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The March 11, 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster has precipitated a world of change in Japan’s nuclear power industry.
Within hours of the 9.0 earthquake and tsunami, some of Japan’s 54 nuclear power plants (which had supplied 27% of Japan’s electricity) were shut down on orders from then Prime Minister Naoto Kan.
Japan is now burning fossil-fuels to replace the missing electrical generation capacity and has recently signed an agreement with Saudi Arabia to purchase three times their total 2010 oil imports.
In the interests of public safety and for the peace of mind of residents who live near the numerous, but widely-scattered nuclear plants in Japan, the government has ordered “stress test” inspections of all nuclear plants in the country.
Even so, due to rising political pressure from ordinary citizens and the growing anti-nuclear power protest movement there, not every plant which has been “stress-test approved” may restart.
With Japanese newspaper headlines in mind, the government of Japan and power plant operators are discussing the lengthy and hugely expensive decommissioning process for the Fukushima plant, which may take more than 50 years to achieve, at a cost estimated to between $15 and 45 billion. It looks like Japanese taxpayers are stuck paying for the decommissioning costs.
As you may be aware, Germany is decommissioning all of its nuclear power plants by 2022 – although in typical German fashion, they are ahead of schedule.
Many of Germany’s nuclear power plants are decades old, have been problem-plagued and would have required a staggering amount of investment to meet contemporary safety standards. In Germany’s case, it was less costly over the long term to employ a temporary feed-in tariff scheme to speed earlier adoption of solar and wind energy, rather than constantly upgrade 17 old nuclear reactors to ever-changing standards.
Italy got out of the nuclear business in 1987 as the costs to retrofit their old power plants with better technology exceeded any profit they would have realized during the rest of their power-producing lifetimes. Switzerland has committed to scrapping their nuclear power program by 2045.
The United States, Russia and Canada are all in the same boat as they continue to operate many old, lower-tech, and very costly to upgrade, large nuclear power plants.
However, a new hope for the nuclear power industry has arrived in the form of a brand-new nuclear power plant design — known as a small scale modular nuclear reactor which arrives at a pre-approved site on a semi-trailer, is already factory-assembled and is ready to begin producing power as soon as it can be lowered into place and hooked to up water supply and electrical lines.
Small Modular Reactor (SMR). Image courtesy: westinghousenuclear.com
Modular reactors range between 45 and 300 megawatts and are microscopic when compared to conventional monster-sized nuclear power plants that range between 1100 and 1300 megawatts. Best of all, they all feature 21st-century architecture with many simple redundancies built right in, such as gravity-fed cooling systems which remove the problem of cataclysmic coolant pump failures as happened at Fukushima and at other nuclear disasters.
The modular nuclear reactor – with its low profile, easy location requirements, tiny nuclear fuel and water appetite, very low installation costs, easy grid connection, uber-safe design, and ability to generate both power and profits in a dramatically shortened time frame is going to be a tough competitor to beat.
This is a profoundly better answer to the astronomical cost of upgrading old nuclear plants widely-scattered around the world – most of which are long overdue for major refits.
Modular nuclear reactors are the future of world-wide nuclear energy.
The last behemoth conventional US nuclear power plants to go into service are presently under construction and will be completed next year (upgraded with some of the modular nuclear reactor safety elements) at the nuclear power plant in Vogtle, Georgia, and a smaller unit in South Carolina. After those plants go online it is expected further US plants will be tiny modular nuclear reactors between 45 and 300 megawatts.
The brilliance of modular is that they mesh seamlessly with PV-solar, and wind turbine power. Modular nuclear reactors will be an important and welcome partner of solar, wind, tidal and geo-thermal.
By the time those nuclear plants in Germany have been completely decommissioned, we should be at “all clean electricity – all the time” in most of the industrialized world.
4 Comments
There are several errors in this. For instance,
“Within hours of the 9.0 earthquake and tsunami, most of Japan’s 54 nuclear power plants (which had supplied 27% of Japan’s electricity) were shut down on orders from then Prime Minister Naoto Kan.”
About a dozen reactors shut down automatically when the quake struck. The rest were shut down over the following year as, one by one, they came due for their annual inspection.
“As you may be aware, Germany is decommissioning all of it’s nuclear power plants by 2022 – although in typical German fashion, they are ahead of schedule.”
Germany has revised policy twice in two years. In 2010, the government decided to alter the previously-planned phase out, extending the operation of German reactors for several years. In 2011, in reaction to the Fukushima accident, they re-instated the phase out with a new deadline and the immediate shutdown of several reactors. They’re not ahead of schedule; they’re on their (current) schedule.
“In Germany’s case, it was less costly over the long term to employ a temporary feed-in tariff scheme to speed earlier adoption of solar and wind energy, rather than constantly upgrade 17 old nuclear reactors to ever-changing standards.”
Pretty doubtful. Germany’s solar program is costing over 100 billion euros, while producing about 4% of Germany’s electricity.
“The last behemoth conventional US nuclear power plants to go into service are presently under construction and will be completed next year (upgraded with some of the modular nuclear reactor safety elements) at the nuclear power plant in Vogtle, Georgia, and a smaller unit in North Carolina.”
You’re probably confusing the reactor under construction at Watts Bar and the four AP1000s to be built at Vogtle and Summer. The schedule for Watts Bar 2 has slipped; they’re now saying it’ll be online in 2015. The two pairs of reactors Georgia and South Carolina just got their licenses; once construction starts, they should take about five years to build.
very informational…thanks
@Bill Woods – Thank you for responding to my post on the Small Modular Reactor – I will address all of your points.
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“There are several errors in this. For instance,
“Within hours of the 9.0 earthquake and tsunami, most of Japan’s 54 nuclear power plants (which had supplied 27% of Japan’s electricity) were shut down on orders from then Prime Minister Naoto Kan.”
About a dozen reactors shut down automatically when the quake struck. The rest were shut down over the following year as, one by one, they came due for their annual inspection.”
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The first link contained within my post included the following information:
“Eleven reactors at four nuclear power plants in the region were operating at the time and all shut down automatically when the quake hit. Subsequent inspection showed no significant damage to any from the earthquake. The operating units which shut down were Tokyo Electric Power Company’s (Tepco) Fukushima Daiichi 1, 2, 3, and Fukushima Daini 1, 2, 3, 4, Tohoku’s Onagawa 1, 2, 3, and Japco’s Tokai, total 9377 MWe net. Fukushima Daiichi units 4, 5 & 6 were not operating at the time, but were affected. The main problem initially centred on Fukushima Daiichi units 1-3. Unit 4 became a problem on day five.”
Therefore, my first sentence should have read: ““Within hours of the 9.0 earthquake and tsunami, some of Japan’s 54 nuclear power plants (which had supplied 27% of Japan’s electricity) were shut down on orders from then Prime Minister Naoto Kan.”
I will edit the post later today to change the word “all” to “some” to correct this error.
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Your next point has veered into the territory of semantics:
““As you may be aware, Germany is decommissioning all of it’s nuclear power plants by 2022 – although in typical German fashion, they are ahead of schedule.”
Germany has revised policy twice in two years. In 2010, the government decided to alter the previously-planned phase out, extending the operation of German reactors for several years. In 2011, in reaction to the Fukushima accident, they re-instated the phase out with a new deadline and the immediate shutdown of several reactors. They’re not ahead of schedule; they’re on their (current) schedule.”
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As you admitted, there have been schedule revisions with regards to the decommissioning program in Germany. I referred to the first announcement which included a schedule for shutdown and decommissioning. As more plants have been shut down sooner than originally scheduled – the German’s are ahead of their original schedule.
I agree that none have yet been decommissioned, but as a plant must first be shut down in order to allow decommissioning – and more plants have been shut down than originally planned – my call on this is that Germany is ahead of schedule to end their nuclear power program. Which is what I said.
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You take issue with my statement: ““In Germany’s case, it was less costly over the long term to employ a temporary feed-in tariff scheme to speed earlier adoption of solar and wind energy, rather than constantly upgrade 17 old nuclear reactors to ever-changing standards.”
Pretty doubtful. Germany’s solar program is costing over 100 billion euros, while producing about 4% of Germany’s electricity.”
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This is a hypothetical and large assumption on your part. You are assuming the cost of continuing to run those reactors would be LESS than 100 billion euros.
If one or more, of Germany’s nuclear power plants had some kind of major failure – on the scale of Chernobyl, Fukushima or Windscale, the cost of lives, property damage and the cost to the economy from permanent displacement of hundreds or thousands of square kilometres, of people and business/industry, could have topped 1 trillion euros! Just look at how much it is going to cost to stabilize and decommission a damaged Fukushima plant which is very conservatively rated and between 50 – 100 billion dollars and is expected to take more than 50 years.
It is no secret that Germany’s nuclear power program has been problem-plagued for years. And as the plants were further deteriorating year by year – the likelihood for some negative event increased yearly. Whether caused by metal fatigue, human error or terrorism, it was becoming evermore likely that any number of minor or major disasters might occur over time. Which is why they are being shut down.
If it was cheaper to keep them in operation than to covert to wind and solar, Germany would have continued to use them – simple as that.
Not only that, but the entire solar power plant cost is a simple one-time cost! That’s it.
If a country spends 100 million on a particular solar power plant – after that plant is installed, the solar power plant has none of the operating costs of nuclear, coal, oil, gas or any other fuel source. Those panels just sit there for 30 years (assuming no vandalism) reliably producing electricity year in and year out.
There is no requirement for a huge and yearly, nuclear fuel security spending program to secure and protect nuclear materials, no need to safely cool and store nuclear rods for up to 20,000 years in the case of spent plutonium (very costly), no very costly nuclear fuel bill (the actual nuclear fuel rods are hugely expensive themselves), no astronomical coal fuel bill every month, no negative health effects from radiation release at old, deteriorating nuclear power plants – or from terrorism, nor are there the huge health care costs to account for from the health effects of airborne particulate, mercury, SO2, CO2, NOx, and other toxic gasses resulting from the burning of fossil fuels.
No, solar cells just sit there day and night, emitting nothing that affects the health of millions of citizens daily, by burning fossil fuels – or, potentially, the negative health effects of nuclear accidents/terrorism.
The difference in health care system cost SAVINGS alone in developed nations should more than balance the cost of switching to solar and wind power. Once all of Germany’s nuclear, coal and oil-burning power plants are shut down, I would expect to see health care cost SAVINGS for Germany in the many billions of euros over 25 years and extended active lifetimes for citizens – along with a healthier agricultural sector and much less acid-rain damage to concrete (and some metals) structures.
So far, my comments have not even begun to discuss the savings solar power affords by means of Merit Order Ranking, which, even now, at the beginning of solar and wind power in Germany, is saving consumers and industry up to 40% on their electricity costs, during the times of the day when solar and wind are most active.
See my post on Merit Order Ranking to find out about the savings German’s are now enjoying thanks to solar and wind power! http://arabiangazette.com/sustainable-energy-merit-germany/
Switching to solar and wind, lessens risk, allows cleaner air and sustainable energy in Germany will save billions of euros of health-care, security and exterior structural maintenance euros within a 25-year timeframe after full conversion to sustainable energy. Not to mention improving the quality of life for many German citizens.
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““The last behemoth conventional US nuclear power plants to go into service are presently under construction and will be completed next year (upgraded with some of the modular nuclear reactor safety elements) at the nuclear power plant in Vogtle, Georgia, and a smaller unit in South Carolina.”
You’re probably confusing the reactor under construction at Watts Bar and the four AP1000s to be built at Vogtle and Summer. The schedule for Watts Bar 2 has slipped; they’re now saying it’ll be online in 2015. The two pairs of reactors Georgia and South Carolina just got their licenses; once construction starts, they should take about five years to build.”
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The last link in my post, was a link to Matthew Wald’s article in the New York Times, which said in part;
“The Southern Company is adding the two reactors to its Alvin W. Vogtle nuclear plant near Augusta, in tandem with several partners that serve municipal utilities or electric cooperatives.
“It is a landmark, landmark achievement,” said Paul Bowers, president of Georgia Power, the Southern subsidiary that is building the plant. The company applied for the license four years ago under a new system meant to reduce the expense and uncertainty of construction. Still, only one other project, a twin-unit plant in South Carolina, seems likely to be built soon.”
The Alvin W. Vogtle nuclear power plant already has two operating Westinghouse units there, and they are adding 2 more AP1000 units and are presently on schedule – these should be completed in 2014 just as my post stated.
If it turns out that the South Carolina twin-unit plants are delayed, that would be on par with every other nuclear power plant constructed in the United States since the nuclear age began, it seems. I would expect delays anytime a large conventional power plant is constructed.
Which is just one more reason out of many, to favour many smaller and more conveniently dispersed across the nation, Small Modular Reactors, solar and wind power plants.
Many thanks for your interest in Small Modular Reactors and for taking the time to comment!
Best Regards, JBS
All the people blindly commenting about shutting down all reactors and power plants to switch to non-conventional fuel sources just don’t get the simple thing – there is no viable technology available to generate sufficient electricity from non-conventional sources. The only hopes for a sustainable clean source of energy for mankind is hydrogen fusion in near future.
[...] a recent example of the costs of nuclear accidents, the cost to clean up the Fukushima disaster had been estimated at between $15 – 45 billion dollars, but more recently a $50 – 100 billion [...]
[...] a recent example of the costs of nuclear accidents, the cost to clean up the Fukushima disaster had been estimated at between $15 – 45 billion dollars, but more recently a $50-100 billion [...]
[...] are a perfect fit for renewable energy, as they can quickly ramp-up (load-following) to meet electricity demand resulting from shortfalls [...]
[...] are a perfect fit for renewable energy, as they can quickly ramp-up (load-following) to meet electricity demand resulting from shortfalls [...]