DOE Advanced Nuclear Reactor Program Deemed Ineffective, American Institute of Physics , 7 Sept 17 According to a new report, the Department of Energy’s program to develop advanced nuclear reactors has shifted priorities too often and overspent on facility upkeep. After $2 billion in expenditures, no advanced design is ready for deployment.This article was first published in the Politics and Policy section of Physics Today.
The Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy (NE) is unlikely to fulfill its mission of developing and demonstrating one or two advanced nuclear reactor technologies by mid-century, according to a new review of the program. In a report published in Environmental Research Letters in August, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, the Brookings Institution, and the University of California, San Diego, found fault with, among other things, NE’s overemphasis on light-water-reactor technologies…….
For advanced reactor and advanced fuel research over the 1998 to 2015 period reviewed by the authors, NE spent $2 billion, an amount they said is insufficient to ready even one advanced reactor design for commercial deployment. The authors estimated the cost of designing and licensing an advanced reactor to be $1 billion; demonstration at full scale would cost between $4 billion and $13 billion.
The report blamed NE’s ineffectiveness on a lack of “programmatic discipline.” The program’s funding focus has shifted frequently over the 18-year span, supporting a dozen different technologies at funding levels that were “too low to be relevant to actual commercialization.” Many of those efforts were discontinued during the review period………
Advanced reactor and fuel test facilities at Idaho National Laboratory consume up to half of NE’s budget. Some of those facilities, the report argued, are defense related and only marginally support NE’s core mission. But Lyons says NE doesn’t fund defense programs, and he notes that the U.S. Navy pays half the cost of operating Idaho’s Advanced Test Reactor.
The largest sustained NE R&D program during the review period was the $750 million Nuclear Power 2010, which supported development of two enhanced light-water-reactor designs through licensing and siting. Funding for that program was 57 percent greater than what was devoted to the Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP), NE’s largest non-light-water advanced reactor program. The NGNP has effectively been terminated due to disputes over site location and the selection of a private-sector partner. ….
Lyons points out that the NGNP was conceived at a time when natural gas prices were at twice today’s levels and the economics of nuclear power was more compelling. He says the project failed mainly due to the unwillingness of industry to share its cost.
Most of the advanced reactor designs that NE has funded couldn’t use the tristructural-isotropic (TRISO) nuclear fuels that the DOE office spent $450 million to develop during the review period, the report stated. Consisting of tiny pellets of low-enriched uranium oxide encapsulated in four layers of carbon, pyrolytic carbon, and silicon carbide, TRISO fuel is more resistant to melting or rupture than today’s fuels are. But TRISO isn’t coupled to a specific reactor R&D program, and it is unclear what role the fuel would play in a transition to advanced reactors, the report said……https://www.aip.org/fyi/2017/doe-advanced-nuclear-reactor-program-deemed-ineffective
No2NuclearPower 5th Sept 2017, Steve Thomas, Emeritus Professor of Energy Policy at the University of Greenwich, says many of the issues that arise with Hinkley Point C (HPC)
that might derail it apply equally to the whole Government programme.
He says we are probably at the point where we are looking at a public spending
disaster. Financing HPC will stretch EDF Energy to the limit and maybe
beyond.
He thinks there is no possibility of Sizewell C being built on the
timetable that the Government is looking at. He says we are in a surreal
situation where we are planning the two largest construction projects ever
built on UK soil – HPC and Moorside – and we are contemplating buying
the equipment from bankrupt and disgraced companies using technologies that
have abjectly failed wherever they have been built.
None of the three consortia (excluding Bradwell which is further off in the future) are
financeable in their present state. Here we look at the evidence presented
by Steve Thomas and others which questions whether any of these projects
will ever be successfully completed. On the other hand continuing with
these projects will seriously damage renewable and energy efficiency
programmes and delay real action to combat climate change. http://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/recent-additions/uk-nuclear-policies-recent-changes-and-likely-developments/
WP. By Ben GuarinoSeptember 5 President Trump recently announced his pick for NASA administrator: Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-Okla.), a former pilot whose goals for our solar system include installing humans on the moon and cleaning up space junk. He also has expressed skepticism about human-caused climate change.
NASA has lacked a permanent administrator since January. The previous one, former astronaut and retired Marine Corps aviator Charles Bolden, resigned the day that Trump took office. NASA’s associate administrator, Robert Lightfoot Jr., stepped in as the temporary head of the agency. Lightfoot holds the record for longest tenure as an acting NASA administrator.
The announcement, on Friday evening before Labor Day weekend, came after months of speculation that the 42-year-old representative from Oklahoma would get the nod. Last year, Bridenstine — a strong supporter of Trump during the presidential race — informally told the Trump campaign he was interested in a leadership role at NASA or the Air Force, The Washington Post reported three days after the November election…….
a bigger question is his stance on earth and climate science. From the House floor in 2013, Bridenstine said that “global temperatures stopped rising 10 years ago,” which is incorrect. In a 2016 interview with Aerospace America, he said that the climate “has always changed,” though remained open to “studying it.”……
Before his election to the House of Representatives, Bridenstine served as a Navy pilot and directed the Tulsa Air and Space Museum. He has not worked as a scientist or engineer, though he was involved with a rocket-powered aircraft league. (The Rocket Racing League — think NASCAR, but with rocket planes — failed to hold any races. “It was before its time,” Bridenstine said to Space News in 2013.)
If confirmed, Bridenstine would be the first politician to serve as NASA administrator. He is a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, which has frequently come into conflict with Republican leaders. Those opposed to his nomination, particularly Sens. Marco Rubio (R) and Bill Nelson (D) of Florida, have pointed to his political career as a critical flaw.
Nuclear Power: Caveats for Energy Policy, Speaker: Prof. Derek Abbott, University of Adelaide, 1st Sept 2017. Is nuclear power globally scaleable? World energy consumption is 15TW. Energy efficiency could save perhaps 13TW. Consider 10 billion light bulbs in the world and replacing them with LEDs.
This could save 50GW – the output of 50 nuclear plants. Just the IEA countries alone in 2015 saved energy equivalent to the power consumption of the whole of Japan. If we were to seriously scale up to 15,000 nuclear stations we would only have 25 years worth of uranium left.
SCANA has given money to nearly all South Carolina lawmakers probing the failed nuclear project, Post and Courier, By Thad Moore tmoore@postandcourier.com, Sep 2, 2017 All but one of the 32 lawmakers investigating the demise of the V.C. Summer nuclear project have taken campaign contributions from the utility responsible for building it, highlighting the extent of the power industry’s lobbying efforts in Columbia.
The overwhelming majority have received funds from SCANA Corp., parent company to S.C. Electric & Gas Co., its subsidiaries and political action committees within the last two years, according to a Post and Courier review of campaign finance records. They include 14 who took contributions this year as uncertainties surrounding the construction project mounted.
Those lawmakers, who sit on twin House and Senate committees formed last month, are now tasked with probing what went wrong with the project, which cost $9 billion before construction was halted in July. They’re also responsible for forming ideas on how to limit the financial fallout and create safeguards that prevent another energy failure like it.
The lone lawmaker who didn’t receive contributions was Republican Kevin Hardee of Loris, which is outside of SCE&G’s service territory.
SCANA doesn’t cut big checks — it typically gives individual legislators $500 to $1,000, the maximum for a single election cycle — but critics say the steady dribble of contributions helped build warm relationships under the Statehouse dome.
The Cayce-based utility has also given tens of thousands of dollars to legislative caucus groups, and it spends around $200,000 a year to lobby the General Assembly, with a crew of eight lobbyists to monitor legislation and advance its message.
“They make them because they’re basically trying to gain access,” said Frank Knapp, president and chief executive of the S.C. Small Business Chamber of Commerce, which has called for a ban on utility contributions. “They’re just not after good government. They’re looking for some return on their investment.”
[on original: – details of names of politicians and amounts of money given to each] Continue reading →
Hitachi UK reactors to get full Japanese loan insurance https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics-Economy/Policy-Politics/Hitachi-UK-reactors-to-get-full-Japanese-loan-insurance, Lenders seek guarantees as nuclear projects face post-Fukushima cost overruns, 2 Sept 17, TOKYO — Japan intends to fully insure bank loans for one of Hitachi‘s British nuclear plant projects in order to encourage domestic lenders to finance a particularly risky type of infrastructure export that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government seeks to promote.
When Abe met with U.K. counterpart Theresa May here Thursday, the two leaders reaffirmed bilateral cooperation on nuclear plant construction. Japan’s support will include coverage for two reactors at the proposed Wylfa Newydd nuclear station in Wales — a rare example of loan insurance for a project in an advanced economy.
State-owned Nippon Export and Investment Insurance will write the loan insurance for reactors, which Hitachi will build through British arm Horizon Nuclear Power. The Japanese conglomerate, together with Tokyo and London, will conduct working-level talks to hash out a funding support framework, with the aim of breaking ground in 2019.
The project is estimated to cost over 2 trillion yen ($18.1 billion). Hitachi, the U.K. government and two state-backed entities — Japan Bank for International Cooperation and the Development Bank of Japan — are expected to pick up part of the tab. But private-sector financing will also be needed to close the funding gap.
NEXI, which normally indemnifies private lenders for 90-95% of financing, will enter into talks with Japanese banks toward fully guaranteeing loans for the Wylfa project.
Nuclear project costs have tended to balloon since since Japan’s 2011 Fukushima disaster owing to increased safety precautions. Seeing a higher risk of debt default, Japanese megabanks Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ and Mizuho Bank have sought full coverage by NEXI for any loans for nuclear plant development. Such insurance typically covers financing for projects in developing countries. NEXI is expected to impose conditions, such as a loan period of several decades, in return for an exception.
An accident or other troubles at the plant could expose BTMU and Mizuho to lawsuits from third parties because the banks would bear responsibility for financing the project. The two banks will decide on Wylfa financing based partly on discussions between Tokyo and London concerning damage compensation.
A default on the Wylfa loans would entail a taxpayer-funded repairs to the balance sheets of NEXI and JBIC. The loan insurance proposal is likely to spark a debate on whether promoting infrastructure exports in this way is worth the risk. The Abe government, for its part, will try to use the NEXI assurances to elicit more funding, public and private, from the British side.
With little prospect of constructing new reactors in Japan following the meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, domestic builders have focused their business offshore. Chinese state-owned enterprises are undertaking more global infrastructure projects, emboldening those who argue that Japan will be left behind in the race for overseas orders unless the country takes risks. In 2015, the U.K. became the first developed nation to approve a Chinese-made reactor.
Social acceptance a big challenge to nuclear energy’ Manila Times
BY JORDEENE SHEEX LAGAREON SEPTEMBER 2, 2017 BAGAC, BATAAN: Social acceptance is the biggest hurdle in coming up with a national position on the nuclear power program, according to an Energy official.
Energy Undersecretary Donato Marcos said a wide public acceptance regarding the use of nuclear energy would make it easier for the executive and legislative departments to make a decision regarding the mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP).
A national position is one of the 19 requirements prescribed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for the Development of a National Infrastructure for Nuclear Power.
Pre-feasibility study
A pre-feasibility study on rehabilitating the BNPP is also vital to crafting a national position on the 620-megawatt (MW) facility in this province, Marcos said.
He told reporters on Wednesday that six countries were interested in conducting due diligence on the nuclear power facility, including China, Korea, Japan, France, and the United States.
White House Hires Billionaire War Profiteers To Aid In War Planning, Mint Press News,Blackwater founder Erik Prince and billionaire Stephen Feinberg reportedly “recruited” for war planning, by Jake Johnson July 11th, 2017[good tweets included on original]
Two of President Donald Trump’s closest aides have reportedly solicited advice from two wealthy private military contractors — Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater, and Stephen Feinberg, the billionaire owner of DynCorp International—on how to proceed with the sixteen-year-long war in Afghanistan.
According to the New York Times, White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon and senior advisor Jared Kushner “recruited” the contractors, who have made a hefty sum from perpetual conflict in the Middle East, “to devise alternatives to the Pentagon’s plan to send thousands of additional troops to Afghanistan.”
Following a meeting with Bannon and Kushner, Prince and Feinberg have “developed proposals to rely on contractors instead of American troops in Afghanistan,” the Times notes.
“The highly unusual meeting dramatizes the divide between Mr. Trump’s generals and his political staff over Afghanistan, the lengths to which his aides will go to give their boss more options for dealing with it and the readiness of this White House to turn to business people for help with diplomatic and military problems,” the Times reports. “But it also raises a host of ethical issues, not least that both men could profit from their recommendations.”
As Common Dreamsreported last month, Prince penned an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal in which he recommended a “viceroy approach” in Afghanistan that would rely heavily on private security forces.
Critics characterized Prince’s proposals as tantamount to “colonialism” and argued they exude “sheer 19th-century bloodlust and thirst for empire.”
Retiring utility CEO to receive $1 million in 1st year, Seattle Times, By SEANNA ADCOX, The Associated Press, COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The retiring chief executive of South Carolina’s state-owned utility will be paid more than $1 million in the first year of his retirement, which follows the abandonment of a nuclear power project.
Documents provided Friday by Santee Cooper show CEO Lonnie Carter will also leave with nearly $859,000 in a 401K-style plan to invest or draw down from as he wishes.
The 58-year-old will receive roughly $800,000 annually for the next two decades, then $345,000 yearly for the rest of his life. His contract provides an additional $270,500 — half of his current salary — over the first year of his retirement.
Carter announced his resignation last week after 35 years with the public utility, the last 13 as CEO. But he remains at the helm until the board names an interim replacement, expected within the next several weeks. His impending departure marks the first executive to leave following the July 31 decision to halt construction on two partly built reactors that customers have been funding since 2009.
The retirement package involves his state pension, his 2011 contract and Santee Cooper’s two benefit plans for executives. One is the 401K-style account. The other provides up to $455,200 annually for 20 years, depending on this year’s bonus. It’s unclear whether he’ll receive the total compensation his contract allows.
Carter’s salary is $541,000. Last year, he received a $330,500 bonus for meeting corporate goals such as power costs, safety and customer satisfaction, according to the utility.
Carter had been eligible for retirement since 2011, but the utility’s board had asked him to remain until the nuclear project’s completion. Carter was not asked to leave, and no other executive departures are expected, board Chairman Leighton Lord said last week.
Santee Cooper was a 45 percent partner with South Carolina Electric & Gas Co. in the effort to expand the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station in Fairfield County north of Columbia, where they have shared ownership of an existing reactor for more than 30 years.\
The two decided to abandon construction after jointly spending nearly $10 billion, leaving nearly 6,000 people jobless. The utilities’ customers have already paid more than $2 billion on the failed project through a series of rate hikes since 2009, which covered interest costs on financing.
The companies don’t expect to refund anything. Customers could end up paying off that debt over decades…….
Since 2011, Santee Cooper executives were paid more than $70,000 in bonuses for the now-abandoned project. More than half of that went to Carter, The State newspaper reported in Friday’s papers.
“The performance goals tied to the nuclear project were specific and measurable, and all payouts were based on those goals being met,” said Santee Cooper spokeswoman Mollie Gore.
According to the poll, 56% of voters think Trump is tearing the country apart, while 33% said he is drawing it together.
The poll, conducted with registered voters between Aug. 27 and Aug. 29, further found that most people are more dissatisfied with the current events in the U.S. than they were a few months ago. Sixty-four percent of those surveyed said they are not satisfied with how things are going in the country, while 35% said they are satisfied. In April, 45% said they were satisfied, while 53% said they were not.
Trump’s job approval ratings in the Fox News poll have also dipped since April, with 55% disapproving of his work as president and 41% approving. Only forty-eight percent of voters disapproved in April.
The poll also highlights differences in perspective between Trump voters and those who voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. While 80% of Clinton voters believe white supremacists pose a larger threat to the U.S. than the news media, 75% of Trump voters believe the opposite. When asked if they think Trump will finish his term as president, 92% of his supporters said he would, while 29% of Clinton voters said he would not.
Fox News said it conducted the poll with 1,006 randomly chosen voters across the country. The margin of error for the poll is plus or minus three percentage points.
Fill the Swamp: Trump to Put Military Industrial Complex Lobbyist in Charge of the Army, Last Wednesday, it was reported that Donald Trump was moving to nominate Raytheon lobbyist Mark Esper for secretary of the Army. Raytheon is one of the “big five” defense contractors, and the president’s decision comes at a time when concerns are being raised over the idea of defense industry executives being placed in senior positions at the Pentagon.Daily Liberator, By: James Holbrooks, 29 Aug 17
The Washington Examiner, which broke the news in an exclusive after speaking with unnamed D.C. sources, reported that Pentagon officials “privately expressed confidence that Esper, with his military, Pentagon and Capitol Hill experience, will win quick Senate confirmation.”
That would be a change of pace. Esper’s nomination is Trump’s third attempt to fill the position of Army secretary.
A ROCKY ROAD
Trump’s first choice, New York billionaire and owner of the Florida Panthers hockey team, Vincent Viola, withdrew back in February over concerns about financial conflicts of interest……..
Assuming Mark Esper hangs in there and keeps his name in the running for Army secretary, he’ll need to pass vetting by the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC). That hearing isn’t expected to take place until September. But it was within that committee, back in June, that SASC chairman John McCain first voiced concern over members of the defense industry taking key positions at the Pentagon.
THE CHAIRMAN MAKES NOISE
In a hearing Defense News called“surprisingly contentious,” McCain threatened to block the SASC confirmation of Patrick Shanahan for deputy defense secretary, the number two spot at the Pentagon below defense secretary James Mattis. One of the reasons, the Arizona senator made clear, was Shanahan’s ties to industry contractors.
Shanahan had been with Boeing since 1986 before accepting Trump’s nomination. He was a member of the Boeing Executive Council and had even earned the nickname “Mr. Fix-it” within the corporation for his ability to turn around troubled projects.
At the hearing, McCain cited Shanahan’s industry past, saying he was “not overjoyed” that the would-be deputy secretary spent so much time at one of the big five defense contractors. He also said Shanahan’s ilk serving at the Pentagon was “not what our Founding Fathers had in mind.”
McCain, a Republican, went further weeks later, bluntly stating in a hallway interview in Congress that he “did not want people from the top five corporations” to fill positions at the Pentagon. Party politics aside, at least some lawmakers across the aisle appear to share his concern.
Senator Jack Reed, a Democrat who sits on the SASC, toldDefense News in early July that “real concern about the concentration of these people” exists because decision-making processes may be “influenced by [their]prior employment.”
Similarly, Senator Richard Durbin, another Democrat, said the Trump administration has “turned a blind eye to the whole question of conflicts of interest from start to finish.”
Despite such criticisms, the SASC gave Shanahan the green light, and the Senate officially confirmed him last Tuesday. This means that right now, the two most powerful men at the Pentagon have significant past connections to the defense industry.
For those unaware, for years Secretary of Defense James Mattis was a board member of one of the big five contractors, General Dynamics, and up until the point of his nomination had nearly $600,000 in vested stock options with the corporation, according to Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings.
LUCKY BREAK
In a convenient bit of timing, John McCain was absent at Shanahan’s full Senate confirmation on July 18, as he was recovering from surgery to remove a blood clot, which ultimately revealed a brain tumor. The same could be said for Ellen Lord, who went through SASC vetting relatively unscathed on the very same day and now awaits the committee’s nod to move on to a full Senate vote.
Lord has been CEO of Textron Systems, a global aerospace and defense conglomerate, since 2012. As with what happened to Shanahan, Lord likely would have faced a harsh grilling from McCain. Commenting on Lord’s smooth sail through her SASC hearing, Defense News wrote:
“That may have been due to the absence of Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican who chairs SASC. McCain, recuperating at home from a recent surgery, previously told Defense News he is concerned about the number of defense industry figures entering key Pentagon roles.”
The same good fortune was bestowed upon a former Lockheed Martin vice president on Thursday. Ryan McCarthy passed his SASC vetting for undersecretary of the Army, and if the Senate eventually confirms both him and Mark Esper, it would mean the top two Army positions at the Pentagon would be filled by defense industry executives.
It was speculated that former Lockheed Martin attorney David Ehrhart would come under heavy scrutiny at his SASC hearing for Air Force General Counsel, the department’s chief legal officer. The same would have surely gone for John Rood, Trump’s expected pick for undersecretary of defense for policy and current head of international sales at Lockheed.
But with the SASC confirming defense industry figures in McCain’s absence, it now appears the Arizona senator’s leeriness was the only substantive thing holding up the show.
DOWN A DARK PATH
Like Senator Richard Durbin and others in Congress who don’t like the emerging trend under Donald Trump, most in the mainstream media will only go so far as to highlight the myriad conflicts of interest between the Trump administration and the corporate world.
Trump Forges Ahead on Costly Nuclear Overhaul, Sweeping Aside Doubts, By DAVID E. SANGER and WILLIAM J. BROADNYT, AUG. 27, 2017 During his speech last week about Afghanistan, President Trump slipped in a line that had little to do with fighting the Taliban: “Vast amounts” are being spent on “our nuclear arsenal and missile defense,” he said, as the administration builds up the military.
Armed Services Dem accuses Trump admin of rushing nuclear contracts, The Hill, BY ELLEN MITCHELL – 08/27/17 House Armed Services Committee ranking member Adam Smith (D-Wash.) on Sunday accused the Trump administration of rushing two major nuclear weapons programs.
“This week, the Air Force awarded four contracts worth nearly $2.5 billion to begin developing two new nuclear weapons. Yet this administration has not even completed its Nuclear Posture Review,” Smith said in a statement.
“We are rushing on autopilot to fund these programs.” The Pentagon in April officially began the nuclear posture review, which was ordered by President Trump in January. It’s the first review of the U.S. nuclear weapons policy since 2010, and won’t be done for several more months.
The Pentagon, however, has not waited for the review’s completion in moving ahead with two new nuclear weapons programs.
Rick Perry gets his electricity grid study. The coal and mining industries like it. WP, By Steven MufsonAugust 24A much-anticipated Energy Department report on the electricity grid made recommendations for regulatory changes that would bolster coal and nuclear power plants.
The changes, if adopted, would alter the way prices are determined in electricity markets, ease environmental reviews for coal plants and speed the permitting process for a variety of energy sources.
The 187-page report rejects the notion that the coal and nuclear plants that have been forced to shut down over the past 16 years had been closed prematurely, noting that cheap, abundant natural gas had been the main factor — not environmental regulations or renewable energy sources as Republican leaders have contended…..
The Energy Department document carries little weight on its own, and most of its recommendations fall in the turf of other departments and agencies.
But the report has been seen as a test of whether the Trump administration is going to politicize government studies and disregard scientific evidence.
The in-depth look at the state of the grid quickly drew praise from coal and nuclear groups, and sharp rebukes from environmental and solar energy groups.
Among the recommendations is one that suggests that the Environmental Protection Agency ease permitting requirements for new investments at coal-fired plants, a process known as new source review…..
The report also endorsed price changes that would prevent solar and wind energy from providing energy at negative prices, which they can do thanks to federal tax credits.
This hurts other energy suppliers, especially in the nuclear industry, and the recommendation was welcomed.
“We’re very pleased with the top line recommendation for the implementation of long overdue energy market reforms,” said Joe Dominguez, executive vice president of regulatory affairs at Exelon, the nation’s largest nuclear power utility.
The report suggested that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission speed up its permitting process ……
Why Ontario shouldn’t lock itself in to nuclear power, The province has committed to a dying technology when greener, safer energy innovations are just around the corner, TVO, Aug 25, 2017, by Richard Laszlo, Richard Laszlo is the founder of Laszlo Energy Services and the author of Pollution Probe’s First Primer on Energy Systems in Canada.
We are at a critical juncture in Ontario, and no less than the economic future of the province is at stake. The Liberals are about to release their long-term energy plan, and the danger is that they’re going to foolishly reinvest in the Darlington and Pickering nuclear plants.
Nuclear power is inflexible, and going all-in on a centralized and costly technology just when solar power, energy storage, and co-generation are becoming more affordable is a big risk. The province could be locking itself out of safer, cheaper, and more flexible energy for generations.
I once supported nuclear power; I’m biased toward fancy technology. I studied engineering and physics and have been working in the energy field for almost 15 years. But I’m trying to look at this objectively, and as someone who winces at every wasted customer and taxpayer dollar.
Our overreliance on nuclear power leaves us with an overabundance of energy in off-peak hours. Nuclear plants are big, complicated, and have to be kept running 24/7 — which forces our energy system to do all sorts of crazy things. When the plants produce surplus electricity, we sell it to neighbouring jurisdictions at a loss or pay them to take it off our hands. Meanwhile, wind and solar owners get paid to produce unneeded power, while gas plants get paid to sit idle in the off chance they are needed.
Based on cost and performance, the Pickering plant should have been shut down already. Based on 1960s technology, it has among the highest operating costs of any nuclear facility in North America. Yet Ontario Power Generation wants to keep it running until 2024, so it’s asking the Ontario Energy Board for permission to raise the price of its nuclear-generated electricity nearly 180 per cent, to 16.5 cents per kWh — more than almost any other technology around, including solar. Dozens of groups — including Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, the Association of Major Power Consumers of Ontario, and the Consumer Council of Canada — have submitted responses to OPG’s request. Nearly all of them express concerns about the economics of the Pickering plan…….
what should the government do instead?
First, it should immediately halt the Pickering extension. The plant’s operating licence expires in 2018, and that’s a good time to shut it down. (Plant employees can work on to decommissioning the site, for which money has already been set aside.)
Second, take good hard look at the Darlington rebuild and seriously consider other options to meet the projected demand. While the rebuilding process has already started, it’s not too late for the government to change direction. The project is expected to cost at least $12.8 billion, but a long history of underestimating nuclear capital costs suggests that number will rise.
Third, plan to meet future demand via a mix of efficiency and clean-energy innovation. The government should set standards on emissions and performance, then let the market bring solutions and fight it out to deliver low-emissions power at the lowest possible price. New generation can be added to the system gradually so we can reap the benefits of falling tech prices.
All this will result in greater CO2 emissions over the short term; the fact is, there will be some increase regardless of whether Ontario continues to invest in nuclear energy. But this way, we’ll replace our supply gradually at much lower costs while still meeting our long-term climate change goals — and without tying ourselves to nuclear power for decades to come. http://tvo.org/article/current-affairs/the-next-ontario/why-ontario-shouldnt-lock-itself-in-to-nuclear-power
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