(continued)

8. Transmissions costs for renewables are much higher than for nuclear (at high penetration for both).
Likely true, but cannot say for sure unless you have maps of the particular nation/ state with acceptable locations for nuclear and RE. It's wrong to assume that in future it will be acceptable to locate nuclear near existing coal plants or population centres, thus keeping transmission costs low. e.g San Onofre California, built 1960s-80's is now within 50 miles of 8 million population of SanFrancisco Bay area. It is now permanently retired due degraded steam generator tubes. It would be politically unacceptable to build nuclear power plants in such locations in future.

9. Nuclear has demonstrated it can supply over 75% of the electricity to a large, industrial economy (e.g. France for 30 years)

Yes

10. Non-hydro renewables have not demonstrated they can supply a large proportion of the electricity to a grid in a large industrial economy.

Yes if you mean > 50%. But there are already several nations/ states that currently generate at least 30% of their electricity from renewables - e.g. NZ, Germany, Denmark. And there are many studies outlining and costing how 100% renewables can be done.

11. There is a significant risk that renewables will not be able to do the job (meet requirements at economically viable cost)

No. I believe most consumers would rather have renewables plus energy efficiency at say up to 35% higher wholesale electricity cost (equivalent to about 12% higher retail energy cost), than nuclear.
PS If you are talking about aluminium smelting corporations using non-hydro renewables 24 hours a day, competing with smelters in China using coal then the answer is yes.

12. The ‘expected value’ of this risk, when added to the LCOE, would inflate the LCOE of the mostly-renewables grid by a very significant amount.

No. This is not a risk but a forecast cost of electricity supply from mostly RE. I believe this will be politically acceptable to the majority (see 11 above), and that 'mostly nuclear' will not be politically acceptable in advanced democracies such as Australia.

Ben Roses,

“You don't even know me! “

You’ve demonstrated all those characteristics in your emails. And you continue to do so. You keep demonstrating them. You’re dodging and weaving, avoiding the relevant issues, diverting with irrelevancies, denying and avoiding demonstrated and supported facts, saying “nonsense” to my statements but haven’t provided anything other than statements of your beliefs to support you assertion of “nonsense”.

And you’ve confirmed is all again in the three posts.

Of course the questions have yes no answers. You can answer yes or no and if no then you give your alternative number. You have not done so. So you’ve failed on every questions.

You are clearly dodging and weaving. Clearly intellectually dishonest. Clearly driven entirely by a zealot belie in renewable energy, despite the clear evidence.

1. WRONG! The answer is the numbers I gave. You can’t even follow a simple instructions like select the ‘Default scenario’, get the numbers then select ‘Nuclear permitted’. Is that too hard for a scientist?

2. FAIL! Didn’t provide your figures and evidence to support it. Furthermore, your beliefs are simply Nonsense from the anti-nuke brigade.

3. FAIL! What’s your figures and citations. I’ve given you the references many times in previous comments. You haven’t bothered to read them. You are not attempting to engage in a rational debate.

4. WRONG! It’s about the safest way to generate electricity on a LCA basis and virtually all authoritative studies have been showing this since 1980 or before. You simply don’t understand what you are talking about, and clearly are not interested in learning – you won’t even read the references I provided.

5. FAIL. You didn’t provide an alternative figure from authoritative source. And WRONG! The insurance being paid is excessive. Clearly you didn’t read my explanation and reference in a previous comment.

6. FAIL! You haven’t provided your alternative and references. I provided the references in previous comments. You didn’t read them, as usual.

7. CORRECT! Well done! (I notice you can handle simple questions as long as no numbers are involved).

cont...

... cont:

8. FAIL! No alternative figures and no authoritative sources. I gave you my figures for the NEM earlier for the sites used for the NEM modelling by EDM; AEMO’s are similar. Clearly you haven’t read those references either.

9. CORRECT! Well done!

10. WRONG! These countries do not generate >30% of their electricity from renewables and cannot do so. They are relying on their neighbours to take excess and provide back-up. The EU grid had 11% non-hydro renewables in 2012 (Eurostat).

11. FAIL! You’ve stated you belief (actually your preferences) but provided no evidence to support it.

12. FAIL! Again you shown you don’t understand what risk means and again you clearly didn’t read the link I provided earlier on this. And again you are stating what you would like to be the case.

You’ve demonstrated through your comments all the characteristics you complained that I’d pointed out in previous comments.

You failed to correctly answer 10 out of 12 questions.

You’ve clearly lost the debate. Furthermore, you have a closed mind, a mind of a zealot. You are not open to learn what doesn’t agree with your beliefs.

If you want to learn, go back through this thread, read the comments carefully, with an open mind and read the sources in the links I provided.

But I’ve given up on you. Your comments and responses have demonstrated all the characteristics I stated previously. You are an example of what has happened to the once highly regarded discipline of ‘scientist’. Your comments demonstrate your ideological beliefs are more important to you than the truth.

Peter Lang
Futher to establishing what we agree and disagree on, I put to you my list of questions/ statements. Where you disagree with my references, please provide alternatives:

1/There are many thousands (26,000 by one estimate) of nuclear warheads in the world; more than enough to destroy human civilization.
http://blog.mapsofworld.com/tag/largest-nuclear-weapons-countries-map/

2/ Of the 87-odd nuclear generation plants of > 150 MW capacity so far deommissioned, 7 have been core melt downs and 3 have been other catastophic accidents necessitating evacuations. A further 26 were shut down for political reasons and only 20 reached their intended life term.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Nuclear-Fuel-Cycle/Nuclear-Wastes/Decommissioning-Nuclear-Facilities/

3/ For the above reasons there are significant risks associated with nuclear power that are not quantified in LCOE calculations.

4/ The average life of the plants shut down so far is about 20 years, ( see ref. for 2 above) so claims made on bravenewclimate of expected life in the order 60-80 years are very optimistic.

5/ The Fukushima disaster caused the evacuation of a 235 sq km covering 11 municipalities. (ref for 5&7: http://www.worldnuclearreport.org/IMG/pdf/201408msc-worldnuclearreport2014-hr-v4.pdf)

6/ That area of solar thermal / molten salt storage generation plants would provide dispatchable energy 24 hour a day equal to 12% of Australia’s current electricty consumption (Area for 500 GW h/yr CST is 670 ha; Australia’s consumption is 184,000 GWh/yr)
http://www.solarreserve.com/what-we-do/csp-projects/crescent-dunes/
https://retreview.dpmc.gov.au/311-trends-electricity-demand

7/ Decontamination will cost the Japanese Government $13 billion; compensation is costing TEPCO > $40 billion; total cost will exceed these figures.

8/Based on total cost of 60 billion, this would be enough to pay the entire cost of a 100% renewable electricity system for Western Australia.
http://scott-ludlam.greensmps.org.au/sites/default/files/energy_2029_redux_2014.pdf

(continued next post)

(continued from previous post)

9/ It has been 60 years since the first nuclear reactor was commissioned ; the first ‘fail safe design’ the AP1000 will come on line this year; ‘ SMR’s’ – similar scaled down versions - are still in the development stage.

10/ These reactors also claim significant ‘load following’ capacity e.g the AP1000 claims to be able to ramp quickly from 20% to full power making it potentially useful in conjunction with ‘variable’ wind and solar energy sources.
http://westinghousenuclear.com/New-Plants/Small-Modular-Reactor

11/ Jobs per GWh for nuclear energy are are only 60-70% of those for solar thermal and biomass, 80% of those for wind and < 20% of those for solar PV.
http://rael.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/WeiPatadiaKammen_CleanEnergyJobs_EPolicy2010.pdf

12/ Uranium is not a renewable resource and on current consumption, technologies and reserves there is 230 years supply. If nuclear increased 4 fourfold to 60% of world electricity, there would be less than 60 years supply. Fast breeders and seawater extraction, which may increase supply to 30,000 - 60,000 years may never be economic.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-will-global-uranium-deposits-last/

13/ I would rather live within 5 km of a wind, solar thermal or PV farm or hydro reservoir than 5km form a nuclear reactor. Which would you choose?

Ben Rose,

Until you can provide alternative figures where you disagree with mine and substantiate them with authoritative sources you cannot be taken seriously. Therefore, your comments are dismissed.

Just plucking irrelevant numbers that are not properly converted to LCOE so all numbers are on a consistent basis is meaningless.

You still haven’t read the references and made a serious attempt to engage and understand.

As for all your anti-nuke nonsense, it’s mostly irrelevant and has been refuted repeatedly. It demonstrates ignorance about the subject. But you wouldn’t know that because you read only that nonsense and won’t read what doesn’t support your ideological beliefs. You’ve further confirmed all I mentioned earlier – zealot, ideologue, intellectually dishonest, not a genuine scientist, unprofessional, lack personal professional and intellectual integrity.

As I said, until you provide alternative values to the ones I summarised in points 1 to 12, you have no valid argument and no credibility. You’re just sprouting anti-nuke rhetoric. You’ve been wrong on all the main points relevant to the point under discussion. You haven’t been able to present relevant evidence to support your beliefs. You lost the argument.

In short, Nuclear is the least cost to reduce GHG emission from electricity.