In a devastating analysis of nuclear power, Amory Lovins, head of the RockyMountain Institute in Denver, Colo., has concluded that it is the least cost-effective way to meet electricity needs, and the worst possible solution for moderating climate change.
I wish I had found his study earlier — it was published last September and updated in January — because, just maybe, a focus on it might have persuaded Queen's Park to alter its decision to spend $46 billion (at today's prices) on refurbishing and adding to Ontario's existing array of nuclear reactors.
Spending this amount of money on nuclear means there'll be precious little left to promote alternatives. The study is available athttp://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid171.php — from the library of publications choose Nuclear power: economics and climate-protection potential.
Lovins' argument is that, first, you get more bang for the buck installing alternatives. And, second, there's a long lead time for building nuclear reactors — 10 to 15 years — yet what's needed are fast and big cuts incarbon dioxide (CO{-2}) emissions. Nuclear offers too little, too late, he says.
To simplify his first point, he says that an outlay of 10 cents could deliver:
1 kilowatt hour (kWh) of electricity from a nuclear reactor (assuming that all government subsidies remained in place).
1.2 to 1.7 kWh from wind turbines (with no subsidies).
2.4 to 8.9 kWh from cogeneration (production of heat and electricity).
Up to 10 kWh of electricity by improving electricity end-use efficiency —using less electricity, often by replacing equipment, appliances, lighting and heating with more efficient alternatives, plus the reduction in demand that comes with shifting of the economy from high-demand manufacturing to lower demand businesses.
In short, he says, building nuclear reactors is uneconomic. Alternatives are leading in the global marketplace and are growing 10 times faster, he says.
Nuclear power, is "a dying industry, fading from the marketplace, overtaken and humbled by swifter rivals." In fact, it's so uncompetitive that "the trickle of orders observed worldwide all come from centrally planned electricity systems," he says. What it comes down to is this: a dollar spent on nuclear power does less to reduce CO{-2} emissions than a dollar spent on alternatives. Or, as Lovins puts it: "Every $100 invested in nuclear would effectively release an additional tonne of CO{-2} into the atmosphere.
"However, as far as climate change in concerned, that barely matters, because climate change is not going to put itself on hold while Ontario spends 10 to15 years building nuclear plants. Lovins says the main emphasis should be on improving electricity efficiency.
Ralph Torrie of ICF International in Toronto, one of Canada's top experts inenergy and conservation, calculates that between 1990 and 2004, end-use efficiency in Ontario freed up the equivalent of 5,000 megawatts of generating capacity. That's four times the amount of new generating capacity actually added during the same period. So, the potential of this alternative is enormous.
It's obvious, then, that instead of pouring money into nuclear plants, Queen's Park could meet its goals far quicker, with less risk and fewer potential problems by helping people and businesses move to greater efficiency in electricity use.
As Lovins says: "If you worry about climate change, it is essential to buy the fastest and most effective climate solutions. Nuclear power is just the opposite."
by Cameron Smith
Comments
The question is can we
The question is can we afford NOT to use nuclear in the short to medium term, it will be of little use to say in 15 years as the lights go out ‘well we should have gone with nuclear”. There is no doubt that the nuclear option is one of the most expensive both in capital cost and looong term fuel bundle storage, the possibility of radiation emissions cannot be completely ignored either. However I can see no viable alternative at this point in time.
"However, as far as climate change in concerned, that barely matters, because climate change is not going to put itself on hold while Ontario spends 10 to15 years building nuclear plants.”
Or any other initiates to reduce emissions for that matter, even if we turn thing around now it will be years before we see any improvement and we cannot in the meantime just stop driving, using hydro, or influence our neighbors to the south, as much as that may be desirable, nor can we fail to provide power for our citizens.
Many of the high profile environmentalists seem to have blinkers on and truly believe that individual energy efficiency / conservation and new “green” power such as wind and solar will enable us to not only close coal fired generating plants within 5 years but phase out nuclear in the next couple of decades. I have yet to see any believable evidence that that is the case, I will outline my view on the various options in detail and invite anyone that can give a PRACTICAL way in which we can do away with coal AND nuclear in the foreseeable future to respond.
Conservation.
No argument from me that this is one of the biggest areas where we can make some inroads, exactly how much and how fast is the debate. The current efforts seem to be mostly aimed at residential users and even those very aware of the need can only do so much unless they totally change their lifestyle, and few are willing to do that. The only way that substantial change will take place in this day and age is if there is a monetary incentive to conserve, or perhaps put more precisely, a monetary penalty for those that don’t. None of us like to see our electricity prices go up and even if they do many of us can do little to reduce our total consumption however we can change the time of day at which we use the most. The current “smart meter” initiative is a really good first step towards encouraging people to do this and reduce our PEAK load, which is where the real problem lies.
I would think by now that most readers would understand the problem with our supply problem in Ontario but will explain it here because it is VERY important to understand this. On any given day our usage go up and down depending upon who is using what and when, on particularly hot or cold days additional heating or cooling loads added to the total. This results in a peak of usage (usually around supper time) at which time the total use may exceed the AVERAGE usage by 20, 30 or even 40%. It is this PEAK that we must have sufficient generating capacity to supply on short notice, if we can move some of the peak load to other times of the day then we will require less generating capacity.
Time of Day (TOD) metering will, when fully implemented, charge considerably more for hydro used during the peak periods and considerably less for that used other times (particularly night time). The residential consumer can then chose to save money and help our supply problem by choosing to use the dryer or do their baking late in the evening, perhaps not convenient but achievable. The item that has not been pushed by proponents of this is domestic water heating, which for most households is THE biggest user of hydro. The use of a large well insulated water tank HEATED AT NIGHT and turned off (or partly off) during the day would have very little effect on the average household but save both our supply and reduce the hydro bill when on smart metering. At the present time most folk shower or bath early am and so the water heater kicks in for some time during the morning and may kick in again early evening if hot water is used for dishes or whatever, adding to the particular time of day that sees the most hydro usage.
Industry is having less an effect upon peak loads than it used to as many plant run 24/7, however the total load must still be met and how much industry can (or will) be able to save with equipment upgrades / efficiencies remains to be seen. It is commercial operations where it seems much can be done, if you have visited a typical shopping mall or passed by a large office building at night (or for that matter just viewed all the neon signs in any commercial area) you will know that the amount of hydro used for these operations make our domestic use look minor. If you add to your thoughts that most of these buildings are air conditioned 24/7, you will see that there is much to be done on the conservation front. I did hear recently that some regulations are being put in place forcing owners of large (multi story) buildings to upgrade their AC equipment to more efficient and modern standards.
We may come to a point where enforced load shedding is the conservation measure of choice. In other words the power authority would have the capability of shutting off certain non essential loads within large buildings during peak times in order to provide it to more essential loads. We may perhaps get 10 or 20% reduction in hydro use by voluntary conservation but by the time we get it done there will be corresponding increase in the number of people living here so the total demand will probably never go down. That does not mean we must not keep on trying.
Wind & Solar
There is no doubt that these means of generation can help with our BASE load, but unfortunately they are NOT available 24/7 or indeed can be guaranteed on any particular day or time and there for CANNOT totally replace traditional means of generation. To put it simply if we relied upon wind and solar to provide any part of our PEAK load with no alternative ready to come on line then on a cold winters evening with no wind some of us would be in the dark. We could of course import some from those coal fired plants in the U.S. that make our coal plants look clean by comparison! We can also reduce the output of polluting plants when wind power is available (which certainly helps) but due to the start up time cannot totally shut them down when “green” power takes up the slack.
Individuals that want to reduce their hydro BILLS may well want to look into their own wind or solar units to power at least part of their home, there are some folk that are totally “off grid” but it does require a real commitment to an independent living lifestyle to do it. Very gradually there is a move towards “reverse metering” and “microgeneration”. That is the ability for individual households with a capacity to generate 110/220 volt power to return the excess to the grid and get credit for it. I hope that we will see much more from both our hydro suppliers and our government on this, giving encouragement and information for those that wish to “hook up” their alternative power systems to the grid, but it is hard to get much detailed information on this at this time.
Water
This to me, is the biggest possible solution to our power woes. There are already a few small dams in our area producing electricity for their own use and some may even be “co generating” and providing power to the grid. Water power is generally available 24/7 which means it is able to provide for that peak load spoken about earlier, we have many small rivers with the potential to run micro generation units and in some cases the dams are already in place either from “mills” built in the late 1800s or early 1900s or flood control structures under the control of our conservation authorities. It is also about the only form of generation that can be rapidly be brought on line or shut down as required. Unfortunately both our Federal government (Dept of Fisheries and Oceans) our Provincial government (M N R) and our local Conservation Authorities seem to be actively pushing to have any and all PRIVATE dams removed from our rivers and make it next to impossible to even consider developing a new hydro electric site. Environmentalists will say that dams affect fish habitat, that’s true to a certain extent, but which would you rather have, a quiet, clean, almost invisible, local means of supplying power, or coal power (Canadian or U.S.) or Nuclear. There are effects on our world no matter what we do, we must try and make the best PRACTACAL choice, those that would stop ANY project on the grounds that there is an environmental impact MUST consider the alternative. Is the current situation acceptable, obviously not.
Combination Wind / Water
Here a new one to think about, the problem with wind (and solar) is that one cannot store large amounts of hydro, however if one uses wind power to pump water (during off peak times) from a lower reservoir to and upper one it can then be used to generate Hydro Electric power when needed. Water would be reused and just require topping up to allow for losses and no streams would have to be impacted. I believe that there may be projects of this type somewhere in the world but cannot remember where I heard about it. This is similar to tidal power, why the project in the Bay of Fundy has not gone forward I don’t know, it would seem for costal regions there is much potential in the power of the tides.
Coal / oil / gas
There is lots of “screaming” going on about closing coal fired plants “now” but little said about how to replace the capacity “now”, we all know that as they currently exist they do have to go or be retrofitted to substantially reduce emissions. With modern technology they can probably approach that of a gas fired plant, but don’t forget that anytime you BURN any fuel you are going to produce CO2 so none of these are long term options for me. Gas may be a means to “pick up” some of the peak load at high usage time but I suspect that the cost of this fuel will also skyrocket.
Nuclear
With all of the above said, given that at this time coal and nuclear comprise over 70% of or supply, I am one of those who do not see any viable alternative to nuclear in the short to medium term particularly as our population continues to grow. Much of our existing generation capacity is old and due for replacement in some form, any of the above “green” alternatives are going to take time and effort (even if all the funding and education called for by “green” spokesmen is available) to come to fruition and may not even then reduce or cope with the peak demand.
Fudge them. That's what I
Fudge them. That's what I say.
I just signed up with Bullfrog Power. 80% of the power I pay for is low-impact Hydro, and 20% is Wind. I'd rather know my money is going there.
https://www.bullfrogpower.com
Sorry if this is too spamish, but until solar becomes efficient and cost-effective enough that we can really start taking homes off the grid, I'm happy with this alternative for now. I really don't mind paying a bit extra for this.
I'd rather have those tens of billions of dollars into green power sources instead of nuclear. That $46B could go along way to making turbines better and getting solar at the 30% mark a bit quicker.
This is an article about the solar "quantum dots" invented earlier this year at the University of Toronto:
http://www.pristineplanet.com/newsletter/2005/03.asp
This, I think is the future to our solution for our power woes. If we can get enough houses self-sufficient, and even producing extra power for the grid with solar, wind turbines and hydro should be able to cover what is left for the other homes and businesses.
But until that happens, I'll be happy paying that little bit extra to support green power.