[SystemSafety] nuclear energy - disparate policies?

Tue Oct 29 21:32:46 CET 2013

Leaving aside technology maturity there's an unstated false dichotomy in
the argument that it's all X or all Y.

Back in the 80s David Collingridge pointed out that when we try to regulate
new technologies we run into a paradox. Early on we can change things but
lack the knowledge of what's important, later on we have the knowledge but
it becomes very difficult to do so due to cost, incumbency and other 'you
can't get there from here' type issues. See PWR technology as a classic
example.

He recommended 'corrigibility' as a solution, which basically means taking
small steps which can easily be reversed while keeping your options open.
There's a cost to this of course.

In energy policy that translates to maintaining a balanced portfolio of
energy sources, as for example the Swedes and Danes have, so that if you
don't like a particular technology you can divest, which they are. Compare
that to Frances near full commitment to the nuclear fuel cycle for
electricity generation, or my own country Australia's historical answer to
energy (burn more coal).

Comparatively the divest costs will be  much less in the first scenario,
and in the second, well you may not actually be able to get off the hook if
you think about the shutdown/care taking costs and time frames.

The same principal should probably (definitely) be applied to the portfolio
of new alternative energy technologies coming on stream as well, noting the
limits of our powers of prediction.

Matthew Squair

MIEAust, CPEng
http://criticaluncertainties.com

On 30 Oct 2013, at 5:14 am, Mike Ellims <michael.ellims at tesco.net> wrote:

Well this is one way to waste an afternoon.. here goes.

Peter Bishop wrote:

I attended a talk recently where the speaker contended that most energy
technologies

do not  scale to meet total world need sustainably

- solar panels ditto

Actually silicon solar panels are not a problem, the US DoE SunShot Report
from Feb 2012 states...

   Crystalline silicon feedstocks are virtually unlimited. However, silver,
which is
   currently used for contacts, has some limitation. If different contact
materials are
   used, such as nickel-copper (which is currently under development), the
c-Si supply
   is virtually unconstrained. The glass, steel, and aluminum used as
encapsulation and
   support structures are not subject to rigid supply constraints, but
their costs will be tied    to changing commodity prices.

   Material shortages are a concern for several semiconductor    materials
used in some
   thin-film, concentrating, and emerging PV technologies: tellurium in
CdTe; indium,
   selenium, and gallium used in CIGS; indium, germanium, and gallium used
in some
   III-V multijunction cells; and ruthenium, sometimes used in
dye-sensitized PV cells.

   Conductive materials may also be a concern in the longer term, including
molybdenum used for    CIGS PV contacts. Of these, the primary concerns are
the
   tellurium supply for CdTe and the indium supply for CIGS; thus, this
discussion
   focuses on these two materials.

I wonder what will happen to Germany with 80% renewable on a very cold week
in winter,

with no sun and a high anticyclone. And if it were to last 10 or 15 days?

To which peter replied...

Batteries.

If you follow the literature, there are lots of solutions (and one B Gates
seems to have his finger in a lot of the pies) some a bit more "out there"
than others...
The Germans are working on using excess power to produce methane which can
of course be stored until it needed. They estimate you could store 3 months
worth of energy using the existing infrastructure. They also plan to float
a "mountain" on hydraulic fluid and store energy as gravitational potential.

In England they are a number of different types of thermal storage in, or
going into demonstration stages (multi MwH), one with very high round trip
efficiencies. A spin off from MIT has a demonstrator on line that works on
similar principles using compressed air above ground. The advantage of
these systems are they use existing technology and can be scaled to 100's
MW.

In California there is a proposal to use hills, railway lines and some very
heavy trains that are wound up the hill... and mirroring the German
mountain moving idea one company is proposing to use large blocks of
concrete in holes in the ground.

Another part of the solution is grid interconnects, the latest idea is a 5
GW DC link between Scotland and Iceland - where they have more power than
they know what to do with. In a similar manner the Danes plan to ship
excess wind power to Norway and import hydro.

As Peter pointed out there seem to be a lot of options with batteries with
all sorts of weird and wonderful chemistries approaching market.

Then there is bio-mass, waste to energy, geothermal, wave power and tidal.
Then there is of course the enormous resource of hot air generated on
safety critical mailing lists!

;-)

John Downer wrote... ( and I need to type faster)

What about 'carbon-capture-and-storage' (ie: 'clean coal')? It's hugely
expensive right

now (about as much as nuclear, as I understand it), but it's had a fraction
of nuclear's

investment and it carries a fraction of the risks.

The American Coal industry has publically stated that it's a technology
that will never be economically feasible - just after Obama directed the
EPA to form new rules on CO2 emissions that mandates it for new coal
plants. This is despite say for years that it would be the answer to the
Co2 problem...

The main issue isn't the lack of ideas or technology, it's the lack of
finance, imagination and will (except in Germany and China). Despite that,
Deutsche Bank has increased their estimate for solar installations for 2014
from 35 GW (July) to 50 GW in the last week.

This is fun, isn't it.
Cheers

Dr Michael Ellims

-----Original Message-----
From: systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de [
mailto:systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de<systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de>]
On Behalf Of John Downer
Sent: 29 October 2013 18:00
To: Jan Sanders
Cc: systemsafety at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
Subject: Re: [SystemSafety] nuclear energy - disparate policies?

Stepping back from questions of practicality for a second, I think it is
equally important to remember the other side of the equation as well:

Whilst people look with horror at the accidents in Nuclear plants what

is the death and injury toll from coal oil and gas industries?  I

would suggest much higher, it is not just at the power plants but the
obtaining the raw fuel to

start with.    A helicopter full of people was lost only a month or two ago

in the North sea en route to an oil rig.

Tragic as the loss of a helicopter is, the official Japanese Diet report
into Fukushima concluded that they genuinely came close to having to
evacuate Tokyo, perhaps permanently. (ie: if the spent fuel pool above the
ruined Unit 4 had drained and started to burn.) Something the (then) prime
minister and other high-placed members of the Japanese cabinet have since
reaffirmed repeatedly.

Let's set aside the (hugely contested) dangers of radiation and just focus
on the economics. 35 million people live in Tokyo. It's a hub of the world
economy. I don't want to sound hyperbolic but I struggle to imagine any
coal, oil, gas or indeed helicopter accident that could even hope to touch
a nuclear accident in terms of potential blowback.

Compared to this, the logistics of making renewables work seem like
problems worth tackling.

John

ps: What about 'carbon-capture-and-storage' (ie: 'clean coal')? It's hugely
expensive right now (about as much as nuclear, as I understand it), but
it's had a fraction of nuclear's investment and it carries a fraction of
the risks.

----------
Dr. John Downer
Global Insecurities Centre.
School of Sociology Politics and International Studies (SPAIS).
University of Bristol.
UK

On Oct 29, 2013, at 1:07 PM, Jan Sanders <jsanders at TechFak.Uni-Bielefeld.DE>
wrote:

Hello All,

On 29.10.2013 17:25, Peter Bernard Ladkin wrote:

On 10/29/13 5:16 PM, Thierry.Coq at dnv.com wrote:

I wonder what will happen to Germany with 80% renewables on a very cold
week in winter, with no sun and a high anticyclone. And if it were to last
10 or 15 days?

Batteries.

We'll be able to plug our electric cars into our houses and power

them until the sun comes out.

I doubt that, even if there is enough storage capacity for 15 days or more
in car batteries for the whole of Germany. - It would immobilize the
electric car fleet.

- You cannot force car owners to plug their car into the grid (Unless you
formally declare a crisis, which has never been done in Germany.
Enforcement is another problem.).

- The German state is obliged to provide "Daseinsvorsorge". It means that
the state has to make sure that all citizens receive basic public services.
Electricity is a basic public service, others for example are drinking
water, public transportation or health care. Most basic public services are
provided by private companies, but the state is ultimately responsible.
That is one of the tasks of German regulating offices for these basic
public services.

- Without the ability to reliably plug all the electric cars into the gird
there is little alternative to keeping operational reserves. These may be
batteries or pump-stations, but also fossil fuel powered plants.

- "Daseinsvorsorge" means that you cannot leave people on their own (no
car? no electricity!), so IMO on a "very cold week in winter, with no sun
and a high anticyclone" the gas turbines will most likely be running.

Mitsubishi claims it can do two days already on a full charge. To the

power companies at the moment, that is anathema; the grid

infrastructure is not made for it and could not cope. But that can

change too.

The current aim improve German electricity grid infrastructure improvement
(Engergiewende) aims at reducing the operational reserve. I would think
that thousands of electic cars coming and going is not really going to
reduce the need for operational reserve.

And insulation.

The family of my heating engineer lives in a house of which the

heating costs are (he claims) €100 per year. Biomass energy. And lots

of conservation measures. It's not for everyone - small rooms;

recirculated air through filters. But there are sixty-six years in

which to make it better.

What about industry?

Jan

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