Nuclear no match for Renewables

[IdlePhaedrus]

http://www.energypost.eu/german-lignite-accord-will-take-lot-get-lignite-germany-let-alone-europe/

I agree however that currently the Nuclear deal sounds very corrupt and nontransparent. That should be the issue, however to get rid of the technology all together sounds wrong to me. These advoces should go to Witbank or Majuba and literally walk in the ash on some of those stations and compare them to Koeberg. The reason being the Nuclear power is governed by international safety regulations and not Eskoms pathetic SHEQ policies.

Thanks, I shall read and come back tomorrow. Interested to know if you have looked into Thorium at all?

Thanks again Isheed. Am still falling on your side of the fence given our peculiar South African situation

 

[itareanlnotani]

Simply not true at all, nuclear safety standards are enormously high, also their cleanliness stanards before commsioning can start. Look at flamanville that is currently being built in Finland by AREVA, no deaths to date.

Funny you should allege that, as I can definitively prove otherwise.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...Why-trust-French-Britains-nuclear-future.html

Choice quotes - "EDF's nuclear reactor plant at Flamanville, Normandy, is beset by financial mismanagement and the deaths of workers"

"While EDF is not facing any charges itself, it is uncomfortably aware that security and safety at the site have been questioned time and time again. There have been no fewer than three fatal accidents, with some builders complaining about dangerous working practices."

"A report by France’s nuclear safety authority in 2011 found ‘13 incidents’ of below standard safety measures, including poor quality safety equipment."

More here - http://www.plux.co.uk/slave-labour-building-nuclear-plants/

This is a good read too - it lists the issues quite clearly -

http://www.theecologist.org/News/ne...to_4_nuclear_reactor_is_the_epr_finished.html

...and

http://www.wiseinternational.org/nuclear-monitor/812/epr-fiasco-unravelling-france-and-uk

French utility EDF has once again pushed back the estimated start-up date and upped the cost estimate of the European Pressurized Reactor (EPR) under construction at Flamanville, France. There was no attempt to sugar-coat the fiasco by the World Nuclear Association, which noted that the estimated cost has more than tripled − from €3.3 billion (US$3.7b) to €10.5 billion (US$11.8b) − and the estimated six-year construction timeline has nearly doubled to 11 years.

So, safety standards - nope.
On time, nope.
Over budget - yes.
Over time - yes.

 

[kab123]

While your numbers may be good on paper for a preference for nuclear, given the prevailing conditions in South Africa they don't hold up given our short term needs, and the long term debt that government will incur on our behalf going nuclear.

It's something Africa really never understood. Long term planning. Long term debt management vs economic growth. It was more attractive to build soccer stadiums than power stations....

Can we afford this nuclear deal? I don't know. Maybe, maybe not.

Can we in future afford another decade worth of load shedding leading with more than 10GW worth of industry packing their bags and leaving our shores? No. We can't.

The proof is in the pooding. If private business was so willing to invest money into energy we would not be having this conversation.

It's not a profitable industry.

 

[itareanlnotani]

The proof is in the pudding. If private business was so willing to invest money into energy we would not be having this conversation.

It's not a profitable industry.

Private industry are willing to invest. The government (via NERSA) and Eskom are somewhat less willing to let them.
Eskom and government prefer to have monolithic large builds in their control, rather than hand off the keys to someone else.

It was only with great reticence that they finally opened the door, and allowed the private sector to bid for generation.
The last few REIPP bids were oversubscribed by 300%. There were far more bidders willing to put money down to provide electricity than Eskom was willing to give out.

We need to open that up to allow far more generation capacity from the private sector.

 

[kab123]

Private industry are willing to invest. The government (via NERSA) and Eskom are somewhat less willing to let them.

No. They are not willing to invest. They are willing to sell excess energy they don't need. They are not willing to build power stations purely for selling electricity...

I do agree with you ofc it will help...

However I quote a headline from 2009:

Global miner Rio Tinto scrapped its plan to build an aluminium smelter on the southern coast of South Africa due to power shortages in the country

Where was the private industry? Where was this REIPP revolution? Neither Eskom or government can stop you from building you our power source to power your own plant.

There is no money to be made.

 

[itareanlnotani]

No. They are not willing to invest. They are willing to sell excess energy they don't need. They are not willing to build power stations purely for selling electricity...

I do agree with you ofc it will help...

However I quote a headline from 2009:



Where was the private industry? Where was this REIPP revolution? Neither Eskom or government can stop you from building you our power source to power your own plant.

There is no money to be made.

I rarely say this*, but sir, you are an idiot.


*Personal attacks are really not an argument, but in this case I think it warrants it.

 

[Kabraal]

wat?

 

[HavocXphere]

I would love to see how the author thinks SA will store 10GW with anything resembling cost efficiency...

 

[Nicodeamus]

Funny you should allege that, as I can definitively prove otherwise.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...Why-trust-French-Britains-nuclear-future.html

Choice quotes - "EDF's nuclear reactor plant at Flamanville, Normandy, is beset by financial mismanagement and the deaths of workers"

"While EDF is not facing any charges itself, it is uncomfortably aware that security and safety at the site have been questioned time and time again. There have been no fewer than three fatal accidents, with some builders complaining about dangerous working practices."

"A report by France’s nuclear safety authority in 2011 found ‘13 incidents’ of below standard safety measures, including poor quality safety equipment."

More here - http://www.plux.co.uk/slave-labour-building-nuclear-plants/

This is a good read too - it lists the issues quite clearly -

http://www.theecologist.org/News/ne...to_4_nuclear_reactor_is_the_epr_finished.html

...and

http://www.wiseinternational.org/nuclear-monitor/812/epr-fiasco-unravelling-france-and-uk



So, safety standards - nope.
On time, nope.
Over budget - yes.
Over time - yes.

Ok first of all; an incident below standard occurs all the time on a construction project, I have been involved in major infrastructure projects in SA, they happen every day. If my plans work out right then I might also be involved in the new powerplant that they are planning in the UK (Also nuclear). 13 during the lifetime of a project is a major success story. Now it is sad that people do lose their lifes, however 3 in 11 years? Have you any conception on what happens on sites on a daily basis? The nuclear safety standards are by far in excess (and I would argue sometimes unnecessary) than conventional construction.

2ndly I do not know who wise international is and I would rather trust my experience and working with AREVA, now in the case of Flammonville yes they have delays, the main reason being safety issues. That is a testimony that safety at nuclear sites are taken seriously, the operations are very tightly monitored and also the environmental standards are higher than any project that I have seen either in SA or in Europe.

"While EDF is not facing any charges itself, it is uncomfortably aware that security and safety at the site have been questioned time and time again. There have been no fewer than three fatal accidents, with some builders complaining about dangerous working practices."

This is an open and quite frankly stupid statements, workers have under most international safety laws the right to refuse to work if they feel that are at risk (including in SA). So if they felt unsafe they should have refused and it should have been investigated it sounds to me like rubbish.

Currently it takes about 5-6 years to construct a newly build reactor building. However Flammonville was an upgrade, so it would take longer given the constrains and the fact that some of the precasting had to be shipped from France.

 

[itareanlnotani]

I would love to see how the author thinks SA will store 10GW with anything resembling cost efficiency...

You aren't storing that produced electricity with Nuclear, why are you suddenly storing it with renewables?
We have quite a bit of coal which can be ramped up on demand to meet load following requirements, although given our use profile we can use Solar for our daytime load, coal for the evening peak, hydro for the evening to morning segment.

Adding more storage i.e. hydro is a good idea, and I have covered that already in this very thread.

Nuclear doesn't ramp up very well - its not great for load following - it takes hours to days to ramp up production, and costwise its too expensive to not run 24/7 at full capacity. Thats the only reason its used for "base load".

Solar PV is extremely predictable - the sun comes up every day, day in, day out.
We have decades of solar irradiation values to go on too.

Compared to Germany who have installed quite large amounts of Solar, we have crazy high irradiation levels, so why we don't have more solar is just astounding. Wind is also fairly predictable, and again, extremely worthwhile in South Africa given our wind levels.
We also have decades of wind values to go on too.

Some info on the wind side -
http://www.wasaproject.info/docs/1st Verified Wind Atlas for South Africa.pdf

Germany is successfully replacing their Nuclear with Renewables. They're removed 50% of their Nuclear output from the grid so far, and are on track to remove all of it ahead of their original targets. So, the "baseload" argument proving less of an issue than reality shows.

If we do have one or two exceptionally bad days for solar or wind, we can do what we do now - supplement production with gas turbines.
Its more expensive to run them, but if its done rarely enough, its not an issue.

Every solar panel we install in this country means less pollution now. Every wind turbine installed means less pollution now.
Every Nuclear plant installed means absolutely nothing till 20-30 years down the line when its built.

Is it better to build 50 minibuses that can take people around now, or build a super-coach that will maybe take people around in 20-30 years, and may not be affordable for people to use?

I'd rather go with building those minibuses that we can build fast, and on-time i.e. (10GW-20GW of renewables in the next few years), and see whether we still need that super-coach (Nuclear 9.6GW) or can even afford it.

 

[itareanlnotani]

Ok first of all; an incident below standard occurs all the time on a construction project, I have been involved in major infrastructure projects in SA, they happen every day. If my plans work out right then I might also be involved in the new powerplant that they are planning in the UK (Also nuclear). 13 during the lifetime of a project is a major success story. Now it is sad that people do lose their lifes, however 3 in 11 years? Have you any conception on what happens on sites on a daily basis? The nuclear safety standards are by far in excess (and I would argue sometimes unnecessary) than conventional construction.

2ndly I do not know who wise international is and I would rather trust my experience and working with AREVA, now in the case of Flammonville yes they have delays, the main reason being safety issues. That is a testimony that safety at nuclear sites are taken seriously, the operations are very tightly monitored and also the environmental standards are higher than any project that I have seen either in SA or in Europe.

This is an open and quite frankly stupid statements, workers have under most international safety laws the right to refuse to work if they feel that are at risk (including in SA). So if they felt unsafe they should have refused and it should have been investigated it sounds to me like rubbish.

Currently it takes about 5-6 years to construct a newly build reactor building. However Flammonville was an upgrade, so it would take longer given the constrains and the fact that some of the precasting had to be shipped from France.

Read the linked articles i posted in my comment. Far worse than that.
For example

On 24 June 2011, the newspaper L’Humanité published a report of 6 June 2011 by the French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) recording serious violations of labour law on this site. For 2010, the ASN reported 112 accidents at work, of which 38 were serious. This included three deaths in five months.

Suggest read this, then re-comment, as it goes over the issues financial, and otherwise (was posted above in my previous comment also) - http://www.theecologist.org/News/ne...to_4_nuclear_reactor_is_the_epr_finished.html

I should also add the reason I bring this up in the first place, is your repeated claim that Nuclear is safer to build compared to Solar or other Renewables. It clearly isn't, and the author of that claim doesn't include the many deaths during construction, or operation as his statistics clearly do not include those figures, nor does he compare Nuclear plants to Solar Plants. He compares household rooftop solar installs to Nuclear, extrapolates deaths, and you bring that as proof Nuclear is safer.

I've proved you wrong about your previous statement regarding no deaths there quite clearly, and the safety standards being high is also highly dubious given the build issues.
Excerpt below:

On 7th April 2015, the French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) announced that fabrication defects had been found in the reactor pressure vessel of the Flamanville EPR, forged by Areva's Creusot Forge subsidiary. Tests revealed areas with high carbon concentration resulting in "lower than expected mechanical toughness values".

Pierre-Franck Chevet, head of ASN, said: "It is a serious fault, even a very serious fault, because it involves a crucial part of the nuclear reactor."

So, conclusively, your statement below can be proven wrong on all accounts.

Simply not true at all, nuclear safety standards are enormously high, also their cleanliness stanards before commsioning can start. Look at flamanville that is currently being built in Finland by AREVA, no deaths to date.

More reading

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ear...fault-in-nuclear-reactor-destined-for-UK.html

http://journaldelenergie.com/nucleaire/edfs-chaotic-approach-french-epr-reactor-safety/

At least in South Africa, if we do go ahead with a huge white elephant nuclear build, its likely we'd be using DCD Dorbyl to make the pressure vessels locally. The French obviously can't make them...

 

[Nicodeamus]

Read the linked articles i posted in my comment. Far worse than that.
For example



Suggest read this, then re-comment, as it goes over the issues financial, and otherwise (was posted above in my previous comment also) - http://www.theecologist.org/News/ne...to_4_nuclear_reactor_is_the_epr_finished.html

Because of the violations of the laws and safety concerns the project was delayed, this is normal under construction sites and shouldn't happen. I agree it is a disgrace, however that does not discredit nuclear in total it discredits the sub-contractors that violated the safety regulations. Now Flammonville was n upgrade to an existing plant, it is obvious that more problems would have been experienced, doing construction on a plant that is already running is by far more difficult. Despite these problems it does not discredit nuclear energy. The only real argument I have against it in SA is that the deal has been utterly corrupt and non transparent from the start.

 

[Johnatan56]

Because of the violations of the laws and safety concerns the project was delayed, this is normal under construction sites and shouldn't happen. I agree it is a disgrace, however that does not discredit nuclear in total it discredits the sub-contractors that violated the safety regulations. Now Flammonville was n upgrade to an existing plant, it is obvious that more problems would have been experienced, doing construction on a plant that is already running is by far more difficult. Despite these problems it does not discredit nuclear energy. The only real argument I have against it in SA is that the deal has been utterly corrupt and non transparent from the start.

So you don't see any problems with nuclear besides the corruption in South Africa? Not the huge costs, the rising maintenance costs, the large threat of disaster?
Wow. Why go nuclear if you can use a ton of cheaper alternatives that are quicker to build. Even if they were the same cost as someone did with crystal solar, it is faster to build and can be brought online in stages.

 

[Nicodeamus]

So you don't see any problems with nuclear besides the corruption in South Africa? Not the huge costs, the rising maintenance costs, the large threat of disaster?
Wow. Why go nuclear if you can use a ton of cheaper alternatives that are quicker to build. Even if they were the same cost as someone did with crystal solar, it is faster to build and can be brought online in stages.

Nulcear can also be done in stages, that is historically how Eskom built their coal stations as opposed to building large scale plants like in Europe, South Africa has restorically build plants that can be upgraded to double capacity when the country has enough money. So if we go solar, nuclear whatever that is exactly what we are going to do. Koeberg for example has 2 nuclear reactors, the reason was that one could come online while the other was operating. We do not have the money for 12 plants at the moment but we can phase them in if we build it in a smart way.

As I pointed out you still need a backup capacity and currently renewables cannot compete with it, storage is simply a problem. I would personally like to see us get rid of coal and have a renewable/nuclear grid like they currently have in France (The UK is also moving in this direction).

The Large threat of disaster is not true, SA is not a big earthquake prone region and even Koeberg has been designed to withstands a ground acceleration which is reasonable for the given area. There are far more consequences to coal, just take the dirty air in witbank and the amount of people suffering from TB either by working in the coal mines or living in the low veld.

 

[itareanlnotani]

Woohoo! I got a rather begrudgingly worded, but yes I was right out of you.

Because of the violations of the laws and safety concerns the project was delayed, this is normal under construction sites and shouldn't happen. I agree it is a disgrace, however that does not discredit nuclear in total it discredits the sub-contractors that violated the safety regulations. Now Flammonville was n upgrade to an existing plant, it is obvious that more problems would have been experienced, doing construction on a plant that is already running is by far more difficult. Despite these problems it does not discredit nuclear energy. The only real argument I have against it in SA is that the deal has been utterly corrupt and non transparent from the start.

Onto the next bits -

Nulcear can also be done in stages, that is historically how Eskom built their coal stations as opposed to building large scale plants like in Europe, South Africa has restorically build plants that can be upgraded to double capacity when the country has enough money. So if we go solar, nuclear whatever that is exactly what we are going to do. Koeberg for example has 2 nuclear reactors, the reason was that one could come online while the other was operating. We do not have the money for 12 plants at the moment but we can phase them in if we build it in a smart way.

As I pointed out you still need a backup capacity and currently renewables cannot compete with it, storage is simply a problem. I would personally like to see us get rid of coal and have a renewable/nuclear grid like they currently have in France (The UK is also moving in this direction).

The Large threat of disaster is not true, SA is not a big earthquake prone region and even Koeberg has been designed to withstands a ground acceleration which is reasonable for the given area. There are far more consequences to coal, just take the dirty air in witbank and the amount of people suffering from TB either by working in the coal mines or living in the low veld.

As has been shown repeatedly, Renewables can be built fast. < 1 year build times from start of construction are not uncommon even in South Africa.
It makes far more sense to build distributed generation close to where it is required, rather than large monolithic builds that take decades.

Storage *isn't* an issue in South Africa.
Our current generation is largely Coal based, with a touch of Hydro, and quite a bit of diesel/gas (Anker) which is used rather badly to keep the grid on at silly prices.

1) We have ample coal backup to do load following in case it is needed. Having 10-20GW of renewables means that GW of coal generation simply doesn't need to be run.
2) Electricity demand strongly follows the daytime demand curve. While we do have consumer demand at early evening, this can be covered with existing generation (it currently is anyway).
3) Renewables would largely cover Anker's generation, which then leaves Eskom with some money to upgrade the grid, instead of spending money on BEE hairdresser diesel.

There are a few other reasons, but I've covered them ad-infinitum in this thread already, I'm not going to repeat myself yet again.

 

[HavocXphere]

Adding more storage i.e. hydro is a good idea

Which is kark expensive & you need a suitable double dam location.

You aren't storing that produced electricity with Nuclear, why are you suddenly storing it with renewables?

Because the sun doesn't freakin shine at 20h00 when people crank up their electric heaters. You've got solar panels at home...with batteries remember?

Nuclear doesn't ramp up very well - its not great for load following - it takes hours to days to ramp up production

No it doesn't.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Load_following_power_plant#Nuclear_power_plants

Germany is successfully replacing their Nuclear with Renewables.

And relying on a massive multi-country grid to balance out the resulting fluctuations. What is SA going to do?

 

[Nicodeamus]

Not to mention the environmental impact of hydro, the power plant that they proposed in the Zambesi would have destroyed ton of different fishes, some that only occur in certain currents (I am not sure on the statues of the project, or if it even got of the ground).

 

[itareanlnotani]

Which is kark expensive & you need a suitable double dam location.


Because the sun doesn't freakin shine at 20h00 when people crank up their electric heaters. You've got solar panels at home...with batteries remember?


No it doesn't.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Load_following_power_plant#Nuclear_power_plants


And relying on a massive multi-country grid to balance out the resulting fluctuations. What is SA going to do?

Covered in hideous ****ing detail previously by myself on all points in this very topic.
Suggest read it, instead of posting the same old boring arguments again. Especially when they have been covered in tedious detail.

Ah **** it. Why not.

And relying on a massive multi-country grid to balance out the resulting fluctuations. What is SA going to do?

The same? - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_African_Power_Pool

I'll note that we're larger than most european countries. We can balance within the country i.e. Northern Cape, Western Cape, Gauteng etc.

No it doesn't.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Load_following_power_plant#Nuclear_power_plants

What is the 2nd sentence in that very topic:

" In general it is not economical for large thermal installations such as nuclear power plants to practice load following[citation needed]."

Which, I may add, I've talked about before. Many. Times.

Because the sun doesn't freakin shine at 20h00 when people crank up their electric heaters. You've got solar panels at home...with batteries remember?

If the sun isn't shining, and the wind isn't blowing, and the hydro dams are empty, and the CSP storage is empty you crank up some load following coal plants. Its not a *****ing issue.

Which is kark expensive & you need a suitable double dam location.

Covered previously. We have rather suitable locations for that smack inside our country. Go look for the bits in the thread where we talk about invading Lesotho.

 

[Nicodeamus]

The fact remains that Germany made a mistake by prematurely dismantling their nuclear power stations, Spain tried to do the same thing, but the they realised how expensive it would work out, remember that Germany still has to pay for the decommissioning of their plants and as I pointed out earlier their only backup is coal, which actually increases carbon emissions. I believe that Belgium was also considering restarting their nuclear stations, the post fukushima crazy seems to be over and populism cost Germany a great deal of money.

 

[Nicodeamus]

Covered in hideous ****ing detail previously by myself on all points in this very topic.
Suggest read it, instead of posting the same old boring arguments again. Especially when they have been covered in tedious detail.

No you repeated ourself numerous of times without giving a proper explanation.

Baseload remains and issue which you need either nuclear of coal for, no one is against renewables, but the backup has to come somewhere and nuclear is the least harmful to the environment (even less harmful in terms of C02 than most renewables).