Ben Rose,

So far you have not seriously responded to the three criteria I nominated. I have supported each with references. It seems you did not bother to read them.

Can we focus on the key points of apparent disagreement, reaching closure on one at a time, and see if we can progress without diversions.

Do you agree or disagree with:

1. The LCOE of a mostly nuclear powered electricity system is substantially less than the LCOE of a mostly renewable powered system.

Here are some links:

CSIRO ‘My Power’ calculator: http://www.csiro.au/Outcomes/Energy/MyPower.aspx

CSIRO ‘eFuture’ scenario options calculator: http://efuture.csiro.au/#scenarios

There are any others from other countries.

Your own analysis for WA estimates LCOE for 100% renewables is around >200/MWh. That’s nearly twice the LCOE of a mostly nuclear system. (please don’t get picky about 100% v ‘mostly’). http://greenswa.net.au/assets/sen2029study.pdf

Critique of the ZCA2020 report: http://bravenewclimate.com/2010/08/12/zca2020-critique/

France v Denmark and Germany are a practical demonstration. France’s electricity (75% nuclear) is near the cheapest and lowest CO2 intensity in EU, whereas Denmark and Germany have near the most expensive electricity and much higher CO2 intensity.

Note: decommissioning, waste disposal and accident insurance costs are included in the cost of electricity for nuclear but not for wind and solar. Do you have an authoritative references for these costs per MWh for wind and solar? (I agree they are not included in the AETA LCOE figures, but they are small; for the USA decommissioning $1-2/MWh, waste disposal ~$1/MWh and accident insurance ~$0.11/MWh).
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Nuclear-Fuel-Cycle/Nuclear-Wastes/Decommissioning-Nuclear-Facilities/
http://www.oecd-nea.org/ndd/pubs/2013/7061-ebenfc-execsum.pdf (Figure ES.1)
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/nuclear-insurance.html
If you have better figures from authoritative sources, please provide links and let’s discuss.

You asked me for my analysis comparing the cost of a mostly nuclear and mostly renewables grid. Here is a rough estimate for the NEM. http://festkoerper-kernphysik.de/Weissbach_EROI_preprint.pdf If you find a significant error that would significantly change the conclusions, please let me know and also please provide context as to how much difference you estimate it would make to the costs in Figure 6.

OK Peter, here’s two last posts from me for the sake of keeping us both ‘intellectually honest’.
I ran scenarios from the CSIRO eFuture calculator. In all cases assuming medium technology costs , high fuels costs and battery storage. Their results for wholesale electricity price in $/MWh in 2030 and 2050 were:

‘Default’ 97- 134 – (actually about 50% gas, 40% renewables, 10% coal)
Emissions down to 45%
‘Nuclear’ – 85, 100 (scenario was actually about 30% renewables, 60% nuclear)
Emissions down to 5%
‘Wind turbines’ – 110, 145 (actually about 60% renewables including 15% wind, the rest ‘clean’ and other coal and a bit of gas)
Emissions down to 35%
Solar CST - 111, 145 (actually about 50% renewables including 5% CST, the rest ‘clean’ and other coal’ anda bit of gas)
Emissions down to 45%

Points to note are:
eFuture will not do all nuclear or all-renewables scenarios. I suspect they would have included 1/3 renewables with nuclear because they think it would be impossible to go all nuclear – too insecure and not diversified enough.

Also (and this baffles me), it will also no allow more than 5% solar CST or 1% biomass (both of these are proven commercial technologies) It will allow up to 40 % ‘clean coal’ mainly carbon capture and storage (not yet commercial for stand - alone power generation) and coal engines, which are neither clean or yet commercialized.

If we assume that, as BZE and SEN claim, it will be feasible to do have to 10% biomass, 30% solar CST and about 10% pumped ocean storage hydro, then we can have 100 % renewable scenarios and reduce emissions to about 5%, but CSIRO eFuture simply won’t do these.

It appears that eFuture has been ‘damped down’ for political reasons so it won’t take any ‘radical’ solutions like all nuclear or all renewables. I intend to contact them and suggest it be revised to include these.

Continued in next post....

CSIRO’s costs for ’clean coal’ (CCS) would be at least as high as $130/ MWh for the solar thermal 10 hour molten salt storage in Nevada, and much higher than biomass combustion. So I think their estimate for wind of 11c/ MWh on the NEM is probably close to what it would be for 100% renewables.

Hence with regard to the nations' future electricity system:
1/ Voters will first need to decide whether they want the clean energy option – i.e reduce carbon emissions to about 5% rather than 45% of current that could be achieved with gas / 'business as usual'
2/ Then they'll need to decide whether they want clean energy with all nuclear or pay 3c more per kWh for clean energy with all renewables.
5/ If voters want the clean energy option and don’t want to pay 3c more, which of us will be OK having one of the 20 or more nuclear reactors in our district?

PS: In arriving at your false statement that nuclear would be half the cost of renewables, you have made two incorrect assumptions:

1/ SEN’S updated costs for 100% renewable electricity on the SWIS are $160-170 not the $200 you cited form the first study.
2/ You did not compare ‘apples with apples’ - SWIS is a small isolated grid so energy is and will remain significantly more costly on SWIS than the NEM, for which CSIRO did its calculations.

Using eFutures' estimates, the cost of ‘mostly nuclear’ on the NEM is likely to be about 75% of ‘mostly renewables'

That is of course without nuclear’s risks costed in in.

Ben,

This is frustrating.

Why did you begin with eFuture instead of MyPower? Why didn’t you check the values I gave in an earlier post and respond? Seems you realise what I said is correct but is not what you want to hear. First you need to accept those figures or explain what’s wrong and quantify by how much.

Why have you begun using eFuture with non-defaultsetting? You’re cherry picking. It reveals bias. It’s sufficient reason to dismiss your work. If you’d started with the default values, which are the central estimates, with and without nuclear, you’d find eFuture projects nuclear will provide 60% of electricity by 2050, at 1/3 the cost and 60% of the emissions of the default (mostly RE) scenario.

We know nuclear can provide 80% of electricity generation, France has been doing it for 30 years. Renewables cannot do it.

BZE’s analysis is nonsense, as explained previously.

Apparently you haven’t read the links I provided. I don’t accept your study as correct or authoritative, so let’s leave that one aside and focus on the authoritative MyPower which is the one that better gives the emissions and costs for the different energy mixes, but does not include transmission so it favours RE.

Don’t introduce another diversion guessing what the voters will decide. We are discussing which mix gives lower cost power. Try to stay focused on the point!

LCOE of a mostly nuclear NEM would be around half the cost of a mostly RE NEM. That statement is explained and supported. You haven’t read the link I provided and responded as I requested if you have an issue with it.

I’ve given you the costs for the nuclear risks you asked about. They are from authoritative sources. They are negligible. You haven’t shown they are wrong and provided alternative authoritative figures. You don’t acknowledge and reach closure on any issues and just keep repeating the already refuted assertions.

You effectively conceded the point: “Using eFuture' estimates, the cost of ‘mostly nuclear’ on the NEM is likely to be about 75% of ‘mostly renewables'”.

cont ...

You effectively conceded the point: “Using eFuture' estimates, the cost of ‘mostly nuclear’ on the NEM is likely to be about 75% of ‘mostly renewables'”.

But, if you use the default values (the most likely values) mostly nuclear is about 60% of mostly RE

As explained previously decommissioning, waste disposal and accident and disaster insurance costs for nuclear are negligible ($2-$3/MWh) and may be higher for renewables. I asked you to provide authoritative figures for these costs for RE. You didn't respond. Transmission is not included in the figures and that is much higher for RE than nuclear. So you can say eFuture favours RE, not nuclear.

Using eFuture defaults, the cost of ‘mostly nuclear’ on the NEM is likely to be about 60% of ‘mostly renewables'”, not including transmission costs which are much higher for RE than nuclear. And CO2 emissions from mostly nuclear are 1/3 of those from mostly RE.

Whether you can admit it or not, you’ve lost this debate. You are wrong but apparently don’t have the professional integrity to admit it and concede the point.

Peter; what is LCOE ?