Electricity Bill Impact from Nuclear Costs

[martin]

"Most of the "nuclear is a rip off" arguements are at best ill informed, at worst purposefully deceptive" is something that has been refuted over and over again on this forum, and I won't go back over the arguments again, just to say that all the evidence I've seen is totally contrary to that.

We have to start from "where we are", and have to find the best path forwards - as the new DECC calculator shows, it IS eminently possible to do without nuclear altogether, and many of us are of the opinion that we are best to run our existing reactors until the end of their lives and look towards genuine renewables and other measures instead...

[Ivan]

Nuclear reactors were certainly developed in the past to produce bombs, but these days, there is far too much plutonium and it has been given a negative value ie a liability. So I think we can safely say that the current interest in nuclear reactors is not driven by military purpose.

It would indeed be very interesting if we could work out the cost/kWh to the consumer/taxpayer and the cost per household bill - to compare with renewables.

[martin]

I have a feeling that would be nigh on impossible - firstly there are the shifting sands of time to consider - new nukes won't realistically be producing in less than 10 years (if ever! ), during which time so much will have changed (and in 8 years time we'll be down to 30% of the present nuke capacity), and many renewable technologies are still being developed or becoming mainstream - in theory the costs of pv should have fallen a great deal, as should the cost of windfarms, nukes historically have never survived without hefty state subsidies, and recent evidence shows costs are rising exponentially (and how come noone ever seems to take note of the likely costs of nuclear fuel in the years to come - it's getting scarce, so.........)
Then there's the "who's figures do we use?" problem - as there is so much money to be made in providing power, many people are involved in "creative accountancy" to make their own pet technologies look cheaper/more effective/safer etc etc etc..... Which I think can be summed up by saying "which figures for Chernobyl deaths are correct?" - on one hand the nuke lobby will tell us it was about 3 people, others will suggest hundreds of thousands........

[M]

Recently looking Sizewell B up on Wikipedia. Yeah I know, but you've got to start somewhere.

That site claims a cost of 6p/kWh, or 8p/kWh if future financing costs are included.

Not sure if this helps, but hitting a brick wall, is an understatement.

A £8k 4kWp PV system plus 2 replacement inverters should give

£10k / (4,000kwh's pa x 40 years x 90% (efficiency loss of panels))

£10k / 144,000kwh's = 6.95p/kwh

Mart.

[Ted]

Here is the most recent (2009) authoritative report I have been able to find that includes nuclear costs:

http://www.energy.ca.gov/2009publications/CEC-200-2009-017/CEC-200-2009-017-SF.PDF

For a quick summary have a look at Table 5 on p38.

[billi]

Mart

Recently looking Sizewell B up on Wikipedia. Yeah I know, but you've got to start somewhere.

That site claims a cost of 6p/kWh, or 8p/kWh if future financing costs are included.

Not sure if this helps, but hitting a brick wall, is an understatement.

A £8k 4kWp PV system plus 2 replacement inverters should give

£10k / (4,000kwh's pa x 40 years x 90% (efficiency loss of panels))

£10k / 144,000kwh's = 6.95p/kwh

Mart.

I would say for big PV Installs ,  you should  use numbers in the region  under   £ 1.5 k  per 1 Kwp  nowadays  , but your  4,000kwh's pa was a bit optimistic  as well  

Saying this , i know people that  manage     for under £1k   per Kwp  for all the gear ( self-install ex Vat)   grid connected   on their house roof ....

But not MCS country 





Billi

[M]

Cheers Billi, you're right of course, but if I can weasel a little, I was thinking of cherry picking the best sites today, ie optimising the kit.

Only guesses, but do you think these two examples are reasonable (not necessarily correct, just reasonable).

1. Commercial today (Tesco's, B&Q etc)

40kWp optimised location and orientation, £60K

40,000kWh's pa, 100% consumption, savings 10p / kWh = £4k

£4k/£60k = 6.7% savings (+ greenwash, depreciation)

2. Domestic, future (5 years)

4kWp £5k + £2k (future inverters)

£7k / (3,600kWh's pa x 40 years x 90% (efficiency loss of panels))

£7k / 129,600 = 5.4p

Just playing with numbers, hope I'm not wasting anyones time, but I find the potential fascinating.

Mart.

[Ted]

Recent DECC reports on generation costs - http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/about/ec_social_res/analytic_projs/gen_costs/gen_costs.aspx

[billi]

Cant find a reverence   , but what will be the cost of a wind and/or kwh be in case  now one can consume it ?  Minus  , nil cents ? ....

So these free units will be sent  for example to Norway ,,, and then with high profit sold back to us , while the big companies did a deal upfront  and agreed on a fixed tariff , while we pay for wind and PV expansion 

Billi

[DominicJ]

Nuclear reactors were certainly developed in the past to produce bombs, but these days, there is far too much plutonium and it has been given a negative value ie a liability. So I think we can safely say that the current interest in nuclear reactors is not driven by military purpose.

It would indeed be very interesting if we could work out the cost/kWh to the consumer/taxpayer and the cost per household bill - to compare with renewables.

But a modern nuclear reactor doesnt have to produce ANY plutonium.
Thats my point.  You're comparing a weapons factory with a sideline in power generation, with an electricity generating plant.  Its apples and shoes.

Yes, the cost of decomissioning old reactors is very high, so?  What does that have to do with the cost of decomissioning new ones?
In reality, nothing, because new ones are designed with decomissioning in mind, old ones werent.

At the end of the day, right now, China is building or in the final sign off stage for 27 new reactors, the ones its building, are all in budget and ahead of schedule.  Its planning another 100 in construction by 2030.

Nuclear is here to stay, because, with the exception of hydro, on a level playing field, its the cheapest for of electricity generation bar hydro.

[Ivan]

My understanding is that ALL reactors produce plutonium, but some less than others. In any case, there always seems to be plutonium present when there's a leak! I guess there are some theoretical reactors (thorium reactor) which may not produce plutonium, but there are fundamental problems preventing their commercial use at the moment.

I would argue that the decommissioning costs of an old reactor would be a damn good place to start when pricing the decommissioning of a new reactor, in the absence of any other data. Granted, reactors could be designed to be easier/cheaper to decommission BUT, when projects like this are run by industry, which needs to focus on NOW profits, and overseen by governments who have to focus on NEXT election, it's hard to imagine that reduced decommissioning cost will be a major driving factor.

If you take any process or money-making venture, and cost in the clean-up afterwards, it is definitely a LOT less profitable. Therefore, almost without exception, the  is NOT costed in. I believe decommissioning has to be taken seriously for nuclear, as it is so very difficult to achieve and therefore costly, but realistically, I don't imagine anyone is going to take the issue seriously enough. Simply having reassurances from stakeholders that the new generation is immune to spiralling decommissioning costs when we know that the people making the statements, the shareholders of the companies running the reactors and the companies themselves are unlikely to be in existence when the chickens come home to roost, is simply not reassuring enough.

[SimonHobson]

I would argue that the decommissioning costs of an old reactor would be a damn good place to start when pricing the decommissioning of a new reactor ...

And I will disagree with that.

Having been to talks about the engineering behind such projects (you should try them, they really are quite informative), it's clear that 50 years ago there was little thought given to taking things apart. I would also point out that some of the costs are actually politically imposed.

Recently I went to a talk about future reactors, but that's a different thread. As Ivan says, China is busy building reactors, and four in particular are of direct interest to us because they are the same design that's being offered by one of the consortia to be built here. There are four Westinghouse AP1000 plants under construction in China - on budget and on target for (IIRC) a tad over 5 years from turning sod to turning out power. Unfortunately for us, the consortium proposing to build them here comprises German companies and there is more than a hint that the German government is pressurising them to have nothing to do with nuclear.

Anyway, there was some discussion about decommissioning, and there was an interesting tidbit from the speaker about decommissioning plans for the Magnox stations. The original plan was along the lines of (OK, somewhat oversimplified) :
Shut down and leave for a while to cool off. After a few months a lot of the worst radiation will have gone. Then de-fuel - which removes the bulk of the radioactivity.
Remove all the ancilliary buildings (not irradiated, so really just normal civil engineering) to leave just the primary containment (about the size of a house).
Encase this "house" in concrete and leave it for 70 years. Post a few guards to stop the kids plastering it with graffity - but otherwise it's not a risk to anyone. After 70 years it will have naturally decayed in activity to the point where people can cut a hole in the side, walk in, and pick up the graphite blocks. Ie, there's really no radiation left to worry about.

So really, apart form the fuel, there was never really any radiation problem to be dealt with.

But politics comes into play, and shortsighted people (groups I won't name) have effectively forced the politicians into "doing something" - and so there is more material to be dealt with (requiring work on "active" material). Hence costs are vastly increased.

Note that this is completely separate to issues of dealing with the old research reactors, military stuff, and so on.