Ah, Martin, your espousal of nuclear makes such eminent sense…

except for one small detail...

Fukushima.

After Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, you would have expected everyone to have become critically careful about safeguards against the enormous downsides of nuclear power. And we would have expected the Japanese to have done this as well as any country in the world could have.

And then…. the most enormous disaster happens.

FORGET NUCLEAR!

So I wonder if this 100 percent renewables study is based on the project population size by 2050 with the current growth trends. I presume it is.

Well it shouldn’t be. Surely one of the most fundamental aspects of the development of a renewable energy regime is to STOP the demand from forever rapidly increasing.

We need to stabilise our population.

And we need to work on reducing per-capita consumption.

We absolutely need to work on the demand side as well as the supply capability.

I note that in the list of assumptions at the start of this long report, the last-listed items are these little gems:

• The demand assumptions used in this report are based on AEMO’s 2012 National Electricity Forecasting Report (NEFR) with revisions to fit with the 100 per cent renewables scenarios and extended to 2030 and 2050 using a regression model

• The costs of developing the demand side participation (DSP), energy efficiency measures, and electric vehicle (EV) infrastructure assumed in the modelling have not been taken into account.

Oh dear. So the whole thing is only looking at supply. Sorry but that is a horribly one-side study, which is just hopeless. This sort of study absolutely needs to be holistic, and consider the demand side as fully as it does the supply side.

What they are essentially doing is pandering to an ever-rapidly-increasing demand…. which is sits in absolute conflict with the baseline notion of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and developing a totally renewable (sustainable) energy regime!

I wonder how the overall costs would shape up if as much effort was put into addressing the demand side as for the supply side of the equation…. and how this would then compare to nuclear.

$91 Billion?

This does not include govt contributions like underwriting insurance and other subsidies. And it obviously does not include whole of life costs including horrendously expensive dismantling costs?
Then there are the safety issues and waste disposal.
All of these are completely ignored in this puff piece on behalf of the nuclear industry.

Thank you, Martin Nicholson, for another excellent article. As is your way, it is cautious, conservative, with no overstatements.

I'll make a few quick points:

We have no idea what the cost of such a scheme would be other than it would be at least double the costs stated in the AEMO draft report. Some features of the AEMO analysis:

- Cost projections to 2030 and 2050 for technologies that have never been built at the scale required, let alone proven fit for purpose and economic.

- Ridiculously low fuel cost for biofuels - to provide reliable supply of biogas for occasional use (the CSIRO study excludes logistic constraints). (Some of the issues are mentioned here in questions to Dr. Diesendorf http://bravenewclimate.com/2012/02/27/100-renewable-electricity-for-australia-response-to-lang/#comment-152532).) So forget biofuels, it's contribution will be insignificant

- most or all of the technologies have never been built at the scale assumed (e.g. solar thermal, EGS geothermal, wave)

- The transmission costs will be far higher than estimated when all the costs of the items excluded in the AEMO report are included

- far more capacity (over build) will be required for the whole system to achieve the reliability requirements

I haven't looked at the draft report carefully yet, but if the assumptions for the existing pumped hydro are anything like what Elliston et al assumed, then we can forget the pumped hydro contribution. In other words exclude the existing pumped hydo with a renewable energy system, it is for storing excess energy from baseload power stations at night for use the next day.

Much more on the issues were covered here http://bravenewclimate.com/2012/02/09/100-renewable-electricity-for-australia-the-cost/ and are not addressed in the AEMO report.

I could say much more, but for now, an reasonable engineering judgement is that you can reasonably assume the cost estimates will be double those quoted.

WE should consider nuclear energy.
And that model ought to be, cheaper than coal, Thorium.
Oxide reactors consume less than 5% of their fuel material; meaning, the rest is waste, and highly toxic waste at that!
Whereas, Thorium reactors consume over 95% of their fuel, with such waste as is produced, far less toxic, and eminently suitable for very long life space batteries.
We are blessed with copious NG and piping gas directly to the home, would enable that gas to be consumed in ceramic fuel cells.
A chemical reaction, that produces a 72% energy coefficient, and the world's cheapest power; and, produces mainly water vapour, rather than the Co2, we'ed create, burning it in a gas turbine.
Moreover, we virtually double the carbon created, and the consumer cost component, just by pushing power down transmission lines, which all have to be maintained at greater and greater cost to the community.
Further, Private suppliers wax lyrical about free markets and market forces; and competition driving down prices, all while maintaining captive market monopolies!
The real impact of privatisation is to effectively quadruple prices?
At least that is the only real outcome one can see in all of the published comparative modelling!
Also routinely ignored by privatisation protagonists, is virtually free biogas!
Almost every family home or high rise, produces enough biological waste, to power their premises 24/7.
With free hot water as a bonus.
We could build an electric car here today, that the whole world would want.
We lead the world in moulded carbon fibre technology.
Instead of recharging electric cars with domestic power, put a super silent CNG powered ceramic cell inside a carbon fibre body.
The energy coefficient of 72%, would massively increase the electric car's range, well beyond most petrol powered variants.
And the exhaust, mostly water vapour!
We know how to make cars, we just don't know how to innovate, and capture a world wide market; and, quite massive economies of scale in the process!
Maybe that's down to foreign owners, with their own head office agendas, priorities and myopic focus?
Rhrosty.

Ludwig: If the reactor at Fukushima, had of been a pebble reactor!
It would still be pumping out carbon free power today!
Pebble reactors are designed not to melt down even where the coolant, helium, is stopped. If you understand how the thermonuclear reaction is obtained inside an oxide reactor, then you will understand that placing a grapefruit sized ball of carbon around a marble of fuel, keeps and maintains enough essential space around all of the fuel material, to prevent the very meltdown, the anti nuclear brigade rely on, to support their no nuke campaign?
This design also enables small pebble reactors to be mass produced as modules and trucked onsite, bolted together to be producing power within days.
Decommissioning simply a reverse of that process.
Sure, the waste is a bit of a problem.
Currently the waste is combined with silica and other inorganic materials. To make an entirely inert solid substance.
That material is then stored in a very robust ceramic container, which is in turn interred inside a stainless steel drum, which is then incarcerated inside a caste iron cask.
Not all that long a go, a locomotive, remotely controlled, was accelerated to over ninety miles per hour, 145 Klms PH, and smashed at full speed into one of those cast iron casks.
The 70-80 ton loco was derailed and totalled, while the cask remained undamaged.
Buried in dry desert mountain ranges, in relatively remote locations, the waste presents no more danger than naturally occurring Uranium ore bodies, or rich in thorium, radioactive granite! Which many buildings use as cut blocks, in their construction!
If you and your ilk, would just stop with the fear-mongering and misinformation roll-out?
Maybe we could have a sensible grown up discussion pertaining to nuclear power?
Personally, I believe winning the anti-nuclear argument, is as simple as providing hip pocket cost comparisons, between it and say, NG powered home based, carbon free, ceramic fuel cells!
Rhrosty.

As Martin Freeman points out, that recent AEMO study on renewables did little more than emphasise the enormous cost of a 100 per cent renewables system. Even then the study authors had to assume geothermal for 20 per cent or so of the network and gas turbines (using biofuel) for another chunk to make it work. It ain't going to happen.

Then there are the objections to renewables the Luddites trot out Fukushima, Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. I don't see why a reactor would have to be placed near a coast - so much for tidal waves - and it would be built with a containment shield. So much for Chernobyl. As for Three Mile Island, okay the reactors are not likely to be built right next to a population center.

But realistically its politically impossible in Aus. They can't even build pulp mills here without concerted campaigns of misinforation scaring the socks of the public who are not use to dealing with technical information, and nuclear reactors already have PR image problems. Never going to happen.

Nuclear power would be fine and dandy if those slavering after big profits from generating and supplying it (including the mining of uranium) were made to internalise all the external costs. This would mean, first and foremost, insuring the community against damage rather than shunting the cleanup costs to the community as in Fukushima. Premiums which an insurance company would demand would be horrendous - but in that case the cost of nuclear power is horrendous and would need to be included in the retail price of a Kwh of delivered power. Maybe then the nuclear industry would lose its taboo on use of thorium.

The latest report from WNA (Updated March 2013) makes it clear that nuclear power generation is growing worldwide. It seems ridiculous for Australia to head in this direction when we have so much cheap coal. But if we really believe that fossil fuels are generating too much CO2 and that this is somehow linked to global warming, then I guess nuclear has to remain on the table as it is for 31 other countries?

“Today there are some 435 nuclear power reactors operating in 31 countries plus Taiwan, with a combined capacity of over 370 GWe. In 2011 these provided 2518 billion kWh, about 13.5% of the world's electricity”.

“Over 60 power reactors are currently being constructed in 13 countries plus Taiwan, notably China, South Korea and Russia”.

http://world-nuclear.org/info/Current-and-Future-Generation/Plans-For-New-Reactors-Worldwide/#.UYYZxVt4aXQ

http://world-nuclear.org/info/Facts-and-Figures/World-Nuclear-Power-Reactors-and-Uranium-Requirements/#.UYYaQ1t4aXQ

"According to AEMO, to convert the NEM to a 100 per cent renewable system will cost at least $219 to $332 billion. This is excluding significant costs for the land (which could be as much as 5,000 sq kms) and augmentation of the distribution network. This is starting to sound worse than the recent high-speed train proposal from Melbourne to Brisbane. "

Good analogy. Unfortunately, the environmental activists don't see it that way. To them money is no object when their pet projects are considered.

They argue for abolition of efficient coal-based power generation, on the hypothesis that anthropogenic CO2 emissions cause dangerous global warming. They rely on unvalidated climate models , as they have no empirical scientific evidence to prove the hypothesis. Rigorous cost benefit analysis is foreign to them.

The suggestion that nuclear energy should be added to the mix will undoubtedly make them and many others see red.

"But realistically its politically impossible in Aus. They can't even build pulp mills here without concerted campaigns of misinforation scaring the socks of the public who are not use to dealing with technical information, and nuclear reactors already have PR image problems. Never going to happen.
Posted by Curmudgeon, Wednesday, 8 May 2013 11:20:38 AM"

Which is good. It seems Australia, Germany and Italy are the only countries left where people have not yet been brainwashed by the atom guys. People in most of the other countries have already been confined to assisted thinking.

But I think I forgot Austria. At least have they published study from the University of Linz to calculate the real cost of nuclear power if it had to be insured instead of having the taxpayer pay for centuries to come.

http://www.anschober.at/politik/presse/1372/die-erste-oesterreichische-studie-ueber-die-milliardensubventionen-der-atomenergie-bringt-neue-hebel-fuer-die-oesterreichische-antiatom-politik

According to the study a kilowatt hour nuclear power would the be around 26 dollars - dollars, not cents.

Of course nuclear power plants are not required to have insurance.

Also the billions to be paid by future taxpayers for thousands of years to take care and protect the nuclear waste are not put aside by today's users of electricity but left to their grand-grand-grand... children who will have no choice but pay for what they ancestors use today.

How distasteful are those nuclear proponents to not even stop short of stealing from their unborn children and grand-children.

Augh come on Mark. Have a bit more faith in your fellow Australians :). They will see the light in the end. I’m hoping for starting the nuclear build in 2025 – even if it’s SMRs which might be easier to sell.

Decommissioning costs are a minor addition to the electricity costs from a nuclear power plant, in the order of $2/ MWh. It gets factored in.

Nuclear plants are very well insured. As far as the internalisation of costs go, unlike fossil fuels a nuclear power plant actually captures and contains the waste product. Amazing. No need for a carbon price to internalise the greenhouse externality either, because there are no emissions.

These are spurious objections. If it's an economic no-go, it won't happen will it? Nuclear needs to be included in modelling and on the table for energy planning.

Good piece from Martin Nicholson who, from what I can see, is an independent author and analyst, not an employee of the nuclear power industry. Those inferring as such are just looking for a cheap way to avoid testing their thinking

I see the Kool Aid moment coming long before 2025. I live smack in the middle of hydro country and you should be worried about dam levels i.e. nothing like last year. Despite all the 'fracking will save us' rhetoric I think petrol prices will keep climbing. Within a year or two I expect a backlash against expensive energy prices in Germany.

Since cleanup costs must now be factored in I hope Australian coal exporters will henceforth charge China and others to keep CO2 and other nasties out of the atmosphere. It follows cleanup costs should not be theatrically over the top like removing soil from areas near Fukushima that is less radioactive than some suburbs. Good luck to those who think the big coal stations will be closing anytime soon thanks to renewables.

Ben Heard you wrote:
"Nuclear plants are very well insured"

I guess you've never heard of ths Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act. They are indemnified from litigation in case of a meltdown

You also wrote
"Decommissioning costs are a minor addition to the electricity costs from a nuclear power plant"

Perhaps you might like to have a look at this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_decommissioning

All part of the nuclear industry "She'll be right mate" attitude.

Nuclear industry has many supporters until one is proposed for their neighbourhood.

@Shalmaneser

American NPPs are required to hold around $300 million in insurance each. The Price-Anderson Act the compels them each to contribute to a pool fund, which can be drawn upon in the event that any single reactor faces damages in excess of their own insurance. The pool fund currently has a value of over $10 billion.

The Price Anderson Act does NOT indemnify American NPPs. It does the opposite: it imposes more demands on them than any other industry. The American tax payer has never footed the insurance bill for nuclear. Almost everyone gets this wrong. It's a very durable myth.
http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/08/21/nuclear-risk-insurance/

I'm neither in the nuclear industry, nor do I have a "she'll be right mate" attitude. In my opinion those objecting spuriously to nuclear seem to take this approach to climate change.

I don't want to live next to any form of power generation. But given the choice of coal, gas, wind, solar or nuclear, I would take nuclear.

@Shalmaneser

RE: decommissioning

A small NPP (e.g. a 690 MWe CANDU 6) built in Australia today could be expected to comfortably generate over 5,000,000 MWh of electricity every year.

In round terms, the levelised cost of electricity would be about $100/MWh.

Add just one dollar to the price of the electricity (i.e. 1%) and you raise $5 million per annum as a decommissioning fund.

The plant has a life of 60 years. At decommissioning your fund has 5*60*(interest) million dollars, or minimum $300 million for decommissioning. Meanwhile it has spent 60 years doing what a coal or gas plant was doing without the greenhouse emissions.

The sum is not small, but the impact on the economics of the plant or the electricity price for the consumer is completely negligible.

Objecting to nuclear in sound bytes is easy. Responsible energy planning requires some deeper consideration of the issues.

Ben that is just wrong. The liability of nuclear power plants is limited by Price-Anderson Act. Do you understand what that means? yes they contribute to a fund but that is the sum total of their liability. $10 billion will not even scratch the surface for the real cost of Fukishima

I'd like to know how Martin Nicholson arrives at his costings. As far as I have been able to discover, not one nuclear generating company in the world today has to obtain full liability insurance at market rates. Governments have always provided some level of indemnity to foster the industry.
It is also highly questionable whether adequate funds have ever been set aside for decommissioning and waste disposal.
In the absence of such data, the economics of nuclear power are simply unknown.

Shalmaneser,

"The liability of nuclear power plants is limited by Price-Anderson Act."

Name an industry/business/household that holds unlimited insurance. Such a thing does not exist. Something always limits the insurance, for everything, all the time.

Now name an industry that has to pool resources into a common fund like the American nuclear industry, other than the American nuclear industry. That too does not exist.

Now name an industry that has never come close to maxing out the available insurance: that IS the American nuclear industry.

The supposed costing of Fukushima clean-up is based on a quite absurd standard, accurately described by Tasweigian as making it less radioactive than some suburbs, despite assessments from WHO making it clear that if there is any negative impact, it will be so small as to be beyond detection. Some discrete areas WILL warrant clean up. But presuming to scrape soil of the whole exclusion zone that is less radioactive than Cornwall is absurd.

Name an industry subject to that type of standard other than the nuclear industry. There is no such thing.

Furthermore, the article is based on projected costs and deployment of nuclear in Australia from 2013 onward. The comparison with Fukushima is moot unless you make adjustments for how a modern reactor would have tolerated that type of event. Australia will not be building early Gen II, 1970 reactors, any more than we are selling 1970s cars. A modern reactor built in Australia would be privately insured, live every other industrial facility.

Tighten the thumb screws on nuclear power if you wish. It just waves through fossil fuels that face none of these demands to account for their waste or the damage of their everyday operations.

Ben,

Name an industry that has the potential for absolute catastrophe and virtually unlimited insurance exposure that nuclear does.
It's not cars or shirts.
Renewables are the only rational and safe future.
There may be some future in Thorium but the technology eludes us at the moment.

21 comments by 3.40 pm shows how excited folk get about their favorite sources of heat and electricity. Everyone seems to have a fixed starting point from which they work themselves up into a frenzy whenever it is challenged. But maybe we should all stay calm and rational. Renewables too expensive or impractical? Well, let's invest in research to make them cheaper and feasible. Nuclear too expensive or dangerous? Well, let's invest in research to find the answers. Not that there are any guarantees. As I have said many times, R&D is risky and there is no certainty about reaching defined objectives. That doesn't mean that pre-judgements should put a stop to further improvements. We ought to be trying, even if that means, in some cases, only making clear exactly what the public are objecting to and what their expectations might be (e.g. see Ben Heard). That would certainly help set performance targets.

Despite the heat in some of these comments, there is only one really silly one, an ad hominem attack. Martin Nicholson producing 'puff on behalf of the nuclear industry' - what nuclear industry? There isn't one here.

Rhosty, most of what you say is reasonable but I must correct your statement that the smart use of CNG mainly produces water vapour.

CH4 + 2O2 -> CO2 + 2H2O regardless of how you do it.

David

Rhrosty! Fair slap on the bum!!

<< If you and your ilk, would just stop with the fear-mongering and misinformation… >>

Up to that point, your post was very good.

Sheesh, you and I have commented on many of the same threads, and have only corresponded with each other on those threads a couple of times, because we have similar views on most things.

So it is of rather poor form, at the first sign of disagreement, to get insolent with someone with whom you have vast majority concurrency of opinion!

Now, if pebble reactors are everything that you crack them up to be, along with the much-improved treatment of waste that you mention, then I would be more than willing to modify my opposition to nuclear power.

But hey, Fukushima has rotted confidence in nuclear power, across the board. If this disaster could happen in Japan with its esteemed technological reputation, then you can understand the massive global wariness held by most people regarding what we get told by any proponents of nuclear power.

What you say needs some pretty thorough corroboration before I can accept it at face value.

I would love to be able to fully accept what you say and to support nuclear. In the absence of the major downsides – the chance of catastrophic mishap and the problems with waste, it would indeed be the way to go.

So if you can assist by directing me to a useful link or two, that would be much appreciated.

Apologies Ludwig: But having worked with radioactive materials and machines for years, I think I might just have a modicum of knowledge on the subject.
And the stock standard seventies objections were very relevant then but not now.
FBR, potentially can reduce the radio active half life of nuclear waste to just 300 years.
And your objections were that one time too many spurious claims, of which I've already had more than my fill.
You clearly are years behind in your knowledge, with your if this and if that, which clearly challenges my integrity.
As your say, we seem to agree on many other things, and I'm not a nuclear advocate.
I just want to argue the case on current facts.
And contrary to another posters claims, ceramic cells don't actually burn lighter than air methane, which as you probably know is mostly hydrogen.
The action inside a ceramic cell is a chemical reaction that produces power by converting Hydrogen and oxygen back into water, and producing raw electrical energy in the process.
One could say, it is essentially electrolysis in reverse?
Links that might prove useful include,www.ecogeek.org/component/article/3657-alternative-nuclear- power-pebble-bed-reactor.
And www.world-nuclear.org/info/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-waste-management/#/UYoa 8aI-vp8.
Rhrosty.

<< But having worked with radioactive materials and machines for years, I think I might just have a modicum of knowledge on the subject >>

Thanks Rhrosty for that snippet of background information. And thanks for the links.

<< You clearly are years behind in your knowledge… >>

Well, please correct my failings. I am only too willing to learn.

<< …with your if this and if that, which clearly challenges my integrity. >>

Absolutely. I certainly do challenge your integrity, Rhrosty! I don’t know you from a bar of soap, so I challenge you to convince me that you are genuine and highly knowledgeable in this field.

I find it interesting that thorium has for a long time been espoused by some as our great energy saviour, and yet the message hasn’t been widely accepted. If it was as good as some people have made it out to be, then surely it would have gained widespread backing and become of great interest to governments around the world. Same with the pebble-bed reactor.

I hit your second link. It doesn’t take me to where you intended because the link isn’t live. It took me to the main page of the World Nuclear Association. I would have expected the pebble-bed reactor, if it as amazing as you have said it is, to have jumped out from that page and bitten me on the nose. But no, I could see no mention of it.

I note that pebble-bed technology was developed in the 1940s but was abandoned because of insurmountable problems! The graphite that encases the fuel pellets is combustible. So that if there was a fire, it could still have catastrophic results.

Could you please repost your links as live links. Thanks.

Martin Nicholson has again demonstrated the weaknesses in a major report. For this, he has been exposed to ridicule and false accusations.

Thankfully, other contributors have gently pointed out the truth, which is that MN is a careful, conservative (by which I mean he does not make unsubstantiated claims) author. Why he continues, I can only guess, but I am thankful that he has done so.

AEMO has published half a report. They have intentionally ignored the suite of nuclear options available. They disregard enormous land costs, much of the essential upgrade of the distribution system which 100% renewable will force upon us. They have assumed costs which are (a) estimates for technologies that do not exist, such as hot rocks, wave power and more and (b) worse still, they discount the expected costs by presuming (inventing/guessing) mature design and build costs, thus ignoring design development and the inevitable First Of A Kind costs involved with trialling new technologies.

Half a report is worse than no report at all. It leaves questions hanging, such as demolition, site restoration and insurance, where these should be explored, quantified and included in the analysis.

This should be easy - after all, AEMO is Australia's peak energy body, is it not? They have vastly easier access to funding than our universities, do they not?

AEMO has its own reasons for becoming involved in this example of unprofessionalism.

I move that the report be returned to the student with the note "Student to complete and resubmit this assignment".

What is clear is that in spite of the wild claims by the anti nuke lobby, that nuclear power is still the safest means of generating electricity in the world, even safer so far than renewables.

Fukushima is the latest rallying cry by the anti nuke rabble who conveniently forget that the wave that caused this disaster killed more than 20 000 people and left thousands of square kilometers of farm land unusable for many years due to salt and debris inundation. That no one has yet died from radiation yet is testament to how feeble their case is.

France is the model for the nuclear generators, and their solution to waste treatment is simple in that they recycle and reuse the bulk of the fuel rods and separate out the 4% which is the highly radioactive "waste" which can be disposed of or used in industrial or medical equipment. (which has saved millions of lives)

As for renewables, the activists generally ignore the indirect costs of renewable power such as the land, and cost of distribution network to connect these systems to the grid, which generally cost more than the generation itself.

There is only an emotional argument against nuclear power not a rational one.

John, thank you for your confidence in my veracity but to be fair to AEMO, it wasn’t them that decided not to include nuclear but the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency (DCCEE) who commissioned the AEMO study.

I agree that the study should be revisited to include nuclear power. Perhaps after the election the government will request an update.

Hi Martin; good post.

Tom Quirk and Andrew Miskelly have a paper which I think goes to the crux of why ANY financial comparison between renewables and nuc and fossils is meaningless

Tom’s paper is here:

http://aefweb.info/data/Wind%20farming%20in%20SE%20Australia.pdf

Looking at Table 1 we can see the usual suspects; if we use Cullerin range we can see that the Installed Capacity is 30MW and their Capacity Factor is 34% or 10.2 MW.

That 10MW is the actual power produced as an average over a period, usally at least a 1/4, more commonly a year.

The Reliability Point is the crucial indice.

What the Reliability Point shows is the probability at any one moment of that Capacity Factor occuring; for Cullerin it is 3%; so what I take from that is that at any moment the odds of the Cullerin installation producing power is 34/100 X 3/100 = 0.0102 or negligible.

Would you agree with that?

Clarifying:

AEMO should have declined to do this study unless the constraints were removed.

AEMO knew at the outset that the results would be misleading, so why did they do it? To say that the DCCEE commissioned the study is insufficient justification. Some studies/clients are bad for business and should be turned away, even if doing so strains relationships in the short term. It's called professionalism.

Perhaps the truth is that AEMO has been used as a tool, a gun for hire. In which case, why not restructure AEMO without any research capacity, because their current research team has been fatally compromised through its client relationship with DCCEE?

That is the same DCCEE which is in turn dancing to the tune of a political master, its minister, who is also constrained by the political realities of operating in a minority government.

The end result is misleading, unethical, academically dishonest and unprofessional. It reflects very poorly on the integrity of AEMO and the research team.

As I said before... return the homework to the student and request completion of the assignment.

Cohenite: "The Reliability Point is the crucial indice. What the Reliability Point shows is the probability at any one moment of that Capacity Factor occuring; for Cullerin it is 3%; so what I take from that is that at any moment the odds of the Cullerin installation producing power is 34/100 X 3/100 = 0.0102 or negligible. Would you agree with that?"

Perhaps it is better to think of Reliability as meaning availability, so the probability that 90% of Cullerin Range capacity will be available at any given time is 3%. Lower availabilities will imply higher probabilities.

Paraphrasing your sentence, at any moment the odds of the Cullerin installation producing 90% OF ITS MAXIMUM RATED POWER is 3/100, or 3%.

This is small, but not negligible. On average, Cullerin will produce 34%, which is what is meant by the term capacity factor.

Yes, I see I took the reliability point [rp] as being based on the capacity factor not the installed capacity.

I wonder what the rp is for 100% installed capacity of renewable?

And I wonder, since the capacity factor is about 30% for wind and solar, how this would work; say I wanted a guarantee of constant power for 3 hours next Tuesday week; what is the probability I would have that power from wind and solar?

According to Miskelly and Quirk I would have a 3% chance of having the power I need for 90% of the 3 hours; I would have no chance of having power for 100% of the time; but here is the problem: the probability of having power at any one minute would not rise from 3% but decrease.

It would decrease because wind and solar are inherently variable; unlike nuc and fossils which power from a constant, wind and solar power from that intermittancy; that is their base and I think that fact is being masked by averaging. So, if there is a vanishing probability of power 100% of the time then each period of time will also have the same low probability as the period of time becomes smaller.

Regardless of probability it bugs me that people still espouse wind and solar and renewables generally.

People are dying now in England and elsewhere because they cannot afford power or because there is no power; more people then have died from nuc.

The advocates of wind and solar have a lot to answer for.

Hi Ludwig, Pebble rectors and research have come a long way since 1940.
This is exactly what I find so annoying mate. The reliance on already antiquated or superseded science, to support equally invalid objections, or quite blatant misinformation?
Suggest you type the links provided into your search engine.
I went to considerable, Mr nice guy, time and trouble, to get them for you.
Thorium reaction is 1950's technology, that was rejected because there were no weapons spin off, and for no other reason.
Neither one is my preferred model.
My preferred model is endlessly available bladder stored Biogas, (methane) scrubbed and fed into ceramic fuel cells!
Ceramic cells convert methane directly into electrical energy, producing mostly water vapour in the process!
Every home should have one.
The average family home or inner city high rise produces enough biological waste, to completely power the premises 24/7. Endless available free hot water, a useful spin-off!
And there are working examples that entirely validate the process and the significant savings, the most recent I can find, being in a London suburb.
However, the methane powered onsite conventional engine, (energy coefficient around 40% max), is not nearly as efficient as the ceramic fuel cell, (72%).
Moreover, the super silent ceramic fuel cell has no moving parts to wear out.
The addition of food scraps or wastage, creates a saleable energy surplus.
My other preference is Algae production.
Some algae are up to 60% oil.
Algae absorb up to 2.5 times their bodyweight in Co2.
Under optimised conditions, literally double that same bodyweight and absorption capacity every 24 hours.
Some types produce virtually ready to use bio-diesel, others make virtually ready to use jet fuel.
Extracting the oil is as simple as sun-drying the material, and then crushing it, to produce ready to use fuel.
The ex-crush material is suitable as fodder or for ethanol production!
Rhrosty.

I was with Rhosty until he reverted to gas. Gas is still a fossil fuel so the resource will deplete reasonably quickly although the carbon dioxide production is lower per MW compared to coal.

Thorium reactors are as he claimed, safe, produce very little waste and the fuel reserves are enormous at about 50,000 years. The Chinese are contemplating producing one per day much the way Boeing produces passenger jets but they are size constrained to about 100 MW. There is a new youtube video available on the subject.

The other point about Fukuyama is that the failure was due to faulty civic engineering design. The plant was built too close to sea level behind an inadequate bund (protection ) wall. I believe a catalyst, designed to minimise the risk of a reactor gas explosion, was left out of the design accepted.

As far as I am aware there have been no deaths due to the reactor problems.

<< This is exactly what I find so annoying mate. The reliance on already antiquated or superseded science, to support equally invalid objections, or quite blatant misinformation? >>

Rhrosty, this is the very nature of discussions on OLO and the like. You will always be discussing things with people who are not very knowledgeable in the particular field.

This is a very good thing. You are making contact with people who are interested but not knowledgeable and getting the chance to educate them, and many others who are reading but not participating in the discussion.

Don’t be annoyed by it. Be happy about it!

Now as I have said, if pebble technology was as amazing as you have said it was in your first post, then one would have expected it to be right out there and be common knowledge in the public domain. The very fact that it is not, automatically incurs considerable doubt in your great promotion of it.

<< Suggest you type the links provided into your search engine. I went to considerable, Mr nice guy, time and trouble, to get them for you. >>

I tried your links. I can’t work out exactly where they are supposed to take me. That’s why I asked for the live links. I’m at a loss to understand how you could have gone to the trouble to seek these out, which I certainly appreciate, and then not have posted live links…. and then not post live links the second time upon request. That is most baffling.

Ceramic cells and algae sound equally amazing. Too good to be true, without considerable problems/downsides or perhaps just a whole lot more expensive than fossils currently are and hence totally unviable at the moment?

Foyle: You fail to understand, gas,(methane) is mostly hydrogen.
It is the hydrogen that is used in any fuel cell. Which utilises a chemical reaction to produce energy and mostly water vapour.
I am a fan of thorium reactors for any number of reasons, but not extremely costly and very vulnerable transmission lines and asking ordinary folks to shell out billions to build and maintain something, we don't need.
Thorium reactors are envisioned as being suitable as small scale plants, for things like military bases.
Gas is good, but only if used in ceramic fuel cells, that produce mostly water vapour as the principle exhaust.
Moreover, they function almost as well on scrubbed biogas, and we can make endless supplies of that, just by converting endlessly available biological waste into virtually free fuel (methane).
This remedy stops the endless flow of methane into the environment. Or even where it is currently collected, burnt in conventional engines, where it still produces Co2 emission.
Digesters, and nearby algae production, would ensure we clean this stuff up, and extract the energy component, as opposed to putting energy into it, and then pumping out to sea, where it does nothing but harm.

Ludwig, Type Pebble bed reactor into your search engine.
Scroll down until you reach pebble bed reactor, soluble salt cooled alternative.
That site has half a dozen or so informative educational live links to look at, and where one can obtain the book, Thorium, cheaper than coal.
The sites already suggested, are informative and have more info links, to enable to expand your current knowledge on nuclear waste disposal, from an informative and accurate apolitical source?
Great balls of fire!
Carbon balls in a pebble reactor catching fire?
Very disturbing, given a very similar if less robust graphite material is used in crucibles, that provide the high temp melt vessels, used in much of the white hot metals smelting industry!
Very early trials perhaps?
Incidentally, don't like or use live links very much, rather spend time more thoroughly researching, from many sources.
Hope that adds to your education?
Rhrosty.

Martin has written an interesting article.

However, it rang a bell with me. I am in my seventies, and was brought up in Britain. I recall when Nuclear was being discussed politically, we - the population - were told that electricity would be SO CHEAP that eventually they wouldn't even bother to meter it - it would all be FREE. What a difference reality makes.

Secondly, Martin said how little land would be needed for nuclear, compared with sustainable energy systems.

What he DID'NT say was that nuclear plants require huge amounts of water, and therefore are sited usually on the coast. Most of Australia's cities are on the coast, and I wonder which ones will put up their hands and ask for them to be built in their back yards ?

And so far as I am aware, no nuclear plant has ever been successfully decommissioned and dismantled - and the costs that would be involved, have never been provided.

Of course the subject of storage of nuclear waste, is yet another issue.....................

If the money that is given by our government (US) to the big polluters of oil and coal, was given to research and establish sustainable energy systems, we could have economical supplies of energy at realistic prices.

Rhrosty, has the ceramic fuel cell made a major improvement in lifetime
economics. Unless there has been a major improvement there, then it is
back to the design board.

Rhosty. Methane is CH4. When I studied chemistry that meant that for every 4 tonnes of Hydrogen there are 12 tonnes of Carbon. So it is quite wrong to say that methane is mostly hydrogen.

I am all for Thorium powered nuclear reactors. You can put one in my back yard any time.

David