David McMullen,

My answer is ‘Yes’ the private sector will do the R, D&D once the impediments are removed, just as they do for coal, hydro, gas, diesel, petrol, jet engines, aircraft and everything else that isn’t regulated to the point of being uneconomic.

“But what about China, India and Russia? … I don't think they have the same political problems.”
The fact they do not have the political problems is not the constraint to the world getting access to low cost nuclear power. The USA is the big player. It has the knowledge and the greatest ability to innovate once unleashed. It is also the world’s de facto nuclear regulator. It has enormous influence in the IAEA. The LNT hypothesis and the resulting allowable radiation limits are an enormous problem. All countries have to abide by them. The Fukushima accident would have been 1% to 10% of the cost if not for the excessive regulations. See this short pamphlet: http://home.comcast.net/~robert.hargraves/public_html/RadiationSafety26SixPage.pdf and if you have time this video presentation by Oxford Professor Wade Allison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZ6aL3wv4v0

Nuclear fission fuel is 20,000 to 2 million times more energy dense than fossil fuels. This means there is huge cost reduction potential. We need to recognise nuclear is already about the safest way to generate electricity and get the impediments out of the way. It will take decades for the cost reductions and other benefits to be fully realised, so there will be a period where subsidies for R&D are required to offset the costly impediments imposed as a result of 50 years of anti-nuke scaremongering.

As you’d know, licencing of a small modular reactors costs about $10 billion and takes 10 years. Each future design change has to go through long costly government review processes. That’s blocking progress. No competing technology has that impediment. And it is having the perverse effect of causing electricity to be less safe, not safer.

The bottom line is the world will go for least cost electricity. Renewables cannot make much of a contribution and are too expensive

‘morning stevenlmeyer,

Your comments that, << The Germans are, of course, potty. They believe relying on Russian gas is less risky than using their nukes >>, and << Right now the Chinese seem to be the most enthusiastic builders of wind energy capacity followed by the Texans >>.

Germany has already announced the delay in spooling down their nuclear plants from 2019 to 2022, they have twelve new coal plants in build with no CCS at all, three come into service in 2015 and nine of the twelve new coal plants will burn lignite. Germany has cut roof top solar rebates three times and rebates end completely in 2017 and between 2012 and 2013 demand for PV dropped by 60%. Not potty at all.

China has just delivered a crushing blow to any hope of binding targets in Paris in 2015, as they will not sign up for anything until at least 2030 and will grow their emissions by 25% until then.

According to the IEA, by 2030 China plans to generate just 3% from wind, 5.5% from nuclear, hydro 3% and wood 6%. So a total renewable contribution of 11.5% by 2030? At which point they “may” review their emissions options?

China already has 21 nuclear power plants with an astonishing new build program of 28 more in progress.

3% wind by 2030? Hardly “enthusiastic”?

Additionally, as at March 28 2013, “CHINA'S Suntech the world's largest solar panel producer, plunged to bankruptcy in just one year.

The Texas wind farm program, like the rest of the USA, has stalled with the only activity being current projects. The wind industry in the USA, the largest in the world, is predicted to lose 70 to 90 percent of its orders. Investors predict its total demise.

The USA’s renewables industry has collapsed, eight of their largest subsidized renewable energy manufacturers have filed for bankruptcy between 2007 and 2012. Beacon Power Corp, Ener1, Evergreen Solar, Solyndra, SpectraWatt, Babcock and Brown, Mountain Plaza Inc and Solar Millennium. The cost to the US taxpayer is U$ 3.9 Billion.

Cont’d.

Cont’d

A further six USA subsidized green energy companies are in default or in decline at a cost to the US taxpayer of U$ 6 Billion.

Obama may try to bypass the congress he “lost” recently and try to direct the EPA to legislate for power and industrial companies to further reduce emissions?

However, following “Climategate” no less than 15 US companies and the State of Texas, all served Litigation Hold Notices on the US EPA and Britain’s CRU.

If the EPA tries to legislate emissions reductions on industry without congress, it is likely to trigger the LHN’s and put both Britain’s CRU and the US EPA in the supreme court.

Russia supplies 30% of the EU’s gas and already controls the EU’s energy security, which is why Germany is building coal plants so quickly. Russia is also nearing completion of a $20bn pipeline to ship gas to China. So is it likely that Russia will sign up for binding limits on their energy markets and new found geo-political strength?

India has already made it clear by there refusal to even participate in talks that they will continue with their nuclear program and coal build programs to drive their economy.

More generally, EU has recently offered significant binding emissions targets however, this is “conditional on the rest of the major emitters sign up for binding commitments in Paris”? Well that went poof with China’s announcement, let alone India and Russia.

So no Paris commitments from the biggest emitters, so non from the EU.

Japan has withdrawn its RET and tabled the prospect of again spooling up some of its more modern nuclear power plants, meanwhile it imports more coal and oil to replace its renewables?

Whilst not major emitters, Japan, Australia, Canada and NZ will not be signing up for binding targets, so any hope of exhuming Kyoto seems more dependent on magic rather than reality.

If on the other hand if you can see some excitement for warmers in all of this, be my guest

Unusually, I find myself agreeing with Hasbeen.
Simply put, if we but focus on the least costly examples of power provision, we will do a number of things.
#1 abandon the great energy wasting white elephant called the national grid, and for more than just socio economic reasons, but our inherent security as well.
#2 Build and locate, small thorium reactors, which can be located/buried almost anywhere, and even provide a very lucrative export trade.
#3 Almost any half decent engineer could build/mass produce them for the (govt contract) domestic or export market!
The very fact that there is no weapons spin-off from this old 50's technology, is the only reason they were abandoned, rather than some so called technical difficulty.
And because there's no weapons spin off, the actual reactors present no real problem, be it radioactivity, or thermonuclear melt down, currently impossible, given the ridiculously small size of individual, units/nuclear fuel requirements.
Yes, I would prefer one in buried deep in my backyard, as a replacement for a nearby coal fired unit!
And because the coal fired smoke stacks are giving off much more dangerous substances; including uranium, lead, mercury, carcinogenic cadmium, lead and other nearly as dangerous to the health, poisons.
Coal fired power stations burn annual millions of tons of increasingly expensive coal.
Whereas, if we powered Australia, with a combination of very long term thorium and endless biogas; not only would we eliminate these extremely dangerous carcinogens from our atmosphere, but reduce our power cost by more than half, given the very safe localized examples, produce little or no transmission line losses.
The only people who need the national grid and thousand MW generators, are the very people now price gouging power delivery!
Hasbeen is right, we only need focus on the cheapest possible options!
And if they also just happen to be carbon negative or carbon neutral, so much the better!
Given, as sure as chickens lay eggs, carbon tariffs will be likely used, sooner or later, to create export/trade advantages, by the biggest economies; or our so called trading partners!
Rhrosty.

David McMullen,

I welcome your interest in the potential to reduce costs of nuclear (e.g. by deregulating to facilitate private sector competition, innovation and R,D&D).

Professor Bernard Cohen, 1991, ‘Costs of Nuclear Power Plants – What Went Wrong?’ says regulatory ratcheting increased costs of nuclear power by a factor of 4 by 1990, http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter9.html . It’s likely doubled again since.

Ramasb and Kohler, 2007, say:
“Negative estimates have even been reported for technologies when they have been subject to costly regulatory restrictions over time (e.g. nuclear, …”

“Schrattenholzer (2001) survey the evidence for energy technologies, showing that, in line with the more general results mentioned earlier, unit cost reductions of 20% associated with doubling of capacity has been typical for energy generation technologies, with the exception of nuclear power.”
http://www.eprg.group.cam.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/eprg0723.pdf .

According to Rangel and Leveque, 2013, ‘Revisiting the Nuclear Power Construction Costs Escalation Curse’ nuclear has averaged 4% cost increase per doubling in France and US. http://idei.fr/doc/conf/eem/papers_2013/leveque.pdf ,
http://www.energypolicyblog.com/2013/01/27/revisiting-the-cost-escalation-curse-of-nuclear-power-new-lessons-from-the-french-experience/ ,
http://www.iiasa.ac.at/web/home/research/researchPrograms/TransitionstoNewTechnologies/06_Grubler_French_Nuclear_WEB.pdf (Figure 3)

Clearly something is preventing the cost reduction rates of other electricity generation technologies from applying to nuclear power. It’s regulatory ratcheting and the financial risk because of the damaging litigation the anti-nukes cause to the operators. There is a high financial risk premium, which in turn is caused by the public’s irrational nuclear paranoia and the anti-nuke activists.

Allowable Radiation limits are set at the ‘As Low As Reasonably Achievable’ (ALARA) level instead of at the ‘As High As Relatively Safe’ (AHARS) level http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=15900&page=0 . Raising the limits could be the catalyst to get people to rethink the causes of their fear of nuclear power, http://home.comcast.net/~robert.hargraves/public_html/RadiationSafety26SixPage.pdf , http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=15900&page=0

The US deregulation of drilling for oil and gas provides a relevant example of the effect of freeing up the private sector to innovate and compete. ‘The Driving Force Behind the US Oil Boom’ http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-Driving-Force-Behind-the-US-Oil-Boom.html shows how competition and innovation in all sizes of organisation down to the smallest niche specialists is reducing the costs. The same will happen when nuclear is appropriately deregulated.

Peter and others make a serious mistake in believing that economic assets will be dumped in order to be replaced by a more expensive technology. Nuclear power is just not going to happen in Australia for a very long time if ever. This does not have a lot to do with a fairly vocal anti nuclear movement in Australia. The problem is grid power consumption in Australia is currently declining, but power generation capacity is increasing. I can not see any business building a very expensive nuclear plant in order to pump great deal more power into a grid which is already over capacity, no matter how good an argument is put forward. Just to make it interesting the gold plating of the grid is making mains power increasingly expensive and making home solar ever more attractive.

http://theconversation.com/why-is-electricity-consumption-decreasing-in-australia-20998

Rhosty idea of small scale thorium nuclear reactors might have worked if they had decided to go that way 50 years ago but now it is just to late.

The coal industry spends a great deal of time and effort trying to put down renewables (as they are the cause of their current problems), primarily by lobbying against things like the RET scheme and the carbon tax. They don’t worry about nuclear power as it is simply not a threat to them on any time scale that matters to them.