The Rocky Mountain Institute’s Dr Amory Lovins has produced yet another devasting review of nuclear power, this one ostensibly being about the prospects for it in the USA- which he sees as very poor. But it also offers provocative insights into why he thinks nuclear is not going to fly anywhere- whereas renewables can and will. Indeed he says they are romping ahead, leaving nuclear in decay.
He says that there are ‘at least six countries in 2019 already generating 100%-renewable power, 12 exceeding Sweden’s [operationally] carbon-free 97.9%, and 20 surpassing France’s 90.5%’ while ‘careful choreography has lately met annual national electricity demand with 97% renewables (79% without hydro) in Scotland in 2020, 79% in Denmark (with 0.06% hydro) in 2019, 66% in Portugal in 2018 (42% without hydro), 52% in Germany (with 3.3% hydro) in 2020, and 46% in Spain in 2016 and 2020 (27/33% without hydro), all according to official national statistics. None of these nations added any material amount of bulk storage. All sustained superior reliability, often many times that of the US.’
For comparison, he quotes data from the French nuclear programme, once revered by nuclear enthusiasts. But now he says nuclear ‘may have become France’s most intermittent power source’. He notes that ‘in 2020, the average French reactor passed its 35th birthday and produced zero power a third of the time. Forecast 2022 output is 28–33% below the 2005 peak- similar to December 2021, when France had more nuclear capacity closed for repairs and safety checks than Germany’s total 2000–2021 nuclear closures (17.8 GW)’.
So it’s full ahead for renewables, with few problems envisaged. Indeed he reverses some of the issues that anti-renewable critics often focus on. Take this on grid integration: ‘The electricity grid was built mainly to manage thermal plants’ intermittence (unpredictable forced outages) by backing up failed generators with working ones. Now the same grid can back up PV’s and windpower’s predictable variability, more easily and often more cheaply, with other renewables of other types or in other places, or demand-side resources, or storage. But the need for storage is widely overstated’.
He even notes that ‘empirical evidence, though limited, suggests that grid balancing tends to cost less for wind and PV generation (typically a few $/MWh) than for big thermal plants,’ like coal and nuclear. For example, in the USA, ‘ERCOT’s fast-acting reserves in 2013 cost severalfold more per MWh for thermal than for wind capacity’. He adds ‘The global literature confirms that integration costs are at worst comparable to LCOE, modest in the UK and Australia and in the US (utilities find) manyfold below LCOE even at 85% wind share.’
This is because ‘giant fossil-fuelled or nuclear plants can unexpectedly lose a billion watts in milliseconds, often for weeks or months, and often without warning. Diversified portfolios of modular renewables don’t suffer such ungracefully massive failures: PV and wind generally falter in much smaller chunks, more gradually, far more briefly, with aggregate output over a reasonable area varying quite predictably-often more so than demand’. Well maybe, but that does raise the issue of excessive land-use, often seen as key problem for renewables. Not so, says Lovins! ‘A well-designed efficiency-and-renewables decarbonization strategy would decrease the energy system’s total land-use’.
Overall then he presents renewables in fairly triumphal terms, and is in no mood to be conciliatory on nuclear: ‘during 2010–20, renewable growth decarbonized electricity five times more than nuclear growth did. Nuclear power was slower to deploy than renewables in seven of ten key countries through 2018, and now contributes <1% of global growth in carbon-free power production. Whether in traditional or new forms, it’s simply too slow to make much difference to climate. Yet perversely, it slows down faster and cheaper options by blocking competition, hogging market space and grid capacity, and diverting money, talent, attention, and time from the most climate-effective solutions’.
He concludes, a little aggressively: ‘Like a proud, stubborn, and illusion-ridden elder mortally stricken with cancer, nuclear power is slowly dying of an uncurable attack of painful market forces, yet is unwilling to accept reality and enter a hospice.’ And he asks ‘how much more money, talent, attention, political capital, and precious time will its intensive care continue to rob from the life of its vibrant successors? Will its terminal phase be orderly or chaotic, graceful or bitter, emerging by default or by design? That is our choice’.
None too kind then, in his single minded dismissal of nuclear, and his green advocacy is at times a little breathless. But it has been a long running debate, and although it continues, given that climate change issues are becoming ever more urgent, some participants, especially those who do not see nuclear helping much or at all, may, understandably, be getting a little impatient.
Is Lovins right?
Certainly nuclear is looking increasingly unreliable in France, as touched on by Lovins. Now it has got even worse. At one point recently nearly half of its 56 nuclear plants were off-line for safety checks or maintenance. Generic faults in some of them look to be possible and some of the crack and corrosion issues could take years to fix. Bloomberg commented that this crisis could ‘undermine europe’s push to exit-russian gas’. Well, nuclear was never going to be much help with that, but the reactor faults certainly present cash-strapped EDF with a major problem - it is already struggling with the need for costly upgrades to the existing fleet and long delays and major cost over-runs with its new EPRs.
There have been problems with both of the EPRs in China, and, partly as a result, completion of work on the much delayed and more than three times over-budget Flamanville EPR in Normandy is to be further delayed, and the full start-up of the similarly very late and over-budget EPR in Finland has also been delayed yet again. In addition, the completion date for the EPR being built by EDF at Hinkley in the UK has been put back by another a year. With costs rising, and given uncertainly about China’s further involvement, EDF may have to look for the injection of more cash for it. Evidently ‘the project’s total financing needs exceed the contractual commitment of the shareholders and shareholders will be asked to provide additional equity on a voluntary basis in 2023’. That does not bode well for EDFs proposed new EPR at Sizewell in the UK- at one point it was reportedly threatening to walk away from it . Although, the investment risk may now be less, with the UK government offering consumer surcharge funding via the Regulated Asset Base (RAB) system and also over-riding planning objections. Even so, as the IEA has pointed out, new nuclear may face RAB funding uncertainties.
In an arguably desperate last ditch move, EDF is to be fully nationalized, but it still does not look too good for French (and UK) new nuclear, and the cost of the USA’s single last ditch effort, the much delayed Vogtle AP1000 plant under construction in Georgia, initially started by Westinghouse before it went bust, has now reached over $30bn, double the original estimate. Some new small start-up companies are of course pushing Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), but the main big company/big plant survivors in the sector so far are South Korean, Japanese, Chinese and Russian. South Korea has just switched to a pro-nuclear policy and, like Japan’s KEPCO, it has tie ups in the Gulf area. While, so far, Rosatom has not been subject to global trade embargoes, some countries are moving away from technology contracts with Russia and political pressure for more constraints is mounting. And while it is still expanding its nuclear base at home, China too is facing political blocks to overseas export expansion. So nuclear has mixed global prospects.
However, while some countries are sticking to nuclear phase out plans, and the nuclear industry is clearly far from heathy in many countries, it is still far from dead. Though hopes for new opportunities from SMRs may turn out to be thwarted- with a new study suggesting that they may produce a lot more active waste than conventional nuclear plants. As Lovins says, and as I have also argued in a new book, maybe it really is time for a rethink.
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