non-competitive. It's true you really need carbon taxes to even start to make a case for an investment in nuclear power. So as long as coal is a permissible alternative, of course I'm going to go for it as an investor, it's cheaper than everything else. EPA almost passed a rule saying no more coal power plants but the new radical scotus shut them down.

[dobrojim]

I have my doubts about the cheapness of coal when externalities are factored in.

Of course this is Amurica so socialized the costs and privatize the profits is what happens
after political contributions are factored in.

[dobrojim]

"the power they produce is not competitively priced compared to renewables."

hm, hard for me to take seriously someone who says random renewable power and base power are interchangeable. That is just incorrect, engineering-wise. Even with smart grid technology.

I can believe nuclear might not be competitive with coal, but last time I saw the math (in 2010) that wasn't true. Marginal cost of nuclear power production is very low. It's the fixed investment costs ("overnight costs") that are high, but in the same magnitude as coal fired plants.

Renewable power is not nearly as random as you suggest, especially when wide geographic areas
are considered in the analysis.

Repeating the quote from Rampel
Note the bolded part. She didn't give her source but since we're just a couple of guys on the interwebs
and she's a nationally syndicated writer who does this for a living...

Renewables have gotten a bad rap. Many voters still perceive solar and wind as an expensive indulgence, foisted upon them by tree-huggers. In reality, these technologies have become extremely competitive on price. As I’ve noted before: It’s cheaper to build and operate an entirely new wind or solar plant than it is to continue operating an existing coal plant.

In fact, investment in renewables has (modestly) helped keep a lid on painfully high energy prices lately, says Ethan Zindler, a BloombergNEF analyst.

[Zonkerbl]

"the power they produce is not competitively priced compared to renewables."

hm, hard for me to take seriously someone who says random renewable power and base power are interchangeable. That is just incorrect, engineering-wise. Even with smart grid technology.

I can believe nuclear might not be competitive with coal, but last time I saw the math (in 2010) that wasn't true. Marginal cost of nuclear power production is very low. It's the fixed investment costs ("overnight costs") that are high, but in the same magnitude as coal fired plants.

Renewable power is not nearly as random as you suggest, especially when wide geographic areas
are considered in the analysis.

Repeating the quote from Rampel
Note the bolded part. She didn't give her source but since we're just a couple of guys on the interwebs
and she's a nationally syndicated writer who does this for a living...

Renewables have gotten a bad rap. Many voters still perceive solar and wind as an expensive indulgence, foisted upon them by tree-huggers. In reality, these technologies have become extremely competitive on price. As I’ve noted before: It’s cheaper to build and operate an entirely new wind or solar plant than it is to continue operating an existing coal plant.

In fact, investment in renewables has (modestly) helped keep a lid on painfully high energy prices lately, says Ethan Zindler, a BloombergNEF analyst.

There's two issues here:
1) how expensive is it
2) how do we operate an electrical grid

She's addressing the first one. There's no disputing that the costs of solar have decreased significantly, and wind has been cost effective for decades.

Excuse my pedantry for a minute, I assume you know this, dobro, but let me just lay down some basic ideas so I can make my point.

The problem is, for electricity, demand has to equal supply at all times, at every moment in time (if you have a large grid, you get a few minutes of slight mismatches before bad things start to happen). Human demand for electricity has a predictable element and an unpredictable element. Generally speaking we demand energy for lights and appliances during the day, and refrigerators all day long. That is fairly stable and predictable. Then there's things like demand for air conditioning, which varies depending on the weather and so has a substantial random element to it.

To keep the electrical grid from crashing, you have to be able to manually increase or decrease electricity supply to match the change in demand. You can do this with coal, but the most cost effective way to use coal is to just run those generators at maximum 24/7/365. We do this because coal is the cheapest, because our legislators ignore the will of the people and refuse to impose a carbon tax to account for the externality of climate change. This is called the "base load." It doesn't change (much) over time. These are electricity sources where the cheapest thing is to just run them at max capacity all the time, like nuclear.

What we do now is we use natural gas generators to match supply with demand. Natural gas lets you meet the need for peak load demand, the maximum power the system can supply if all sources are generating at maximum.

The problem with wind and solar is, not only can you not increase solar and wind power on demand (you can reduce it but then what's the point of even having it - that is to say, they're barely cost effective at max generation if there's no carbon tax), those sources of power themselves introduce additional randomness and stress on the system. Yes, ok, the larger your grid, the less randomness there is, but my point stands - that randomness does not converge to zero. There is still systematic weather-related randomness no matter how big the grid is. The more wind and solar you have on your grid, the more natural gas you need. Or you can introduce battery storage, but that's expensive (you can see how expensive on the table I cited earlier on the costs of different electricity sources). One idea is to take advantage of the batteries in electric vehicles, but that's normally only available at night, and air conditioning demand tends to peak during the day. Well, that's oversimplifying but you get the idea. The need to instantaneously match supply and demand at all times makes the introduction of renewables into the grid very complicated. You can't just slam in new renewable sources into the grid and expect it to work.

So let's suppose somehow our system corrects itself and we impose a carbon tax on coal and investors start looking at renewables as a viable alternative. How would that work? Well, since you're replacing base load capacity with random capacity, you're going to need to increase redundant natural gas sources just to account for the randomness of the renewable energy supply. This is not cost effective. Or you could just increase nuclear power. I have heard of the storage technique for spent fuel that the lady is referring to above, and my understanding is that it is very expensive and drastically increases the variable cost. Otherwise I think she is right that it is perfectly safe, but without a carbon tax it is not a viable investment alternative.

The optimal strategy is to use smart grid technology. This allows the power company to reach out to your air conditioner and turn it off (when I was in DC I had a heat pump and an agreement from Pepco to allow them to do this), for example, or take advantage of battery storage in your electric vehicle. The more flexibility like this that you can build into your electrical grid, the more base power you can replace with renewables. I don't know what the status of that is but it requires investment and, again, without a carbon tax it just doesn't make economic sense to do it, so I doubt we've made much progress.

[dobrojim]

one thing that is generally overlooked in discussions about energy is conservation aka negawatts.

Conservation is often the cheapest source of energy that we have.

Lovins famously and with a fair bit of controversy in 1976 predicted that
the amount of energy needed to produce a dollar of GDP would start to
decrease. Many thought he was some combination of naive or crazy.

Turns out he was very much on target.

from Reinventing Fire

Making a dollar of U.S. GDP in 2009 took 60% less oil, 50% less energy, 63% less directly burned natural gas, and 20% less electricity than it did in 1975, because more efficient use and alternative supplies have become cheaper and better than the fossil fuels they’ve displaced. Yet wringing far more work from our energy is only getting started, and is becoming an ever bigger and cheaper resource, because its technologies, designs, and delivery methods are improving faster than they’re so far being adopted.

[Wizardspride]

Read on Twitter

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[pancakes3]

one thing that is generally overlooked in discussions about energy is conservation aka negawatts.

Conservation is often the cheapest source of energy that we have.

Lovins famously and with a fair bit of controversy in 1976 predicted that
the amount of energy needed to produce a dollar of GDP would start to
decrease. Many thought he was some combination of naive or crazy.

Turns out he was very much on target.

from Reinventing Fire

Making a dollar of U.S. GDP in 2009 took 60% less oil, 50% less energy, 63% less directly burned natural gas, and 20% less electricity than it did in 1975, because more efficient use and alternative supplies have become cheaper and better than the fossil fuels they’ve displaced. Yet wringing far more work from our energy is only getting started, and is becoming an ever bigger and cheaper resource, because its technologies, designs, and delivery methods are improving faster than they’re so far being adopted.

with the European heatwave in the news, i read somewhere that half of our energy consumption is used exclusively for at-home climate control (read: HVAC).

[dobrojim]

We need more earth sheltered homes. Or course there is a finite amount of suitable
sites for building such homes but they have dramatically lower heating/cooling costs.

edit to add - 'cakes your number for HVAC sounded high. I searched US energy use by
sector and found the following

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=41093

Transportation leads the way at 37% (of total use)
Industrial not far behind at 35%
Residential is 16%
Commercial at 12%

[pancakes3]

We need more earth sheltered homes. Or course there is a finite amount of suitable
sites for building such homes but they have dramatically lower heating/cooling costs.

edit to add - 'cakes your number for HVAC sounded high. I searched US energy use by
sector and found the following

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=41093

Transportation leads the way at 37% (of total use)
Industrial not far behind at 35%
Residential is 16%
Commercial at 12%

half of household use. sorry.

[dckingsfan]

with the European heatwave in the news, i read somewhere that half of our in-home energy consumption is used exclusively for at-home climate control (read: HVAC).

This is correct - with the correction above. And that number could be dropped 10% with proper insulation.

We have solar and our net negative with respect to total energy usage but as Zonk points out we use energy at night from the grid.

And I think the points are different than Zonk's.

1) Energy usage is rising quickly
2) In-home battery usage is the cure from renewables

Germany has expanding their grid primarily with solar and wind (I want to say 35%) for the last decade. I think we can expand nearly exclusively with renewables right now. But then we can't shut down our current gas and nuclear power plants (we should shut down the biggest polluting power plants as soon as we can).

I think the solution isn't car batteries. Rather large batteries for in-home use (hopefully not having to use precious metals).

Either way, our grid is broken and not up to the task of increasing energy needs or climate change. We can start fixing it now or wait... and that is going to be really expensive.

[Zonkerbl]

Republicans are very pro-climate adaptation, from what I understand. They don't want to do anything to stop it but would rather just adjust to it, which all the modeling says would be much cheaper (for us, as a wealthy country that doesn't have to worry about thousands of poor people drowning in ever-increasing extreme weather events).

[pancakes3]

capital R republicans, sure. but i'm fairly certain that Nate and Popper turn the lights off in rooms that nobody's in, monitor their thermostats, etc. just the same as millions of other dads across the country, regardless of political affiliation. but somehow, debating energy policy has become a deeply partisan issue.

[dckingsfan]

Republicans are very pro-climate adaptation, from what I understand. They don't want to do anything to stop it but would rather just adjust to it, which all the modeling says would be much cheaper (for us, as a wealthy country that doesn't have to worry about thousands of poor people drowning in ever-increasing extreme weather events).

I would like to say this is the case but... I look at what they do vs. what they say. Their collective actions don't speak to adaptation.

But, maybe I am missing it - can you point me toward legislation that points in that direction?

[Zonkerbl]

There is a long tradition of blaming consumers for problems caused by bad industrial actors. Recycling - we could just ban the use of plastics, for example, why are consumers responsible for a problem plastic producers are creating?

Conservation is a nice idea but it is really blaming the victim, and what is the incentive? People are rational, they will turn off lights and monitor thermostats as much as it makes sense for them to do so, without adding a carbon tax into electrical prices there is no incentive to conserve any more than we already are.

[Zonkerbl]

Republicans are very pro-climate adaptation, from what I understand. They don't want to do anything to stop it but would rather just adjust to it, which all the modeling says would be much cheaper (for us, as a wealthy country that doesn't have to worry about thousands of poor people drowning in ever-increasing extreme weather events).

I would like to say this is the case but... I look at what they do vs. what they say. Their collective actions don't speak to adaptation.

But, maybe I am missing it - can you point me toward legislation that points in that direction?

Mostly based on internal policy discussions at my job when Trump was POTUS. We're an aid organization, a lot of our clients are very heavily impacted by climate change, what is our policy towards integrating climate change into the design of our aid projects? And the answer was we are willing to help countries adapt to climate change but not doing anything to stop climate change

[dckingsfan]

Republicans are very pro-climate adaptation, from what I understand. They don't want to do anything to stop it but would rather just adjust to it, which all the modeling says would be much cheaper (for us, as a wealthy country that doesn't have to worry about thousands of poor people drowning in ever-increasing extreme weather events).

I would like to say this is the case but... I look at what they do vs. what they say. Their collective actions don't speak to adaptation.

But, maybe I am missing it - can you point me toward legislation that points in that direction?

Mostly based on internal policy discussions at my job when Trump was POTUS. We're an aid organization, a lot of our clients are very heavily impacted by climate change, what is our policy towards integrating climate change into the design of our aid projects? And the answer was we are willing to help countries adapt to climate change but not doing anything to stop climate change

Gotcha. What I see with respect to actual legislation (in the US) around resilience is mostly crickets.

And states that do want to do something with regards to resilience mostly want a federal response - they don't want to spend their own money (it makes climate change a "thing").

So, you may be correct on the periphery but when it comes to substantive policy or even rhetoric - not so much from my perspective.

[Kanyewest]

There is a long tradition of blaming consumers for problems caused by bad industrial actors. Recycling - we could just ban the use of plastics, for example, why are consumers responsible for a problem plastic producers are creating?

Conservation is a nice idea but it is really blaming the victim, and what is the incentive? People are rational, they will turn off lights and monitor thermostats as much as it makes sense for them to do so, without adding a carbon tax into electrical prices there is no incentive to conserve any more than we already are.

I think that most people act rationally. Although I do think there are a few bad actors that could burden the energy sector. For instance, my friend takes 1 hour showers everyday. I know someone who used the gas fireplace in Spring. Most people are rational (maybe) but there are also irrational people.