Page 21 - Pakistan Link - August 21, 2020

COMMENTARY
n By Nayyer Ali MD
Nuclear power, developed
in the 1960’s, promised a
world in which electricity
would be “too cheap to meter”. This
glorious future ap-
peared tantalizingly
within reach in the
mid-1970’s, when
the world was in
a nuclear building
boom. 50 large reac-
tors would start con-
struction every year,
each capable of producing 1 gigawatt
(a billion watts) of electricity.
Output of power is the size of the
plant multiplied by hours of produc-
tion, so a one gigawatt nuclear plant
running for 24 hours would generated
24 gigawatt hours, and for 365 days
would do 8,760 gigawatt hours. But
nuclear went off the rails, and now is
in deep trouble.
Nuclear plants built 40 or more
years ago are reaching a point when
they need to be shut down, while new
construction has dropped to almost
nothing. Less than 5 new plants begin
construction every year worldwide,
while there are only 50 plants in the
process of being built.
Into this debate has stepped Mi-
chael Shellenberger, an advocate of nu-
clear power, who previously had been
an environmental activist for decades.
In his new book “Apocalypse Never”
which has leapt up the bestseller chart, ing nuclear plants is about the same
he argues that nuclear is the answer to
climate change, while renewables, like
solar and wind, are flawed. But his
arguments are weak and don’t make
much sense.
Shellenberger is correct that nu-
clear is a reliable producer of carbon-
free power. But his discussion leaves
out any sense of perspective or the
serious problems with nuclear power
as a solution to climate change. You
wouldn’t know from this book that
there are currently a mere 435 nuclear
reactors worldwide, 97 of which are in
the US, with a combined capacity of
370 gigawatts and producing 10% of
world electricity. But there are only
46 new plants under construction, 27
of which are facing significant delays
(the average time to build a plant is
10 years). Even China has cut their
previous ambitions for 20 new nuclear
plants and are currently only actively
building 10. Shellenberger doesn’t
explain why new reactor starts have
fallen from 50 in 1975 to less than 5
currently.
He then compares the amount of
power generated by money invested
in nuclear and renewables since 1965,
and states nuclear has so far come
out on top. True, but nuclear became
commercially viable in the 1960’s, and
renewables only did so in the last 5-10
years. RE costs are plummeting rap-
idly, completely changing the picture.
Lazard (an investment bank) in 2018
found the Levelized Cost of Energy
(LCOE) for new wind and solar to be
20% of that for new nuclear, and that
nuclear LCOE will rise 23% in the
2020’s while RE continue to plum-
met. Compared to 1997, by 2018 wind
was annually producing 1,258 more
Terawatt hours of power (TWh), so-
lar 584, and nuclear only 299. Total
nuclear power generation worldwide
in 2018 was still 2,563 TWh, but that
reflects capacity built before 1997 and
still online. These numbers take into
account that solar only generates dur-
ing daylight and wind when wind is
blowing, the so-called problem of in-
termittency which limits renewable
energy.
Shellenberger ignores the imme-
diate history of RE. Costs have fallen
Why Nuclear Is Not the Answer
so much that deployment is exploding,
in both rich and poor countries. The
first terawatt (a terawatt is 1,000 giga- stayed flat. Californians are charged
watts) of RE was installed by 2018, and
the second will be in by 2023. By 2030
we will likely have four terawatts, and
deployment will continue to acceler-
ate as costs keep falling and storage
solutions become cheaper to handle
intermittency. Meanwhile, the most
optimistic scenario is that nuclear will
bring less than 100 gigawatts of net
new power online by 2030, a drop in
the bucket. Already, China produced
in 2018 more from wind alone than
nuclear (wind 366 TWh, nukes 277
TWh, solar 177 Twh) and India gets
more from wind and solar than nu-
clear.
One of the benefits of nuclear is
unlike solar, it can run 24/7. This is
theoretically true, but not so much in
practice. France has major reliability
problems, with its nuclear fleet only
able to operate at 70% of capacity, and
plants are often shut down. On an ex-
tremely bad day, August 28, 2018, 27 of
France’s 58 nuclear plants were offline,
and the average French reactor is of-
fline 90 days per year. The American
nuclear fleet became extremely well
run in the 1980’s, and now can main-
tain a 90% capacity factor, the best in
the world, which allows it to provide
20% of US electricity demand. The
marginal cost of electricity from exist-
as solar or wind, but that ignores the
massive capital costs of new build,
which makes new nuclear power sim-
ply untenable. The US nuclear fleet
has a total capacity of 100 gigawatts,
but is on average 39 years old, and
starting to age out. Only 8 plants are
less than 10 years old. Several plants
are only able to stay open due to zero
emission credits effectively subsidizing
them. Shellenberger simply doesn’t tell
you any of this.
Shellenberger also claims that
if nuclear is not used then “fossil fuels carbon by 2050? What would that
must be used”. This is simply not true.
When California closed San Onofre
nuclear power station, it lost 19 TWh/
year in generation, but replaced that
with 47 TWh from renewables and
energy efficiency. Shellenberger lives
in California but does not understand
California’s energy history. He rightly
notes that Californians pay a lot more
for electricity, in fact, we pay on aver-
age 16 cents per KWh, compared to a
national average of 10 cents. But that
leaves out the most important part. Up
to 1970, US and California per capita
electricity consumption was the same
and rose in tandem. After 1970, Cali-
fornia pursued an aggressive policy of
energy efficiency, and while US con-
sumption rose 100%, California has
60% more for power, but use half as
much, so as a percent of income, elec-
tricity is a smaller burden on people’s
budgets in the Golden State. In fact,
California households spend less on
energy than just about any other state
in the nation, despite high electricity
and gasoline prices. I’ll take the Cali- at a price of 10 cents per KWh, that
fornia approach.
He then moves on to Hollywood
and Ralph Nader, and blames them for
souring America on nuclear power.
But the collapse in new nuclear starts
after 1975 was a global phenomenon,
not just American. He does not grap-
Into this debate has
stepped Michael
Shellenberger,
an advocate of
nuclear power, who
previously had been an
environmental activist
for decades. In his
new book “Apocalypse
Never” which has
leapt up the bestseller
chart, he argues that
nuclear is the answer to
climate change, while
renewables, like solar
and wind, are flawed.
But his arguments are
weak and don’t make
much sense
ple with or explain the immense finan-
cial problem of nuclear power.
Shellenberger never does the
math on what a nuclear-powered
world would mean. How many reac-
tors would need to be built over the
next 30 years if we wanted to be zero
cost? Assuming we would need at
least 5,000 gigawatts of global capac-
ity (likely a marked underestimate),
we would have to start construction
on 250 plants per year. Even at 7 bil-
lion dollars per plant, we would need
to spend almost two trillion dollars
annually. These are completely absurd
numbers.
The main impediment to nuclear
power is not irrational fear by the pub- lars, but neglects the obvious solution
lic of radiation. The main problem is
www.PakistanLink.com
AUGUST 21, 2020 – PAKISTAN LINK – P21
the massive capital required and the
cost of that capital. Shellenberger nev-
er bothers to pencil that out. If a com-
pany wanted to build a power plant
today in the US, it would need access
to 7 billion dollars, and would not start need for storage for residential solar.
generating a return for ten years. If a
power plant was able to sell its output
24/7, and could operate 90% of the
year, it would sell about 7,900 GWh,
would generate about 800 million dol-
lars. If the company secured a 40-year
loan at 8% interest, it would pay 500
million dollars every year just to cover
the loan. Even if there was a govern-
ment guaranteed loan with a subsi-
dized 4% rate, the company would still
need to come up with 300 million dol-
lars per year. What if there are massive
cost overruns? Who would provide
this amount of capital for 40 years?
Who would take on the bankruptcy
risk? If PG&E, Shellenberger’s own lo-
cal power company, recently emerged
from bankruptcy, decided to build five
nuclear power plants, who in their
right mind would provide 35 billion
dollars? Because of the massive capital
involved, a nuclear plant needs guar-
anteed revenue for forty years, which
means they can only exist in a highly
regulated power market. Usually this
means a government guaranteed price
and commitment to buy all the power
output of the plant for forty years. In
a free market, nuclear would have to
compete with other power providers,
for example solar companies provid-
ing power for 2 cents per KWh during
daytime. Or wind providers. In a truly
free market, nuclear would be the high
cost power of last resort, which would
destroy its economics as it has such
massive capital costs it has to sell its
full output 24/7. This is why no dereg-
ulated electricity market in the world
has any nuclear plants under construc-
tion. It’s got nothing to do with irra-
tional fear, which I don’t think figures
in Chinese or Indian decision making.
While ignoring the problems
with nuclear, Shellenberger spends
much of his book attacking renew-
able energy as a failure. Shellenberger
is right that the main drawback with
both technologies is intermittency,
which is why solar has a capacity fac-
tor of only about 25% and wind about
35%. But his economic analyses are
deeply flawed. He denounces rooftop
solar because the payback is so long
for a system that can cost 25,000 dol-
of financing it. I put solar on my roof
in 2016 for 25,000 dollars. My house
uses about 12 MWh per year, and I
used to pay about 3,000 dollars per
year to SCE. I financed my solar sys-
tem at 6% over 20 years, and I pay less
monthly then I did to SCE. My pay-
ments are fixed against inflation, and
go to zero in 20 years. I did not buy the
Powerwall storage system, but that is
a gimmick for survivalists, there is no
Net metering solves that issue. Stor-
age is very expensive, but the costs are
dropping rapidly, and that will change
everything in 10 years, just as utility
solar went from an expensive vanity
in 2010 to the cheapest power of all in
2020.
Shellenberger misstates the cost
of a 100% solar plus storage or wind
plus storage grid. Getting that last 10%
accounts for much of the cost, because
you need a lot of wasteful storage that
mostly sits idle. The same numbers
would be generated by a hypotheti-
cal 100% nuclear grid. In fact, solar
(daytime power, more in summer) and
wind (more in evenings and winter)
complement each other. In addition,
wide-scale integration of power and
complex demand management can
offset much of the intermittency limi-
tations. There will of course need to
be a massive increase in storage, but
costs are dropping and new technolo-
gies are likely to come along. A recent
analysis from UC Berkeley shows that
the US grid can be 90% carbon free by
2035 at a cost that does not raise elec-
tric rates. Using natural gas peakers
makes the most sense as they have the
lowest capital costs, and natural gas is
both cheap and much lower in carbon
emissions than coal.
He then talks about the slaugh-
ter of birds and insects by windmills.
They spin at 10-20 rpm, so not exactly
buzzsaws. Still, this obviously hap-
pens, but Shellenberger offers no data
on who is being killed and how do the
numbers compare to other sources
of bird and insect deaths (car wind-
shields for example, or cats). What
bird species have been driven extinct
by windmills? Is it not likely that birds
will eventually adopt flight and migra-
tion patterns away from these? Siting
windmills to minimize these hazards
is important. Shellenberger does not
mention offshore wind, which is ac-
tually far better and more reliable
source of wind power, and will likely
become the dominant wind energy
in the 2030’s. Offshore windmills are
unlikely to harm wildlife in a material
way or cause bird extinctions.
Shellenberger states that “no
amount of technological innovation
can solve the fundamental problem
with renewables” because they are
“unreliable and energy dilute”. I per-
sonally could imagine some technol-
ogy that would solve the problem, but
regardless, I don’t know what “energy
dilute” means, electricity is electricity
and my home seems to run just fine
on my solar panels. If he is referring
to the amount of surface area needed
to generate that electricity, he needs to
actually do the math.
He claims that solar panels gener-
ate 50 watts per square meter. That’s
a little light, modern panels can do
125 watts, but perhaps he is taking
into account capacity issues. Let’s
use his numbers. Even he concedes
that 18,000 square miles would be
enough to provide the entire electric
power needs of the US. Why is that
in any way a prohibitive amount? He
also pointed out that an area the size
of Alaska has been returned to nature
due to improved agriculture, and that
is 660,000 square miles. We can’t use
18,000 for solar power? We use more
land area to grow corn for ethanol,
why don’t we just use that land? Or the
20,000 square miles currently
ANSWER, P24