Another note on nuclear: it is an old, proven technology. There is no mystery to producing cheap, safe, efficient power with it. It is a threat to solar, wind and fossil. The costs and delays to nuclear result from regulations based on phantom threats and fears of competition to other interests. Countries that develop cheap nuclear energy will be winners in future decades; countries that went with solar and wind will be compared with others who today burn dung to heat their homes and cook their vegetables. For the US, this is a Sputnik moment.
In addition to the licensing process, the project management of such enterprises needs to be reconsidered. Doing the things the NASA way has proven to be very slow and expensive. Using multiple contractors and trying to manage and integrate them is the equivalent to herding cats. Doing it the Musk way (say what you will about Musk), everything is run by one unit which is aware of the intricacies of all the parts. This leads to a great reduction in unintended conflicts of interest and incompatibilities between the different work units. Demming has a few well time-tested thoughts on this.
I leave an innocent comment regarding Lazard's LCOE report and all I get back in response is hate (e.g. Jeff Walther). This substack is as bad as it gets in other online forums.
To provide a better understanding of the issues with Lazard, I'd suggest you Google an article in Forbes Magazine from 2019, written by Bartlett. In it, he said "If all generation technologies were dispatchable—capable of producing electricity at any time—or if the price of electricity were constant, LCOE would be a reasonable proxy for the profitability of different technologies. However, since solar and wind are intermittent generators and the price of electricity does vary over time, LCOE is inadequate for comparing intermittent technologies with each other or with dispatchable technologies such as natural gas."
When calculating its costs for renewables, Lazard doesn't include the costs associated with providing back-up power or grid modifications. Our local utility brags about all of the wind and solar it's sponsoring, but has been very quiet about the half-billion $ program to provide diesel back up power. I'm sure there are other issues with Lazard, though it is useful when comparing dispatchable technologies.
I totally agree with you that "hate" seems to be the prevailing currency these days. Sad commentary.
Yes, Lazard has it's issues, but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. There is much to be learned from this substack, even if all you do is read the commentary and resulting comments.
Actually, I've been seeing quite the opposite. The predominant "hate" I've seen in these online discussions comes almost exclusively from "The Left" or as I like to call them Neoliberals. And here it is described succinctly:
VICTIMESE: The language of identity politics, whining about fake oppression, always playing the victim in all situations.
I completely agree with your assignment of the predominance of hate coming from the left. My point was, in forums such as this, there should be none whatsoever. It should be a place where reasonable people can disagree reasonably. That isn't always the case.
Public commenting in newspapers, however, is a free-for-all and not for the faint hearted. But even there, I see more whining and hate coming from the green crowd than any other. Do you think they have a playbook? I accused one of that very fact the other day. It (the preferred pronoun of the green meanies) was not happy.
According to Bernard Cohen, http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter9.html The USA was able to build many nuclear reactors for under $1B in adjusted 2005 dollars and in less than 4 years, back in the 60s and early 70s.
We did it in the past. There is no physical reason we cannot do it now.
Why, the Ruling Parasites don't want nuclear, that goes back to the 1970's. Listen to Nuclear Engineer Dr. Robert Zubrin explain it to you, listen and learn:
Nuclear Energy, Space and Humanity's Future | Robert Zubrin | The Human Progress Podcast Ep. 30:
Lazard is an excellent source of LCOE analysis that I used for over a decade while teaching my CU Sustainable Operations course. You can download a PDF of the April 2023 report here:
The report provides a wealth of cost data, much of it in $/MWh which a key metric when comparing generating technologies. One point of interest is that the LCOE from existing U.S. nuclear reactors is around $30/MWh (page 7) whereas the LCOE from new reactors is around $140/MWh (page 12).
Lazard is garbage. Just go off grid and see how much Lazards "cheap solar" costs. Last calculation I did for Kansas (avg US location) was 80 cents/kwh and you still needed 20% fossil. Lazard's calculus is entirely based on ignoring the integration costs of intermittent, seasonal, unreliable, non-dispatchable electricity sources. In the end all the wind & solar does is replace a bit of NG fuel worth 2 cents/kwh while causing much higher grid infrastructure costs. And since the intermittent grid is the maximally inefficient grid, the fuel cost savings are in fact illusory causing the wind & solar to be completely worthless.
To see what wind & solar really costs, including grid integration costs, there is a linear price relationship between wind/solar grid penetration and price of electricity by Ken Gregory, P.Eng, graph Euro/kwh by country 2019: Conclusion: European Wind Plus Solar Cost 6 Times Other Electrical Sources:
And LCOE for new nuclear is little better than Astrology or Necromancy because its based on a politically corrupted economic case. There is no technical reason why nuclear shouldn't be the cheapest of all energy sources. Corruption is the essential issue.
Up until its most recent report, Lazard's LCOE did not account for the cost of battery storage or another source of firming power such as gas combined cycle that intermittent sources must have. Without those recognized additional costs, LCOE was highly misleading number for wind and solar.
JP Morgan's 13the annual energy report, updated to reflect the Lazard April 2023 report, (page 19) states that:
"Lazard’s revised unsubsidized LCOE figures for wind and solar shown below are generally above median costs for combined cycle natural gas plants. Lazard continues to use questionable assumptions such as an operating life of only 20 years for a new natural gas peaker plant or combined cycle plant when 30 years would make more sense, and I haven’t dug into the rest of their assumptions yet. But at least Lazard finally recognizes that their widely cited LCOE estimates are completely missing the big picture."
I predict that if 5 reactors are built in short order we will notice a remarkable decline in references to the Levelized Cost of Electricity from the folks enamored with the metric right now.
That is just plain stupid. Ontario should be building large CANDU-6's, they have a large demand for power and CANDU is Canadian tech. The place to build BWRX-300s would be in the less populous provinces which much lower grid demand like New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, PEI, Alberta & Saskatchewan.
“Acting as a first mover of SMR technology is a significant global leadership opportunity for Ontario and Canada. It will allow us to capture first-mover benefits and export market opportunities. It is likely companies involved in the first deployment will have opportunities elsewhere in Canada and abroad as use of SMRs grows.”
Ontario is also refurbishing its CANDU at Darlington and potentially Pickering too.
That's great but it still makes much more sense for Ontario to go all CANDU EC6's @ 740MWe, since they have an electricity demand of ~150TWh, vs New Brunswick or Saskatchewan ~13-24TWh. Ontario having the supply chain for CANDUs that's 96% Canadian.
Also for SMRs the molten salt reactors the IMSR-300 and Moltex-300, liquid sodium ARC-100, and High Temperature Gas Cooled U-battery 5MWe, Xe-100 and MMR-10s under development in Canada make more sense, since supplying high temperature heat is a high value capability, i.e. Oil Sands steam extraction.
I want to see more countries announce they are re-opening or building more coal fired power plants because they can't get nuclear built, sorry so sad about the climate, and to have this happen before Jane Fonda passes away, she's 85 now.
A recent podcast “Decouple” hosted by Dr. Keefer talks about the challenges of getting new nuclear projects going, including those faced by the recently NuScale cancelled project. A bit long-winded but an excellent source of little known and under-appreciated aspects of the industry.
You know something stinks when it takes twice as long to license a reactor than it takes to actually design and build the same reactor. In what universe does that makes sense? These corrupted bureaucracies couldn't manage a lemonade stand. Their leadership should all be immediately fired. And for a new leader, find the one REAL engineer who states: "I will guarantee licensing will take half the build time, or I will resign. And I will offer all employees a chance to commit to that schedule or their resignation will be accepted, immediately."
The cost graphs show the influence of Linear No Threshold (LNT) lunacy whereby regulations are enacted such that a single spec of radiation release is too much.
this was done on purpose and is most successful where litigation is entrenched, so you see USA costs are the highest.
Are they safer than South Korean built reactors? Not in any measurable way.
As with everything else, until we push the climate/insane out of the room we won't make progress.
It doesn't matter that COP28 pledges to triple nuclear, the climate/insane are already screaming hard trying to block it, we know they will try to prevent it.
Installed capacity comparison with solar, watch out for two factors:
Capacity factor (yearly average use rate of the nominal capacity): 85-90% for nuclear, 10-20% for solar (up to 25% in inhabitable ideal places).
Life span: 60 to 80 years for nuclear, 25-30 years for solar (and diminishing efficiency of 0.5% per year).
Thus, assuming the investment cost of nuclear at 3600 USD/kW and of solar at 900 USD/kW, the total investment to be made to obtain the same service (i.e. delivering X MWh/year over 80 years) can be 3 to 6 times lower for nuclear than for solar.
And of course, nuclear is available when you need it, the fuel is there on site, there is no intermittency, nor any worries of "just in time" gas supply like gas generation.
And of course, it doesn't matter if you build 10x average grid load of solar, you still need the 1.3x of nuclear, so why build the utterly useless solar?
In addition to Roger's Iron Law of Climate Policy there are Implacable Laws of Intermittency :
1. The law of intermittency load factor:
Any activity consisting of using a resource that is obtained intermittently will only have a load factor that is lower than that of the intermittent source.
2. The negative law of intermittent sources:
When any proportion of an intermittent production is added to a system that must operate without interruption, it destabilises the system and increases its costs.
One reason nuclear energy is so expensive in the US is unrealistic regulations. Don't see Congress or anyone else bringing common sense to the table. We had our chance sixty years ago when nuclear energy provided economical electricity but we allowed the nut-jobs to destroy our future with their campaign against the atom.
To add to my comment, our military (US Navy) operates dozens of nuclear reactors safely and efficiently (for many decades) in adverse settings (on and under the sea) in all weather conditions and circumstances without the NRC. Our seamen and the oceans are safe in spite of adhering to only practical requirements - not the ridiculous ones of the anti-nuclear NRC.
Congress has been beating on the door of the NRC but the internal incentives and culture are very deep set
The NRC made advanced reactor regulations that a large majority of interested companies rated as worse than the standard regulations
So they made an alternate advanced reactor regulation that had some improvements yet, spectacularly, included the provision that an advanced reactor not release more than a given amount of radiation if the plant had a maximum design basis accident every year for 40 years
I believe that Congress should appoint an oversight agency that has the power to strike decisions and invalidate processes of the NRC based on a reasonable cost benefit consideration
An entirely new agency should be created for advanced walkaway safe reactors that don't even pose the mostly imaginary public health risk that the NRC was created to manage
Or get rid of the NRC like Vivek wants to do. States can regulate their own nuclear, a little competition in regulators. A state that has a dysfunctional regulator will get no new NPPs and will have to buy electricity from states that have a rational regulator.
Just watched "The Power Hungry" podcast with Grace Stanke and Robert Bryce. Wow, what a young dynamo she is, a nuclear engineer and Miss America too! Highly recommended if you want to better grasp where we are in the pursuit of clean and sensible energy. She is an excellent communicator, and points out that better communication is crucial.
Worth noting the earlier rapid growth, after energy crisis, natural gas was not allowed for electric power generation - 1978 power plant and industrial fuel act - and many places were not able to build coal, being restricted by new clean air act.
Another note on nuclear: it is an old, proven technology. There is no mystery to producing cheap, safe, efficient power with it. It is a threat to solar, wind and fossil. The costs and delays to nuclear result from regulations based on phantom threats and fears of competition to other interests. Countries that develop cheap nuclear energy will be winners in future decades; countries that went with solar and wind will be compared with others who today burn dung to heat their homes and cook their vegetables. For the US, this is a Sputnik moment.
Hey y'all! I don't care if you like Lazard analysis or not. Just be friendly here. Thank you!
In addition to the licensing process, the project management of such enterprises needs to be reconsidered. Doing the things the NASA way has proven to be very slow and expensive. Using multiple contractors and trying to manage and integrate them is the equivalent to herding cats. Doing it the Musk way (say what you will about Musk), everything is run by one unit which is aware of the intricacies of all the parts. This leads to a great reduction in unintended conflicts of interest and incompatibilities between the different work units. Demming has a few well time-tested thoughts on this.
I leave an innocent comment regarding Lazard's LCOE report and all I get back in response is hate (e.g. Jeff Walther). This substack is as bad as it gets in other online forums.
To provide a better understanding of the issues with Lazard, I'd suggest you Google an article in Forbes Magazine from 2019, written by Bartlett. In it, he said "If all generation technologies were dispatchable—capable of producing electricity at any time—or if the price of electricity were constant, LCOE would be a reasonable proxy for the profitability of different technologies. However, since solar and wind are intermittent generators and the price of electricity does vary over time, LCOE is inadequate for comparing intermittent technologies with each other or with dispatchable technologies such as natural gas."
When calculating its costs for renewables, Lazard doesn't include the costs associated with providing back-up power or grid modifications. Our local utility brags about all of the wind and solar it's sponsoring, but has been very quiet about the half-billion $ program to provide diesel back up power. I'm sure there are other issues with Lazard, though it is useful when comparing dispatchable technologies.
I totally agree with you that "hate" seems to be the prevailing currency these days. Sad commentary.
Yes, Lazard has it's issues, but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. There is much to be learned from this substack, even if all you do is read the commentary and resulting comments.
Actually, I've been seeing quite the opposite. The predominant "hate" I've seen in these online discussions comes almost exclusively from "The Left" or as I like to call them Neoliberals. And here it is described succinctly:
VICTIMESE: The language of identity politics, whining about fake oppression, always playing the victim in all situations.
I completely agree with your assignment of the predominance of hate coming from the left. My point was, in forums such as this, there should be none whatsoever. It should be a place where reasonable people can disagree reasonably. That isn't always the case.
Public commenting in newspapers, however, is a free-for-all and not for the faint hearted. But even there, I see more whining and hate coming from the green crowd than any other. Do you think they have a playbook? I accused one of that very fact the other day. It (the preferred pronoun of the green meanies) was not happy.
According to Bernard Cohen, http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter9.html The USA was able to build many nuclear reactors for under $1B in adjusted 2005 dollars and in less than 4 years, back in the 60s and early 70s.
We did it in the past. There is no physical reason we cannot do it now.
Why, the Ruling Parasites don't want nuclear, that goes back to the 1970's. Listen to Nuclear Engineer Dr. Robert Zubrin explain it to you, listen and learn:
Nuclear Energy, Space and Humanity's Future | Robert Zubrin | The Human Progress Podcast Ep. 30:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMfdtyTpPhU
https://www.humanprogress.org/robert-zubrin-the-human-progress-podcast-ep-30-transcript/
How to liberate nuclear energy, with Robert Zubrin, Alex Epstein:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQtgkT8nqgc
The Case For Nukes: How We Can Beat Global Warming and Create a Free, Open, and Magnificent Future, by Robert Zubrin
https://www.amazon.com/Case-Nukes-Global-Warming-Magnificent-ebook/dp/B0BXPCZ33K
Lazard is an excellent source of LCOE analysis that I used for over a decade while teaching my CU Sustainable Operations course. You can download a PDF of the April 2023 report here:
https://www.lazard.com/research-insights/2023-levelized-cost-of-energyplus/
The report provides a wealth of cost data, much of it in $/MWh which a key metric when comparing generating technologies. One point of interest is that the LCOE from existing U.S. nuclear reactors is around $30/MWh (page 7) whereas the LCOE from new reactors is around $140/MWh (page 12).
The way I know someone is lying in an energy debate is when they quote Lazard....
Lazard is garbage. Just go off grid and see how much Lazards "cheap solar" costs. Last calculation I did for Kansas (avg US location) was 80 cents/kwh and you still needed 20% fossil. Lazard's calculus is entirely based on ignoring the integration costs of intermittent, seasonal, unreliable, non-dispatchable electricity sources. In the end all the wind & solar does is replace a bit of NG fuel worth 2 cents/kwh while causing much higher grid infrastructure costs. And since the intermittent grid is the maximally inefficient grid, the fuel cost savings are in fact illusory causing the wind & solar to be completely worthless.
To see what wind & solar really costs, including grid integration costs, there is a linear price relationship between wind/solar grid penetration and price of electricity by Ken Gregory, P.Eng, graph Euro/kwh by country 2019: Conclusion: European Wind Plus Solar Cost 6 Times Other Electrical Sources:
friendsofscience.org/index.php?id=2550
If you really want to see an honest analysis of electricity costs read Gordon Hughes:
https://www.ref.org.uk/publications
And LCOE for new nuclear is little better than Astrology or Necromancy because its based on a politically corrupted economic case. There is no technical reason why nuclear shouldn't be the cheapest of all energy sources. Corruption is the essential issue.
Do you know why the Lazard 2023 report does not report costs for offshore wind with storage?
Up until its most recent report, Lazard's LCOE did not account for the cost of battery storage or another source of firming power such as gas combined cycle that intermittent sources must have. Without those recognized additional costs, LCOE was highly misleading number for wind and solar.
JP Morgan's 13the annual energy report, updated to reflect the Lazard April 2023 report, (page 19) states that:
"Lazard’s revised unsubsidized LCOE figures for wind and solar shown below are generally above median costs for combined cycle natural gas plants. Lazard continues to use questionable assumptions such as an operating life of only 20 years for a new natural gas peaker plant or combined cycle plant when 30 years would make more sense, and I haven’t dug into the rest of their assumptions yet. But at least Lazard finally recognizes that their widely cited LCOE estimates are completely missing the big picture."
I predict that if 5 reactors are built in short order we will notice a remarkable decline in references to the Levelized Cost of Electricity from the folks enamored with the metric right now.
I couldn’t be more excited to see how it goes with Ontario’s plan to build four BWRX-300s.
https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/1003248/ontario-building-more-small-modular-reactors-to-power-provinces-growth
That is just plain stupid. Ontario should be building large CANDU-6's, they have a large demand for power and CANDU is Canadian tech. The place to build BWRX-300s would be in the less populous provinces which much lower grid demand like New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, PEI, Alberta & Saskatchewan.
I think the less stupid part is this:
“Acting as a first mover of SMR technology is a significant global leadership opportunity for Ontario and Canada. It will allow us to capture first-mover benefits and export market opportunities. It is likely companies involved in the first deployment will have opportunities elsewhere in Canada and abroad as use of SMRs grows.”
Ontario is also refurbishing its CANDU at Darlington and potentially Pickering too.
That's great but it still makes much more sense for Ontario to go all CANDU EC6's @ 740MWe, since they have an electricity demand of ~150TWh, vs New Brunswick or Saskatchewan ~13-24TWh. Ontario having the supply chain for CANDUs that's 96% Canadian.
Also for SMRs the molten salt reactors the IMSR-300 and Moltex-300, liquid sodium ARC-100, and High Temperature Gas Cooled U-battery 5MWe, Xe-100 and MMR-10s under development in Canada make more sense, since supplying high temperature heat is a high value capability, i.e. Oil Sands steam extraction.
The good thing is that there’s quite a bit of support for nuclear in Canada so hopefully that will catalyze a new era of development and builds.
I want to see more countries announce they are re-opening or building more coal fired power plants because they can't get nuclear built, sorry so sad about the climate, and to have this happen before Jane Fonda passes away, she's 85 now.
So she can see what she has helped to do.
My take on "climate justice".
A recent podcast “Decouple” hosted by Dr. Keefer talks about the challenges of getting new nuclear projects going, including those faced by the recently NuScale cancelled project. A bit long-winded but an excellent source of little known and under-appreciated aspects of the industry.
https://youtu.be/twMZJSMTqBo?si=hjpQxSUgEfKxFNA6
You know something stinks when it takes twice as long to license a reactor than it takes to actually design and build the same reactor. In what universe does that makes sense? These corrupted bureaucracies couldn't manage a lemonade stand. Their leadership should all be immediately fired. And for a new leader, find the one REAL engineer who states: "I will guarantee licensing will take half the build time, or I will resign. And I will offer all employees a chance to commit to that schedule or their resignation will be accepted, immediately."
The cost graphs show the influence of Linear No Threshold (LNT) lunacy whereby regulations are enacted such that a single spec of radiation release is too much.
this was done on purpose and is most successful where litigation is entrenched, so you see USA costs are the highest.
Are they safer than South Korean built reactors? Not in any measurable way.
As with everything else, until we push the climate/insane out of the room we won't make progress.
It doesn't matter that COP28 pledges to triple nuclear, the climate/insane are already screaming hard trying to block it, we know they will try to prevent it.
Installed capacity comparison with solar, watch out for two factors:
Capacity factor (yearly average use rate of the nominal capacity): 85-90% for nuclear, 10-20% for solar (up to 25% in inhabitable ideal places).
Life span: 60 to 80 years for nuclear, 25-30 years for solar (and diminishing efficiency of 0.5% per year).
Thus, assuming the investment cost of nuclear at 3600 USD/kW and of solar at 900 USD/kW, the total investment to be made to obtain the same service (i.e. delivering X MWh/year over 80 years) can be 3 to 6 times lower for nuclear than for solar.
And of course, nuclear is available when you need it, the fuel is there on site, there is no intermittency, nor any worries of "just in time" gas supply like gas generation.
And of course, it doesn't matter if you build 10x average grid load of solar, you still need the 1.3x of nuclear, so why build the utterly useless solar?
In addition to Roger's Iron Law of Climate Policy there are Implacable Laws of Intermittency :
1. The law of intermittency load factor:
Any activity consisting of using a resource that is obtained intermittently will only have a load factor that is lower than that of the intermittent source.
2. The negative law of intermittent sources:
When any proportion of an intermittent production is added to a system that must operate without interruption, it destabilises the system and increases its costs.
Hadn't read about the law of intermittency, but yes its certainly a law.
Like Bryce's law of power density.
Its why the more "cheap wind and solar" you put on the grid, the higher your costs are and the lower your reliability. Exactly opposite of the claims.
Like here in Alberta, where we used to have a solid inexpensive grid.
One reason nuclear energy is so expensive in the US is unrealistic regulations. Don't see Congress or anyone else bringing common sense to the table. We had our chance sixty years ago when nuclear energy provided economical electricity but we allowed the nut-jobs to destroy our future with their campaign against the atom.
To add to my comment, our military (US Navy) operates dozens of nuclear reactors safely and efficiently (for many decades) in adverse settings (on and under the sea) in all weather conditions and circumstances without the NRC. Our seamen and the oceans are safe in spite of adhering to only practical requirements - not the ridiculous ones of the anti-nuclear NRC.
Also they have safely transporting & interring their nuclear waste in New Mexico caverns for decades.
LNT, see above
Congress has been beating on the door of the NRC but the internal incentives and culture are very deep set
The NRC made advanced reactor regulations that a large majority of interested companies rated as worse than the standard regulations
So they made an alternate advanced reactor regulation that had some improvements yet, spectacularly, included the provision that an advanced reactor not release more than a given amount of radiation if the plant had a maximum design basis accident every year for 40 years
I believe that Congress should appoint an oversight agency that has the power to strike decisions and invalidate processes of the NRC based on a reasonable cost benefit consideration
An entirely new agency should be created for advanced walkaway safe reactors that don't even pose the mostly imaginary public health risk that the NRC was created to manage
Or get rid of the NRC like Vivek wants to do. States can regulate their own nuclear, a little competition in regulators. A state that has a dysfunctional regulator will get no new NPPs and will have to buy electricity from states that have a rational regulator.
Just watched "The Power Hungry" podcast with Grace Stanke and Robert Bryce. Wow, what a young dynamo she is, a nuclear engineer and Miss America too! Highly recommended if you want to better grasp where we are in the pursuit of clean and sensible energy. She is an excellent communicator, and points out that better communication is crucial.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKM7Q53G7js&t=1962s
Worth noting the earlier rapid growth, after energy crisis, natural gas was not allowed for electric power generation - 1978 power plant and industrial fuel act - and many places were not able to build coal, being restricted by new clean air act.