Does nuclear power cost massive billion gov subsidies?

[vanesch]

Assuming nuclear power takes on this load along with the load from station fossil fuel power, would the cost of waste per kg decrease by sharing fixed costs or would it increase similarly to economies of scale of precious materials?

I don't have any numbers, so this is some general answer, but waste treatment will drop seriously in cost by upscaling, until a certain (large) capacity is reached, I would guess. The reason is that a single reprocessing facility, or a single repository, can in principle deal with the spend fuel from several tens of plants. For instance, France has one single reprocessing factory (La Hague) for its entire fleet, and has several foreign customers too (Germany used to be a customer until they decided for political reasons not to reprocess anymore).

Also, I think that if you go for geological disposal, all the research needed to make sure that the geology is suited and so on needs to be spread over a substantial use of that knowledge, meaning, once you've found a suited geological structure (which is the hardest part), you can just as well use it for a large repository than for a small one. Again, we are talking on the scale of several tens of power plants.

I consider this BTW as one of the most serious drawbacks of nuclear power: it only makes sense on a large scale, and on relatively long times. It is not something that is suited to small scale, and whimsical change of mind.

 

[mheslep]

...I consider this BTW as one of the most serious drawbacks of nuclear power: it only makes sense on a large scale, and on relatively long times. It is not something that is suited to small scale, and whimsical change of mind.

Is 'commitment' a more appropriate term than scale? Yes the commercial power utilities are driven to large scale probably because of the regulatory hurdles and resulting costs (in the US anyway), but obviously the military continues to operate smaller naval reactors (~100MW?).

 

[mheslep]

... Just using some very rough hand calculations and some numbers from 2004 I calculated the US uses about 8 trillion kWh's of energy to power our cars, trucks, and airplanes for an entire year. Assuming nuclear power takes on this load

I'd scratch airplanes:
One large airport = 50 jumbo jets/day, 130ton jetfuel each.
Replace w/ 50t each liquid H2 obtained from electrolysis, requires 8GWe + 22,500M^3 water/day, all dedicated to the airport. That is: eight dedicated 1GWe nuclear reactors per airport.
http://www.efcf.com/reports/E22.pdf

 

[signerror]

Note that you don't see 10 GW plants either (yet ?).

"Output: 8,212MW"

http://www.power-technology.com/projects/kashiwazaki/

There have been designs for smaller nuclear power plants like the 4S of Toshiba (on which a hoax is based of your private nuke in your basement), which taps more in the 10 MW range. So all this is possible (at least on paper).

I think that is very interesting. At that scale (10 MWe), you could have tiny reactors all over the place - apartment buildings, communities, villages - and cogeneration would become very cheap.

Looking up some space-satellite reactors (not RTGs - fission reactors), they go down to 30 kW thermal. Not very economic I imagine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNAP-10A

 

[signerror]

I'd scratch airplanes:
One large airport = 50 jumbo jets/day, 130ton jetfuel each.
Replace w/ 50t each liquid H2 obtained from electrolysis, requires 8GWe + 22,500M^3 water/day, all dedicated to the airport. That is: eight dedicated 1GWe nuclear reactors per airport.
http://www.efcf.com/reports/E22.pdf

Not so fast. 6,500 tons of jet fuel costs something like $2.5 million. Every day.

http://www.iata.org/whatwedo/economics/fuel_monitor/index.htm

Under optimistic economics, if new reactors go down to $1/W(e), then the cost of 8 GWe is something like $8 billion up front. Over an optimistic 100 year lifetime, they will yield the equivalent of $92 billion of jet fuel.

Current costs are somewhere between $2-3/W(e), and lifetimes (?) 40-80 years. That is still a pretty big profit margin, if the other costs of hydrogen production are low.

Anyway, the important thing is the relevant quantities here, costs per unit energy, are intensive, not extensive. If hydrogen can feasibly replace petroleum in a small car, then all other things being equal, a thousand times more hydrogen can replace a thousand times more petroleum in a jet airplane. Pointing to the incredible scale of jet airplanes is not an argument against their use of nuclear hydrogen - it is perhaps a fallacy.

 

[Mister V]

I think the thing that makes most private companies that don't already own a set of nuclear power plants, hesitate to do so, is the fear of red tape, and ultimately the fear of not being able to use their investment fully. For nuclear, you pay upfront, and you get your money through the lifetime of the plant. As there is, in many countries, a political uncertainty about the possibility of using nuclear power (phase outs decided in certain countries for instance) this means that you might have to close down - for political reasons - a plant that didn't come through its lifetime ; or not even be able to start it up. That's too much of a risk for many private companies. If it is a state-owned company, that's less of a problem, because then the state (and hence the people) is responsible for its own decisions.

I'm not a physicist, so I won't argue about the physical topics.
I am an economist, though, and here's my 2 cents on the economical subject.

You're statement is correct, but not complete. You have to add the risk related to advancing technology and changing economic circumstances and time-value of money (not the same as inflation)

In financing projects, a lot of projects are decided using NPV (net present value), payback period, ... . These techniques always have one thing in common: money gained in a few years is worth considerably less than the same amount of money payed now. In this view, projects with a long lifespan - and therefor, long payback period - are always considered a lot more of a risk than projects with shorter lifespans, even though the former might be more profitable. The same goes for costs: costs paid in the future are "worth" less money than the same costs paid now.
If you combine this with political instability, advancing technology and changing economic circumstances, you get a bit of a nasty business project. Nuclear power requires a lot of capital investment, and lower operational costs. This is, economically speaking, a huge disadvantage to for example gas or fossil fuel plants. This is the main reason why nuclear power plant might need some form of government intervention.

I hope my English is somewhat readable, since it isn't my first language.

 

[russ_watters]

I thought mheslep made a good point. We are talking about thermal energy, not electricity...

Consider this scenario where a community that needs 1000MW of heat and 500 MW of electricity. If fossil fuels are used to meet this need, a total of 2500MW of fossil fueled heat is needed. If co-generation is used, I build a 500 MWe fossil fuel plant that uses 1500 MW of heat and I use the waste heat for heating. I save 1000 MW of fossil fuel.

It is a valid point, but analyzing cogeneration is pretty complicated, as the infrastructure to distribute the heat simply doesn't exist. Because of that problem, cogen is rarely viable, which is why it is only typically used in large corporate or university campuses.

 

[mheslep]

Not so fast. 6,500 tons of jet fuel costs something like $2.5 million. Every day.

http://www.iata.org/whatwedo/economics/fuel_monitor/index.htm

Under optimistic economics, if new reactors go down to $1/W(e), then the cost of 8 GWe is something like $8 billion up front. Over an optimistic 100 year lifetime, they will yield the equivalent of $92 billion of jet fuel.

Current costs are somewhere between $2-3/W(e), and lifetimes (?) 40-80 years. That is still a pretty big profit margin, if the other costs of hydrogen production are low.

?
Current new plant capital costs are at least $6/W(e).

Levelized nuclear energy cost (per kW-hour): 6 cents amortized plant capital + 1 cent O&M + 0.5 cents fuel + 2.5 cents transmission and distribution = ~10cents/kW-hour. For these dedicated-to-H2 reactors assume no trans/dist, so 7.5cents/kW-hour.
8GW*24hr/day*$0.075/kw-hr=$14.4M/day electrical costs (6x jetfuel cost), and we still have to address that huge daily water demand. This isn't really a comment about nuclear power, it is more about problems of using hydrogen as a fuel, so I'll drop this here.

 

[mheslep]

It is a valid point, but analyzing cogeneration is pretty complicated, as the infrastructure to distribute the heat simply doesn't exist. Because of that problem, cogen is rarely viable, which is why it is only typically used in large corporate or university campuses.

+New York City, 105mi of steam mains.
http://www.coned.com/steam/pdf/Steam_ops_overview.pdf

 

[signerror]

?
Current new plant capital costs are at least $6/W(e).

Oh my!

France, Flamanville #3 (EPR):

State-owned electricity giant EDF is already building an EPR in the north of France, near Flamanville, which will have capacity of 1,650 megawatts. It will now cost 4 billions euros ($5.20 billion), at 2008 euros, after an upward revision of the 3.3 billion euro initial budget.

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/afx/2009/01/22/afx5951077.html

$3.15/W(e)
China, Tianwan #1 & #2 (VVER):

The two generators at Tianwan are expected to produce 2.12 MW each year for east China, which boasts the fastest economic growth in the country.

The construction of Tianwan Nuclear Power Station began in 1999 and has cost 26.5 billion yuan (3.3 billion US dollars). Both generators feature Russian pressurized-water technology.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-05/13/content_4542917.htm

$1.56/W(e)

Levelized nuclear energy cost (per kW-hour): 6 cents amortized plant capital + 1 cent O&M + 0.5 cents fuel + 2.5 cents transmission and distribution = ~10cents/kW-hour. For these dedicated-to-H2 reactors assume no trans/dist, so 7.5cents/kW-hour.
8GW*24hr/day*$0.075/kw-hr=$14.4M/day electrical costs (6x jetfuel cost), and we still have to address that huge daily water demand.

One levelized cost I found, from the (UK) Royal Academy of Engineering, is 3.4c/kWh, half yours.

http://www.raeng.org.uk/news/publications/list/default.htm?Text=Costs+of+generating+electricity+report+&Publication=&Search=Yes

Also, I think thermochemical hydrogen generation is far more efficient than electrolysis.

 

[mheslep]

For comparison I am using 2008 dollars:

France, Flamanville #3 (EPR):
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/afx/2009/01/22/afx5951077.html
$3.15/W(e)

That's Flamanville 3, an addition to an existing site, so I'd expect some discount. Still good to have cost data.

One levelized cost I found, from the (UK) Royal Academy of Engineering, is 3.4c/kWh, half yours.

Taiwan numbers interesting.

I usually go here:
http://web.mit.edu/nuclearpower/
Table 5.1, 40yr economic life, 85% capacity factor, 2003 dollars,
Nuclear 6.7 cents/kWe-hr
and assume the 2003 MIT numbers are a little conservative after going here:
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/newsarticle.aspx?id=24250

 

[signerror]

The MIT study is for US reactors, which I understand are much more costly than anywhere else, even Western Europe. I'm not sure why that is.

Another US study (Univ. of Chicago) says 3.1c-4.6c/kWh range, for Nth-of-a-kind new reactors:

Economics of Deploying the Next Series of Nuclear Plants

• With the benefit of the experience from the first few plants, LCOEs are
expected to fall to the range of $31 to $46 per MWh; no continued financial
assistance is required at this level.

http://www.nuclear.gov/np2010/reports/NuclIndustryStudy-Summary.pdf

That's Flamanville 3, an addition to an existing site, so I'd expect some discount. Still good to have cost data.

Well, you get a new reactor and a new steam turbine. Seems meaningful.

 

[mheslep]

Another US study (Univ. of Chicago) says 3.1c-4.6c/kWh range, for Nth-of-a-kind new reactors:

http://www.nuclear.gov/np2010/reports/NuclIndustryStudy-Summary.pdf

Thanks, had not seen this

 

[mheslep]

MIT just released an http://web.mit.edu/nuclearpower/pdf/nuclearpower-update2009.pdf" for instance.

Points of interest:
-Tthey claim a doubling of the overnight capital cost of nuclear from $2k/kW (2003) to $4k/kW(now), fuel costs increased by ~one-third, resulting in a new base energy cost of $0.08/kWh, making nuclear (as in 2003 ) more expensive than coal or gas. They state that some form of carbon tax would change that cost order. (Table 1)

-Japanese incurred fairly high costs in starting a reprocessing plant: $25B for an $800tonne/yr plant. (Note 19)

-U ore supply still good to supply 1000 new reactors for another 'half century' (pg 12)

-Non-proliferation. Update ... lists enrichment and reprocessing as the 'most sensitive' areas, and they're still particularly concerned about how these would be handled by developing nations. (As am I) Update ... positively notes that the idea that the current nuclear supplier states offer all the fuel services to these countries was advanced by the US in 2005 G-8 meeting. They also predict that "the closed-fuel cycle vision ... will be more expensive than today's once through fuel cycle.." (pg 16) ? My take is that this must partly because little cost is currently assigned to permanent waste disposal.

-R&D. Update ... notes that the 2003 report recommended focusing on LWRs and HTGRs, but they note that the DOE has emphasized GenIV research. The GenIV program includes some HTGR money w/ a focus on H2 generation from thermal generation alone.

 

[talk2glenn]

The MIT study is for US reactors, which I understand are much more costly than anywhere else, even Western Europe. I'm not sure why that is.

Infrastructure costs. The US does not have any existing capacity to build commercial reactors. The reactors and supporting structures would need to be either imported, at huge expense, or new production facilities established domestically.

This represents a huge initial cost for any new domestic nuclear plants, but could be amortized over the life of a viable programs, reducing long-run costs but necessitating some kind of short-run government intervention. The same phenomenon is observed in large military projects (since assembly infrastructure is often program-unique), and is why the Navy makes sure it is always building at least one capital ship at any given time.

For perspective, Palo Verde NGS in Arizona had to bring its new reactor from Korea, I believe, by ship to Mexico and then overland. Hugely expensive. The only people building commercial reactors (and/or capable of building them) are the Europeans, and the East Asians. Maybe the Russians?

 

[gmax137]

...For perspective, Palo Verde NGS in Arizona had to bring its new reactor from Korea, I believe, by ship to Mexico and then overland. Hugely expensive...

This is almost complete rubbish. PVNGS doesn't have any 'new reactor,' rather, the steam generators were replaced. Those units were manufactured by Ansaldo in Milan, Italy, not in Korea. Yes, they were hauled overland through Mexico. Hugely expensive? I don't know how much of the cost went into transport, but I suspect it wasn't a 'huge' proportion of the total fabrication cost. And it probably wasn't a lot more than the transport cost of the original SGs, which were built in Chattanooga. There is no river or barge canal to Buckeye, AZ, so hauling overland is required no matter where they are built.

 

[QuantumPion]

Dry storage casks are manufactured overseas (Japan, Germany) and shipped to plants all over the country on a regular basis. And they are quite large, comparable to a reactor vessel.

 

[mheslep]

Infrastructure costs. The US does not have any existing capacity to build commercial reactors.

I believe that's largely overstated. The lack of capacity as I understand it extends only to the large steel casting for the reactor vessel itself, a significant but still small fraction of the entire nuclear facility.

Given the much lower reported nuclear plant costs in China, I attribute much of the US high costs to regulatory hurdles, legal challenges,and a lack of a coordinated waste containment plan, all of which delay and extend US plant concept-to-production time out over ten years.

 

[talk2glenn]

This is almost complete rubbish. PVNGS doesn't have any 'new reactor,' rather, the steam generators were replaced. Those units were manufactured by Ansaldo in Milan, Italy, not in Korea. Yes, they were hauled overland through Mexico. Hugely expensive? I don't know how much of the cost went into transport, but I suspect it wasn't a 'huge' proportion of the total fabrication cost. And it probably wasn't a lot more than the transport cost of the original SGs, which were built in Chattanooga. There is no river or barge canal to Buckeye, AZ, so hauling overland is required no matter where they are built.

You are correct; it was steam generators, not reactors, that were shipped from Milan for Palo Verde. But the Koreans contributed reactor vessel heads for a separate project, not the reactors themselves - sorry for the mistake. And even if you could make them here, the steel is all over the world (Pittsburgh isn't what it once was), which creates its own set of problems.

My point still stands - nobody can make either the reactors or the supporting structures domestically. The cost of shipping them, importing them, licensing them etcetera is extremely high (practically prohibitive). It would be substantially cheaper to acquire them domestically, or even from the Canadians, but the startup costs are a huge entry barrier unless you can guarantee significant long-term demand.

This is a huge part of the startup costs in any new site construction, and was a controversial aspect of the Palo Verde expansion project at the time it first crossed the AZ Corporation Commission. Given the industrial scale of nuclear projects, they may not be practical in the post-Industrial US without dramatic circumstance changes.

 

[QuantumPion]

You are correct; it was steam generators, not reactors, that were shipped from Milan for Palo Verde. But the Koreans contributed reactor vessel heads for a separate project, not the reactors themselves - sorry for the mistake. And even if you could make them here, the steel is all over the world (Pittsburgh isn't what it once was), which creates its own set of problems.

My point still stands - nobody can make either the reactors or the supporting structures domestically. The cost of shipping them, importing them, licensing them etcetera is extremely high (practically prohibitive). It would be substantially cheaper to acquire them domestically, or even from the Canadians, but the startup costs are a huge entry barrier unless you can guarantee significant long-term demand.

This is a huge part of the startup costs in any new site construction, and was a controversial aspect of the Palo Verde expansion project at the time it first crossed the AZ Corporation Commission. Given the industrial scale of nuclear projects, they may not be practical in the post-Industrial US without dramatic circumstance changes.

I'm sorry but you are flat out wrong. We ship large components overseas all the time, the cost is not prohibitive and is in no way the limiting factor for new plant construction. My bet is that when new plant construction starts, they would actually prefer to buy a vessel from e.g. Japan whom already has the facilities and the experience making vessels, as opposed to being the first customer of a brand new domestic supplier. The wait time for the manufacture of a vessel can add a delay to the plant construction time but this is already taken into account in the planning stages.

The major limiting factor to new plant construction right now are economic factors. No one is in a hurry to build a multi-billion dollar nuke plant when electricity demand is stable and natural gas is so cheap. Furthermore there is all of the uncertainty in the economy, and in the spent fuel issue as well.

 

[mheslep]

You are correct; it was steam generators, not reactors, that were shipped from Milan for Palo Verde. But the Koreans contributed reactor vessel heads for a separate project, not the reactors themselves - sorry for the mistake. And even if you could make them here, the steel is all over the world (Pittsburgh isn't what it once was), which creates its own set of problems.

My point still stands - nobody can make either the reactors or the supporting structures domestically. The cost of shipping them, importing them, licensing them etcetera is extremely high (practically prohibitive). It would be substantially cheaper to acquire them domestically, or even from the Canadians, but the startup costs are a huge entry barrier unless you can guarantee significant long-term demand.

This is a huge part of the startup costs in any new site construction, and was a controversial aspect of the Palo Verde expansion project at the time it first crossed the AZ Corporation Commission. Given the industrial scale of nuclear projects, they may not be practical in the post-Industrial US without dramatic circumstance changes.

Talk2glenn, when you make a mistake it would help your argument and the discussion in general if you went in the direction of additional support via reliable sources instead of more unsupported adjectives and superlatives ('all over', 'nobody', 'extremely high', 'huge', 'dramatic')

 

[Astronuc]

Here is an attempt at establish a cost of a new plant.

http://nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/WebHomeCostOfNuclearPower

The numbers may have been OK 8 or 10 years ago, but new plants are running about $5-7 billion per unit, and probably closer to $7 billion.

As far as I know, the licensing cost is less than 1% of the plant cost. On the other hand, all of the components are fabricated under a QC/QA system that is more rigorous than typical commercial goods, and hence the components are costly. Of course, we're asking for essentially zero failures - just like we want zero failures in jet engines, landing gear, bridges, dams, and other critical systems.

To my knowledge, AREVA and probably Shaw/Westinghouse are planning to qualify US facilities for N-stamp heavy forgings.

 

[mheslep]

Here is an attempt at establish a cost of a new plant.

http://nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/WebHomeCostOfNuclearPower

The numbers may have been OK 8 or 10 years ago, but new plants are running about $5-7 billion per unit, and probably closer to $7 billion.

As far as I know, the licensing cost is less than 1% of the plant cost.

If we credit the licensing, regulatory and legal challenge environment for pushing the concept to operation period to ten years, the construction period from 3 to 7 years (as detailed in the Case charts in the above source), we see that the resulting extended periods are responsible for a large fraction of overall cost, in part due to the long term financing required.

 

[Astronuc]

If we credit the licensing, regulatory and legal challenge environment for pushing the concept to operation period to ten years, the construction period from 3 to 7 years (as detailed in the Case charts in the above source), we see that the resulting extended periods are responsible for a large fraction of overall cost, in part due to the long term financing required.

The cost of licensing is somewhat difficult to allocate to a specific unit, except for the unit specific application.

A new reactor design, e.g., AP1000, EPR, ABWR is certified (licensed) by the NRC. The vendor and maybe utilities in a user/affinity group bear the cost (it's basically R&D overhead). The DOE may kick in some money. The NSSS wants to recoup that expense ASAP.

Then there is the specific ESP (site specific) and COL (unit specific). Those are borne by the utility.

From what I've seen, the cost of steel, concrete and energy has driven up the cost of materials, and that has contributed to a substantial increase in the cost of plants. Of course, labor costs are considerable too.

It is hoped that new plants will be built in about 5 years or 60 months, but we've already seen problems with EPR in France and Finland. The cost of the twin ABWRs at STNP has risen dramatically, and AFAIK now stands at around $14 billion or $7B/unit, up from about $10B or $5B/unit, which was up from earlier estimates.

Vogtle 3&4 are on track - but time will tell. Other potential units, Levy 1&2, have been deferred based on cost.
Progress ups Levy nuclear plant costs, delays start (May 6, 2010)
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN0611303620100506
Levy to cost $17.2 billion to $22.5 billion
That's not going to fly.

 

[mheslep]

From what I've seen, the cost of steel, concrete and energy has driven up the cost of materials, and that has contributed to a substantial increase in the cost of plants.

Yes, though not as much as two years ago. Regardless, the price of those commodities is global, yet the new plant costs in Asia are a fraction of what it is here. Labor of course will have local costs.

Vogtle 3&4 are on track - but time will tell.

My point above was that, if we asked the Vogtle developers, "Aside from design and land, are you expenditures so far simply the licensing fees paid to the NRC?". The answer is of course no. I'm aware they had at least one time consuming legal challenge already from something like "The Concerned Women of Georgia". That challenge had to be heard, for some ridiculous reason, by the NRC. Through delays like this the developer must have no choice but to keep designers and related staff on hand, available to support and monitor the NRC proceedings, though there's no actual real progress possible in the new plant.

Progress ups Levy nuclear plant costs, delays start (May 6, 2010)
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN0611303620100506
Levy to cost $17.2 billion to $22.5 billion
That's not going to fly.

Agreed

 

[gmax137]

... But the Koreans contributed reactor vessel heads for a separate project, not the reactors themselves - sorry for the mistake ...

The cost of shipping them, importing them, licensing them etcetera is extremely high (practically prohibitive). It would be substantially cheaper to acquire them domestically, or even from the Canadians, but the startup costs are a huge entry barrier unless you can guarantee significant long-term demand.

This is a huge part of the startup costs in any new site construction, and was a controversial aspect of the Palo Verde expansion project at the time it first crossed the AZ Corporation Commission ...

I don't want to yammer on about this (the shipping issue), but you should really take a look at some of the big stuff that gets moved. Take a look at the website for outfits like Fagioli or Bigge. Their business is moving really big things, and some of them are thousands of tons, compared to hundreds of tons for NSSS components.

With respect to the reactor vessel heads, take a look at the blurb about the Salem head here:

http://www.fagioli.com/multimedia/newsletter/newsletter_02.pdf

The head was shipped - by air - then hauled from the airport to the Salem site. Yes, an Antonov 124 is a big plane, but still. Shipping is not as big a part of the project as you seem to think.

 

[Astronuc]

Speaking of large forgings, there's a qualified shop in Delaware.
http://www.amerindustrial.com/press1.htm

AIT manufactures pressure vessels and tanks for the nuclear power industry, petrochemical industry, national laboratories, and more industries. With over 30 years of experience, we are experts in the design, engineering, and manufacturing of ASME Code Pressure Vessels and Tanks. We can roll, machine, and fabricate heavy pressure vessels up to 80 tons in weight per piece.

In a recent add in Nuclear News, they mention the capability for 400+ Ton fabrications with diameters exceeding 30 feet and length of 130 feet.

The have the ASME Section III N stamp.