New nuclear power stations - is there really a case?

[Serguei]

If you're looking for energy savings, particularly oil energy, the place to look is how we get our food. Moving to a model based on community food security instead of industrial agriculture and supermarkets has a relatively large impact. Rather more so than better insulated houses for example.

I don't think it is possible to provide the population of this country with food produced locally. It even did not work in WW2 times, and it definitely would not work now.

By the way how you can see community to produce food instead of professional farmers doing it? Are you proposing to send army to force those living in the cities to go to the country to work fields as they did in Cambodia?

 

[Serguei]

Large energy saving result from doing things this way, especially with regard to food production. See e.g. Cuba.

Last time I checked Cuban economy did not do particular well...

It's that we maximise the amount of production that is done locally, rather than assuming that high-capital investment centralised production, of the sort common to both capitalism and soviet era communism, is the only way to do anything at all.

And how you can force this on people? How you can tell somebody that instead of spending 10 pounds to buy pair of jeans from China he has to fork out 500 for the pair made by local tailor?

 

[Bernie Gunther]

I think you can do it, just. Depending on what methods you use. Remember though, what I am suggesting is not that you do everything locally and nothing any other way. I'm suggesting that you do as much as you can locally, using methods that minimise non-renewable resource use, and thereby achieve substantial reductions in non-renewable consumption and the severe environmental damage associated with it.

I also think that there is significant evidence that you need to consider this stuff if you're considering how one gets by with drastically reduced fossil fuel consumption.

Nuclear power plants make heat, and turn it into electricity, they don't make hydrocarbons. So even if you adopt nuclear on a large scale (and forgetting the very large amount of fossil fuels that you need to expend before you see any electricity from a nuclear plant) you can't straightforwardly substitute the heat or electricity a nuclear plant produces for fossil fuels, in such applications as fertiliser or pesticide feedstocks (or for that matter feedstocks for plastics, many drugs and other petrochemical products) Nor, obviously, can you straightforwardly use this electricity to power cars.

Here's a case study from Cuba, where after the fall of the soviet union they had to very quickly figure out how to get by with no food, oil, fertiliser or pesticide imports.

http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-31574-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html

 

[Bernie Gunther]

As to forcing people, why on earth would I want to do that? You're jumping to conclusions again.

I'm simply thinking through some of the probable details of sustainability.

 

[Serguei]

Nuclear power plants make heat, and turn it into electricity, they don't make hydrocarbons. So even if you adopt nuclear on a large scale (and forgetting the very large amount of fossil fuels that you need to expend before you see any electricity from a nuclear plant) you can't straightforwardly substitute the heat or electricity a nuclear plant produces for fossil fuels, in such applications as fertiliser or pesticide feedstocks (or for that matter feedstocks for plastics, many drugs and other petrochemical products) Nor, obviously, can you straightforwardly use this electricity to power cars.

This is true for renewables as well (amount of fossil fuels that you need to expend before you see any electricity, the problem of using it to power cars etc.).
As for using fossil fuels in fertiliser or pesticide feedstock - nobody is going to stop it. First - you don't need as much of if as for producing electricity and second - it does not produce CO2.
As for powering cars the technology exists today - it is hydrogen-powered cars. You need electricity to produce hydrogen. The main difficulty is to create an infrastructure to supply and use hydrogen similar to the one that exists today for petrol.

Here's a case study from Cuba, where after the fall of the soviet union they had to very quickly figure out how to get by with no food, oil, fertiliser or pesticide imports.

Yes, when one is hungry he will try to grow his own food. But do you really want to do it? Have you personally ever tried to grow as much potatoes as you need in a year?
People in Cuba or other socialist countries did grow potatoes, tomatoes and other vegetables was only because this was the only way they could have enough of it on their tables. It was very inefficient, it did not do any good to their health (it is all hard manual work), they did not use any "green" ways (they used fertilizers and pesticides) and they usually stopped the moment they could afford it.

 

[Serguei]

I'm simply thinking through some of the probable details of sustainability.

This sustainability is something dreamed by middle class city dweller who has a romantic idea of what the life used to be before the technology came. I personally prefer my potatoes to be grown by somebody else who has a tractor. And I like to buy it clean and packed.
The only way to change my mind and the mind of the majority of the people is to make us so poor that we cannot afford to buy food in shops or to force us out of the cities.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Renewables do also require some fossil fuel expenditure, but what you are ignoring is the degree of fossil fuel use. PV is probably the extreme, requiring significant high-tech infrastructure, something similar to a chip fab to produce the PV cells. This may not be the case for much longer however as organic PV cells are working in labs. Wind requires significantly less high capital-investment infrastructure, a small factory unit capable of precision engineering can produce what's necessary. Biomass energy is simpler still and solar thermal can be built out of salvaged plumbing stuff.

In using fossil fuels for fertiliser feedstock you are doing something different from using animal manures and composts. You are introducing new fossil hydrocarbons, rather than recycling ones that were already in circulation. Hence, ultimately I think it's arguable that you are contributing to climate change. There is another side to this however which is scarcity of fossil fuels.

You are quite right to say the main difficulty with hydrogen powered cars etc is the need to completely replace a substantial exisiting infrastructure.

I am arguing that if we have to go to all that effort, we might as well invest in changes that would actually bring about sustainability, rather than simply providing a half-ass technical fix that keeps the car companies in business.

In the case of Cuba, you appear to be misunderstanding what I said above. Prior to the collapse of the soviet union they did certainly use soviet style industrial agriculture techniques, but after the collapse, during the so-called 'special period' they had to get by without them. This required them to implement decentralised organic agriculture as a matter of survival. They actually did rather well, although I'm sure they'd have preferred to continue as they were, or if they had to make the transition, to do so over a period of decades rather than as an emergency measure to avoid malnutrition.

I would suggest that in an uncertain world, where science is warning of impending problems with food and energy security, that it would be good if we could map out a realistic programme for making a transition towards sustainability, rather than trying to pretend that the problems and workable solutions to them don't exist so that we can all carry on living as we are.

 

[tobyjug]

The only way to change my mind and the mind of the majority of the people is to make us so poor that we cannot afford to buy food in shops or to force us out of the cities.

Come back Pol Pot, all is forgiven?

 

[Bernie Gunther]

This sustainability is something dreamed by middle class city dweller who has a romantic idea of what the life used to be before the technology came. I personally prefer my potatoes to be grown by somebody else who has a tractor. And I like to buy it clean and packed.
The only way to change my mind and the mind of the majority of the people is to make us so poor that we cannot afford to buy food in shops or to force us out of the cities.

Well, I'm not particularly seeking to change your mind. Your use of rhetoric above suggests that it probably isn't changeable.

I do find it beneficial to have to come up with the arguments against any substantive points you may make though, so thanks for contributing those.

 

[rich!]

It was possible in Middle Ages, when the most technilogically advanced product used in a village was a hourse shoe.

Go and have a look at some water mills. Most of the technology there has been stable for several thousand years.

Or have a look at the Antikythera Mechanism. http://etl.uom.gr/mr/Antikythera/

Or Heron of Alexandria's steam engines.

I cannot see how you can locally produce a solar-powered computer-controlled power source, washing machine and a car.

There's some interesting work around producing small-scale wafer fabs by ion implantation, but if you need deep-sub-micron, I agree, it's a bit exotic.

However, building transistor-scale semiconductors is feasible. Bootstrapping from there to decent CNC machinery would take a few years, but is quite possible.

It is a fantasy that has nothing to do with reality. We have to go to Middle Age level of technology to be able to do it.

No, we just need to work on the problem carefully, and share innovations. Or, as we prefer to call it, apply the Scientific Method.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

<snip> There's some interesting work around producing small-scale wafer fabs by ion implantation, but if you need deep-sub-micron, I agree, it's a bit exotic.

However, building transistor-scale semiconductors is feasible. Bootstrapping from there to decent CNC machinery would take a few years, but is quite possible. <snip>

Do you have some links to further info that might be accessible to someone scientifically literate who didn't mind doing a bit of work, but isn't a PhD in solid state physics?

 

[rich!]

Do you have some links to further info that might be accessible to someone scientifically literate who didn't mind doing a bit of work, but isn't a PhD in solid state physics?

This is how you write the semiconductors:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_beam_lithography

Most of the process is covered in
http://www.memsnet.org/mems/processes/

although they gloss over some of the details.

I have read accounts of Universities having in-house fabs, but I can't seem to find any ATM.

(I'm thinking there's a term for this kind of plant that I've forgotten, and that's why I can't find it...)

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Ah, OK. Nanoexpresso, whose contributions to urban I greatly miss, explained some of this stuff to me I think. Thanks for the info. While I might advocate decentralisation and local production on sustainability grounds, I do like my technology and would hate to be parted from computers, digital cameras etc.

 

[rich!]

Ah, OK. Nanoexpresso, whose contributions to urban I greatly miss, explained some of this stuff to me I think. Thanks for the info. While I might advocate decentralisation and local production on sustainability grounds, I do like my technology and would hate to be parted from computers, digital cameras etc.

One issue is that there hasn't been much work on trying to produce semiconductors in a sane way. Reading up on chip fabs just now has given me the horrors. And I didn't even go and look at the soil pollution websites for California.

(Some of the chemicals used are known as "two-steps": 'cos if they leak, you'll take two steps before you're dead...)

 

[Good Intentions]

Serguei, do you have an argument which consists of something more than refusing to believe us?

And don't put words into my mouth. I say enough as it is.

 

[Good Intentions]

The fact is that currently we have enormous wastages of energy that happen because they make economic sense because of the subsidising of transport, especially heavy freight. The principle industry of my home town, for instance, is an aluminium smelter. My home town is in South Africa - the aluminium is from Australia. It gets mined there, trucked to the coast, shipped to South Africa, smelted there and then the sheets of aluminium are shipped to Taiwan to be turned into aluminium cans, which are again transported back to SA. Because electricity is much cheaper in SA than the Pacific Rim it makes economic sense, but is exactly the type of wasteful activity that we need to stop - the single quantity of measurement (monetary value) to which the market responds hides these wastages and we must reveal and eliminate them.

 

[Serguei]

Serguei, do you have an argument which consists of something more than refusing to believe us?

It is the lack of real arguments on your side that stops me from believing you

We need energy now or in 10, 20 years or we will become poor and unable even to produce even a solar panel (as the production collapses without power).
You coming out with a suspect idea of "sustainability" which obviously means completely changing the whole economic system of this country and all other developed countries to some kind of local production (that reminds me of China at the time of cultural revolution when they decided it was a good idea to have an iron-making works in every village).
At the same time you have not proposed any way to make people to follow your way of production (and people tend not to like it when somebody tells them to change their ways of life). And this is something that you have to do in a very short time (about 20 years maximum).
All I can say - you are a dreamer.
You came up with an idea. Even if we for the sake of the argument except works (although I doubt it), we know that there is no way the idea can be put into life in the time that is left before we have to do something. This means that we have to do not what one does in the ideal world, but something that one knows works – i.e. build nuclear stations.

 

[Crispy]

You came up with an idea. Even if we for the sake of the argument except works (although I doubt it), we know that there is no way the idea can be put into life in the time that is left before we have to do something. This means that we have to do not what one does in the ideal world, but something that one knows works – i.e. build nuclear stations.

But surely you must accept that nuclear power is not an ideal - especially in the long-term. I'd prefer that no nuclear was built right now, but I can see the reasoning and I won't be chaining myself to a tree to stop it being built. It's just that nuclear power is a bandaid for a massive wound. It might stop the bleeding for a bit, but the problem is far larger than mains electricity production. We are systematically destroying the natural systems that keep us alive and comfortable - it works for now, but we are living on excess that will one day 'run out'.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Well, I think there's certainly a persuasive argument to say that we need to make the best use of the remaining fossil fuel resources to prepare a viable future for our descendants, while those fuels remain relatively cheap and available. We are unlikely to see comparably cheap and adaptable energy again once they're gone. They do have some obvious drawbacks however.

I would argue though, that nuclear is at best a medium-term bridge fuel that might possibly help with that, and that its potential benefits have been ludicriously exaggerated and its disadvantages underplayed, along with sordid attacks on people putting the scientific case against, by PR slime hired by the nuclear industry.

Having said that, I wouldn't rule it out either, although I think there are more sensible strategies that we could be following. Specifically, I think we should focus our efforts on developing a decentralised and resilient approach to sustainability that can continue to work, rather like the internet was designed to keep working, when important central infrastructure becomes damaged or dysfunctional.

I would also recommend being particularly suspicious of any proposed solutions based around highly centralised, high capital investment projects that are mainly intended to preserve the revenue stream of existing business interests, rather than moving us towards sustainability.

 

[Crispy]

sustainability.

That word is getting dirty. We had a CPD lecture in the office last week, all about the new part L of the building regulations, which raises the standards for energy efficiency in buildings. The word 'sustainable' runs throughout the documents, but there is very little actual sustainability inherent in them. "Carry on as normal, but try to use less energy" is the message - and it will, I guaruntee, be merely payed lip service to. Unfortunately, while I also think your vision of a localised, sustainable model for society is the best way forward, actually implementing that change in the face of the overwhelming power of global capitalism is going to be incredibly difficult. But that's for another thread

 

[Serguei]

But surely you must accept that nuclear power is not an ideal - especially in the long-term.

Nothing is ideal. But one has to do with what is available.

 

[Serguei]

Well, I think there's certainly a persuasive argument to say that we need to make the best use of the remaining fossil fuel resources to prepare a viable future for our descendants, while those fuels remain relatively cheap and available.

How long we have left? If we move to nuclear energy where it is possible we will have two advangages:
- fossil fuel will last longer
- we will be less dependand on the countries that produce oil

 

[Bernie Gunther]

How long we have left? If we move to nuclear energy where it is possible we will have two advangages:
- fossil fuel will last longer
- we will be less dependand on the countries that produce oil

Certainly those are better arguments than untrue nuclear industry claims that it'll provide energy without greenhouse gas emissions.

It's still a distraction from achieving sustainability though and costs an insane amount of money, so the ideal from my point of view would be to focus both financial and energy resources on directly achieving sustainabily, while we still are relatively rich in both. Nuclear is just a tactic to keep an unsustainable way of life going for a little bit longer and one which will consume very large amounts of fossil energy and money to implement.

 

[Serguei]

Certainly those are better arguments than untrue nuclear industry claims that it'll provide energy without greenhouse gas emissions.

The veracity of that claim is exactly the same as the the claim of renewable energy industry.

It's still a distraction from achieving sustainability though and costs an insane amount of money, so the ideal from my point of view would be to focus both financial and energy resources on directly achieving sustainabily, while we still are relatively rich in both.

We'll get poor without the energy much faster then achieve sustainability (if that is possible at all without killing off half of the population).

 

[Bernie Gunther]

I know I keep asking this, but is it possible for you to provide some evidence to back up your assertions?

I've provided plenty for mine in this and other threads.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Meanwhile,

It is sometimes argued that the main limitation to renewables will be that more energy will be needed to construct the equipment than it will produce over its lifetime. Fortunately this is a fallacy - a misreading of arguments about the 'embedded energy' debt. As it happens, the embedded energy costs associated with renewables are mostly low and usually less than for other energy technologies.

Thus, a review of energy payback times by Hydro Quebec has indicated that, over their full lifetime, typically, wind turbines generate around 39 times more power than is used in their construction and operation. For comparison, nuclear power plants are estimated to only generate around 16 times the energy needed for construction and operation, including the provision of fuel (which of course wind turbines get free). Combined Cycle Gas Turbines are even worse, only generating fourteen times the energy needed for their construction and operation.

It is true that some renewable options are less attractive in this sense but even PV solar, the most energy intensive renewable energy technology, still manages to generate 9 times more energy than is needed for cell fabrication, and that is using current types of cells. The newer PV technology now emerging is far less energy intensive.

Large hydro, whatever other problems it may have, is about the best deal, generating, according to the same study, around 200 times more energy than is consumed in construction - presumably because of the large capacity of the plants and their very long lifetimes (perhaps 100 years or more before major equipment replacement is needed).

Interestingly, however, energy crops do not come out very well on this analysis, presumably due to the high requirement for mechanised energy for planting, harvesting and in particular transportation of the bulky fuel to power plants. Biomass plantations are estimated to only return five times the energy needed to grow and collect them. As noted above, liquid biofuels have even lower energy output to input ratios than solid biofuels.

However, the use of forestry residues seen as much better, yielding 27 times the energy needed to collect them (growing is presumably seen as free).

http://www.feasta.org/documents/wells/two/wellselliott.html

 

[Serguei]

I know I keep asking this, but is it possible for you to provide some evidence to back up your assertions?

I've provided plenty for mine in this and other threads.

Which assertion? The one that says that wind farm in not greenhouse-free exactly as nuclear station?
For the same reason - one has to build wind farm first and then service it. This requires a lot of energy - the same as nuclear.

Or is it about sustainability? This country simply does not have enough land to sustain everybody living here even if you cut down what is left of this country's forest.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

And with regard to capital investment costs.

In the energy sector, the end point of the old resource-intensive model was nuclear power, with reactors costing up to $3000/kW - three times as much as coal plants. By contrast, modern combined cycle gas turbines (CCGTs) can be installed at around $500/kW. It interesting in this context that, in its current attempt to get back in the game, the nuclear industry is trying to develop new plants with the target of getting capital costs down to $1000/kw. That seems some way off, with, for example, the much hyped South African pebble bed modular reactor being perhaps ten years away. Its costs are still very speculative, too. By contrast, wind projects are now being installed at $750/kW and $500/kW is seen as likely soon.

Even so, given that most of the world's power plants will have to be replaced over the next few decades because they are reaching the end of their lives, there could be shortages of the resources needed to do so. This problem is clearly worsened by the huge expansion in energy demand both in the industrial countries and in the developing ones. There may simply not be enough financial resources to permit this expansion, whatever type of technology is used.

Some renewable energy technologies are less resources-intensive and thus cheaper than conventional technology. Wind power for example is now marginally competitive with CCGT's in some contexts. But most renewables are more expensive, at least for the moment. So their widespread adoption may be difficult - unless companies are willing to choose green options for their longer-term environmental (and commercial) benefits and consumers are willing to pay more for green power (for their, or their 'descendents', longer-term welfare).

Clearly it is unfair that clean green energy technologies have to compete with dirty fossil fuel based systems, but for the moment, in the absence of a system reflecting the environmental costs in the price we pay, the playing field is far from level. This limitation is however not like the ones I have discussed before - it's a construct of our society and its economic basis, and as such, it can be changed.

(same source)

 

[Crispy]

one has to build wind farm first and then service it. This requires a lot of energy - the same as nuclear.

No, a lot less.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

No, a lot less.

Quite. As you can see from the quote I posted above.

This is why I'm am trying to persuade Serguei to have a discussion based on evidence rather than simply making unsupported assertions.