Extract from the Claverton Mailman email circulation list.

Paul,

Hmm – nukes vs onshore wind vs CSP

Global nuclear output is around 2,700 TWh/y, global final energy demand is about 90,000 TWh/y (19,000 electricity). That is, nuke output is 3% of global final energy demand.

Uranium Red Book reserves ~ around 85 years at CURRENT rates of use lets – say 100 years due to high burn-up reactors (and high burn-up waste) – about two x 50 year lifetimes of reactors (unless new GEN IV technology etc gets proven – including proven too to be cost effective) or 50 years IF double the current global output of Gen III reactors were built

Global population forecast 9 billion in 2050. If global average annual energy consumption in 2050 is HALF that of current UK person (FED = 1,917 TWh/y / 61 million) the global FED would be 140,000 TWh/y.

So nuclear power would supply just 1.9 % of 2050 global final energy demand at CURRENT rates of use for 100 years, or 3.8% for 50 years (ie about 5,400 TWh/y from 700 GW of reactors at about 88% load factor)

Comparison with equivalent 5,400 TWh/y output of CSP (at 1 TWh/y per 6.5 sq km) and onshore wind (1 TWh/y per 45 sq km per TWh/y using Mackay’s figures) :

CSP arrays covering  35,100 sq km or square of side 188 km by 188 km – for several billion years

Onshore wind would require an area around seven times that (243,000 sq km) – for several billion years.

The area of windfarm coverage could become an issue compared to CSP (even IF future CSP costs turn out to be more expensive than onshore wind). However, there are huge areas of near empty land in your uranium friendly countries – Australia, Canada or even US  (US and Australia have huge CSP resource)

And why be so untrusting or dismissive of Kasakhstan (land area 2,717,300 sq km) what’s wrong with their uranium – dangerous maybe ? Wind farms covering just 3% of Kazakhstan’s land area could supply one third of that 700 GW nuclear scenario – without mining an ounce of radio-toxic dusty ore – its exports would be blowing in the wind either way…

What is the point in polluting the future with high burn-up toxic waste for just 3.8% of global energy for 50 years – nuclear power is a dangerous distraction.

If you WANT to live dangerously why not take up an extreme sport

For those who want either onshore wind, or CSP, or both then vote Supergrid – the resource can power 100 % of global energy needs for ever, rather than 50 years at 3.8 %.

Neil

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Neil Crumpton wrote:

Uranium Red Book reserves ~ around 85 years at CURRENT rates of use lets – say 100 years due to high burn-up reactors (and high burn-up waste) – about two x 50 year lifetimes of reactors (unless new GEN IV technology etc gets proven – including proven too to be cost effective) or 50 years IF double the current global output of Gen III reactors were built

But the IEA Blue Map forecast is for growth in nukes of a factor of 6-10 over current levels.  According to its figures, we have 270 years worth of viable uranium at 2004 levels.  Or 27-45 years at its forecast nuclear levels.  Hmmm.

So, uranium would be an unwise option for GB, just replacing one strategic dependence for another.

The other aspect is that the IEA (never shy in its cheerleading for nuclear) sees growth in nuclear to 2050 as being restricted by capacity for new installations.

And, thinking globally, this is crucial.

Even if we were to accept that nuclear has a significant global role in mitigating climate change, then its role by 2050 is capped at around 25% of global energy supply.  Which means that if GB installs N gigawatts of  new nukes, that’s N gigawatts that *won’t* get installed elsewhere. So, globally, there would no net carbon savings.  But that’s only where the problems start, because those other countries that cannot install new nukes because GB has consumed some capacity, may not have the bountiful renewable supply that Britain has, which will make decarbonising much harder, and more expensive, for them.

Hence, looking globally, it does not make any sense for those countries that have a surplus of potential renewables (such as Britain) to install any nuclear at all, because of that capped global capacity issue (as well as for a bunch of other reasons).

Regards,
Andrew Smith

London Analytics

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Yep – whichever way the maths is done (ore availability, Gen III scale-uo, new tech timelines) nuclear is a distraction and one with multiple dangers.

On the thinking globally point – I am not sure there are any countries globally which would be significantly compromised supply-wise  ie where there would not be either sufficient indigenous renewable sources or proximity to and integration with ’supergrid’ networks. There may be issues with links to or through historically unfriendly countries but our common global predicament should be a major motivating factor in forging new understandings if not friendships in the decades ahead. Russia can supply just itself if it wants – if no-one else is interested or brave enough.

Surely physically large countries, and or most sun-belt countries (not sure about Chinese solar insolation for CSP, or densely populated tropical Java maybe) would have sufficient indigenous resources.

Problems in some smaller island states in northern latitudes maybe ? Even there wind / biomass + heat pumps alone with possibly geothermal power may do much/all of the job. Smallish CCS on coal / biomass could feature if really needed in transition. A few 1.1 GW AP 1000s (with adequate back-up) let alone 1.6 GW EPRs would be a tad over the top and just distract investment (Finland) .

Mainland Europe would have difficulties without Saharan and or Middle east imports (solar and wind) without a Supergrid – UK too if offshore wind were to be particularly problematic in deeper water.

Neil

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Neil
I like it.
I tried something similar when I first joined Claverton discussion 2 (?) years ago, for my own education as much as anything else.
I based my calculations on MIT 2003 study that assumed a world build-out of about ~1000 ‘once-through’ reactors (the other types were not deemed practical in the time-frame). Since then, 2007, I reviewed my attempt in the light of an MIT 2006 update. See excerpt below of my attempt.  I came at it from the point of view of peak fossil fuel production, and subsequent replacement of energy. (My discussion of the dash for coal and carbon emissions is excluded from the excerpt.)
I had long been sceptical of nuclear power (because of local and global security issues, and in the UK the relative cost of investment, even before Thatcher’s attempt to privatise). However, more recently, seeing the history of France’s programme, and the huge future energy dilemma facing the UK, I was willing to contemplate anything,including nuclear that might soften the energy crunch. I personally was willing even to consider William Orchard’s tongue-in-cheek nuclear CHP.
I ended up though solidly in favour of whatever insulation, CHP, renewables we could build while we still had the resources to do it and of using local resources and gaining whatever extra benefit we could connected up to the EU and region, electrical grids, whatever.
best Phil
—-
EXCERPT – NUCLEAR unpublished sketch by Phil H
” …. Considering the
future of nuclear power (NP) as an important non-oil / gas source of energy, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT) 2003 made estimates, later updated apparently in 2006,
that suggest there is enough uranium ore to fuel about 3 times current 361GW nuclear
world capacity for perhaps 80 years [The '80 years' is considerably longer than the first calculation in the original 2003 MIT
study based on 1000 x GW 'once-through' nuclear power stations, and, quote, "sufficient fuel over the next half century"]. MIT 2006 also calculated there was ‘enough lower grade ore’ for a further 500 years. Imagine, however, as
a thought experiment based on those figures, trying to use nuclear power to replace
the current energy that is supplied by oil. If 80 nuclear power plants (NPP) equal
one million barrels/day of oil, [a number lifted from a calculation by Randy Usdall] then 1000 NPP is equivalent to ~12.5 Mb/d. In that case, 6.8 x 1000 NPP would be
needed to replace present world use of 85Mb/d of oil liquids. That excludes
any ‘growth’ scenario for world energy use that would require more than substitution for disappearing oil. To substitute for present oil production, using MIT numbers, current ore grades would
last for 80 divided by 6.8 years, or something under 12 years, and the 500 year supply of uranium would be gone in 74 years. A more plausible, say 30Mbpd, disappearance of daily world oil  over the next 3 or 4 decades will actually, if briefly, be ameliorated by increased use of natural gas and coal, but calculation
of a straight replacement of 30Mbpd oil with nuclear implies 2400 nuclear power
stations and 33 years of current ore
supply.If the majority of putative 2400 or more nuclear power plants became operational only after 2050, the more rapid draw-down of uranium supplies might be postponed until the second half of the
century. However, a very fast build-out of nuclear power from 2010 to 2050 implies that accessible uranium ore will be gone very quickly. It is a considerable
stretch to think the follow-on ‘500y-supply’ of uranium could be mobilised
sufficiently quickly to do more than somewhat ameliorate the loss of energy
brought about by the very rapid dwindling of daily supplies of remaining oil, followed smartly by considerable reductions in the daily available gas and coal). We cannot move to an ‘electric economy’ driven by nuclear. ….”

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