Nuclear Power and Climate Change
Dean Alaska
It seems to be a common conception that nuclear power is a good response
to any possible climate change problem. I have challenged this assumption
before but I will address in more detail here.
The December 1988 issue
of _Energy Policy_ contains an article called "Greenhouse warming -
Comparative analysis of nuclear and efficiency abatement strategies"
by Bill Keepin and Gregory Kats. They make a cost comparison of
replacing fossil fuel production with nuclear compared to lowering
energy consumption using a strategy of efficiency retrofits.
They first make calculations for nuclear power with the goal of
replacing all coal electricity generation over the next 40 years.
This includes growth in energy demand. Two scenarios are used for
these calculations. The first is a high growth scenario taken from
a study carried out by the National Academy of Science. The medium
growth scenario was calculated by the Dept of Energy. They modify
these scenarios by replacing the expected coal component of energy
production with nuclear power progressively over the next 40 years.
Nuclear power will also be assumed
for 1/2 of the non-fossil fuel energy generation. The following
are cost assumptions for nuclear power:
Capital cost: $1000/installed kW
Generation cost: $.05/kWh
Plant construction period: 6 years
Capacity factor: 65%
Lifetime: 30 years
No costs for decommissioning, waste, health impacts or political
problems are included
These costs are clearly favorable to nuclear power. They compare to best
cases for experience with nuclear power generation. The conclusions for
the first two scenarios for the overall cost and effect on CO2 emissions are:
High scenario Medium Scenario
Commissioning rate 1.6 days/GW 2.5 days/GW (until 2025)
Avg annual cost (1987 $)
capital $227 billion/yr $144 billion/yr
total $787 billion/yr $525 billion/yr
CO2 emissions in 2025
total 8.3Gt/year 5.3 Gt/year
relative to 1988 60% increase 1% increase
As can be seen, these scenarios require huge investments and an extremely
intensive building program for nuclear plants. And CO2 emissions will
not even drop due to the increase in use of other fossil fuel energy
sources!
In addition, calculations are made for a proposal by nuclear power advocate
Alvin Weinberg to increase nuclear power production six-fold from 1988
levels. If this is applied to the two scenarios above, it leads to
a 6% or a 10% drop in CO2 emissions from the 2025 levels predicted in
the original plans, which would still be a significant increase from the
current levels.
Note that these scenarios assume that the correlation between economic
growth and energy consumption will continue, a common argument from
proponents of nuclear power.
Next, this is compared to the cost and emissions prediction for a focus
on energy efficiency. They use a low energy scenario proposed by
Goldemburg et al. They also discuss other low energy/efficiency
studies by Lovins et al and an NSF/MIT study, all of which point to
large savings from energy saving measures. The NSF study states that:
... the effectiveness of energy use on a global scale can
be increased by about 1% per year for decades without any
social strain. This seemingly small figure leads to a
halving of energy use by the year 2050 and a 50% reduction
in (annual) CO2 emissions. This result is quite independent
of any shifts to non-fossil sources for primary energy supplies.
Note that such a development requires capital expenditures that would
not likely be possible if there was a focus on expanding nuclear
power generation.
The comparison uses a opportunity cost method in which CO2 emission
reductions are calculated by using the same capital predicted to be
necessary for the nuclear power for efficiency strategies. They show
that the Weinberg proposal leads to 17.27 Gt more CO2 emissions
annually than if the same money was spent for efficiency improvements.
For another comparison, they show that efficiency improvements cost
about $.02/kWh. When this is compared with nuclear strategies, at any
of the cost scenarios, an efficiency strategy provides more CO2
reduction per dollar invested than nuclear strategies. Those who
saw my posts a while back about the Electric Power Research Institute
(EPRI) study saw how the cost for efficiency varies for different types
of retrofits. The costs for retrofits will increase over time as the
easier improvements are completed, but the cost is still cheaper.
The article also discusses the components of nuclear production for the
above scenarios in developing countries and examines the difficulties
they would have in financing such a program.
The article is 15 pages of primary analysis with an appendix that
details the mathematics of many of the calculations. There are
certainly many details that I have not included here.
----------
In examining this article, I want to point out that the authors work
for the Rocky Mountain Institute, a think tank that promotes efficiency
strategies. The charge of "lawyer science" is an obvious one that must
be dealt with since the authors performed the study with an obvious
bias.
First of all, the calculations for nuclear power cost were highly
favorable to nuclear power and certainly did not bias the study.
Second, the cost estimates for efficiency are clearly hypothetical
and open to challenge. However, since other studies by the National
Science Foundation and EPRI have produced similar results, these
cost assumptions have been supported by other researchers who do not
have the same bias that the authors do. The author's background
may be cause for caution, but the results cannot be discounted
without an effective rebuttal.
Since I did not want to be accused of lawyers science in presenting
this study, I looked for opposing points of view. There were two such
responses to this study in following issues of _Energy Policy_.
One was based not on the cost estimates, but on the economics-based
claim that increased efficiency would not lead to a lower energy use
since lower costs lead to higher consumption. However, this assumption
is only true if the cost of the electricity is the limiting factor
in its consumption. For most uses this is not true. Also, there was
a response from Jan Murray, Secretary-General of the Uranium Institute.
Although she defended nuclear power in general, and the long-term
possibilities for a significant contribution from nuclear power,
her summary included this point:
Expansion of the nuclear contribution in the short term
can only be relatively modest. Energy efficiency measures,
particularly in the industrialized countries, may well
offer more immediate potential to contain greenhouse gas
emissions.
--
==============================================================================
A thought for the holidays:
"Wine is living proof that God loves us and likes to see us happy"
- Benjamin Franklin de...@vexcel.com
Michael Tobis
|>
|> It seems to be a common conception that nuclear power is a good response
|> to any possible climate change problem. I have challenged this assumption
|> before but I will address in more detail here.
|>
|> intensive building program for nuclear plants. And CO2 emissions will
|> not even drop due to the increase in use of other fossil fuel energy
|> sources!
|>
|> on energy efficiency. They use a low energy scenario proposed by
|> Goldemburg et al. They also discuss other low energy/efficiency
|> studies by Lovins et al and an NSF/MIT study, all of which point to
|> large savings from energy saving measures. The NSF study states that:
|>
|> ... the effectiveness of energy use on a global scale can
|> be increased by about 1% per year for decades without any
|> social strain. This seemingly small figure leads to a
|> halving of energy use by the year 2050 and a 50% reduction
|> in (annual) CO2 emissions. This result is quite independent
|> of any shifts to non-fossil sources for primary energy supplies.
I fail to see why efficiency improvements and shifts to non-fossil energy
sources are mutually exclusive. Your slant seems to imply that it is
necessary to choose one of these approaches, but the use of the words
"quite independent" shows that this is not the case.
The argument you make above seems empty to me. It's as if you were advocating
against unleaded gasoline on the grounds that you could always use your
bicycle. (note for the unsubtle: I advocate bicycles, but am glad of
unleaded gas for use in those instances where the bicycle is inappropriate.)
mt
Dean Alaska
While it is not theoretically impossible to do both, they both cost
money and such money does not grow on trees. Further, you ignore
the part of the thread that discusses opportunity cost of
investing in nuclear power. It is an inefficient use of money if
the goal is to lessen CO2 emissions. The phrase above about
"quite independent" means that the savings can be had without a
switch to nuclear (or solar, etc.). In that sense, while it does
not directly support the idea that a switch away from fossil fuels
and an efficiency strategy are mutually exclusive, it does not
contradict it. We can keep using fossil
fuels and get the efficiency savings. A central point is that
most studies of efficiency assume that money saved by not building
new generating capacity will be used to fund the efficiency
improvements. We may also want to move away from fossil fuels, but
unless we can cough up the money for both, the most effective CO2
mitigation strategy is to focus on efficiency for the immediate future.
>
>mt
Dean Alaska
>>
>>I fail to see why efficiency improvements and shifts to non-fossil energy
>>sources are mutually exclusive. Your slant seems to imply that it is
>>necessary to choose one of these approaches, but the use of the words
>>"quite independent" shows that this is not the case.
>>
>>
I just wanted to reiterate that if funds are limited, then priorities
need to be made and decisions made about where those funds go. If the
goal is CO2 remediation, then the best strategy, according to this
study, is to spend this money (or much of it) on efficiency. If we
have more money, we can also move away from fossil fuels. Its a
question of budgets and priorities.
Russ Brown
>to any possible climate change problem. I have challenged this assumption
>before but I will address in more detail here.
>
>The December 1988 issue
>of _Energy Policy_ contains an article called "Greenhouse warming -
>Comparative analysis of nuclear and efficiency abatement strategies"
>by Bill Keepin and Gregory Kats. They make a cost comparison of
>replacing fossil fuel production with nuclear compared to lowering
>energy consumption using a strategy of efficiency retrofits.
>
>They first make calculations for nuclear power with the goal of
>replacing all coal electricity generation over the next 40 years.
>This includes growth in energy demand. Two scenarios are used for
>these calculations. The first is a high growth scenario taken from
>a study carried out by the National Academy of Science. The medium
>growth scenario was calculated by the Dept of Energy. They modify
>these scenarios by replacing the expected coal component of energy
>production with nuclear power progressively over the next 40 years.
>Nuclear power will also be assumed
>for 1/2 of the non-fossil fuel energy generation. The following
>are cost assumptions for nuclear power:
>
>
>Commissioning rate 1.6 days/GW 2.5 days/GW (until 2025)
>Avg annual cost (1987 $)
> capital $227 billion/yr $144 billion/yr
> total $787 billion/yr $525 billion/yr
>CO2 emissions in 2025
> total 8.3Gt/year 5.3 Gt/year
> relative to 1988 60% increase 1% increase
>
>As can be seen, these scenarios require huge investments and an extremely
>intensive building program for nuclear plants. And CO2 emissions will
>not even drop due to the increase in use of other fossil fuel energy
>sources!
>
perspective, namely, what would the CO2 emissions be if we continued
with something approximating our current mix of energy sources.
Making comparisons based on a growth scenario always seems a little
shaky. Also, the 1% per year increase in energy efficiency (absolute?)
sounds great. There is certainly room for improvement. But has anyone
actually considered what it would take on an aggregated basis, including
all the usually externalized costs.
The transportation component might be the easiest to do, although by no
means trivial.
Automobiles (smaller, lighter, lower HP; _NOT_ EV's, for they suffer; hmmmm?
Trucks
Buses
Trains
Planes
.
.
The weighted fractions would need to be estimated and the effects
accumulated.
I would vote for energy efficiency, conservation, and prudent
planning....and replacement of fossil fuel power generation at a rate we
can achieve. The fossil hydrocarbon resources are finite, and it seems
a shame to turn them into carbon dioxide and water; they may have better
uses.
russ
Michael Tobis
|> In article <1992Dec30.1...@daffy.cs.wisc.edu> to...@skool.ssec.wisc.edu (Michael Tobis) writes:
|> >In article <1992Dec30.1...@vexcel.com>, de...@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
|> >
|> >I fail to see why efficiency improvements and shifts to non-fossil energy
|> >sources are mutually exclusive. Your slant seems to imply that it is
|> >necessary to choose one of these approaches, but the use of the words
|> >"quite independent" shows that this is not the case.
|> >
|> >The argument you make above seems empty to me. It's as if you were advocating
|> >against unleaded gasoline on the grounds that you could always use your
|> >bicycle. (note for the unsubtle: I advocate bicycles, but am glad of
|> >unleaded gas for use in those instances where the bicycle is inappropriate.)
|>
|> While it is not theoretically impossible to do both, they both cost
|> money and such money does not grow on trees.
Hmm, I thought the idea of an "investment" was a long term return for a short
term cost. It seems to have worked so far. Both new energy production and
new energy efficiency are investments in that sense. Both have large costs
in the immediate term but negative costs (i.e., benefits) in the long run.
Economics is NOT a zero-sum game. You are applying short term budgetary
thinking to long term policy questions where it doesn't really apply.
|>Further, you ignore
|> the part of the thread that discusses opportunity cost of
|> investing in nuclear power. It is an inefficient use of money if
|> the goal is to lessen CO2 emissions.
Even in the rosiest of scenarios, power plants age and some of them must
be replaced. Assuming the storage problems of solar and wind energy
remain unsolved, would you replace a fossil fuel plant with another, or
with a nuclear plant? I believe this is a difficult issue, but it's obvious
that considering impact on CO2 alone (or acid rain alone) the choice
is clearly for nuclear power over fossil fuels, and no amount of
handwaving will change that.
Your argument that it is better to reduce consumption than to build
production is fine as far as it goes, but it doesn't go very far in arguing
against nuclear power once new production capacity becomes necessary.
mt
Dean Alaska
>In article <1992Dec30.1...@vexcel.com>, de...@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
>|>
>|> While it is not theoretically impossible to do both, they both cost
>|> money and such money does not grow on trees.
>
>Hmm, I thought the idea of an "investment" was a long term return for a short
>term cost. It seems to have worked so far. Both new energy production and
>new energy efficiency are investments in that sense. Both have large costs
>in the immediate term but negative costs (i.e., benefits) in the long run.
>Economics is NOT a zero-sum game. You are applying short term budgetary
>thinking to long term policy questions where it doesn't really apply.
I completely agree with you but we alone do not make this decision. If
the money can be found, I would support doing both. As a practical
matter, I don't think the funds are available.
>
>|>Further, you ignore
>|> the part of the thread that discusses opportunity cost of
>|> investing in nuclear power. It is an inefficient use of money if
>|> the goal is to lessen CO2 emissions.
>
>Even in the rosiest of scenarios, power plants age and some of them must
>be replaced. Assuming the storage problems of solar and wind energy
>remain unsolved, would you replace a fossil fuel plant with another, or
>with a nuclear plant? I believe this is a difficult issue, but it's obvious
>that considering impact on CO2 alone (or acid rain alone) the choice
>is clearly for nuclear power over fossil fuels, and no amount of
>handwaving will change that.
>
>Your argument that it is better to reduce consumption than to build
>production is fine as far as it goes, but it doesn't go very far in arguing
>against nuclear power once new production capacity becomes necessary.
I have posted proof that efficiency improvements should be enough to
forestall the need for new capacity in general for 10 to 20 years.
This proof was from an EPRI study. As we approach that limit, we
can determine what the best decision is for new capacity, nuclear,
wind or solar, based on the newest technology of the day. Remember
that efficiency has the shortest installation time. This is all
for the U.S. The developing world will need new capacity soon (if not
now). I would argue that they would be best served by smaller scale
generation and solar and wind tend to serve them well since they have
little or no grid, but that is their decision to make.
Richard Stead
> to any possible climate change problem. I have challenged this assumption
> before but I will address in more detail here.
>
> The December 1988 issue
> of _Energy Policy_ contains an article called "Greenhouse warming -
> Comparative analysis of nuclear and efficiency abatement strategies"
> by Bill Keepin and Gregory Kats. They make a cost comparison of
(costs for high and medium growth in energy consumption deleted).
> As can be seen, these scenarios require huge investments and an extremely
> intensive building program for nuclear plants. And CO2 emissions will
> not even drop due to the increase in use of other fossil fuel energy
> sources!
I don't see why these different energy uses are combined. Why argue that
CO2 emissions increase from other uses of fossil fuels? Who claims that
all energy uses must increase in lock-step? If vehicles are converted
from gas-fueled to electric, and the electricity is nuclear-supplied,
the total energy use can still go up by vehicles, but CO2 emissions go down.
So the argument that CO2 emissions increase if we use nuclear power
is completely bogus.
> Next, this is compared to the cost and emissions prediction for a focus
> on energy efficiency. They use a low energy scenario proposed by
> Goldemburg et al. They also discuss other low energy/efficiency
> studies by Lovins et al and an NSF/MIT study, all of which point to
> large savings from energy saving measures. The NSF study states that:
Thus apples and oranges are compared. Why not consider the cost of replacing
decommissioned fossil fuel facilities with nuclear facilities while
incorporating the same conservation efforts? It will cost less than replacing
decommisioned fossil power with new fossil power, and produce less CO2.
There is no need to mix the GDP growth = energy growth argument with the
pro-nuclear argument. They are completely separate, regardless of whether
some pro-nukes like the GDP argument.
> ... the effectiveness of energy use on a global scale can
> be increased by about 1% per year for decades without any
> social strain. This seemingly small figure leads to a
Where do they get this? Sure, 1% sounds nice, but what about developing
nations and population growth? Suddenly 1% looks unbelievably large.
What do the authors project for the population in 2050? Hopefully several
10's of billions, 'cause that's what it will be at current growth.
And why have they decided that the third world will be rigidly kept at
its same low level of development? If they develop, they will have
factories, transportation systems, etc., which will all use new energy
that even if it is used very efficiently was not used before. I think
there will be quite a bit of social strain if this was enforced
world-wide.
> Note that such a development requires capital expenditures that would
> not likely be possible if there was a focus on expanding nuclear
> power generation.
Why? We're talking about spending the money over 60 years. Think back
to the world physical plant in 1933. Compare that to today. Look
what we've built - it's a lot. We could easily develop both nuclear
and conservation. Afterall, conservation would mean less nuclear development
required and that would free up cash for more conservation, etc.
> For another comparison, they show that efficiency improvements cost
> about $.02/kWh. When this is compared with nuclear strategies, at any
For some current strategies. This is why power companies are investing
in conservation by paying large users to convert to more efficient
motors/lighting/etc. It is a wise and profitable investment. We
cannot plan on having something with efficiency gains equivalent
to modern high-efficiency fluorescent vs. incandescent lighting, for
example. So when they have paid off all existing plants to convert
then buying conservation is essentially eliminated. Presumedly all
new facilities built will already use the best in efficiency. The idea
that efficiency gains can be made indefinitely is clearly as specious
as free-energy arguments.
> The article also discusses the components of nuclear production for the
> above scenarios in developing countries and examines the difficulties
> they would have in financing such a program.
But apparently does not mention the fact that there is no cost for
conservation in these countries since they are using virtually no energy.
They are undeveloped. They will remain that way unless they add energy
capacity, even if what they add is used as efficiently as possible.
> First of all, the calculations for nuclear power cost were highly
> favorable to nuclear power and certainly did not bias the study.
Escept that they assumed no investment in conservation strategies.
> may be cause for caution, but the results cannot be discounted
> without an effective rebuttal.
This post is an effective rebuttal.
> One was based not on the cost estimates, but on the economics-based
> claim that increased efficiency would not lead to a lower energy use
> since lower costs lead to higher consumption. However, this assumption
> is only true if the cost of the electricity is the limiting factor
> in its consumption. For most uses this is not true. Also, there was
However, the CO2 argument assumed all uses increase in lock-step with
electricity. However, cost of fuel is a limiting factor in gasoline
consumption. In big industry, cost of electricity is a significant
consideration and is a big part of the final cost of product. If
electricity cost less, aluminum would be much cheaper. Demand for
aluminum would then increase. Simple supply and demand. I like this
argument - it is subtle, but devastating.
> Expansion of the nuclear contribution in the short term
> can only be relatively modest. Energy efficiency measures,
> particularly in the industrialized countries, may well
> offer more immediate potential to contain greenhouse gas
> emissions.
Agreed. I consider myself pro-nuke, and one of those who backs the
nukes-for-the-environment argument. However, I do not propose
eliminating conservation or ripping out existing power to replace it with
nuke. My argument is to develop nukes to fill any increase in demand
and to replace existing fossil power as it is decommissioned. I fully
back conservation efforts, as long as they remain reasonably viable
economically. (As they get more difficult, you will reach the point
of diminishing returns. Investment in conservation is a big booming
industry right now with lots of room to grow. Let's check it again in
10 years. It will level off and go down.)
--
Richard Stead
Center for Seismic Studies
Arlington, VA
st...@seismo.css.gov
Tino
>efficiency has the shortest installation time. This is all
>for the U.S. The developing world will need new capacity soon (if not
>now). I would argue that they would be best served by smaller scale
>generation and solar and wind tend to serve them well since they have
>little or no grid, but that is their decision to make.
When developing countries begin to industrialize, their electricity needs
will quickly outgrow what is available with solar and wind technology.
What then? Large units for baseload power, accented with smaller scale
generation for peak loads, etc.
I couldn't see solar and wind supporting a country of 10-20 million or more,
and I wouldn't want to be in Bangladesh when a typhoon carries off the
country's entire capacity of solar panels.
BTW, the countries that are growing very rapidly, like Thailand and Korea,
are investing heavily in next-generation nuclear plants. Perhaps the US will
be buying its technology from _them_.
Tino
--
"Here are the young men, the weight on their shoulders..." - J.D.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Purdue University School of Nuclear Engineering
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
John De Armond
>It seems to be a common conception that nuclear power is a good response
>to any possible climate change problem. I have challenged this assumption
>before but I will address in more detail here.
> Capital cost: $1000/installed kW
> Generation cost: $.05/kWh
> Plant construction period: 6 years
> Capacity factor: 65%
> Lifetime: 30 years
> No costs for decommissioning, waste, health impacts or political
> problems are included
Without even addressing the splintered logic involved in the "less is
more", "conservation is generating capacity" line of reasoning, the
above numbers are enough to destroy the credibility of the report.
Let's look at a few of them.
First capital cost: If we postulate a scenario where the US
commits to an all-out conversion to nuclear energy, it must
also be postulated that things that need to be done to
streamline the process will be done. Things such as generic
type-accepted packaged units, less complex fault-tolerant
reactor designs, one stop licensing, putting the intervenors
back out on the street where they belong and so on. To suggest
that a plant would cost $1000/iKW is grossly dishonest. One
can examine the closest thing the US has had to a type-accepted
design was the GE turnkey BTRs of the MkII generation. Browns
Ferry is an example. A very good example since the first two units
were about the last built before the nuclear hysteria sent
costs to the stratosphere. Units I and II were built for a total
cost of about $250 million. At a MW capacity of about 1000 MWE each,
that puts the cost at about $250/iKW. Technology advancements can
comfortably be assumed to offset inflation over the period.
Next, plant construction interval. The japanese have routinely built
conventional LWR plants in 3 years. A reasonable estimate for a plant
of modest complexity.
Next, availability. The industry standard of performance for present
day reactors is "outage to outage" availability. That is, pull the
rods and run til the fuel runs out. A one month outage every 18 months
gives an availability of 94%. High burnup fuel addressing the goal of
extending the fueling cycle beyond 18 months is a current industry
goal. It is reasonable to assume that an optimized reactor designed
for widespread deployment would have the ability to refuel on-line.
The secondary plant would still need an outage every few years for
turbine overhaul and so on.
Beyond that, an optimal design would have multiple fractional capacity
reactors feeding multiple turbines in a matrix. This would permit
the plant to remain online at reduced capacity if one reactor must be
shut down AND would permit the shutdown of one turbine for maintenance
while the other ran at reduced output.
Using an availability of 65% in an analysis borders on fraud.
Lastly, lifetime. The design life for present day power plants is 40 years.
Few people in the industry believe a plant will be turned off and
decommissioned at the end of 40 years. Conventional practice will be followed
in most cases in which incremental improvements are made continuously and
periodically major overhauls are done. TVA (the utility I'm most
familiar with) has fossil units almost 100 years old. There is nothing
there other than some of the concrete that is actually 100 years old.
Consider again Browns Ferry. It is approaching 25 years old. There is
not ever a consideration of shutting down the plant in 5 years. I was
down for several years for a practically complete overhaul in the late
80s. It probably has another 20 or 30 years before another overhaul
will be needed. I think a 50 year lifetime would be a conservative
planning estimate. A 30 year estimate is silly.
I'll let others take shots at the rest of the "study". I've seen enough
in just this little chunk to discredit it.
john
--
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Paul Dietz
> First capital cost: If we postulate a scenario where the US
> commits to an all-out conversion to nuclear energy, it must
> also be postulated that things that need to be done to
> streamline the process will be done. Things such as generic
> type-accepted packaged units, less complex fault-tolerant
> reactor designs, one stop licensing, putting the intervenors
> back out on the street where they belong and so on. To suggest
> that a plant would cost $1000/iKW is grossly dishonest. One
> can examine the closest thing the US has had to a type-accepted
> design was the GE turnkey BTRs of the MkII generation. Browns
> Ferry is an example. A very good example since the first two units
> were about the last built before the nuclear hysteria sent
> costs to the stratosphere. Units I and II were built for a total
> cost of about $250 million. At a MW capacity of about 1000 MWE each,
> that puts the cost at about $250/iKW. Technology advancements can
> comfortably be assumed to offset inflation over the period.
$250/kW seems awfully low -- that's even less than the capital cost of
simple cycle combustion turbines.
The recent USCEA study of the economics of nuclear vs. oil/gas/coal
for the next decade used cost figures for ABB Combustion Engineering's
new reactor design. Even with its simplification, its "overnight
capital cost" is around $1300/kW (for a 1200 MWe reactor). I find it
hard to believe that USCEA -- a pronuclear group -- would overestimate
the cost of reactors by a factor of 5.
Paul F. Dietz
di...@cs.rochester.edu
Dean Alaska
>In article <1992Dec30.1...@vexcel.com>, de...@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
Richard Stead makes a lot of incorrect assumptions about details of
the reports that I did not include. I will attempt to clear up some
of the misconceptions.
>> It seems to be a common conception that nuclear power is a good response
>> to any possible climate change problem. I have challenged this assumption
>> before but I will address in more detail here.
>>
>> The December 1988 issue
>> of _Energy Policy_ contains an article called "Greenhouse warming -
>> Comparative analysis of nuclear and efficiency abatement strategies"
>> by Bill Keepin and Gregory Kats. They make a cost comparison of
>
>(costs for high and medium growth in energy consumption deleted).
>
>> As can be seen, these scenarios require huge investments and an extremely
>> intensive building program for nuclear plants. And CO2 emissions will
>> not even drop due to the increase in use of other fossil fuel energy
>> sources!
>
>I don't see why these different energy uses are combined. Why argue that
>CO2 emissions increase from other uses of fossil fuels? Who claims that
>all energy uses must increase in lock-step? If vehicles are converted
>from gas-fueled to electric, and the electricity is nuclear-supplied,
>the total energy use can still go up by vehicles, but CO2 emissions go down.
>So the argument that CO2 emissions increase if we use nuclear power
>is completely bogus.
The study was for replacing only coal electricity generation since it
is the dirtiest form of fossil fuel. Oil and natural gas were not
included to keep the cost down. The increased use of oil and
natural gas over the 40 year period made up for the savings from
not using coal. Transportation contributions were not included.
>
>> Next, this is compared to the cost and emissions prediction for a focus
>> on energy efficiency. They use a low energy scenario proposed by
>> Goldemburg et al. They also discuss other low energy/efficiency
>> studies by Lovins et al and an NSF/MIT study, all of which point to
>> large savings from energy saving measures. The NSF study states that:
>
>Thus apples and oranges are compared. Why not consider the cost of replacing
>decommissioned fossil fuel facilities with nuclear facilities while
>incorporating the same conservation efforts? It will cost less than replacing
>decommisioned fossil power with new fossil power, and produce less CO2.
>There is no need to mix the GDP growth = energy growth argument with the
>pro-nuclear argument. They are completely separate, regardless of whether
>some pro-nukes like the GDP argument.
Any projections require modeling future energy needs, which usually
requires modeling future economic growth. The two cannot be separated,
whatever the relationship between them. Virtually all public
nuclear power advocates dismiss efficiency while efficiency advocates
assume that the non-trivial expense for efficiency retrofits comes
from money that would otherwise be used for new plant contruction.
It is clear from responses to this post that nuclear proponents here
do not dismiss efficiency as the public ones do. That is good, but
I think people should look at the sources for these funds to see that
the combined strategy is problematic. I discussed this with Michael Tobis.
>
>> ... the effectiveness of energy use on a global scale can
>> be increased by about 1% per year for decades without any
>> social strain. This seemingly small figure leads to a
>
>Where do they get this? Sure, 1% sounds nice, but what about developing
>nations and population growth? Suddenly 1% looks unbelievably large.
>What do the authors project for the population in 2050? Hopefully several
>10's of billions, 'cause that's what it will be at current growth.
>And why have they decided that the third world will be rigidly kept at
>its same low level of development? If they develop, they will have
>factories, transportation systems, etc., which will all use new energy
>that even if it is used very efficiently was not used before. I think
>there will be quite a bit of social strain if this was enforced
>world-wide.
Where does it say that the third world will be kept at current levels
of development? You need to read the post more carefully. As to
whether the 1%/year is reasonable, you will have to take it up with
the researchers. Details of this study were not included.
>
>> Note that such a development requires capital expenditures that would
>> not likely be possible if there was a focus on expanding nuclear
>> power generation.
>
>Why? We're talking about spending the money over 60 years. Think back
>to the world physical plant in 1933. Compare that to today. Look
>what we've built - it's a lot. We could easily develop both nuclear
>and conservation. Afterall, conservation would mean less nuclear development
>required and that would free up cash for more conservation, etc.
40 years. I am glad you are so optimistic that the money is available.
Considering that the good citizens of Colorado passed a strict tax
limitation initiative, turned down a sales tax for schools (but approved
a baseball stadium), I am not so optimistic.
>
>> For another comparison, they show that efficiency improvements cost
>> about $.02/kWh. When this is compared with nuclear strategies, at any
>
>For some current strategies. This is why power companies are investing
>in conservation by paying large users to convert to more efficient
>motors/lighting/etc. It is a wise and profitable investment. We
>cannot plan on having something with efficiency gains equivalent
>to modern high-efficiency fluorescent vs. incandescent lighting, for
>example. So when they have paid off all existing plants to convert
>then buying conservation is essentially eliminated. Presumedly all
>new facilities built will already use the best in efficiency. The idea
>that efficiency gains can be made indefinitely is clearly as specious
>as free-energy arguments.
Noone claims these gains can be made indefinitely. They can be made
for quite some time (1 or 2 decades) at reasonably expected levels of
investment.
>
>> The article also discusses the components of nuclear production for the
>> above scenarios in developing countries and examines the difficulties
>> they would have in financing such a program.
>
>But apparently does not mention the fact that there is no cost for
>conservation in these countries since they are using virtually no energy.
>They are undeveloped. They will remain that way unless they add energy
>capacity, even if what they add is used as efficiently as possible.
Why do you believe that this is not taken into account? They do
address it. Pardon me for not typing numerous pages into the
computer. The developing countries clearly have a different set
of choices than the developed countries. Nuclear power has a poor
cost record in developing countries and powerful environmentalists
and regulation is not a likely cause in most of those countries.
Their lack of a well-developed grid makes the use of large
centralized plants more problematic than in the U.S. or Europe.
>
>> First of all, the calculations for nuclear power cost were highly
>> favorable to nuclear power and certainly did not bias the study.
>
>Escept that they assumed no investment in conservation strategies.
>
>> may be cause for caution, but the results cannot be discounted
>> without an effective rebuttal.
>
>This post is an effective rebuttal.
You have not even attempted to rebut efficiency cost estimates. What
you have attempted to rebut is the methodology of the study, which you
clearly do not know much about. You did much better with flywheels :).
>
>> One was based not on the cost estimates, but on the economics-based
>> claim that increased efficiency would not lead to a lower energy use
>> since lower costs lead to higher consumption. However, this assumption
>> is only true if the cost of the electricity is the limiting factor
>> in its consumption. For most uses this is not true. Also, there was
>
>However, the CO2 argument assumed all uses increase in lock-step with
>electricity. However, cost of fuel is a limiting factor in gasoline
>consumption. In big industry, cost of electricity is a significant
>consideration and is a big part of the final cost of product. If
>electricity cost less, aluminum would be much cheaper. Demand for
>aluminum would then increase. Simple supply and demand. I like this
>argument - it is subtle, but devastating.
As I said before, transportation was not included. The economic
argument is true for certain industries, but their component of
total electricity consumption is very small. Do you know what
percentage of U.S electricity is used for Aluminum? If this
argument is to be devastating, then aluminum and similar uses
must be shown to dominate the market. Please provide a reference.
>
>> Expansion of the nuclear contribution in the short term
>> can only be relatively modest. Energy efficiency measures,
>> particularly in the industrialized countries, may well
>> offer more immediate potential to contain greenhouse gas
>> emissions.
>
>Agreed. I consider myself pro-nuke, and one of those who backs the
>nukes-for-the-environment argument. However, I do not propose
>eliminating conservation or ripping out existing power to replace it with
>nuke. My argument is to develop nukes to fill any increase in demand
>and to replace existing fossil power as it is decommissioned. I fully
>back conservation efforts, as long as they remain reasonably viable
>economically. (As they get more difficult, you will reach the point
>of diminishing returns. Investment in conservation is a big booming
>industry right now with lots of room to grow. Let's check it again in
>10 years. It will level off and go down.)
>
How quickly cost effectiveness levels off depends on how forcefully
it is approached. A strong national program for efficiency might
lead to leveling off within 10 years but a program of that magnitude
at that speed of implementation would lead to a _decrease_ in electricity
consumption, even including economic growth, so we would not need to
replace aged fossil fuel plants immediately. This would be great
but I personally believe that a slower efficiency implementation, such
that gains equal fossil plant deactivation is more likely since the
short term cost-benefit results would be more equal which is the way
industry likes it. The best likelihood for the fast scenario, IMO,
would be for strong and unambiguous proof for climate change, similar
to what is now available for ozone depletion, to become available in
the next few years.
>
>--
>Richard Stead
>Center for Seismic Studies
>Arlington, VA
>st...@seismo.css.gov
Dean Alaska
>In article <1992Dec30.2...@vexcel.com> de...@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
>>efficiency has the shortest installation time. This is all
>>for the U.S. The developing world will need new capacity soon (if not
>>now). I would argue that they would be best served by smaller scale
>>generation and solar and wind tend to serve them well since they have
>>little or no grid, but that is their decision to make.
>
>When developing countries begin to industrialize, their electricity needs
>will quickly outgrow what is available with solar and wind technology.
>What then? Large units for baseload power, accented with smaller scale
>generation for peak loads, etc.
If storage technology improves, then solar and wind may be useful for
baseload. If not, nuclear may be there best choice.
>
>I couldn't see solar and wind supporting a country of 10-20 million or more,
>and I wouldn't want to be in Bangladesh when a typhoon carries off the
>country's entire capacity of solar panels.
I woudln't want to be in Bangladesh when a typhoon carries off a
containment structure.
>
>BTW, the countries that are growing very rapidly, like Thailand and Korea,
>are investing heavily in next-generation nuclear plants. Perhaps the US will
>be buying its technology from _them_.
Where are they getting their technology from?
>
>Tino
>--
> "Here are the young men, the weight on their shoulders..." - J.D.
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Purdue University School of Nuclear Engineering
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dean Alaska
In 1987 $?
Most of these figures were taken from the literature of organizations
promoting nuclear power and match the best history from France. The
only exception is the 65% figure. I am not sure what its source is
but increasing it to %80 or %90 will not change capital costs at all
nor will it drastically change operational costs. There is no
experience with 50 year old reactors. I have read that the issue
of embrittlement is not well understood. If John De Armond
thinks these figures are junk he better take his arguments to his
friends in the nuclear industry.
>
>john
>--
>John De Armond, WD4OQC |Interested in high performance mobility?
>Performance Engineering Magazine(TM) | Interested in high tech and computers?
>Marietta, Ga | Send ur snail-mail address to
>j...@dixie.com | per...@dixie.com for a free sample mag
>Need Usenet public Access in Atlanta? Write Me for info on Dixie.com.
Richard Stead
> In article <51...@seismo.CSS.GOV> st...@skadi.CSS.GOV (Richard Stead) writes:
> >In article <1992Dec30.1...@vexcel.com>, de...@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
> The study was for replacing only coal electricity generation since it
> is the dirtiest form of fossil fuel. Oil and natural gas were not
> included to keep the cost down. The increased use of oil and
> natural gas over the 40 year period made up for the savings from
> not using coal. Transportation contributions were not included.
But if the study really did use favorable numbers for nuclear power, then
it would be cheaper to add nuclear capacity than new oil and gas capacity.
However, it is not so clear that the study's number really were favorable
to nuclear power. Perhaps the costs quaoted are reasonable for the cost
to construct a single nuclear plant today. However, if nuclear power were
given serious consideration, then we could look forward to lower costs due
to economy of scale (building many plants would establish an efficient
industrial infrastructure to support such construction), greatly reduced
time of construction and licensing, and an improved legal environment.
Nuclear plants used to be very cheap to build, and would be on-line within
a few years after the first spade of dirt was turned. In today's climate
of anti-nuke hysteria, it is completely infeasible to construct a nuclear
plant, and certainly not to do so economically.
> Any projections require modeling future energy needs, which usually
> requires modeling future economic growth. The two cannot be separated,
> whatever the relationship between them. Virtually all public
I agree, but you also argued that conservation could attain 1% per year
reduction in total energy consumption. How can this square with
economic growth? That 1% reduction would then mean that conservation
is saving enough energy on existing uses to offset both economic growth
and population growth. It then looks like a small-differences problem
at best. Healthy economic grwoth is considered to be on the order of
3-5% per year for a fully industrialized western nation. That means
conservation would be saving 4-6% per year on existing uses. Not only
that, but the economic expansion must be assumed to be constructed with
the most efficient equipment available. So let's make a gross assumption
and claim that the most efficient stuff available in the future uses only half
the power of average currently installed equipment. In 24 years, assuming
only 3% per year economic growth and total conversion to the more efficient
systems, we would be using more power than today. So the 1% per year savings
would fail no later than 24 years from now, with the ridiculous assumption
that our industries can cut their energy uses in half. That 3% has to include
all growth - standard of living, population growth, international
competitiveness etc. I think the population alone is growing at that rate.
> >And why have they decided that the third world will be rigidly kept at
> >its same low level of development? If they develop, they will have
> >factories, transportation systems, etc., which will all use new energy
> >that even if it is used very efficiently was not used before. I think
> >there will be quite a bit of social strain if this was enforced
> >world-wide.
>
> Where does it say that the third world will be kept at current levels
> of development? You need to read the post more carefully. As to
I did. That 1% savings is unreasonable in the face of development.
How can an undeveloped country build significant infrastructure
while actually decreasing their total energy consumption? It's simply
not possible. They are basically using no energy now, but factories,
transportation and technology all eat up lots of juice.
> whether the 1%/year is reasonable, you will have to take it up with
> the researchers. Details of this study were not included.
I would, but you posted it and are using it to support your position.
I think I have posted sufficient argument to cast significant doubt
on this claim.
> >what we've built - it's a lot. We could easily develop both nuclear
> >and conservation. Afterall, conservation would mean less nuclear development
> >required and that would free up cash for more conservation, etc.
>
> 40 years. I am glad you are so optimistic that the money is available.
> Considering that the good citizens of Colorado passed a strict tax
> limitation initiative, turned down a sales tax for schools (but approved
> a baseball stadium), I am not so optimistic.
First, the development would not be funded by taxes, but rather by utility
rates. But beyond that argument, the main thing here is that if you have the
money to build all the nuclear capacity needed in the absence of conservation,
then all you have to do is take the cash that would have been used to build
a nuke plant, and use it for conservation. Your original argument claimed
conservation was cheaper per kW, so this practice should more than replace
the power that the nuke would have produced. Just continue that process until
diminishing returns prevents it from working anymore. Then you have both
conservation and nuke capacity.
> >> For another comparison, they show that efficiency improvements cost
> >> about $.02/kWh. When this is compared with nuclear strategies, at any
> >
> >For some current strategies. This is why power companies are investing
> >in conservation by paying large users to convert to more efficient
> >motors/lighting/etc. It is a wise and profitable investment. We
> >cannot plan on having something with efficiency gains equivalent
> >to modern high-efficiency fluorescent vs. incandescent lighting, for
> >example. So when they have paid off all existing plants to convert
> >then buying conservation is essentially eliminated. Presumedly all
> >new facilities built will already use the best in efficiency. The idea
> >that efficiency gains can be made indefinitely is clearly as specious
> >as free-energy arguments.
>
> Noone claims these gains can be made indefinitely. They can be made
> for quite some time (1 or 2 decades) at reasonably expected levels of
> investment.
But money does not control the technological gains possible. Basically,
after the simple stuff is done (currently a boom industry), costs will
go up exponentially for each additional kW saved, (and will approach
infinity as energy used runs up against thermodynamic limitations, etc.)
So we can't expect a linear relation between money invested and energy
saved. As for investing in efficiency, most of the big electric utilities
currently have programs to pay their major consumers to upgrade to more
efficient equipment - mostly replacing older fluorescent lighting and
ballast with modern fluorescent lighting and a few other upgrades.
The savings are nowhere near the 50% argument I made above, but the 50%
argument is the only thing that will keep us at the same power use
2 decades from now if we include modest economic growth. If we assume
20% efficiency gains and 5% economic growth, we will need new electric
capacity in only 5 years assuming total conversion to the more efficient
technology! That is a reasonable scenario.
> computer. The developing countries clearly have a different set
> of choices than the developed countries. Nuclear power has a poor
> cost record in developing countries and powerful environmentalists
> and regulation is not a likely cause in most of those countries.
> Their lack of a well-developed grid makes the use of large
> centralized plants more problematic than in the U.S. or Europe.
The US and Europe did not come complete with power grids when people
first started using electricity. Part of developing a country includes
developing infrastructure. They have no power grid, because they are
not generating or using electricity. Both use of electricity and the
power grid will develop together as it did in this country. And they
better use centralized production for the efficiency and reduction in
emissions. If they generate on-site (normally a co-generation system),
the efficiency would be lower and increases in CO2 output will wipe out
any reduction in CO2 output in developed countries.
I don't know why you argue that nuclear power has a poor cost record
in the third world. The two leaders of the third world - China and
India - have a lot of nuclear capacity and are building more, and they
do it very cheaply.
> You have not even attempted to rebut efficiency cost estimates. What
> you have attempted to rebut is the methodology of the study, which you
That is a perfectly valid rebuttal. If the methodology is flawed, then
so are the numbers. If not flawed, then why would the numbers be suspect?
Of course I attack the methodology.
> >In big industry, cost of electricity is a significant
> >consideration and is a big part of the final cost of product. If
> >electricity cost less, aluminum would be much cheaper. Demand for
> >aluminum would then increase. Simple supply and demand.
>
> The economic argument is true for certain industries, but their component of
> total electricity consumption is very small. Do you know what
> percentage of U.S electricity is used for Aluminum? If this
> argument is to be devastating, then aluminum and similar uses
> must be shown to dominate the market. Please provide a reference.
But you stated that electricity cost is independent of product cost and
provided no reference for that. It was simply stated. I then presented
a case that is a significant rebuttal, since while I do not know the
numbers, it is well-known that energy cost is the most significant cost in
the production of aluminum. While aluminum alone probably amounts to no
more than a couple percent of total electric capacity in this country,
it is only one example (though, admittedly, it is the best). As for
percentage of capacity that it uses, I don't know, but I do know that
a moderate-sized aluminum refinery uses 100's of MW, and because of this
the plant and a generating facility are usually built together and the plant
uses the majority of the electricity generated. So if we new how many
aluminum plants there were and how many electric plants, the plant ratio
would be close to the fraction of energy used to produce aluminum.
Other metal-refining processes do not use as much electricity (most notably
steel, where a lot of the energy comes from coke), but it is still a
significant contribution to the cost of the metal produced. This would
not be true of precious metals where most of the cost is mining.
> >back conservation efforts, as long as they remain reasonably viable
> >economically. (As they get more difficult, you will reach the point
> >of diminishing returns. Investment in conservation is a big booming
> >industry right now with lots of room to grow. Let's check it again in
> >10 years. It will level off and go down.)
> How quickly cost effectiveness levels off depends on how forcefully
> it is approached. A strong national program for efficiency might
> lead to leveling off within 10 years but a program of that magnitude
> at that speed of implementation would lead to a _decrease_ in electricity
> consumption, even including economic growth, so we would not need to
Not according to my calculations.
> industry likes it. The best likelihood for the fast scenario, IMO,
> would be for strong and unambiguous proof for climate change, similar
> to what is now available for ozone depletion, to become available in
There is not "unambiguous proof" of ozone depletion. There are the polar
"ozone holes" every winter, but it is not known if the holes existed or
not before the first measurements of them were made. It is possible that
a certain amount of chlorine has always made it to the stratosphere, and
the ozone holes (even if very small) have always been a polar winter feature.
Summer measurements of ozone at mid-latitudes do not show an unambiguous
reduction.
In stating this, I do not mean to claim that there is no problem with the
ozone. I just want to put things in perspective. I do not believe all
is well with the ozone, but I also do not think the problem is the dire
end-of-the-world catastrophe certain groups would have us believe. Likewise
with global change. I think the evidence for global change is currently
every bit as convincing, if not moreso, as the ozone evidence. Ocean
temperatures definitely seem to point to global warming. The variations
are very small and the noise is very large, but I'm convinced. Waiting
for "unambiguous proof", you will wait forever.
Anyway, it doesn't matter how fast the conservation occurs. It may lead
to a temporary drop in required capacity, but in 5 or 10 years we will
require more generating capacity than today. If we do not invest in nuke
power, then this means CO2 emissions will go up.
Richard Stead
> In article <1992Dec31.0...@gn.ecn.purdue.edu> cons...@gn.ecn.purdue.edu (Tino) writes:
> >In article <1992Dec30.2...@vexcel.com> de...@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
> >I couldn't see solar and wind supporting a country of 10-20 million or more,
> >and I wouldn't want to be in Bangladesh when a typhoon carries off the
> >country's entire capacity of solar panels.
>
> I woudln't want to be in Bangladesh when a typhoon carries off a
> containment structure.
No comparison. Containment structures are designed to withstand the strongest
tornadoes - a mere typhoon would simply give the plant a nice bath. However,
solar panels must be openly exposed to the sun to work. This leaves them
vulnerable to being blown all over the countryside by strong winds. Just
look at some of the stuff our last big hurricane did in Florida. That's
exactly what a typhoon does. The solar demonstration project out in the
Mojave in California does not need to worry about such storms, it will
never experience one. Bangladesh does have nuclear power and it has not
been carried away in the typhoons they get every year.
> >BTW, the countries that are growing very rapidly, like Thailand and Korea,
> >are investing heavily in next-generation nuclear plants. Perhaps the US will
> >be buying its technology from _them_.
>
> Where are they getting their technology from?
France, Japan, whatever. Any western nation with a sane nuclear policy.
Dick King
>In article <1992Dec31.0...@gn.ecn.purdue.edu> cons...@gn.ecn.purdue.edu (Tino) writes:
>>
>>I couldn't see solar and wind supporting a country of 10-20 million or more,
>>and I wouldn't want to be in Bangladesh when a typhoon carries off the
>>country's entire capacity of solar panels.
>
>I woudln't want to be in Bangladesh when a typhoon carries off a
>containment structure.
I'll second that.
Containment structures are robust concrete walls tens of feet thick.
I sure wouldn't want to be ANYWHERE where there were typhoons that could carry
off containment structures.
Fortunately there are no such places on this planet. If we inhabit Jupiter
i'll rethink this.
However, solar panels are designed to occupy area and need to be light enpough
to steer.
-dk
Dean Alaska
>> In article <1992Dec31.0...@gn.ecn.purdue.edu> cons...@gn.ecn.purdue.edu (Tino) writes:
>> >In article <1992Dec30.2...@vexcel.com> de...@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
>> >I couldn't see solar and wind supporting a country of 10-20 million or more,
>> >and I wouldn't want to be in Bangladesh when a typhoon carries off the
>> >country's entire capacity of solar panels.
>>
>> I woudln't want to be in Bangladesh when a typhoon carries off a
>> containment structure.
>
>No comparison. Containment structures are designed to withstand the strongest
>tornadoes - a mere typhoon would simply give the plant a nice bath. However,
>solar panels must be openly exposed to the sun to work. This leaves them
>vulnerable to being blown all over the countryside by strong winds. Just
>look at some of the stuff our last big hurricane did in Florida. That's
>exactly what a typhoon does. The solar demonstration project out in the
>Mojave in California does not need to worry about such storms, it will
>never experience one. Bangladesh does have nuclear power and it has not
>been carried away in the typhoons they get every year.
Okay, I can accept that. Someone e-mailed to me to say that India has
a home-grown nuclear industry but I guess Bangladesh wouldn't get
technology from them. If this is working for Bangladesh (and India),
I have no problems with it.
>
>--
>Richard Stead
>Center for Seismic Studies
>Arlington, VA
>st...@seismo.css.gov
--
Dick King
>>
>>I'll let others take shots at the rest of the "study". I've seen enough
>>in just this little chunk to discredit it.
>
>Most of these figures were taken from the literature of organizations
>promoting nuclear power and match the best history from France. The
>only exception is the 65% figure. I am not sure what its source is
>but increasing it to %80 or %90 will not change capital costs at all
>nor will it drastically change operational costs.
It will reduce the number of plants you need. If you need 10GW you must build
at least 15 1GW plants, if the availability is 65%, but only 12, if it's just
over 80%.
Total operating costs also decrease since a plant probably has costs that go on
even when it is not running.
-dk
William Carroll
>>>I couldn't see solar and wind supporting a country of 10-20 million or more,
>>>and I wouldn't want to be in Bangladesh when a typhoon carries off the
>>>country's entire capacity of solar panels.
>>
>> I woudln't want to be in Bangladesh when a typhoon carries off a
>> containment structure.
>No comparison. Containment structures are designed to withstand the strongest
>tornadoes - a mere typhoon would simply give the plant a nice bath.
> Just
>look at some of the stuff our last big hurricane did in Florida. That's
>exactly what a typhoon does.
You mean, like knocking the Turkey Point nuclear plant offline for several
weeks? That's one hell of a bath!
William R. Carroll (Encore Computer, Ft. Lauderdale FL) wcar...@encore.com
"We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form
up into teams, we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that
we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method
it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion,
inefficiency, and demoralization." -Petronius Arbiter, 210 BC
Paul Dietz
> Okay, I can accept that. Someone e-mailed to me to say that India has
> a home-grown nuclear industry but I guess Bangladesh wouldn't get
> technology from them. If this is working for Bangladesh (and India),
> I have no problems with it.
India does have a nuclear industry, but it is not doing terribly
well, I understand. They are having a hard time building plants
on time or on budget.
Bangladesh would be a poor choice for nuclear power, at least in the
near term. They actually have considerable natural gas (some of the
cheapest natural gas outside of OPEC); Bangladesh exports nitrogen
fertilizers made with the gas to other countries in Asia. Their main
concern would be to minimize capital cost, so gas turbines (perhaps
with cogeneration) are likely their best choice. If I recall
correctly, simple cycle gas turbogenerators cost less than $500/kW.
Paul F. Dietz
di...@cs.rochester.edu
Dean Alaska
>
>However, solar panels are designed to occupy area and need to be light enpough
>to steer.
>
areas that have bad weather, but I do admit that any decent containment
should not have trouble with a storm.
>
>-dk
Dean Alaska
>In article <1992Dec31.1...@vexcel.com>, de...@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
>> In article <51...@seismo.CSS.GOV> st...@skadi.CSS.GOV (Richard Stead) writes:
>> >In article <1992Dec30.1...@vexcel.com>, de...@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
>> The study was for replacing only coal electricity generation since it
>> is the dirtiest form of fossil fuel. Oil and natural gas were not
>> included to keep the cost down. The increased use of oil and
>> natural gas over the 40 year period made up for the savings from
>> not using coal. Transportation contributions were not included.
>
>But if the study really did use favorable numbers for nuclear power, then
>it would be cheaper to add nuclear capacity than new oil and gas capacity.
>However, it is not so clear that the study's number really were favorable
>to nuclear power. Perhaps the costs quaoted are reasonable for the cost
>to construct a single nuclear plant today. However, if nuclear power were
>given serious consideration, then we could look forward to lower costs due
>to economy of scale (building many plants would establish an efficient
>industrial infrastructure to support such construction), greatly reduced
>time of construction and licensing, and an improved legal environment.
>Nuclear plants used to be very cheap to build, and would be on-line within
>a few years after the first spade of dirt was turned. In today's climate
>of anti-nuke hysteria, it is completely infeasible to construct a nuclear
>plant, and certainly not to do so economically.
The cost estimates were based on claims by organizations supporting
increased use of nuclear power, so I think they are reasonable.
>
[extensice discussion of 1%/year figure deleted]
>
>I would, but you posted it and are using it to support your position.
>I think I have posted sufficient argument to cast significant doubt
>on this claim.
The quote was a 1% decrease in effectiveness. You have interpreted
this as absolute consumption. You argue that that is unreasonable
over 40 years and I agree. I think that effectiveness meant
intensity, as in energy consumed per $GNP, but since it was a quote
from a different study, it was not clarified. It also was not
central to the calculations in the study I quoted. Just to
clarify, the study I have (from _Energy Policy_) quoted another
study (from NSF/MIT) to get this figure. This figure was not
used in the EP study.
>
>> 40 years. I am glad you are so optimistic that the money is available.
>> Considering that the good citizens of Colorado passed a strict tax
>> limitation initiative, turned down a sales tax for schools (but approved
>> a baseball stadium), I am not so optimistic.
>
>First, the development would not be funded by taxes, but rather by utility
>rates. But beyond that argument, the main thing here is that if you have the
>money to build all the nuclear capacity needed in the absence of conservation,
>then all you have to do is take the cash that would have been used to build
>a nuke plant, and use it for conservation. Your original argument claimed
>conservation was cheaper per kW, so this practice should more than replace
>the power that the nuke would have produced. Just continue that process until
>diminishing returns prevents it from working anymore. Then you have both
>conservation and nuke capacity.
If we use money that otherwise would have been used for new capacity
(nuke or otherwise) for efficiency, then we do not have money to
build nuke capacity until efficiency has been played out. At that
point, we will need to decide on a source for new capacity. If the
only reasonable choices are fossil and nuclear, I would support
nuclear. Since that point is years away, I will reserve judgement
until the decision is needed. While utility rates are not taxes, they
are publicy controlled and have similar limitations.
>
>> Noone claims these gains can be made indefinitely. They can be made
>> for quite some time (1 or 2 decades) at reasonably expected levels of
>> investment.
>
>But money does not control the technological gains possible. Basically,
>after the simple stuff is done (currently a boom industry), costs will
>go up exponentially for each additional kW saved, (and will approach
>infinity as energy used runs up against thermodynamic limitations, etc.)
>So we can't expect a linear relation between money invested and energy
>saved. As for investing in efficiency, most of the big electric utilities
>currently have programs to pay their major consumers to upgrade to more
>efficient equipment - mostly replacing older fluorescent lighting and
>ballast with modern fluorescent lighting and a few other upgrades.
>The savings are nowhere near the 50% argument I made above, but the 50%
>argument is the only thing that will keep us at the same power use
>2 decades from now if we include modest economic growth. If we assume
>20% efficiency gains and 5% economic growth, we will need new electric
>capacity in only 5 years assuming total conversion to the more efficient
>technology! That is a reasonable scenario.
You obviously missed my posts (months ago) from an EPRI study that
indicated that if there was 100% market penetration of the best
existing technology today, we could get about a 54% decrease in
consumption in the U.S. Obviously, it won't happen today. I am
suggesting that it will take a decade or two. But the technology
will also improve. By the way, the biggest effeiciency gain
would be from industrial motors, according to the study. How long
will it take for our electricity service needs to increase by 54%?
Certainly more than 5 years.
>
>The US and Europe did not come complete with power grids when people
>first started using electricity. Part of developing a country includes
>developing infrastructure. They have no power grid, because they are
>not generating or using electricity. Both use of electricity and the
>power grid will develop together as it did in this country. And they
>better use centralized production for the efficiency and reduction in
>emissions. If they generate on-site (normally a co-generation system),
>the efficiency would be lower and increases in CO2 output will wipe out
>any reduction in CO2 output in developed countries.
>I don't know why you argue that nuclear power has a poor cost record
>in the third world. The two leaders of the third world - China and
>India - have a lot of nuclear capacity and are building more, and they
>do it very cheaply.
The study gave some case histories of enormous cost overruns. And
when the U.S. started developing its power stations and grid, was
it using GW plants? My efficiency arguments clearly apply most
for the U.S. and then Europe. I have done much less research for
the cases of the LDC's. I will not oppose then using nuclear if
that is what they decide.
>
>That is a perfectly valid rebuttal. If the methodology is flawed, then
>so are the numbers. If not flawed, then why would the numbers be suspect?
>Of course I attack the methodology.
Okay, I misinterpreted your meaning (or you, mine). I think we are
mostly arguing around the edges and there are a number of nuclear
advocates who seem to be in general agreement, with some minor
differences. And the rebuttals are continuing....
>
>But you stated that electricity cost is independent of product cost and
>provided no reference for that. It was simply stated. I then presented
>a case that is a significant rebuttal, since while I do not know the
>numbers, it is well-known that energy cost is the most significant cost in
>the production of aluminum. While aluminum alone probably amounts to no
>more than a couple percent of total electric capacity in this country,
>it is only one example (though, admittedly, it is the best). As for
>percentage of capacity that it uses, I don't know, but I do know that
>a moderate-sized aluminum refinery uses 100's of MW, and because of this
>the plant and a generating facility are usually built together and the plant
>uses the majority of the electricity generated. So if we new how many
>aluminum plants there were and how many electric plants, the plant ratio
>would be close to the fraction of energy used to produce aluminum.
>Other metal-refining processes do not use as much electricity (most notably
>steel, where a lot of the energy comes from coke), but it is still a
>significant contribution to the cost of the metal produced. This would
>not be true of precious metals where most of the cost is mining.
I didn't say it was independent, I stated that it was not dominant.
The exact effect of this economics-based argument is an open question
since neither of us know the exact figures. However, it would not
apply to residential or commercial usages. I have a copy of the
response to the economics argument so I will see if it has any hard
numbers.
>
>Not according to my calculations.
My sources are described earlier. I can e-mail you a summary of
my EPRI post (if I still have it). Many studies indicate enormous
savings are possible in the U.S. More than seems intuituvely likley,
based on the responses to my original EPRI post.
>
>> industry likes it. The best likelihood for the fast scenario, IMO,
>> would be for strong and unambiguous proof for climate change, similar
>> to what is now available for ozone depletion, to become available in
>
>There is not "unambiguous proof" of ozone depletion. There are the polar
>"ozone holes" every winter, but it is not known if the holes existed or
>not before the first measurements of them were made. It is possible that
>a certain amount of chlorine has always made it to the stratosphere, and
>the ozone holes (even if very small) have always been a polar winter feature.
>Summer measurements of ozone at mid-latitudes do not show an unambiguous
>reduction.
>
>In stating this, I do not mean to claim that there is no problem with the
>ozone. I just want to put things in perspective. I do not believe all
>is well with the ozone, but I also do not think the problem is the dire
>end-of-the-world catastrophe certain groups would have us believe. Likewise
>with global change. I think the evidence for global change is currently
>every bit as convincing, if not moreso, as the ozone evidence. Ocean
>temperatures definitely seem to point to global warming. The variations
>are very small and the noise is very large, but I'm convinced. Waiting
>for "unambiguous proof", you will wait forever.
I believe the evidence for ozone depletion (shown to exist over the
continental U.S., though at lower levels than in Antarctica) is
stronger than for climate change. But I don't want to get into that
here. Maybe the use of the term "unambiguous proof" was inappropriate.
The world community has responded forcefully to the ozone problem, but
not to the climate change problem due to this level of differing
proof. My point is that the kind of convincing proof that got us a
Montreal Protocol (and recently strengthened it) could lead to the
fast scenario I mentioned above.
>
>Anyway, it doesn't matter how fast the conservation occurs. It may lead
>to a temporary drop in required capacity, but in 5 or 10 years we will
>require more generating capacity than today. If we do not invest in nuke
>power, then this means CO2 emissions will go up.
>
Our only area of disagreement seems to be how long efficiency can
control increased electricity demand. If I am correct, based on the
EPRI study (and also the NSF/MIT study), then we can wait before
deciding what will provide our new capacity. If that decision had
to be made now (or in 5 years), then I would agree with you.
>
>--
>Richard Stead
>Center for Seismic Studies
>Arlington, VA
>st...@seismo.css.gov
Mike Van Pelt
>containment structure.
And anti-nukes wonder why the rest of us giggle at them...
--
Mike Van Pelt | What happens if a big asteroid hits Earth?
m...@netcom.com | Judging from realistic simulations involving a
| sledge hammer and a common laboratory frog, we
| can assume it will be pretty bad. -- Dave Barry
Peter Hardie,4805
> st...@skadi.CSS.GOV (Richard Stead) writes:
>
>>No comparison. Containment structures are designed to withstand the strongest
>>tornadoes - a mere typhoon would simply give the plant a nice bath.
>> Just
>>look at some of the stuff our last big hurricane did in Florida. That's
>>exactly what a typhoon does.
>
> You mean, like knocking the Turkey Point nuclear plant offline for several
> weeks? That's one hell of a bath!
damage the nuclear power plant at all. It was taken off line as a precaution
during the storm. The damage was done to a nearby coal-fired plant (one of the
stacks was damaged?). After being taken off-line, the Turkey Point plant could
not get permission to start up again for some time because of concerns about
the ability to evacuate the nearby population if an emergency occurred at the
plant (i.e. the existing emergency evacuation plans would have been difficult
to carry out with the debris from the storm impeding people's ability to get
out of the area).
victor yodaiken
>nor will it drastically change operational costs. There is no
>experience with 50 year old reactors. I have read that the issue
>of embrittlement is not well understood. If John De Armond
>thinks these figures are junk he better take his arguments to his
>friends in the nuclear industry.
The facts are that there are proposed methods for reversing embittlement
but they have not been tried except in the Soviet Union and, I believe,
one small experimental reactor in Belgium. The costs of these proposed
methods are large, their effectiveness is not known. The NRC shut down
Yankee Rowe precisely because its containment vessel showed signs of
losing enough ductility to make its continued operation dangerous. The
utility chose to decomission rather than to attempt annealing. The
rapidity of ductility loss is the subject of controversy.
--
Richard Stead
> In article <51...@seismo.CSS.GOV> st...@skadi.CSS.GOV (Richard Stead) writes:
> >In article <1992Dec31.1...@vexcel.com>, de...@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
> >> In article <51...@seismo.CSS.GOV> st...@skadi.CSS.GOV (Richard Stead) writes:
> >> >In article <1992Dec30.1...@vexcel.com>, de...@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
> If we use money that otherwise would have been used for new capacity
> (nuke or otherwise) for efficiency, then we do not have money to
> build nuke capacity until efficiency has been played out. At that
But that was not my argument. Just take the budget for nuke development.
Take only the fraction that can currently reasonably be spent for
efficiency gains (these take time, and will eventually be played out,
so it is not clear that the entire budget for new power could be spent
on it). The remaining funds still go to develop new nuclear power.
I don't believe it is an all-or-nothing situation. In fact, this would
be very prudent practice, since not only is the current cost of efficiency
gains less than the cost of new power, but it would also provide the time
needed for planning and construction of new nuclear power.
> point, we will need to decide on a source for new capacity. If the
> only reasonable choices are fossil and nuclear, I would support
> nuclear. Since that point is years away, I will reserve judgement
> until the decision is needed. While utility rates are not taxes, they
But since new power takes at least 3-5 years to develop, it has to be planned
well in advance. Waiting until we start having brownouts to make these
decisions is not good planning.
> You obviously missed my posts (months ago) from an EPRI study that
> indicated that if there was 100% market penetration of the best
> existing technology today, we could get about a 54% decrease in
> consumption in the U.S. Obviously, it won't happen today. I am
> suggesting that it will take a decade or two. But the technology
> will also improve. By the way, the biggest effeiciency gain
> would be from industrial motors, according to the study. How long
> will it take for our electricity service needs to increase by 54%?
> Certainly more than 5 years.
At a 5% growth rate, 16 years, assuming 100% market penetration.
Given at least 5 years to plan, construct and license new power,
we will have to start planningin only about 10 years.
> The study gave some case histories of enormous cost overruns. And
There are cases of cost overruns in every industry - finding a few cases
related to nuclear power does not discredit it.
> My sources are described earlier. I can e-mail you a summary of
> my EPRI post (if I still have it). Many studies indicate enormous
> savings are possible in the U.S. More than seems intuituvely likley,
> based on the responses to my original EPRI post.
I absolutely agree that enormous savings are possible with efficiency
gains, and I fully support efforts in this area. However, growth will
eat up the gains in short order, no more than 2 decades. I see no reason
to build twice as many nuke plants as we really need since we can use
conservation to cut back on power requirements. But we will need new
power and need it relatively soon. I don't think efficiency gains
should be contrasted with nuclear power - to me they are two important
aspects of a single, comprehensive, environmentally and economically sound
energy policy.
> here. Maybe the use of the term "unambiguous proof" was inappropriate.
> The world community has responded forcefully to the ozone problem, but
> not to the climate change problem due to this level of differing
> proof. My point is that the kind of convincing proof that got us a
> Montreal Protocol (and recently strengthened it) could lead to the
I think the main reason for the difference in response is that options
to replace CFCs already existed at the time of the agreements, and there
was little economic impact to removing them from production. The US
backed the agreement strongly and has pressured other nations to support
it. On the other hand, reducing greenhouse gas emissions is a big
unknown and could have strong economic impact. power generation is
just a fraction of greenhouse gas production. Everything from cars
to cattle has been implicated and replacement technology is not
necessarily readily available. Without an option to develop nuclear
power, the US would find it virtually impossible to meet any standards
for greenhouse gases established by the international community.
Mr Bush has decided not to support any such agreements mainly due
to these problems. Another interesting aspect to this problem is that
the developing nations expect the US to fund any of their efforts to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Agreeing to this would be signing
a blank check over to the third world, something I am definitely not
in favor of. It will be hard enough to pay for any of our own conversions.
CFCs had no such international aspect, since the US was the main producer
anyway and they do not impact such basic things as transportation or
energy production..
> Our only area of disagreement seems to be how long efficiency can
> control increased electricity demand. If I am correct, based on the
> EPRI study (and also the NSF/MIT study), then we can wait before
> deciding what will provide our new capacity. If that decision had
> to be made now (or in 5 years), then I would agree with you.
We will be making that decision in 5-10 years at the latest, even with
excellent efficiency gains.
John De Armond
>In article <p2q...@dixie.com> j...@dixie.com (John De Armond) writes:
>> First capital cost: If we postulate a scenario where the US
>> commits to an all-out conversion to nuclear energy, it must
>> also be postulated that things that need to be done to
>> streamline the process will be done.
>$250/kW seems awfully low -- that's even less than the capital cost of
>simple cycle combustion turbines.
That's because combustion turbines are low capacity compared to their
cost.
>The recent USCEA study of the economics of nuclear vs. oil/gas/coal
>for the next decade used cost figures for ABB Combustion Engineering's
>new reactor design. Even with its simplification, its "overnight
>capital cost" is around $1300/kW (for a 1200 MWe reactor). I find it
>hard to believe that USCEA -- a pronuclear group -- would overestimate
>the cost of reactors by a factor of 5.
I quoted myself above again to reiterate my basis which should be
the basis used in the study. That USCEA is using the old, obsolete
model for nuclear generation to me shows they are about as competent
at that as they are in making nuclear power advertisements. (I've
never seen such horrendously bad ads.) Sure a plant of 50s vintage design
built under even "streamlined" regulations would cost at least $1300/kw.
I would hope that in the almost 50 years of experience, the industry could
come up with a more cost-effective design. Since several have already
been proposed in the literature, I'm sure they can. Of course, if
DOE is allowed to boondogle as usual, who knows.
Of course, this disucssion is academic since no power executive in his
right mind would even consider trying to construct another plant
like what we have now.
Back to the study. That the author used old, stale values on the nuclear
side while advocating radical social changes on the other shows the
bogosity of the "study". 'Bout what I'd expect from RMI. If the author
claims the right to postulate on the basis of radical conservation
and soft energy, I have an equal right to demand that nuclear figures
embrace at least the same level of radical change.
John
John De Armond
>It will reduce the number of plants you need. If you need 10GW you must build
>at least 15 1GW plants, if the availability is 65%, but only 12, if it's just
>over 80%.
Yup.
>Total operating costs also decrease since a plant probably has costs that go on
>even when it is not running.
Using the $0.05/kwh quoted rate, a 1000 MWE plant produces $50,000 worth
of electricity an hour. At the retail rate around here (0.114/kwh in
the summer) that works out to $114,00 per hour or $1900 per minute
or about a buck a revolution on the turbine (1800 rpm typ). When
the plant is not operating, not only is the utility not earning that
revenue, it is buying the electricity from elsewhere. Or assuming
the utility base loads its least cost capacity, generating it from
more expensive sources.
Someone saying that availability does not seriously affect costs is
about like a person who has never seen a gun picking the thing up
and peering down the barrel while pulling the trigger. In other words,
somewhat uninformed.
John De Armond
>In 1987 $?
Sure.
>Most of these figures were taken from the literature of organizations
>promoting nuclear power and match the best history from France. The
>only exception is the 65% figure. I am not sure what its source is
>but increasing it to %80 or %90 will not change capital costs at all
>nor will it drastically change operational costs.
Perhaps not with your brand of math but in the real world, taking
a plant's availability from 65% to 90% is a marked change.
>There is no
>experience with 50 year old reactors. I have read that the issue
>of embrittlement is not well understood. If John De Armond
>thinks these figures are junk he better take his arguments to his
>friends in the nuclear industry.
Aha! Fresh meat. Love these newbies. Dean, I don't need to "take it to my
friends in the nuclear industry" because I am part of it. Or was until I
decided to retire and put ink on dead trees for a living. Neutron
embrittlement is quite well understood and is being mitigated even as you
read this. Such things as low enrichment peripheral fuel loading and
a slight reduction in power does wonders. If or when it becomes necessary
to address reactor pot enbrittlement, it will be done in one of a couple
of ways. Either the pot will be annealed in place or a new pot will
be installed. Either way, the facility continues to operate
indefinitely. The only reactors that will be decommissioned are those
that no longer make economoc sense to operate.
John
The most immediate
John De Armond
>In article <1992Dec31.1...@vexcel.com> de...@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
>>In article <p2q...@dixie.com> j...@dixie.com (John De Armond) writes:
>>nor will it drastically change operational costs. There is no
>>experience with 50 year old reactors. I have read that the issue
>>of embrittlement is not well understood. If John De Armond
>>thinks these figures are junk he better take his arguments to his
>>friends in the nuclear industry.
Ahhh, Yackadamn's back!!!! Just like a persistent case of the Clap.
>The facts are that there are proposed methods for reversing embittlement
>but they have not been tried except in the Soviet Union and, I believe,
>one small experimental reactor in Belgium. The costs of these proposed
>methods are large, their effectiveness is not known.
Cost is only high relative to small things like, say, your paycheck.
Relative to new power plant construction, annealing the pot is trivial.
As to effectiveness, if you've ever annealed a piece of hardened
steel, you know how effective heat is in eliminating stress. Really
does not matter how the stress got there.
>The NRC shut down
>Yankee Rowe precisely because its containment vessel showed signs of
>losing enough ductility to make its continued operation dangerous. The
>utility chose to decomission rather than to attempt annealing. The
>rapidity of ductility loss is the subject of controversy.
Three strikes and you're out, yackadamn. Yankee was shut down by the
utility because it was a tiny unit that was not economical - in the
judgement of the untility - to refurb. While I would have liked to
see Yankee do a demonsration project with that tiny reactor, it was
not my money to spend.
C'mon Yack. You can do better than that. What's wrong, still drunk
from New Years?
John
Paul Dietz
>> $250/kW seems awfully low -- that's even less than the capital cost of
>> simple cycle combustion turbines.
> That's because combustion turbines are low capacity compared to their
> cost.
Really? Is that why they are the prefered fossil units for peaking power?
I would have thought that *low* capital cost for a given power output
would be prefered there.
> I quoted myself above again to reiterate my basis which should be
> the basis used in the study. That USCEA is using the old, obsolete
> model for nuclear generation to me shows they are about as competent
> at that as they are in making nuclear power advertisements. (I've
> never seen such horrendously bad ads.) Sure a plant of 50s vintage design
> built under even "streamlined" regulations would cost at least $1300/kw.
> I would hope that in the almost 50 years of experience, the industry could
> come up with a more cost-effective design. Since several have already
> been proposed in the literature, I'm sure they can. Of course, if
> DOE is allowed to boondogle as usual, who knows.
The USCEA is using new designs in its analysis. None of the next
generation LWRs (AP600, SBWR, etc.) come in anywhere near $250/kW,
even though they are often much simpler than the last generation of
reactors.
I'm calling you on this $250/kW figure. Please give a literature
reference that justifies it.
Paul F. Dietz
di...@cs.rochester.edu
John De Armond
>> That's because combustion turbines are low capacity compared to their
>> cost.
>Really? Is that why they are the prefered fossil units for peaking power?
>I would have thought that *low* capital cost for a given power output
>would be prefered there.
Why? Because they can come up almost instantly and can produce more power
than practical diesel generators and can burn natural gas. Capital
cost does not matter much when the issue is shaving off a peak demand
that would otherwise necessitate a brownout.
>I'm calling you on this $250/kW figure. Please give a literature
>reference that justifies it.
Like you did regarding gas turbines? Unlike you, I don't have to go trolling
in the library to know a bit about the power biz. If there happens to be
something I don't know about, all I have to do is pick up the phone and
call any of several old colleagues in the business. Invaluable
resource, dontcha know. USCEA does play by the old rules which would not
apply in the event the country decided to play nuclear again in a
serious way.
John De Armond
>In article <51...@seismo.CSS.GOV> st...@skadi.CSS.GOV (Richard Stead) writes:
>>Why not take a chunk of vessel to a lab and see exactly what annealing
>>treatment will restore ductility? Then simply design new reactors with
>>an installed annealing system - annealing could be performed as part of
>>regular maintainance every few years.
>This would not affect the projected lifespan of current reactors, and
>might not provide an accurate indication of how weld points or different
>topologies or larger chunks of metal will behave in situ.
Hi Rich. I don't think I've seen you in these threads before so
I thought I'd warn you that debating with Yackadamn is like yelling
at the wall. He's a classic armchair critic who gets all his energy
information from the Union of Concerned Scientists Book of the Month
Club. Us regulars over in sci.energy regard him as a sparring partner
who aids in keeping our debating skills sharp. You'll also note another
of his tricks and that is when the heat gets too high, he'll redirect
followups away to some more friendly group and away from the experts.
So it goes here. I've pointed it back to sci.energy where it belongs.
victor yodaiken
>yoda...@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:
>
>>In article <51...@seismo.CSS.GOV> st...@skadi.CSS.GOV (Richard Stead) writes:
>
>>>Why not take a chunk of vessel to a lab and see exactly what annealing
>>>treatment will restore ductility? Then simply design new reactors with
>>>an installed annealing system - annealing could be performed as part of
>>>regular maintainance every few years.
>
>>This would not affect the projected lifespan of current reactors, and
>>might not provide an accurate indication of how weld points or different
>>topologies or larger chunks of metal will behave in situ.
>
>Hi Rich. I don't think I've seen you in these threads before so
>I thought I'd warn you that debating with Yackadamn is like yelling
>at the wall. He's a classic armchair critic who gets all his energy
>information from the Union of Concerned Scientists Book of the Month
>Club. Us regulars over in sci.energy regard him as a sparring partner
>who aids in keeping our debating skills sharp. You'll also note another
>of his tricks and that is when the heat gets too high, he'll redirect
>followups away to some more friendly group and away from the experts.
Hi John, the quality of your wit and information remain at their
standard shoddy level, but I'm impressed to see you extend your
combination of ignorance and dogmatism to the subject of internet
news systems. FYI, Rich's note contained a followup field that is
used by my post-news program without human intervention.
If you'd like, I can make sure a copy of my every post gets put on
Sci.energy for your edification. On the subject of in situ annealing,
my information comes from NRC and UCS scientists at the public hearings
at Yankee Rowe. Despite your repeated claims to the contrary, the
economic and engineering advantages of this process are not at all
settled, and the decision by Yankee Rowe management to shut down rather
than attempt to fix the reactor vessel is an indication. The
facts are that the NRC ordered Yankee Rowe shut down because of
embrittlement, and neither the utility nor the NRC
seemed interested in trying a costly and experimental repair. NRC
scientists at the hearing told me that they were attempting to get data
on Soviet military reactors where annealing had been tried and that
there was no solid information available on how well the process might
work in a US plant. In light of this, your assertions about extending
the lifespan of nuclear plants seem as factual as many of your
previous claims.
--
victor yodaiken
>yoda...@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:
>
>>In article <1992Dec31.1...@vexcel.com> de...@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
>>>In article <p2q...@dixie.com> j...@dixie.com (John De Armond) writes:
>>>nor will it drastically change operational costs. There is no
>>>experience with 50 year old reactors. I have read that the issue
>>>of embrittlement is not well understood. If John De Armond
>>>thinks these figures are junk he better take his arguments to his
>>>friends in the nuclear industry.
>
>Ahhh, Yackadamn's back!!!! Just like a persistent case of the Clap.
Your postings make it seem like your problem is probably tertiary syph
instead, but you should get qualified medical treatment in anycase..
>>The facts are that there are proposed methods for reversing embittlement
>>but they have not been tried except in the Soviet Union and, I believe,
>>one small experimental reactor in Belgium. The costs of these proposed
>>methods are large, their effectiveness is not known.
>
>Cost is only high relative to small things like, say, your paycheck.
>Relative to new power plant construction, annealing the pot is trivial.
This is typical of your level of either honesty or understanding, I'm not
sure which. You project costs to be trivial, but on there is zero
'on the ground' evidence to backup this assertion. Nobody has ever tried
annealing in any commercial plants, and you the only evidence you
provide for your claim is your own personal credibility -- a rather
valueless item.
>As to effectiveness, if you've ever annealed a piece of hardened
>steel, you know how effective heat is in eliminating stress. Really
>does not matter how the stress got there.
Look up "extrapolation" in a dictionary.
>
>>The NRC shut down
>>Yankee Rowe precisely because its containment vessel showed signs of
>>losing enough ductility to make its continued operation dangerous. The
>>utility chose to decomission rather than to attempt annealing. The
>>rapidity of ductility loss is the subject of controversy.
>
>Three strikes and you're out, yackadamn. Yankee was shut down by the
>utility because it was a tiny unit that was not economical - in the
>judgement of the untility - to refurb. While I would have liked to
Yankee Rowe was shut down by the NRC, not the utility. And it was
shut down because of embrittlement. The utility decided not to pour
an unknown but large sum of money into a speculative process. When it
comes time, other utilities will make the same judgment with bigger
reactors -- unless the public gets stuck with the bill.
>C'mon Yack. You can do better than that. What's wrong, still drunk
>from New Years?
What, no mention of "econnazis" in your posting? Are you getting soft
or just continuing your post-Buchanan reassessment of the use of "nazi" as
a pejorative?
--
Gary Coffman
>
>While it is not theoretically impossible to do both, they both cost
>money and such money does not grow on trees. Further, you ignore
>the part of the thread that discusses opportunity cost of
>investing in nuclear power. It is an inefficient use of money if
>the goal is to lessen CO2 emissions. The phrase above about
>"quite independent" means that the savings can be had without a
>switch to nuclear (or solar, etc.). In that sense, while it does
>not directly support the idea that a switch away from fossil fuels
>and an efficiency strategy are mutually exclusive, it does not
>contradict it. We can keep using fossil
>fuels and get the efficiency savings. A central point is that
>most studies of efficiency assume that money saved by not building
>new generating capacity will be used to fund the efficiency
>improvements. We may also want to move away from fossil fuels, but
>unless we can cough up the money for both, the most effective CO2
>mitigation strategy is to focus on efficiency for the immediate future.
While it should be obvious that we should take all the "cheap"
efficiency steps we can, economic growth, and the coupling it
has with energy consumption, can't be ignored. Energy usage and
the GDP track quite well. We can argue which causes which, I think
some of both, but we can't argue that they don't go hand in hand. A
modest 1% a year demand growth swallows any feasible efficiency gains.
And, we must replace existing capacity as the plants wear out. These
costs *must* be included in any analysis. By 2050, *every* current
plant must be replaced. We can choose to do that with dirty fossil,
or clean nuclear, but we must do it. "Conservation" energy doesn't
negate the need for primary generation capacity.
Gary
--
Gary Coffman KE4ZV | You make it, | gatech!wa4mei!ke4zv!gary
Destructive Testing Systems | we break it. | uunet!rsiatl!ke4zv!gary
534 Shannon Way | Guaranteed! | emory!kd4nc!ke4zv!gary
Lawrenceville, GA 30244 | | emory!ke4zv!ga...@gatech.edu
Gary Coffman
>In article <1992Dec30.1...@vexcel.com> de...@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
>>>
>>>sources are mutually exclusive. Your slant seems to imply that it is
>>>necessary to choose one of these approaches, but the use of the words
>>>"quite independent" shows that this is not the case.
>>>
>I just wanted to reiterate that if funds are limited, then priorities
>need to be made and decisions made about where those funds go. If the
>goal is CO2 remediation, then the best strategy, according to this
>study, is to spend this money (or much of it) on efficiency. If we
>have more money, we can also move away from fossil fuels. Its a
>question of budgets and priorities.
To follow up *this* thought, CO2 remediation may be important, I think
it is, but it can't be our *only* goal in setting energy policy. Economic
growth has been historically coupled tightly to energy consumption. I don't
think we know how to break that coupling, or even if breaking that coupling
is feasible or wise. Add to that the need to replace existing plant as
it wears out, and a new generation strategy is required despite any
demand efficiencies we may be able to fund.
Gary Coffman
>promoting nuclear power and match the best history from France. The
>only exception is the 65% figure. I am not sure what its source is
>but increasing it to %80 or %90 will not change capital costs at all
>nor will it drastically change operational costs. There is no
A online rate of 90 percent versus 65% represents a 38.5% increase
in the *revenue* stream generated by the plant. That's significant.
Gary Coffman
>
>I have posted proof that efficiency improvements should be enough to
>forestall the need for new capacity in general for 10 to 20 years.
It takes 10-12 years to bring new plant on line in the US. So if
efficiency will carry us for 10-20 years before we need new capacity,
we have to start building *today*. Existing plant is wearing out
*today*. We can't wait long to make generation decisions. The cleanest
generation we can do on the necessary scale with *today's* technology
is nuclear, the dirtiest is coal. We can't base our energy future on
technologies that are unproven, and we can't wait for the proof of
economic generation, storage, and the distributed networks needed for
alternative energy systems. We can't afford to pour large sums into
their development at the same time we replace existing plant, build
new generation for increasing demand due to growth, and pay for
efficiency improvements. We must do what we know how to do at an
economically tolerable cost now, and continue development of other
technologies in the hope they may prove out for the following generations
of plants that we will have to start building thirty years down the road.
We should fund *demonstration* plants on the scale of Luz to prove
out the viability of alternative systems. Note that Luz itself is
not competitive today on it's solar generation, though it is nearly
reasonable with cheap natural gas assist. That produces CO2, however.
victor yodaiken
>While it should be obvious that we should take all the "cheap"
>efficiency steps we can, economic growth, and the coupling it
>has with energy consumption, can't be ignored. Energy usage and
>the GDP track quite well. We can argue which causes which, I think
>some of both, but we can't argue that they don't go hand in hand. A
Yes we can. The energy to run an early industrial revolution era
machine shop was enormous because a single power source had to drive
a mechanical gearing system that distributed motion to each machine and
lost a great deal of power in the process. Dropping energy requirments
by putting individual electric motors in each machine increased
productivity. Energy use <-> GDP seems like an anachronism.
--
Mike Lynch
I have been following this debate with some interest. Over the course
of the last fifteen years or so I have done many studies on the cost
of nuclear power, availability, lifetimes, etc. Some of these studies
were done while I was employed with Atomic Energy of Canada Limited in
support of electricity exports from generation capacity be it nuclear,
hydro, coal or a mix..whatever. I have also calculated the cost of
nuclear power albeit the CANDU for submission to UNIPEDE which attempts
perhaps erroneously to compare the cost of nuclear and coal in Europoe
and North America.
To claim a capital cost of $1000/kw is extremely optimistic...perhaps
even fanciful. In today's dollars foir an LWR or a CANDU (excluding
heavy water) a capital cost of $2000/kw may be fair.
Further construction lead times are a bit lomnger than six years. Interest
during construction works against nuclear power when compared wuith
other plants such as coal due to the heavy front end investment. Lead
times to construct nuclear power plants are in practice considerably longer than six years. For that matter it takes just as long to site new transmission
lines. I would assume a construction lead time of eigfht years. (sorry
about the spelling, I have yet to learn how to set up my machine for
proper editing).
Availability: Load factors in the U.S. avearge around 65%. Refer to NERC
documentation. Operating capacity factors for LWRs averages around 65%.
For CANDUs operating capacity factors (all plants included ) are around 75%.
Operating performance of Darlington and problems with pressdure tubes in
the other reactors will depress lifetime opearting factors further.
Lifetimes: 40 years seems reasonable, but we do not yet have the actual
experience to confirm whether this is a reasonable assumption. Thirty years was
used for accoutnig /financial reasons.
Despite the above, and I am sure EPRI woiuld agree, it is the mix of
generaation options and denmand supply management techniques that are
important. IUn the U.S. some sixty percvent of fossil fired and nuclear
power capacity was constructed over the period 1966 to 1976. Assuming a forty
year lifetine and some homogenity ...again sorry for the spelling...the
U.S. faces a situation of block obsolescence in its bulk power system
over the period 2006 to 200 200...2016. Considering lead times
of at least ten years (green field site requirements included, and ten years
would be optimistic), action to deal with the block obsolescence problem
will have to be made over the period 1996 to 2006. That's a mighty order
when one considers the financial implications for U.S. utilities who
have decidedly shifted away from long term commitments.
--
Dean Alaska
There is plenty of evidence that economic growth and the growth in
energy consumption need not be coupled as thet are now. Countries in
Europe have done it, and the U.S. has even done it for short
periods. I will try to post this evidence soon.
Dean Alaska
>In article <1993Jan1.0...@vexcel.com>, de...@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
>> In article <51...@seismo.CSS.GOV> st...@skadi.CSS.GOV (Richard Stead) writes:
>> >In article <1992Dec31.1...@vexcel.com>, de...@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
>> >> In article <51...@seismo.CSS.GOV> st...@skadi.CSS.GOV (Richard Stead) writes:
>> >> >In article <1992Dec30.1...@vexcel.com>, de...@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
>> If we use money that otherwise would have been used for new capacity
>> (nuke or otherwise) for efficiency, then we do not have money to
>> build nuke capacity until efficiency has been played out. At that
>
>But that was not my argument. Just take the budget for nuke development.
>Take only the fraction that can currently reasonably be spent for
>efficiency gains (these take time, and will eventually be played out,
>so it is not clear that the entire budget for new power could be spent
>on it). The remaining funds still go to develop new nuclear power.
>I don't believe it is an all-or-nothing situation. In fact, this would
>be very prudent practice, since not only is the current cost of efficiency
>gains less than the cost of new power, but it would also provide the time
>needed for planning and construction of new nuclear power.
Efficiency costs a lot less than building new capacity.
>
>> point, we will need to decide on a source for new capacity. If the
>> only reasonable choices are fossil and nuclear, I would support
>> nuclear. Since that point is years away, I will reserve judgement
>> until the decision is needed. While utility rates are not taxes, they
>
>But since new power takes at least 3-5 years to develop, it has to be planned
>well in advance. Waiting until we start having brownouts to make these
>decisions is not good planning.
>
>> You obviously missed my posts (months ago) from an EPRI study that
>> indicated that if there was 100% market penetration of the best
>> existing technology today, we could get about a 54% decrease in
>> consumption in the U.S. Obviously, it won't happen today. I am
>> suggesting that it will take a decade or two. But the technology
>> will also improve. By the way, the biggest effeiciency gain
>> would be from industrial motors, according to the study. How long
>> will it take for our electricity service needs to increase by 54%?
>> Certainly more than 5 years.
>
>At a 5% growth rate, 16 years, assuming 100% market penetration.
>Given at least 5 years to plan, construct and license new power,
>we will have to start planningin only about 10 years.
It looks like you are assuming a continuing coupling between GDP
and energy consumption that would no longer be true once the retrofits
were installed.
>
>> The study gave some case histories of enormous cost overruns. And
>
>There are cases of cost overruns in every industry - finding a few cases
>related to nuclear power does not discredit it.
The study also mentioned some successful cases. It seems that the
majority experience with nuclear power in undeveloped countries is
negative - and this with minimal regulation (compared to the US)
and few environmentalists. It seems that nuclear proponents like
to use the best case scenarios for nuclear power and the worst for
renewables (I am not specifically referring to you here). Its also
true that environmentalists do the same, just switch the technologies.
>
>--
>Richard Stead
>Center for Seismic Studies
>Arlington, VA
>st...@seismo.css.gov
W. Donald Rolph
I have been reading this thread with some interest. I have seen only once, a
mention of what appears to be san overwhelmingly obvious trueism:
between fossile fuels and nuclear power only nuclear power is CO2 free
I guess one can argue that not using power is also CO2 free in some sense, but
the reality is that even under the most optimistics assumtions on efficiency, new
power capacity will be required: do we really want to install fossile fuel
plants under conditions in which CO2 is deemed to instigate global warming.
A more interesting point is that the manmade CO2 emmisions are less than 10% of
the world wide CO2 cycled during a typical year. Do we know enough about the CO2
cyles in nature to be highly assured that controlling the manmade emmisions will
change the overall balance of CO2 in the atmosphere? I am not against reducing
CO2, it seems a prudent thing to do in any event, but do we know that its
critical?
--
Regards.
Don Rolph a72...@pan.mc.ti.com WD3 MS10-13 (508)-699-1263
Louis Schmittroth
>To claim a capital cost of $1000/kw is extremely optimistic...perhaps
>even fanciful. In today's dollars foir an LWR or a CANDU (excluding
>heavy water) a capital cost of $2000/kw may be fair.
I have no experience in costing nuclear power plants of any kind, but
I did read the article in The Economist for Nove 21-27 '92, entitled
Nuclear Power -- Losing ist charm. On page 22 there is a little table
of capital costs of US nuclear power plants by year of construction
start, 1982 dollars per kW. There you will find that for the 5 plants
started in 1976,77, the estimated cost at start of construction was
$794, at half-way, $1065, and at completion, $2132.
So, that should put the discussion of $250/kW or even $1200/kW to rest,
no? Unless of course The Economist is to be dismissed as a pinko,
liberal, econazi rag?
The article is very pessimistic for any increase in installed capacity
except a small increase in France, Japan, and Canada, and even there
the economics are only slightly better than fossil fuel plants.
There is another interesting table in the article on page 24. This
givea OECD countries' public spending on energy R&D, 1991 dollars,
in millions:
1980-91 annual ave 1991
Nuclear
conventional 3,296 2,914
breeder 1,567 675
fusion 1,115 896
Fossil & related 1,536 1,364
Renewables 895 593
Conservation & other 1,661 1,851
So, in 1991, Nuclear totals 4,485 million dollars vs 583 for renewables
almost a factor of 8. For an energy source with such a dim economic
future this is out of line.
Looks as if the only hope for nuclear power is a carbon tax.
--
Louis Schmittroth lo...@cs.athabascau.ca
NW 1/4 18 67 21 W4 Alberta.
E. Michael Smith
>>> First capital cost: If we postulate a scenario where the US
>>> commits to an all-out conversion to nuclear energy, it must
>>> also be postulated that things that need to be done to
>>> streamline the process will be done.
>I quoted myself above again to reiterate my basis which should be
>the basis used in the study.
...
>Sure a plant of 50s vintage design
>built under even "streamlined" regulations would cost at least $1300/kw.
>I would hope that in the almost 50 years of experience, the industry could
>come up with a more cost-effective design. Since several have already
>been proposed in the literature, I'm sure they can.
...
>Back to the study. That the author used old, stale values on the nuclear
>side while advocating radical social changes on the other shows the
>bogosity of the "study". 'Bout what I'd expect from RMI. If the author
>claims the right to postulate on the basis of radical conservation
>and soft energy, I have an equal right to demand that nuclear figures
>embrace at least the same level of radical change.
OK, what would you propose in the way of radical change?
Some time back I asked 'what would your dream design be' and you were
one of the few who had a vision for the future. You proposed a LMFBR
and a standardized mid-size HTGR that could be connected on a modular
basis to construct many different sized installations. (Hope that is
a valid synopisis). What would you propose in terms of systems to
review designs and construction that would be both streamlined/efficient,
and assure public safety/comfort?
Postulated that we will have to build nuclear plant (either due to
rapid growth of electrical demand or due to the need to reduce CO2
and other junk from coal), what would you propose in terms of a plan
outline for getting your dream plants built on a schedule that would
be appropriate for the world?
Would you have Westinghouse/GE/et.al. provide a standard design for
one-time review and sign-off? Would you have a 10 year proof of concept
testing phase? How would we get from 'here' to 'there'? (You get to
define where 'there' is ... 50% nuke? 80% ?)
--
E. Michael Smith e...@apple.COM
'Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has
genius, power and magic in it.' - Goethe
I am not responsible nor is anyone else. Everything is disclaimed.
Mike Lynch
A word on costs:
A.
Source: Energy Information Administration, "An Analysis of Nuclear Power
Plant Construction Costs", (DOE/EIA-0485), p. x-xii.
EIA computations based on data from EIA form EIA-254.
Total costs were gathered for 75 nuclear power plants in operation by the
end of 1986. "Figure ES1 indicates that the total cost including
financing charges, expressed in 1982 dollars, increased from about
$700/kwe for plants that entered into construction in 1966-1967 to about
$3100/kwe for units that entered construction about 8 years later. Of the
total increase of about $2400/kwe, approximately $1800/kwe was due to
escalation in the real costs (i.e. the quantities of land, labor,
materials, and equipment used for construction). The remaining $600 of
the increase was due to increases in the time related costs (increases due
to escalation in the relative prices and financial charges over the
construction period)."
Figure ES1, which I wish was convenient to post shows the overnight costs
increasing from about $540/kwe to about $2300/kwe (1966/67 to 1976/77
year of construction start).
B.
Source: Ontario Hydro, Economics of CANDU-PHW-1985, NGD-10, Toronto,
August 1986, page 27, referenced in the Report of the House of Commons,
Standing Committee on Energy Mines and Resources, "Nuclear Energy:
Unmasking the Mystery", p. 137.
Trend in Ontario Hydro Nuclear Station Costs, Measured in Current Dollars
per kilowatt of installed net electrical equivalent capacity:
Station Specific Cost Year in Service
($/kwe)
Actual Cost
Pickering A 362.4 1971-1973
Bruce A 606.0 1977-1979
Estimated Cost
Pickering B 1871.1 1983-1986
Bruce B 1821.8 1984-1987
Darlington 3095.3 1988-1992
C.
Source: Los Alamos National Laboratory, "The Future Market for Electric
Generating Capacity: Technical Documentation", LA-10285-MS, March 1985,
p.55.
"The Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) (1984, 76) report contains
estimated costs of 46 nuclear plants currently under construction; only
six of these plants are estimated to cost $1500/kwe or less. Most of the
plants are estimated to cost over $2000/kwe, and 11 of them are
estimated to cost over $3000/kwe."
D.
Please note that the above costs are based on actual experience. There
are many reports detailing cost experience and cost comparisons. The
nuclear industry in Canada as in the US and elsewhere clearly are intent
in bringing capital costs down. However experience does suggest that a
six year lead time for construction is very optimistic. I would like to
quote one further report that is available through the Nuclear Energy
Agency and is completed on an annual basis. It compares costs for
nuclear, coal, and I believe some other options in several OECD member
countries (UNIPEDE).
Should anyone wish to receive further references on costing methodologies
for nuclear and coal stations, I would be delighted to supply.
The point of the above comments is to show that capital costs exclusive of
interest duing construction are approaching if not over $2000/kwe.
--
John De Armond
>>Ahhh, Yackadamn's back!!!! Just like a persistent case of the Clap.
>Your postings make it seem like your problem is probably tertiary syph
>instead, but you should get qualified medical treatment in anycase..
C'mon Yack. You can do better than that. Oh... Maybe you can't.
>This is typical of your level of either honesty or understanding, I'm not
>sure which. You project costs to be trivial, but on there is zero
>'on the ground' evidence to backup this assertion. Nobody has ever tried
>annealing in any commercial plants, and you the only evidence you
>provide for your claim is your own personal credibility -- a rather
>valueless item.
True, no pot has ever been annealed in-situ. Nor has a pot been replaced,
nor any containment vessel been replaced, nor any site moved.
Why? Simple. Because none of these have ever been necessary. On the
other hand, things previously declared "impossible" by the armchair
critics have been done with little ado other than fighting the ever-present
anti-nook-kooks. Things like complete steam generator changeouts (several),
complete recirc piping changeouts (Plant Hatch) and "impossible to fix" steam
generator tube damange (TMI-1). Like the old saying goes, we nukes do hard
things trivially; the impossible takes a bit longer.
>>As to effectiveness, if you've ever annealed a piece of hardened
>>steel, you know how effective heat is in eliminating stress. Really
>>does not matter how the stress got there.
>Look up "extrapolation" in a dictionary.
Hmm, trying to figure out how "extrapolation" would be used here. Perhaps
Yack just knocked a dictionary off the shelf and that's the word that
popped out. Relative to the thread, the pots are typically inductively
annealed during production. No extrapolation involved. The same procedures
will be used, adapted as needed for in-situ work in a rad zone.
I'm trying to attribute some other motive than malicious ignorance to
your continued claim that something the size of a reactor pot
can't be economically annealed in place. A pot is certainly not the
largest vessel in use. The metallurgy is nothing special, surely
less complex than that seen in oil refineries. The only complicating
factor is the radiation environment but that will be dealt with
in exactly the same way we dealt with it at TMI during the SG refurbs -
chemical flushes, shielding, remote manipulators, robots if necessary,
and short stay times.
>Yankee Rowe was shut down by the NRC, not the utility. And it was
>shut down because of embrittlement.
Believe what you want, Yack. I called my friend and colleague yesterday
(Monday) at to chat about Rowe just to make sure my information is up
to date. He faxed me some of the press releases from the period.
If you'd like to continue this thread, I'm willing but your guessing
and imagining just isn't going to work.
>The utility decided not to pour
>an unknown but large sum of money into a speculative process.
Well half right. Knowing what should be intuitave to anyone capable
of giving it any thought, the support costs for doing an annealing will
be approximately the same regardless of the unit size. The utility
correctly decided that the expense was not worth the results. No
surprise. I had hoped that they'd do a demonstration project - perhaps
with DOE assistance but they didn't.
>When it
>comes time, other utilities will make the same judgment with bigger
>reactors -- unless the public gets stuck with the bill.
You mean like customers get "stuck" with the bill for fuel? Or like car
customers get "stuck" for the mfr's research and development costs?
Now, now, Yack. Dan Rather can get away with that kind of propaganda on
TV; here in this interactive media and with your skillset, you don't
have a chance.
John De Armond
>I have been reading this thread with some interest. I have seen only once, a
>mention of what appears to be san overwhelmingly obvious trueism:
>
> between fossile fuels and nuclear power only nuclear power is CO2 free
I will not use the CO2/greenhouse strawman even though it would help
my case because I consider the whole issue to be at best, based on ignorance
and at worst, based on intellectual fraud.
Richard Stead
> In article <51...@seismo.CSS.GOV> st...@skadi.CSS.GOV (Richard Stead) writes:
> >In article <1993Jan1.0...@vexcel.com>, de...@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
> >> If we use money that otherwise would have been used for new capacity
> >> (nuke or otherwise) for efficiency, then we do not have money to
> >> build nuke capacity until efficiency has been played out. At that
> >
> >But that was not my argument. Just take the budget for nuke development.
> >Take only the fraction that can currently reasonably be spent for
> >efficiency gains (these take time, and will eventually be played out,
> >so it is not clear that the entire budget for new power could be spent
> >on it). The remaining funds still go to develop new nuclear power.
> >I don't believe it is an all-or-nothing situation. In fact, this would
> >be very prudent practice, since not only is the current cost of efficiency
> >gains less than the cost of new power, but it would also provide the time
> >needed for planning and construction of new nuclear power.
>
> Efficiency costs a lot less than building new capacity.
You keep saying this almost like a mantra - like saying it enough times will
make everyone believe it. It is true only up to a point. You quote my
paragraph in its entirety and some arguments against such a simplistic
statement are contained therein. My original response showed that cost
of efficiency gains is necessarily exponential as you approach physical
limits. No, efficiency does not universally cost less than new capacity,
and no, you cannot use efficiency gains to avoid new capacity for very long.
In fact, entropy alone will prevent you from using efficiency gains for
very long - even if you are willing to spend infinite funds on efficiency.
> >> How long will it take for our electricity service needs to increase by 54%?
> >> Certainly more than 5 years.
> >
> >At a 5% growth rate, 16 years, assuming 100% market penetration.
> >Given at least 5 years to plan, construct and license new power,
> >we will have to start planningin only about 10 years.
>
> It looks like you are assuming a continuing coupling between GDP
> and energy consumption that would no longer be true once the retrofits
> were installed.
Where does that statement come from? I just gave you a computation that assumed
that every current facility and every new facility would be 100% converted
to the technology you claim will be 54% more efficient than current technology.
This is easy to compute - just let today's energy consumption be 1.0. Then
assume instantaneous and 100% conversion to 54% more efficient use - energy
consumption is now 0.46. Now just grow that at 5% per year, compounded yearly.
After 16 years, you have 1.004 as total energy use. This is so obvious I
don't see why I should have had to explain it. What do you think growth will
do, or are you expecting to get work done without energy (like the free-energy
people)?
> The study also mentioned some successful cases. It seems that the
> majority experience with nuclear power in undeveloped countries is
> negative - and this with minimal regulation (compared to the US)
"Seems"? To whom? I haven't heard of any negative third world nuclear
experiences, though I imagine at least a few have to exist. All I have
ever heard of is how virtually every third world country is just begging
for nuclear power - mainly becuase of the success they have seen in its
application by their neighbors.
Dean Alaska
>
>But we're not talking about evolutionary LWRs. In the context of the study -
>remember, that's what we're talking about - the author used old
>nuclear numbers and then compared them to the results of radical
>social changes involving forced conservation, conversion of fossil
>to other forms of energy and heavy use of soft energy sources.
>
This is not at all what it was about. It did not use any renewables
or "soft energy" sources
nor did it force any conservation - in fact conservation was not
mentioned. Remember that conservation and efficiency are different.
No social changes were suggested, let alone forced. _All_ it
recommended was capital investment in efficiency. The "old
nuclear numbers" tnat it used appear to be the same as most
nuclear proponents are using today.
>John
>--
>John De Armond, WD4OQC |Interested in high performance mobility?
>Performance Engineering Magazine(TM) | Interested in high tech and computers?
>Marietta, Ga | Send ur snail-mail address to
>j...@dixie.com | per...@dixie.com for a free sample mag
>Need Usenet public Access in Atlanta? Write Me for info on Dixie.com.
--
==============================================================================
Dean Myerson de...@vexcel.com
==============================================================================
Dean Alaska
the growth in energy demand I would recommend "Delinking energy consumption
and economic growth - the German experience" by Ulf Hansen, Professor
of Power Energy, University of Essen, in the 9-90 issue of _Energy
Policy_. It discusses how the FR of Germany compiled a 33% growth in its
GDP between 1973 and 1988 while also increasing its energy consumption
by 3%. Of the developed countries, Germany and Japan have two of the
three lowest energy intensities (along with Denmark). Canada and the
US are the two highest.
Richard Stead
> A word on costs:
[Details of actual costs of several plants in various areas started at various
times]
Very informative, thank you.
I have two questions:
1) were the reports in constant dollars? I assume they were, since none of
the increase was attributed to inflation. What year's dollar was used?
(If the report stated this).
2) Not addressable from the report, but open for discussion - what factors
could lead to an $1800/kwe increase in real cost, especially when the
entire cost was originally $700/kwe? Do these factor uniquely affect
nuclear construction or power construction in general? I imagine land
must be pretty uniform in cost regardless of what kind of plant is built,
and some types require more land than nuclear (coal, for example, which
needs extensive lands for rail handling, and the big heap in the coal
yard). I could imagine labor being nuclear specific, since regulations
may require very highly-trained skilled specialists for construction.
The materials used aren't much different from any other plant - mostly
concrete and steel. And the construction equipment is pretty much the
same as well. Does anyone know how much cost of construction for a coal
plant increased over the same time period? Is it similar to nuclear
construction? I understand the coal, etc. will be cheaper per kwe to
build, mainly due to the cost of the reactor and control room, but
I would have expected all these things to scale uniformly, such that
the same percent increase in cost to construct nuclear would be present
in cost to construct coal (or whatever).
William Carroll
>From article <C057y...@encore.com>, by wcar...@encore.com (William Carroll):
>> st...@skadi.CSS.GOV (Richard Stead) writes:
>>
>>>No comparison. Containment structures are designed to withstand the strongest
>>>tornadoes - a mere typhoon would simply give the plant a nice bath.
>>> Just
>>>look at some of the stuff our last big hurricane did in Florida. That's
>>>exactly what a typhoon does.
>>
>> You mean, like knocking the Turkey Point nuclear plant offline for several
>> weeks? That's one hell of a bath!
>If you had read the news correctly you would know that the hurricane did not
>damage the nuclear power plant at all. It was taken off line as a precaution
>during the storm. The damage was done to a nearby coal-fired plant (one of the
>stacks was damaged?). After being taken off-line, the Turkey Point plant could
>not get permission to start up again for some time because of concerns about
>the ability to evacuate the nearby population if an emergency occurred at the
>plant (i.e. the existing emergency evacuation plans would have been difficult
>to carry out with the debris from the storm impeding people's ability to get
>out of the area).
I did read the news correctly, thank you. The plant was offline while emergency
systems damaged in the storm were repaired. To me, that means the storm
knocked the plant offline. In even plainer language, the only reason the
plant was not operational was because of damage incurred in the storm.
If you had read the news correctly, you would know that:
The plant was brought to a state of "hot shutdown" prior to the storm's
arrival. This is evidently SOP for the situation. The plan was to bring it
back up as soon as the storm passed.
The coal-fired plant was not nearby, it was on-site. The coal and nuclear
facilities share the same patch of earth.
The evacuation concerns centered on the inoperative alarm sirens, which had
died early in the night. It wasn't a matter of evacuating people through
the debris, it was a matter of letting them know they needed to evacuate.
And even though it survived the storm relatively intact, I still think was
and is incredibly stupid to put a facility like that on the oceanfront in
a high-risk hurricane area. If you saw the damage the storm did to the
"hurricane-proof" buildings at Homestead AFB, you would realize that FPL
was VERY lucky.
William R. Carroll (Encore Computer, Ft. Lauderdale FL) wcar...@encore.com
"We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form
up into teams, we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that
we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method
it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion,
inefficiency, and demoralization." -Petronius Arbiter, 210 BC
Dean Alaska
>a72...@roper.mc.ti.com (W. Donald Rolph) writes:
>
>>I have been reading this thread with some interest. I have seen only once, a
>>mention of what appears to be san overwhelmingly obvious trueism:
>>
>> between fossile fuels and nuclear power only nuclear power is CO2 free
>
>I will not use the CO2/greenhouse strawman even though it would help
>my case because I consider the whole issue to be at best, based on ignorance
>and at worst, based on intellectual fraud.
And what does this indicate about John De Armond's attitude about
science?
>
>John
>--
>John De Armond, WD4OQC |Interested in high performance mobility?
>Performance Engineering Magazine(TM) | Interested in high tech and computers?
>Marietta, Ga | Send ur snail-mail address to
>j...@dixie.com | per...@dixie.com for a free sample mag
>Need Usenet public Access in Atlanta? Write Me for info on Dixie.com.
Dean Alaska
>In article <1993Jan4.1...@vexcel.com>, de...@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
>>
>> Efficiency costs a lot less than building new capacity.
>
>You keep saying this almost like a mantra - like saying it enough times will
>make everyone believe it. It is true only up to a point. You quote my
>paragraph in its entirety and some arguments against such a simplistic
>statement are contained therein. My original response showed that cost
>of efficiency gains is necessarily exponential as you approach physical
>limits. No, efficiency does not universally cost less than new capacity,
>and no, you cannot use efficiency gains to avoid new capacity for very long.
>In fact, entropy alone will prevent you from using efficiency gains for
>very long - even if you are willing to spend infinite funds on efficiency.
I have already agreed that efficiency costs will rise. My statement
pertains to short-term efficiency costs.
>
>> >At a 5% growth rate, 16 years, assuming 100% market penetration.
>> >Given at least 5 years to plan, construct and license new power,
>> >we will have to start planningin only about 10 years.
>>
>> It looks like you are assuming a continuing coupling between GDP
>> and energy consumption that would no longer be true once the retrofits
>> were installed.
>
>Where does that statement come from? I just gave you a computation that assumed
>that every current facility and every new facility would be 100% converted
>to the technology you claim will be 54% more efficient than current technology.
>This is easy to compute - just let today's energy consumption be 1.0. Then
>assume instantaneous and 100% conversion to 54% more efficient use - energy
>consumption is now 0.46. Now just grow that at 5% per year, compounded yearly.
>After 16 years, you have 1.004 as total energy use. This is so obvious I
>don't see why I should have had to explain it. What do you think growth will
>do, or are you expecting to get work done without energy (like the free-energy
>people)?
What makes you think energy use will grow 5% per year? Even with
current coupling that would entail a hugely expanding economy
consistently for many years. With efficiency, even after no more
retrofits are possible, energy consimption will grow mroe slowly
than the GDP. West Germany's GDP grew by 33% from 1973 to 1988
while its energy consumption grew by 3%. It will take much longer
to absorb this 54% energy use reduction through economic growth.
>
>> The study also mentioned some successful cases. It seems that the
>> majority experience with nuclear power in undeveloped countries is
>> negative - and this with minimal regulation (compared to the US)
>
>"Seems"? To whom? I haven't heard of any negative third world nuclear
>experiences, though I imagine at least a few have to exist. All I have
>ever heard of is how virtually every third world country is just begging
>for nuclear power - mainly becuase of the success they have seen in its
>application by their neighbors.
>
Fine, I will post a list of third world nuclear power experiences
in a couple of days.
Many of then are begging for it, but the record does not look
promising that it will be such a huge benefit for them.
>
>--
>Richard Stead
>Center for Seismic Studies
>Arlington, VA
>st...@seismo.css.gov
victor yodaiken
>yoda...@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:
>
>>'on the ground' evidence to backup this assertion. Nobody has ever tried
>>valueless item.
>
>True, no pot has ever been annealed in-situ. Nor has a pot been replaced,
>nor any containment vessel been replaced, nor any site moved.
>Why? Simple. Because none of these have ever been necessary. On the
>other hand, things previously declared "impossible" by the armchair
>critics have been done with little ado other than fighting the ever-present
>anti-nook-kooks. Things like complete steam generator changeouts (several),
>complete recirc piping changeouts (Plant Hatch) and "impossible to fix" steam
>generator tube damange (TMI-1). Like the old saying goes, we nukes do hard
>things trivially; the impossible takes a bit longer.
So you concede the point.
>
>>>As to effectiveness, if you've ever annealed a piece of hardened
>>>steel, you know how effective heat is in eliminating stress. Really
>>>does not matter how the stress got there.
>
>>Look up "extrapolation" in a dictionary.
>
>Hmm, trying to figure out how "extrapolation" would be used here. Perhaps
and then he figures it out --
>popped out. Relative to the thread, the pots are typically inductively
>annealed during production. No extrapolation involved. The same procedures
>will be used, adapted as needed for in-situ work in a rad zone.
Extrapolate: to project .. known data or experience into an area not known
or experienced so as to arrive at a usually conjectural knowledge of the
unknown area.
e.g. to take data from small pieces of metal or newly manufactured reactor
vessels and to conjecture about the properties of 30 year old, in situ
reactor vessels.
>I'm trying to attribute some other motive than malicious ignorance to
>your continued claim that something the size of a reactor pot
>can't be economically annealed in place. A pot is certainly not the
You should attribute it to your misreading of my post. I don't know whether
or not it will be economic or effective. Neither the physics of neutron
embrittlement nor the engineering experience appear suficient to justify a
flat assertion. My argument is that you are making flat assertions based
on conjecture. Understand?
>largest vessel in use. The metallurgy is nothing special, surely
>less complex than that seen in oil refineries. The only complicating
>factor is the radiation environment but that will be dealt with
>in exactly the same way we dealt with it at TMI during the SG refurbs -
>chemical flushes, shielding, remote manipulators, robots if necessary,
>and short stay times.
"It can't be hard, because I can't think of any reason it should be."
>>Yankee Rowe was shut down by the NRC, not the utility. And it was
>>shut down because of embrittlement.
>
>Believe what you want, Yack. I called my friend and colleague yesterday
>(Monday) at to chat about Rowe just to make sure my information is up
>to date. He faxed me some of the press releases from the period.
Golly, faxed press releases! That *is* real evidence. Probably written
by a certified public relations spokesperson too! I must have imagined the
NRC public hearings at Rowe.
>If you'd like to continue this thread, I'm willing but your guessing
>and imagining just isn't going to work.
As they used to put it in the old country: if only your ears could hear what
your mouth has said.
>>The utility decided not to pour
>>an unknown but large sum of money into a speculative process.
>
>Well half right. Knowing what should be intuitave to anyone capable
>of giving it any thought, the support costs for doing an annealing will
>be approximately the same regardless of the unit size. The utility
>correctly decided that the expense was not worth the results. No
>surprise. I had hoped that they'd do a demonstration project - perhaps
>with DOE assistance but they didn't.
In other words, you admit that I was correct, but want to toss in some
gratuitous insults.
>
>>When it
>>comes time, other utilities will make the same judgment with bigger
>>reactors -- unless the public gets stuck with the bill.
>
>You mean like customers get "stuck" with the bill for fuel? Or like car
>customers get "stuck" for the mfr's research and development costs?
>
No.
>Now, now, Yack. Dan Rather can get away with that kind of propaganda on
>TV; here in this interactive media and with your skillset, you don't
>have a chance.
Your concern is touching.
--
Richard Stead
[discussion of content of news articles deleted]
> The evacuation concerns centered on the inoperative alarm sirens, which had
> died early in the night. It wasn't a matter of evacuating people through
> the debris, it was a matter of letting them know they needed to evacuate.
>
> And even though it survived the storm relatively intact, I still think was
> and is incredibly stupid to put a facility like that on the oceanfront in
> a high-risk hurricane area. If you saw the damage the storm did to the
> "hurricane-proof" buildings at Homestead AFB, you would realize that FPL
> was VERY lucky.
Well everything was fine until this last statement. How can the damage to
some sirens (I have never seen a siren designed to survive the brunt of
a hurricane) be extrapolated to a near-miss on the complete destruction
of a nuke? And there was no claim of "hurricane-proof" for the buildings
at Hoemstead - most would have been designated "temporary" structures which
had been standing long past their expected lifespans. They weren't concrete,
they didn't even have serious foundations. Shacks is more like it.
Those buildings are about as far from a reactor containment structure as you
can get.
Richard Stead
> In article <m0w...@dixie.com> j...@dixie.com (John De Armond) writes:
> >I will not use the CO2/greenhouse strawman even though it would help
> >my case because I consider the whole issue to be at best, based on ignorance
> >and at worst, based on intellectual fraud.
>
> And what does this indicate about John De Armond's attitude about
> science?
As far as I can tell, he is upset at the incorrect use of scientific results
regarding CO2 by Greenpeace and others - not the science behind it.
The science behind it shows that
1) CO2 has increased in the atmosphere as a whole since the industrial
revolution (and it may have started to increase as early as 5000 years
ago given indication from analysis of ice cores).
2) it increases at only half the rate we add CO2 by burning fossil fuels
This is not understood
3) fossil fuel CO2 represents less than 5% of the total CO2 added to the
atmosphere per year. The vast majority of CO2 is added, then subtracted
right back out.
4) 9 of 11 atmospheric models show an increase in temperature when CO2 is
increased (this was several years ago - I'm sure there are even more and
better models now). Why can a greenhouse gas cause a decrease in
temperature? Because there are also the effects of changes in atmospheric
and oceanic circulation, and changes in cloud cover can increase the
reflection of sunlight from the earth. All atmospheric models show
temperature increases in some areas and decreases in others with changes
in CO2 content. So what we really know is that CO2 will change climate
and is likely to increase average temperature as well. But we don't know
exactly what it will do.
5) Science is not confident in having identified all sources and sinks of
greenhouse gases (including CO2, but also notably CH4). It is also
not confident of the size of the known sources and sinks. For example,
CO2 from respiration is poorly characterized, as is peat deposition
and oceanic carbonate deposition.
6) Many factors affect the balance of CO2 other than fossil fuels - slash and
burn agriculture is a significant contributor. As is loss of wetlands.
Loss of coral reef in the oceans is an unknown quantity that has a
possibility of contributing as well. And there is the infamous "cow gas"
adding CH4 to the atmosphere in unknown quantities that some suggest will
cause more warming than the increase in CO2.
Anyway, there are many scientific questions here. We don't have all the
answers. There is a suggestion that temperature has risen (this is very
difficult to measure, since one has to correct for a variety of influences
on the atmosphere - the best measure is the recent attempts to measure
changes in average ocean temperature, which does indicate a very small, but
significant increase). The trouble is that groups like Greenpeace that
spend most of their time vilifying scientists are willing to take a few
scraps of scientific results, rip them completely out of context, and then
wave them about wildly in attempts to force radical change.
Anyway, I have no trouble with John's attitude about science here - I do
have trouble with the attitude of groups like Greenpeace about science.
As a scientist, I take personal offense at a lot of their wild ravings
about science.
Richard Stead
> I have already agreed that efficiency costs will rise. My statement
> pertains to short-term efficiency costs.
Ok then our disagreement lies only in how long that "short-term" is.
If you take a small producer, for example, incentives and long term
reductions in energy costs may not offset his cost to convert, particularly
if downtime during conversion is included. And a lot of old equipment
will not be upgradible. Some very old motor-driven factory machines will
simply not accept any motors of modern design. Either a motor would have
to be custom-crafted (an expensive proposition, and maintainance would
go through the roof), or the entire machine trashed (along with any jigs,
etc. the factory had invested in that go with the machine) and a new one
purchased. Neither option will be economical in many cases, nor will
incentives offset the costs, downtime, retooling, etc. involved.
So while 54% may be theoretically possible, it is not likely to be
realistic, and the costs for this inexpensive conversion will increase
even for the same motors, etc., as the scale of the operation changes
and the existing equipment becomes more exotic.
> What makes you think energy use will grow 5% per year? Even with
> current coupling that would entail a hugely expanding economy
> consistently for many years. With efficiency, even after no more
> retrofits are possible, energy consimption will grow mroe slowly
> than the GDP. West Germany's GDP grew by 33% from 1973 to 1988
> while its energy consumption grew by 3%. It will take much longer
> to absorb this 54% energy use reduction through economic growth.
Basically, Germany's GDP decoupled due to efficiency improvements and due
to a shift in types of goods produced as a percent of market share. Also,
conservation is important in the German experience as well, and we have not
yet added conservation to the equation in this discussion. Conservation
will require a least some social change. However, if we produce the same
things, and use the same things to maintain our lifestyles 16 years from
now as we do today, and we increase GDP by 5%, we directly increase energy
use by the same amount. Some simple examples: steel uses the same amount
of energy per ton regardless of how many tons are produced, as long as
the same process is used. So a 5% increase in steel production = a 5%
increase in energy consumed. Another example - if we have a 5% increase
in population, and the percent who own hair dryers stays the same, then
we get a 5% increase in electricity consumption by hair dryers. Anyway,
the 5% growth rate is an excellant growth rate, but I think we should
shoot for that. Most economic planners seem to be willing to settle with
4% as comfortable. 3% is considered barely getting by and 2% is considered
unsatisfactory - a recession. Bush was defeated on economic issues while
we had about a 3% growth, so don't say we can live with it. We will need
5% especially if the borders are opened to Haitian and other refugees.
I might be willing to grant a small amount of continued efficiency improvement
beyond the 54% you quoted, but I would then claim it will be more than
compensated for in my computation by the lack of 100% penetration of the
efficient technology. Even with great incentives, and proof that it is
profitable in the long run, you will not get 100% penetration and my
computation assumed that.
> Fine, I will post a list of third world nuclear power experiences
> in a couple of days.
Thanks. Even if you post only the bad experiences, I'll be interested.
Peter Hardie
==From article <C057y...@encore.com>, by wcar...@encore.com (William Carroll):
== You mean, like knocking the Turkey Point nuclear plant offline for several
== weeks? That's one hell of a bath!
=
==If you had read the news correctly you would know that the hurricane did not
==damage the nuclear power plant at all. It was taken off line as a precaution
==during the storm. The damage was done to a nearby coal-fired plant (one of the
==stacks was damaged?).
==etc.
=
=I did read the news correctly, thank you. The plant was offline while emergency
=systems damaged in the storm were repaired. To me, that means the storm
=knocked the plant offline. In even plainer language, the only reason the
=plant was not operational was because of damage incurred in the storm.
=
=If you had read the news correctly, you would know that:
=
=The plant was brought to a state of "hot shutdown" prior to the storm's
=arrival. This is evidently SOP for the situation. The plan was to bring it
=back up as soon as the storm passed.
You're contradicting yourself. You say the plant was shutdown as part of SOP
BEFORE the storm arrived. Therefore the storm could not possibly have
knocked it offline - it was already down.
=
=The coal-fired plant was not nearby, it was on-site. The coal and nuclear
=facilities share the same patch of earth.
Huh? It's on-site and therefore it is not nearby? I must be missing a
crucial semantic difference here.
=
=The evacuation concerns centered on the inoperative alarm sirens, which had
=died early in the night. It wasn't a matter of evacuating people through
=the debris, it was a matter of letting them know they needed to evacuate.
=
So the "emergency systems" that were damaged were the sirens. The nuclear
plant itself was undamaged.
=And even though it survived the storm relatively intact, I still think was
=and is incredibly stupid to put a facility like that on the oceanfront in
=a high-risk hurricane area.
If the only damage was to the sirens and you represent this by saying that
the plant survived "relatively intact", it's no wonder you have problems
with "nearby" and "on-site".
=If you saw the damage the storm did to the
="hurricane-proof" buildings at Homestead AFB, you would realize that FPL
=was VERY lucky.
Or well designed.
Mike Lynch
Regarding your questions:
1. (a) The EIA study costs are in 1982 dollars.
(b) The Los Alamos reporting of OTA gathered costs are in 1982 dollars.
2. Factors influencing increase in costs as reported in the Office of
Technology Assessment report ( OTA-E-216, February 1984) are as follows:
(a) "Nuclear component prices increased 1 or 2 percent points faster
than inflation (Handy Whitman nuclear index)." (p. 60)
(b) "Materials used in nuclear plants have increased, e.g. from an
estimated 2000ft/MW of cable for a typical plant to be constructed in 1971
to about 5000 ft/MW of cable for the average of eight plants under
construction in 1982-85." (p. 60)
(c) "Materials also have become more complex. A whole set of seismic
requirements to restrain piping systems during earthquakes was introduced
in the late 1970s. Simple cast or machine pipe supports (costing several
hundred dollars) have been replaced with very sophisticated restraints
called 'snubbers' with shock absorbers, costing many thousands of
dollars." (p.60)
(d) "Quality control procedures and paperwork have added to the cost of
materials and components." (p.61)
(e) "Finally, there has been a steady increase in the amount of labour
required per kw, both manual (craft) and nonmanual. For a series of
typical plants costed out over 15 years in a study for DOE, craft labour
requirements increased from 3.5 workhours/kW for a plant starting
construction in 1967 to 21.6 workhours/kW for the average of 16 plants
under construction for completion in 1982-85. Nonmanual field and
engineering services have also increased dramatically. for a slightly
different series of typical plants, estimates of field and engineering
services increased from 1.3 workhours/kW in 1967 to 9.2 workhours/kW in
1980.
3. Another point made by the DOE study:
(a) "The analysis indicates that a 25 percent increase in the size of a
nuclear power plant would be associated with a 12 percent reduction in
real construction costs per unit of capacity if lead times and size were
not related. The results of the study also indicate, however, that, in
fact, a 25 percent increase in size is associated with an 18 percent
increase in lead time, and the 18 percent longer lead time is related to a
22 percent increase in the real cost or quantity of land, labor, and
material used to construct a nuclear power plant." (DOE/EIA-0485, p.xv)
[Keep in mind that LWRs became progressively bigger over time.]
4. Concluding Remark:
An interesting competitive note between the CANDU PHWR and the US LWR
systems. AECL developed the 600 MWe reactor. Ontario Hydro brought the
CANDU design to 850 MWe. Current activities within AECL are directed at
the 450 MWe reactor....shorter lead time, more attractive for finnacing,
construction innovation with modular concept, etc. I would suspect that
if the US was not so protective of its design on a commercial basis, the
CANDU would fair very well with US utilities...on the condition that there
was a second era for nuclear power.
--
Don Palmrose
> "hurricane-proof" buildings at Homestead AFB, you would realize that FPL
> was VERY lucky.
>
>
> William R. Carroll (Encore Computer, Ft. Lauderdale FL) wcar...@encore.com
>
>
No, just that the "hurricane-proof" roof was not built properly and Turkey
Point was since no such structural damage occurred.
Don Palmrose
========== long legal disclaimer follows, press n to skip ===========
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and shall not be used for advertising or product endorsement purposes.
Dean Alaska
>de...@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
>
>>This is not at all what it was about. It did not use any renewables
>>or "soft energy" sources
>>nor did it force any conservation - in fact conservation was not
>>mentioned. Remember that conservation and efficiency are different.
>>No social changes were suggested, let alone forced. _All_ it
>>recommended was capital investment in efficiency.
>
>"tax'n'spend" and "efficiency" is the word for forced conservation.
>
>As in "We're comitting the country to investing in energy efficiency."
>Translated that means "We're going to steal an ever larger chunk of
>your wealth in order to play around with social engineering."
>
>If they get to "invest", I get to propose the nuclear alternative under
>the best reasonable circumstances.
>
>John
>
John, it appears that you are not interested in an intelligent discussion
of the issue. If you decide to stop stuffing people into convenient
little boxes that make your ideological beliefs easy to support, let us
know.
To others, note that efficiency means using less energy by using
more efficient technology and does not indicate _any_ decrease in
energy services, which is what conservation means.
Dean Alaska
>> In article <m0w...@dixie.com> j...@dixie.com (John De Armond) writes:
>> >my case because I consider the whole issue to be at best, based on ignorance
>> >and at worst, based on intellectual fraud.
>>
>
>Anyway, I have no trouble with John's attitude about science here - I do
>have trouble with the attitude of groups like Greenpeace about science.
>As a scientist, I take personal offense at a lot of their wild ravings
>about science.
>
Look at John's sentence above. He says "the whole issue". He doesn't
say the treatment of the issue by a particular group. His statement
_clearly_ includes scientific investigators of the issue. John's
statement seems as much a wild raving as anything I have seen
from Greenpeace.
I am not going to debate your various points Richard. From my knowledge,
some of them seem valid, but I am not familiar with each one and there are
others in sci.environment far more qualified than I on this issue.
Maybe Tobis or Halliwell could jump in because some of those points
are of interest to me, also.
For those who would like an overview of the issue from the point of
view of climatologists, I would recommend the 5-22-92 issue of
_Science_, which contains an article called "Greenhouse Science
Survives the Skeptics."
>
>--
>Richard Stead
>Center for Seismic Studies
>Arlington, VA
>st...@seismo.css.gov
Dean Alaska
>> I have already agreed that efficiency costs will rise. My statement
>> pertains to short-term efficiency costs.
>
>Ok then our disagreement lies only in how long that "short-term" is.
>If you take a small producer, for example, incentives and long term
>reductions in energy costs may not offset his cost to convert, particularly
>if downtime during conversion is included. And a lot of old equipment
>will not be upgradible. Some very old motor-driven factory machines will
>simply not accept any motors of modern design. Either a motor would have
>to be custom-crafted (an expensive proposition, and maintainance would
>go through the roof), or the entire machine trashed (along with any jigs,
>etc. the factory had invested in that go with the machine) and a new one
>purchased. Neither option will be economical in many cases, nor will
>incentives offset the costs, downtime, retooling, etc. involved.
>So while 54% may be theoretically possible, it is not likely to be
>realistic, and the costs for this inexpensive conversion will increase
>even for the same motors, etc., as the scale of the operation changes
>and the existing equipment becomes more exotic.
I agree with this and I thinkg it demonstrates structural impediments
to efficiency that must be dealt with. The fact that the way decisions
about energy capacity are made is ervy different than the way decisions
about consumption technology are made. Demand Side Management (DSM)
is the general tool used for dealing with this. With this tool, money
saved by utilities by not building power plants is used to help
pay for the efficiency retrofits. Essentially, DSM is a way around
the market distortion that occurs due to centralized decisions
about energy that are required because it is a centralized
beauracracy. Effeiciency retrofits will never occur on the scale
I suggested with the current system.
e
Certainly we will have more recessions over the next couple of
decades. You also choose to emphasize energy uses that will not
repond to efficiency. Without knowing what percentage of total
electricity those sectors consume, we don't know how much effect
these will have on the growth in energy consumption. Increases
due to population increase are a given, but since they will be
buying new technology, the effect may not be linear.
>
>I might be willing to grant a small amount of continued efficiency improvement
>beyond the 54% you quoted, but I would then claim it will be more than
>compensated for in my computation by the lack of 100% penetration of the
>efficient technology. Even with great incentives, and proof that it is
>profitable in the long run, you will not get 100% penetration and my
>computation assumed that.
Basically agreed. The 54% figure is a best case with current technology.
We will only get close to it if better technology raises the best case
figure.
>
>> Fine, I will post a list of third world nuclear power experiences
>> in a couple of days.
>
>Thanks. Even if you post only the bad experiences, I'll be interested.
>
I will post all that were mentioned in the article.
>
>--
>Richard Stead
>Center for Seismic Studies
>Arlington, VA
>st...@seismo.css.gov
William Carroll
>wcar...@encore.com (William Carroll) writes:
>[discussion of content of news articles deleted]
>> The evacuation concerns centered on the inoperative alarm sirens, which had
>> died early in the night. It wasn't a matter of evacuating people through
>> the debris, it was a matter of letting them know they needed to evacuate.
>>
>> And even though it survived the storm relatively intact, I still think was
>> and is incredibly stupid to put a facility like that on the oceanfront in
>> a high-risk hurricane area. If you saw the damage the storm did to the
>> "hurricane-proof" buildings at Homestead AFB, you would realize that FPL
>> was VERY lucky.
>Well everything was fine until this last statement. How can the damage to
>some sirens (I have never seen a siren designed to survive the brunt of
>a hurricane) be extrapolated to a near-miss on the complete destruction
>of a nuke?
You don't need "complete destruction", just structural damage. Seriously
now, if any part of the containment structure at Turkey Point had sustained
structural damage, do you really think the plant would have ever gone
back online? Consider not only the repair costs, but the PR requirements
and their costs.
>And there was no claim of "hurricane-proof" for the buildings
>at Hoemstead - most would have been designated "temporary" structures which
>had been standing long past their expected lifespans. They weren't concrete,
>they didn't even have serious foundations. Shacks is more like it.
>Those buildings are about as far from a reactor containment structure as you
>can get.
Sorry, wrong. The USAF had a number of buildings on the base that _were_
designated as "hurricane-proof". I saw an interview with a pilot that
rode out the storm in one of them, and he was alive only because he sought
refuge in one of the few areas of that building that wasn't breached by
the winds. If you recall seeing photos of an F-16 minus its nose from the
cockpit forward, that plane and its companion were both in "hurricane-
proof" hangars. These were not shacks.
I do not know how USAF "hurricane-proof" specs compare with NRC "hurricane-
proof" specs, but I doubt they vary by a factor of two or three. I'll
repeat what I said: FPL was very lucky to escape Andrew with as little
damage to Turkey point as they sustained.
William Carroll
>== You mean, like knocking the Turkey Point nuclear plant offline for several
>== weeks? That's one hell of a bath!
>=
>==If you had read the news correctly you would know that the hurricane did not
>==damage the nuclear power plant at all. It was taken off line as a precaution
>==during the storm. The damage was done to a nearby coal-fired plant (one of the
>==stacks was damaged?).
>==etc.
>=
>=I did read the news correctly, thank you. The plant was offline while emergency
>=systems damaged in the storm were repaired. To me, that means the storm
>=knocked the plant offline. In even plainer language, the only reason the
>=plant was not operational was because of damage incurred in the storm.
>=
>=If you had read the news correctly, you would know that:
>=
>=The plant was brought to a state of "hot shutdown" prior to the storm's
>=arrival. This is evidently SOP for the situation. The plan was to bring it
>=back up as soon as the storm passed.
>You're contradicting yourself. You say the plant was shutdown as part of SOP
>BEFORE the storm arrived. Therefore the storm could not possibly have
>knocked it offline - it was already down.
No, it was in a "hot shutdown". According to FPL, the reaction was being
maintained, but no energy was being supplied to the grid. It was my
impression that this is what the NRC requires in that type of situation.
After the storm, they were required to take it to a "cold-shutdown" until
the emergency systems had been repaired and inspected. The implication was
that the reactor was now turned off and there was NO atom splitting going
on. Then the reaction had to be initiated again. I am certainly no nuke
eng, but reading reports led me to believe that there is a _significant_
difference in the startup times between the "hot shutdown" case and the
"cold shutdown" case. Perhaps Mr. De Armond, or some other netter with
industry experience, could clarify the difference for us.
>=The coal-fired plant was not nearby, it was on-site. The coal and nuclear
>=facilities share the same patch of earth.
>Huh? It's on-site and therefore it is not nearby? I must be missing a
>crucial semantic difference here.
My reading of the original (deleted) text was that the writer was trying
to imply that that nuke plant did not share the same site (and thus did
not experience the same risk) as the coal plant. That is not true. If you
saw any pictures of the damaged stack at the coal plant, you could
probably recognize the shape of the two nuke containment buildings just
behind the coal plants.
>=The evacuation concerns centered on the inoperative alarm sirens, which had
>=died early in the night. It wasn't a matter of evacuating people through
>=the debris, it was a matter of letting them know they needed to evacuate.
>=
>So the "emergency systems" that were damaged were the sirens. The nuclear
>plant itself was undamaged.
Well, since the emergency systems are part of the nuke plant, and required
for its operation, I would say that, yes, the nuclear plant was damaged. No,
the containment buildings were not damaged. Or at least not to a newsworthy
level.
>=And even though it survived the storm relatively intact, I still think was
>=and is incredibly stupid to put a facility like that on the oceanfront in
>=a high-risk hurricane area.
>If the only damage was to the sirens and you represent this by saying that
>the plant survived "relatively intact", it's no wonder you have problems
>with "nearby" and "on-site".
The damage that required the plant to shutdown was the emergency systems.
That was certainly not the only damage to the site. My impression was that
FPL's facilities at Turkey point did not sustain significantly more damage
than any of a number of other properties in the South Dade area. The plant
did survive relatively intact.
>=If you saw the damage the storm did to the
>="hurricane-proof" buildings at Homestead AFB, you would realize that FPL
>=was VERY lucky.
>Or well designed.
So why should I believe Turkey Point is that much better designed than
Homestead AFB?
Don Palmrose
>
> It was in a "hot shutdown". According to FPL, the reaction was being
> maintained, but no energy was being supplied to the grid. It was my
> impression that this is what the NRC requires in that type of situation.
> After the storm, they were required to take it to a "cold-shutdown" until
> the emergency systems had been repaired and inspected. The implication was
> that the reactor was now turned off and there was NO atom splitting going
> on. Then the reaction had to be initiated again. I am certainly no nuke
> eng, but reading reports led me to believe that there is a _significant_
> difference in the startup times between the "hot shutdown" case and the
> "cold shutdown" case. Perhaps Mr. De Armond, or some other netter with
> industry experience, could clarify the difference for us.
>
>
>
> "We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form
> up into teams, we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that
> we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method
> it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion,
> inefficiency, and demoralization." -Petronius Arbiter, 210 BC
>
>
FYI, William R. Carroll (or do you prefer Bill? For now I will use William)
is basically right about the definitions for Hot Standby and Cold Shutdown.
Hot Standby is the reactor is critical but not sending steam to the turbines
that produce electricity to send out to the grid. Steam is still used to
power any steam turbines for auxiliary systems that may have them and site
electricity is either supplied from the grid or diesels. Typically, the
reactor is at about 1% of total rated power. To come back on-line is just
a matter of getting the steam piping to the large electric generator's
turbines at the proper conditions and raising the level of auxiliaries needed
to support full power.
Cold Shutdown is when the control rods are driven back into the core. William
is wrong in that all fissions are stopped. There are fissions still occurring
but not at a rate or level to maintain a chain-reaction, this condition is
called sub-critical. The steam side is completely shutdown unless they are
going to perform a cooldown. The operators may even force cool the plant
down to temperatures below 200ĄF by taking steam off the steam generators and
filling the steam generators with water and at specified temperatures and
system pressures, begin operating support systems designed to remove the
reactor core's decay heat. Because the plant is no longer at its normal
operating temperatures and pressures, to bring the plant back on-line with the
grid requires reversing the cold shutdown proceedure. There are strict
operating rules on how this and other operations are performed but since
from cold shutdown one must raise primary water temps by close to 400Ą, this
will take time to become fully operational again.
Hope this helps.
Richard Stead
> Homestead AFB?
Because the design is publicly reviewed, and cross-examined repeatedly
in hearings. Because "watchdog" groups file suits over virtually every
aspect of plant construction. Because all design concepts are given
full-scale tests before the real thing is built. None of this is true
of Homestead. I saw "before" pictures of Homestead. How can corrugated
metal be considered hurricane proof? A saw no significant masses of
concrete in any of those structures. The "after" pictures show that the
structures did not have foundations. There exists no information to back
up the claim of hurricane proof for those structures, regardless of who
makes the claims (media, base personnel, commanders, whoever). And I
can pretty much claim there is no information along these lines - you won't
faind any evidence that any claim for hurricane proof on the Homestead
structures was ever tested.
However, I have read about and even seen films of actual testing they do
on nuke plants. I have had some small personal involvement in considerations
of "earthquake proof" for nukes (no, I am not at liberty to discuss it).
One film really sticks in my mind (not because of the proof of nuke
permanence, but rather the experimental setup). They tested the containment
structure design against projectiles. They built a full-scale segment of
the concrete structure, then developed a gun that could fire lead pipes
and telephone poles, etc, at 300 mph. They then shot these things at
the wall and filmed the results slow-mo. The wall wasn't even scratched,
let alone ruptured, but the telephone poles and things destroyed them
selves quite nicely. It takes a tornado to fling a telephone pole
anywhere near those speeds, so the containment is tornado-proof, let alone
a mere hurricane. (Building test cases like this explains part of why
nuke construction is so expensive. But I kinda like the idea of a
telephone pole gun, even without the nukes.)
E. Michael Smith
>> I have already agreed that efficiency costs will rise. My statement
>> pertains to short-term efficiency costs.
>
>Ok then our disagreement lies only in how long that "short-term" is.
Classically, economists define 'short term' as less than one year.
Anything longer than one year is 'long term'. Then again, you
may not care what economists think, even if this is an economic
arguement ;-)
>If you take a small producer, for example, incentives and long term
>reductions in energy costs may not offset his cost to convert, particularly
>if downtime during conversion is included.
There will be a full spectrum of players with the full range of
marginal costs. By definition, most of them will be near the
mean difficulty to converst and your example of a small producer
with antiquated equipment is far from the mean.
>And a lot of old equipment
>will not be upgradible.
So it will be replaced in toto with new machines. This is common
in industry.
>Some very old motor-driven factory machines will
>simply not accept any motors of modern design.
Some, but not many in my experience. Even the 100 year(ish) old
junk in the cannery I worked in (in the '70s) had plain round
motors held in by a couple of bolts. In general, the older a
chunk of machinery, the simpler and less cranky the motor mount.
Yes, you can find something bizzare enough to meet your description.
It just isn't representative.
>Either a motor would have
>to be custom-crafted (an expensive proposition, and maintainance would
>go through the roof),
On what do you base this speculation?
Again, from both the cannery experience and some other places
I've worked (farms, etc.) that used old equipment, the motor MOUNT
might be custom made, but never the motor. The mount was most
often made by the 'mechanic' at his welding bench in about 30 minutes.
Maintenance costs did NOT go up. (The newer motors were often
more reliable.)
>or the entire machine trashed (along with any jigs,
>etc. the factory had invested in that go with the machine) and a new one
>purchased.
This happens every so often anyway. It is called depreciation.
We cycle Crays in about 5 years. (Cut our energy usage by
WAY over 1/2 going from an X/MP to a Y/MP .. got a $199K
REBATE on our savings!) Other equipment is often cycled
in 10 to 20 year ranges. So?
>Neither option will be economical in many cases, nor will
Only the economic ones will be done, most economic first. At
the end of a 10 year cycle of this, the less economic ones are
now much more likely to be economical to do, since the machinery
is now 10 years further along in its life cycle.
Your posting leads me believe that you havn't had much experience
in manufacturing industries or managing a production environment.
...
>> What makes you think energy use will grow 5% per year? Even with
>> current coupling that would entail a hugely expanding economy
>> consistently for many years. With efficiency, even after no more
>> retrofits are possible, energy consimption will grow mroe slowly
>> than the GDP. West Germany's GDP grew by 33% from 1973 to 1988
>> while its energy consumption grew by 3%. It will take much longer
>> to absorb this 54% energy use reduction through economic growth.
>
>Basically, Germany's GDP decoupled due to efficiency improvements and due
>to a shift in types of goods produced as a percent of market share. Also,
Said shift being part of the deffinition of economic growth! I make
computers, my granddad made horse shoes...
>conservation is important in the German experience as well, and we have not
>yet added conservation to the equation in this discussion. Conservation
>will require a least some social change.
In my experience, it takes NO social change. I have achieved a 50%+
reduction in my home energy usage with NO change of my lifestyle.
(It was a 'design goal' that my wife not notice a thing ;-)
>However, if we produce the same
>things, and use the same things to maintain our lifestyles 16 years from
>now as we do today,
A blatantly false assumption. I bought a new fridge that uses
far less electricity than the old one. It does the same job, but
it isn't 'the same thing'. I replaced incandecent bulbs with CF
bulbs with no change in life style. They are not 'the same thing'.
Starting from the false premise of my choosing, I, too, can 'prove'
any point I wish ...
>and we increase GDP by 5%, we directly increase energy
>use by the same amount. Some simple examples: steel uses the same amount
>of energy per ton regardless of how many tons are produced, as long as
^^^^^^^^^^
>the same process is used. So a 5% increase in steel production = a 5%
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Another false assumption. We are busy rebuilding our steel industry
by scrapping the in-efficient old hearths for new furnaces. We are
doing this 'cause the Japanese and Brazilians have destroyed our
ability to compete. As a side effect, we are being far more effective
at producing steel per BTU.
>increase in energy consumed. [...]
>Anyway,
>the 5% growth rate is an excellant growth rate, but I think we should
>shoot for that.
It is an unsustainable rate unless you are modernizing from a
pre-industrial state, IMHO.
>Most economic planners seem to be willing to settle with
>4% as comfortable. 3% is considered barely getting by and 2% is considered
>unsatisfactory - a recession.
Flat out wrong. A recession is defined as three successive quarters
of Negative Growth. 2% is not less than zero.
>Bush was defeated on economic issues while
>we had about a 3% growth, so don't say we can live with it.
Bush was defeated 'cause he didn't dump Quayle and was generally
being a weeny. This has nothing to do with energy efficiency.
[...]
At work, we are in the middle of an energy efficiency conversion of
our office space. We computerized the AC and changed out 150W PAR
bulbs for CFs in our track light cans. No one noticed any
difference. In 1993 we get a PG&E rebate for going from (I think
it is t-12) old technology rapid start ballasts to new high efficiency
electronic ballasts. We will get about a 50% improvement in our
lighting efficiency from these changes.
Conservation is not hard, is not synonymus with deprivation, can
EASILY hit a target of cutting use to 1/2 for home and office
space, and takes NO CHANGE OF LIFESTYLE. It will have a MAJOR
market penetration because it is being written into the
building codes! (I know, my facilities folks keep pointing
out to me the new building codes we have to meet 8-{ )
BY LAW 1993 refridgerators will be remarkably efficient. How
many folks will still be using 1989 refrigerators in 2003?
Not many, judging by my experience with home appliances :-{ again...
While I'm marginally leaning towards nukes over coal, conservation
is a very painless winner over both.
Tino
>> So why should I believe Turkey Point is that much better designed than
>> Homestead AFB?
>
>on nuke plants. I have had some small personal involvement in considerations
>of "earthquake proof" for nukes (no, I am not at liberty to discuss it).
You may be referring to the steel and vulcanized rubber blocks that are
inserted into the foundation, forcing the building to slightly jiggle
during an earthquake? I believe they're in use in Japan.
>One film really sticks in my mind (not because of the proof of nuke
>permanence, but rather the experimental setup). They tested the containment
>structure design against projectiles. They built a full-scale segment of
>the concrete structure, then developed a gun that could fire lead pipes
>and telephone poles, etc, at 300 mph. They then shot these things at
>the wall and filmed the results slow-mo. The wall wasn't even scratched,
>let alone ruptured, but the telephone poles and things destroyed them
>selves quite nicely. It takes a tornado to fling a telephone pole
>anywhere near those speeds, so the containment is tornado-proof, let alone
>a mere hurricane. (Building test cases like this explains part of why
>nuke construction is so expensive. But I kinda like the idea of a
>telephone pole gun, even without the nukes.)
My favorite is the film of the jet fighter screaming into a portion of a
concrete containment (@ Los Alamos). Left a nasty scorch on it.
Tino
--
"Here are the young men, the weight on their shoulders..." - J.D.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Purdue University School of Nuclear Engineering
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Hardie,4805
==har...@herald.usask.ca (Peter Hardie,4805) writes:
=From wcar...@encore.com (William Carroll):
==You're contradicting yourself. You say the plant was shutdown as part of SOP
==BEFORE the storm arrived. Therefore the storm could not possibly have
==knocked it offline - it was already down.
=
= No, it was in a "hot shutdown". According to FPL, the reaction was being
= maintained, but no energy was being supplied to the grid. It was my
= impression that this is what the NRC requires in that type of situation.
= After the storm, they were required to take it to a "cold-shutdown" until
= the emergency systems had been repaired and inspected.
So it was still voluntarily shutdown. It was NOT knocked out by the storm.
=I am certainly no nuke
= eng, but reading reports led me to believe that there is a _significant_
= difference in the startup times between the "hot shutdown" case and the
= "cold shutdown" case. Perhaps Mr. De Armond, or some other netter with
= industry experience, could clarify the difference for us.
The difference between getting to full power from hot or cold shutdowns is
irrelevant. Your claim was that the plant was damaged. It was not. It was
voluntarily shutdown (hot or cold - who cares) and it was perfectly capable
of getting back to full power. The absence of the sirens would not prevent
the plant starting up again except that the emergency plans had to be adhered
to as well. The plant was in the same situation as a car whose horn is
inoperative. In the absence of other damage, the car can still be used for
transport, but safety considerations require that the horn be working before
the car be allowed to move under its own power again.
=The coal-fired plant was not nearby, it was on-site. The coal and nuclear
=facilities share the same patch of earth.
=
==Huh? It's on-site and therefore it is not nearby? I must be missing a
==crucial semantic difference here.
=
= My reading of the original (deleted) text was that the writer was trying
= to imply that that nuke plant did not share the same site (and thus did
= not experience the same risk) as the coal plant. That is not true.
I used the term "nearby" precisely because both plants experienced the same
risk.
==So the "emergency systems" that were damaged were the sirens. The nuclear
==plant itself was undamaged.
=
= Well, since the emergency systems are part of the nuke plant, and required
= for its operation, I would say that, yes, the nuclear plant was damaged. No,
= the containment buildings were not damaged. Or at least not to a newsworthy
= level.
You do love to contradict yourself, don't you?
"a newsworthy level" indeed!!! Describe the precise DAMAGE to the containment
buildings.
=
= The damage that required the plant to shutdown was the emergency systems.
Yes. The sirens which you keep referring to as emergency systems to imply
that they are part of the plants operational emergency systems i.e. emergency
cooling etc.
= That was certainly not the only damage to the site. My impression was that
= FPL's facilities at Turkey point did not sustain significantly more damage
= than any of a number of other properties in the South Dade area. The plant
= did survive relatively intact.
I think you'd better describe to us your theory of relativity. By your own
admission only the sirens were damaged.
=
=If you saw the damage the storm did to the
="hurricane-proof" buildings at Homestead AFB, you would realize that FPL
=was VERY lucky.
=
==Or well designed.
=
= So why should I believe Turkey Point is that much better designed than
= Homestead AFB?
The plant was undamaged. Despite your implications, the containment could
not possibly have been damaged because the plant is back in operation.
Your beliefs are immune to facts. I'm not going to bother trying to alter
them.
John De Armond
>I do not know how USAF "hurricane-proof" specs compare with NRC "hurricane-
>proof" specs, but I doubt they vary by a factor of two or three. I'll
>repeat what I said: FPL was very lucky to escape Andrew with as little
>damage to Turkey point as they sustained.
Visit a plant sometime and observe the construction and you will understand
just how "lucky" TP was. Not meaning to sound smart-assed with that
suggestion, simply suggesting a fact-finding trip.
I don't know what the USAF does but for nuclear power plants, its design
must be able to withstand a wide variety of design-basis insults.
These include the effects of the worst 100-years flood, earthquake,
tornado, hurricane and anything else deemed credible. Not only
must all safety related structures withstand the wind forces, it
must also withstand wind-propelled missile impact. The worst threat
is generally considered to be a telephone pole propelled at maximum
wind velocity. The telephone pole turns out to be the worst in terms
of objects likely to withstand being accelerated by the wind, in
terms of ballistic coefficient, and in terms of its penetrative ability
on impact.
The end result of all this is walls constructed of several feet of
concrete. At Sequoyah, for example, the aux building (where all
ex-containment safety related equipment resides) walls are 6 feet
thick, the diesel generator building walls are 6 feet thick and
the containment is constructed of several walls of concrete and steel
and inside that is is the many-feet-thick (~20) missile shield that
protects the primary system and instrumentation.
Bottom line, the reason the TP plant, anthromorphicly speaking, yawned
at the hurricane was not luck but design. There WAS an environmental
incident at TP during the hurricane. About 10,000 gallons of fuel
oil was spilled from a non-safety-related storage tank.
John
John De Armond
>No, it was in a "hot shutdown". According to FPL, the reaction was being
>maintained, but no energy was being supplied to the grid.
Hot shutdown has a specific meaning. That condition is when the reactor
is scrammed, the generator is tripped but reactor coolant temperature
is maintained by decay heat and/or reactor coolant pump heat input.
Hot standby is the condition where the turbine is tripped, the reactor
is making power and that power is being dumped to the condenser via
the bypass system. Hot standby is not a normal condition since TMI
because the NRC now requires a turbine trip to cause a scram and because
reactor control is a bit touchy, particularly when coming down from
power and xenon is biting at your reactivity margin. About the only
time hot standby is seen is during testing and if the operators think
the cause of the turbine or other trip will be remedied rapidly.
Remaining at power helps burn off xenon.
>It was my
>impression that this is what the NRC requires in that type of situation.
>After the storm, they were required to take it to a "cold-shutdown" until
>the emergency systems had been repaired and inspected.
They were required by tech spec to proceed to cold shutdown, a process
that takes a few days, by the weather. There was no damage to
plant systems. The only damage was to the off-site evacuation sirens,
a system required by the NRC for operation.
>on. Then the reaction had to be initiated again. I am certainly no nuke
>eng, but reading reports led me to believe that there is a _significant_
>difference in the startup times between the "hot shutdown" case and the
>"cold shutdown" case. Perhaps Mr. De Armond, or some other netter with
>industry experience, could clarify the difference for us.
There is a large difference in startup times due to limits on heat
rate. The startup sequence is roughly, secure the residual heat
removal system and build primary system pressure while beginning
to establish water chemistry. When the pressure reaches the
reactor coolant pump (RCP) net positive suction head (NPSH), start the
RCPs. The approximately 10 MW of energy input by the RCPs brings the
primary temperature up to operating temperature, about 557 degrees
for a Westinghouse. This takes a day. Meanwhile the Chemical and Volume
Control System (CVCS) is reducing the concentration
of boric acid (neutron absorber) in primary coolant system from the
shutdown concentration to the startup concentration. A steam bubble
is established and level control initiated in the pressurizer as the RCS
goes through 400 degrees. At about this time feedwater from the steam
side is supplied to the steam generators and steaming commences. Steam
is vented initially to the atmosphere and then to the turbine condenser.
This is hot standby.
After primary level, pressure and chemistry is established, the rods
are pulled according to the rod block sequence to put the reactor on
a 400 second period (power level doubles every 400 seconds.) Power
level increases through about 12 decades until it reaches about 1%
of full output. The turbine is spun and the generator synced to the line.
The neutron monitoring system is in the control loop and rod withdrawal
is programmed to increase power as measured by the neutron monitoring
system at a rate of 5% a minute up to the demand setpoint. Boric acid
is reduced by the CVCS so that the rods are fully withdrawn which gives
the maximum shutdown margin upon scram.
Going from cold shutdown to hot shutdown takes from 13 to 24 hours.
Going from hot shutdown to power operation takes typically an hour.
(This is from memory so sue me if I forgot something.)
>Well, since the emergency systems are part of the nuke plant, and required
>for its operation, I would say that, yes, the nuclear plant was damaged. No,
>the containment buildings were not damaged. Or at least not to a newsworthy
>level.
The siren system is NOT a part of the plant other than there is a trip
button on the control panel. A county evacuation plan is not part of
the plant either but the plant cannot operate by law without there being
one in place.
>The damage that required the plant to shutdown was the emergency systems.
>That was certainly not the only damage to the site. My impression was that
>FPL's facilities at Turkey point did not sustain significantly more damage
>than any of a number of other properties in the South Dade area. The plant
>did survive relatively intact.
The plant "survived" intact. Period.
>So why should I believe Turkey Point is that much better designed than
>Homestead AFB?
Because we tell you it is.
John De Armond
>Diesels can burn natural gas. (Masters Thesis in the Berkely Engineering
>Library, I don't remember the authors name, demonstrated stationary
>diesel plant on natural gas.)
One of the things I've done at several nuke plants is performance qualify
the standby diesel generators so I have quite a bit of experience with
these beasts.
A demonstration and anything in production with a proven track record
is very different.
>Diesels can come up almost instantly.
The typical tech spec for standby diesel generators is off-to-full-load
in 10 seconds. They can - barely - but at a huge cost. The coolant
and crankcase oil are kept at operating temperature all the time,
the fuel system is pressurized and a starting system capable of spinning
the engine to operating RPM prior to gating injection is provided.
The engines are run at least once a week not only to verify proper
operation but also to keep fresh fuel in the day tank and piping.
These system are high maintenance items. OK for nuclear plants with
constant surveillance programs; not so hot for unmanned peaking sites.
>Diesels can power Very Large Ships. (Pistons several feet in diameter,
>many per engine...) Practical diesel generators can be Very Large...
But not VERY VERY large. Combustion turbines of 100 MWE or larger
are not that uncommon. The diesel generators at Sequoyah (largest I've seen)
were 10 MWE and required two 16 cylinder ship-type engines per generator.
victor yodaiken
>de...@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
>
>>This is not at all what it was about. It did not use any renewables
>>or "soft energy" sources
>>nor did it force any conservation - in fact conservation was not
>>mentioned. Remember that conservation and efficiency are different.
>>No social changes were suggested, let alone forced. _All_ it
>>recommended was capital investment in efficiency.
>
>Yeah, I keep forgetting that "investment" is the new PC word for
>"tax'n'spend" and "efficiency" is the word for forced conservation.
>
>As in "We're comitting the country to investing in energy efficiency."
>Translated that means "We're going to steal an ever larger chunk of
>your wealth in order to play around with social engineering."
And this from someone who was just telling us how he had hoped that DOE
would pick up the n*hundred million dollar costs of an experimental
annealing at Yankee Rowe. From the glossary of the far right
Social engineering: government policies or expenditures that are not
approved of by the far right. For example: government policies
that favor conservation are social engineering, those that
subsidize energy waste are not.
--
Richard Stead
> In article <51...@seismo.CSS.GOV> st...@skadi.CSS.GOV (Richard Stead) writes:
> >In article <1993Jan5.1...@vexcel.com>, de...@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
> >If you take a small producer, for example, incentives and long term
> >reductions in energy costs may not offset his cost to convert, particularly
> >if downtime during conversion is included.
>
> There will be a full spectrum of players with the full range of
> marginal costs. By definition, most of them will be near the
> mean difficulty to converst and your example of a small producer
Why? How can you say this is by definition? I was responding to a post that
claimed current technology would permit 54% savings if all equipment was
100% converted. In no way can you assume from that, that by definition
most will be near the mean - when you then assume that "mean" means able
to profitably and easily convert. I could propose technology that would
cost $1 million/ kW-h to convert. Then how many industries could convert?
You can't just assume that only a few exotic cases will not be able to convert.
> >And a lot of old equipment
> >will not be upgradible.
>
> So it will be replaced in toto with new machines. This is common
> in industry.
Common is a reasonable word here, but that does not mean "vast majority".
I will agree it is not unusual to find complete retooling especially
in large industries with a history of such practice and rapidly changing
products to justify it. Auto production is an excellant example. However -
check a few wood shops, and you will find that most of the equipment present
has never been replaced. Similarly for textile operations.
> >Some very old motor-driven factory machines will
> >simply not accept any motors of modern design.
>
> Some, but not many in my experience. Even the 100 year(ish) old
> junk in the cannery I worked in (in the '70s) had plain round
> motors held in by a couple of bolts. In general, the older a
> chunk of machinery, the simpler and less cranky the motor mount.
> Yes, you can find something bizzare enough to meet your description.
> It just isn't representative.
I disagree. You can't extend what exists in one cannery to all of industry.
The problem with accepting new motors is not the mounts or the shape or anything
like that - I assume all that is trivial. Most of the machinery I have
seen has the motor mounted exposed and outside the mahcine. Some equipment,
however, has particular hp requirements at particular speeds. Matching
that could be difficult, and not matching could be a hazard to workers.
The rest of the machine is often designed around motors available at the
time it was built. Too much and the machine could fail, too little and
it may be underpowered for its job. And slapping a resistor into the circuit
is not necessarily going to solve the problem, and even if the resistor works,
are you still going to get that 54% improvement or is the motor now out of
its most efficient range?
> >or the entire machine trashed (along with any jigs,
> >etc. the factory had invested in that go with the machine) and a new one
> >purchased.
>
> This happens every so often anyway. It is called depreciation.
> We cycle Crays in about 5 years. (Cut our energy usage by
And you obviously have something a lot of small producers do not. It is
called money.
> >Neither option will be economical in many cases, nor will
>
> Only the economic ones will be done, most economic first. At
> the end of a 10 year cycle of this, the less economic ones are
> now much more likely to be economical to do, since the machinery
> is now 10 years further along in its life cycle.
What difference does 10 years make on a 100 year old peice of equipment?
How is 10 years going to help a small producer who can't afford to
upgrade at all? Just because existing equipment is ten years older
does not mean it suddenly costs less to replace. This is only true
for large manufacturers who really do have an equipment cycle. Small
producers do not necessarily have any such cycle. They buy a machine
once and it is expected to last for as long as they are in that line
of business. Sorry, not all manufacturing works exactly like you
were taught in microeconomics.
> Your posting leads me believe that you havn't had much experience
> in manufacturing industries or managing a production environment.
You are incorrect in that belief, however I can claim the same regarding
your response.
> >Basically, Germany's GDP decoupled due to efficiency improvements and due
> >to a shift in types of goods produced as a percent of market share. Also,
>
> Said shift being part of the deffinition of economic growth! I make
> computers, my granddad made horse shoes...
Oh, and you are only 16 years older than your granddad? You've got strange
family practices.
> In my experience, it takes NO social change. I have achieved a 50%+
> reduction in my home energy usage with NO change of my lifestyle.
> (It was a 'design goal' that my wife not notice a thing ;-)
I doubt it. But unless an impartial observor scientifically monitors
your lifestyle before and after, there is no way to know. Personal
claims about personal practices are notoriously unreliable. Check the
recent study on why Americans are fat. Scientists found that even
experienced calorie counters who did their best to meticulously keep
track of what they ate, consistantly reported they consumed only about
half the calories that they did in reality, and reported that they
exercised 20% more than they really did. These were voluntary experimental
subjects who tried to do these things truthfully and just couldn't do
it. So I believe you are as truthful as possible in your statement and
belief. I just doubt that it reflects reality.
> >However, if we produce the same
> >things, and use the same things to maintain our lifestyles 16 years from
> >now as we do today,
>
> A blatantly false assumption. I bought a new fridge that uses
> far less electricity than the old one. It does the same job, but
> it isn't 'the same thing'. I replaced incandecent bulbs with CF
> bulbs with no change in life style. They are not 'the same thing'.
This asusmption assumed from the start, from today, that 100% of everything
in existance was converted to 54% more efficient technology. That means
everyone converted their fridge, everyone converted all their bulbs to the
most efficient fluorescent, etc. Then I assumed that everyone would
continue to need the same number of fridges per person or bulbs per person,
with growth represented as a combination of population increase and
increases in standard of living (more things that use energy). The
assumption is far from false - it is too optimistic in that there will
not be 100% conversion and 100% of new products will not incorporate
the 54% improvement.
> Starting from the false premise of my choosing, I, too, can 'prove'
> any point I wish ...
And you have tried.
> >and we increase GDP by 5%, we directly increase energy
> >use by the same amount. Some simple examples: steel uses the same amount
> >of energy per ton regardless of how many tons are produced, as long as
> ^^^^^^^^^^
> >the same process is used. So a 5% increase in steel production = a 5%
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> Another false assumption. We are busy rebuilding our steel industry
> by scrapping the in-efficient old hearths for new furnaces. We are
> doing this 'cause the Japanese and Brazilians have destroyed our
> ability to compete. As a side effect, we are being far more effective
> at producing steel per BTU.
Likewise, this assumption was premised on the assumption that 100% conversion
to the most efficient technology already happened and all new capacity
is the most efficient.
> >increase in energy consumed. [...]
> >Anyway,
> >the 5% growth rate is an excellant growth rate, but I think we should
> >shoot for that.
>
> It is an unsustainable rate unless you are modernizing from a
> pre-industrial state, IMHO.
And how do you plan to provide for increased population?
> >Most economic planners seem to be willing to settle with
> >4% as comfortable. 3% is considered barely getting by and 2% is considered
> >unsatisfactory - a recession.
>
> Flat out wrong. A recession is defined as three successive quarters
> of Negative Growth. 2% is not less than zero.
Not under new politics. Everywhere I look, it has been claimed that
we have been in a recession for the Bush years. Whenever I get real
numbers, they show around 2% growth. The "talking heads" all dismiss
the growth numbers as not reflecting the "true state" of the nation.
So we grow, but it's recession. The choice of word is not mine, I would
not call the past 4 years a recession. I agree we did not grow fast
enough, however. 2% is not enough to allow for population growth - 2%
growth will result in growing unemployment, because people will enter
the job market faster than they can be absorbed.
> >Bush was defeated on economic issues while
> >we had about a 3% growth, so don't say we can live with it.
>
> Bush was defeated 'cause he didn't dump Quayle and was generally
> being a weeny. This has nothing to do with energy efficiency.
No, it has to do with energy, because Bush was defeated on economic issues.
Every analysis of the compaign has pointed to that. Exit polls show that
something on the order of 80% of voters said economic issues (jobs, deficit
or whatever) were the most important factor in their decision. Perot got
20% of the vote purely on economic issues. The Clinton campaign motto
was "The economy, stupid". Economics and energy have a lot to do with
each other. Your personal opinions of Bush or Quayle certainly have
nothing to do with energy efficiency.
> Conservation is not hard, is not synonymus with deprivation, can
> EASILY hit a target of cutting use to 1/2 for home and office
> space, and takes NO CHANGE OF LIFESTYLE. It will have a MAJOR
> market penetration because it is being written into the
> building codes! (I know, my facilities folks keep pointing
> out to me the new building codes we have to meet 8-{ )
You are confusing conservation and efficiency - they are different.
Efficiency improvement is doing exactly the same thing with less energy.
Conservation is doing less. Doing less is a lifestyle change, by
definition. And while it is true that much of new construction and
new products will be more efficient, this doesn't address conversion
of existing construction and products. New houses might be insulated
to R40 for all I care, but that isn't going to reduce heat losses
from housing projects constructed in the 40's and 50's. And these
are now low-income housing - the residents cannot afford the high
cost of insulating their homes.
So back to my point - I assumed 100% conversion to 54% more effecient
technology today (not a year from now, but right now, instantaneous).
I also assumed that every new product was also 54% more efficient.
I then simply computed how many years until new energy capacity is
required - 16 years. Now, do you have nay real arguments against
that? The 54% is not mine - it was posted. The 5% is, but if you
want to bicker about that, you will have to grant me less than 100%
conversion, which should easily bring the time back to 16 years.
William Carroll
>From wcar...@encore.com (William Carroll):
>= No, it was in a "hot shutdown". According to FPL, the reaction was being
>= maintained, but no energy was being supplied to the grid. It was my
>= impression that this is what the NRC requires in that type of situation.
>= After the storm, they were required to take it to a "cold-shutdown" until
>= the emergency systems had been repaired and inspected.
>So it was still voluntarily shutdown. It was NOT knocked out by the storm.
No, FPL was required to remove the plant from the grid and bring it to the
lowest level of sustained reaction. The storm forced them to stop the
reaction completely. There is a difference.
>=I am certainly no nuke
>= eng, but reading reports led me to believe that there is a _significant_
>= difference in the startup times between the "hot shutdown" case and the
>= "cold shutdown" case. Perhaps Mr. De Armond, or some other netter with
>= industry experience, could clarify the difference for us.
>
>The difference between getting to full power from hot or cold shutdowns is
>irrelevant.
I doubt most electric utilities would agree with you there. FPL certainly
didn't act like it was irrelevant.
>Your claim was that the plant was damaged.
No, my claim was that the storm did more than just give the plant "a nice
bath".
>It was not.
You have a rather selective definition of "damaged".
>It was voluntarily shutdown
Wrong.
>(hot or cold - who cares)
FPL certainly did.
>and it was perfectly capable of getting back to full power.
Eventually.
>The absence of the sirens would not prevent
>the plant starting up again except that the emergency plans had to be adhered
>to as well. The plant was in the same situation as a car whose horn is
>inoperative. In the absence of other damage, the car can still be used for
>transport, but safety considerations require that the horn be working before
>the car be allowed to move under its own power again.
So if the storm caused the horn to stop working, would you still say the
storm caused no damage to your car?
>= Well, since the emergency systems are part of the nuke plant, and required
>= for its operation, I would say that, yes, the nuclear plant was damaged. No,
>= the containment buildings were not damaged. Or at least not to a newsworthy
>= level.
>You do love to contradict yourself, don't you?
How is the above contradictiory? There is a lot more to a nuclear plant than
the containment building.
>"a newsworthy level" indeed!!! Describe the precise DAMAGE to the containment
>buildings.
Having never been onsite at the Turkey Point plant, I could neither describe
firsthand the condition of the plant before or after the storm. Can you?
Remember, be precise!
If it wasn't newsworthy, then it wasn't reported and I have no access to the
information.
>= The damage that required the plant to shutdown was the emergency systems.
>
>Yes. The sirens which you keep referring to as emergency systems to imply
>that they are part of the plants operational emergency systems i.e. emergency
>cooling etc.
How so? I neither said that nor implied that. To me "emergency systems" means
systems used in an emergency. Pretty simple.
I would expect the emergency cooling systems (or at least the dangerous
cooling systems) to be within the containment building. By saying that
the containment buildings were not damaged to a newsworthy level, I thought
you would be able to extrapolate from there that all contained systems
were undamaged.
I made the assumption that you were rational and intelligent enough to
recognize that if the emergency cooling systems had been damaged, that
would have been BIG news. Obviously a bad assumption.
>= That was certainly not the only damage to the site. My impression was that
>= FPL's facilities at Turkey point did not sustain significantly more damage
>= than any of a number of other properties in the South Dade area. The plant
>= did survive relatively intact.
>
>I think you'd better describe to us your theory of relativity. By your own
>admission only the sirens were damaged.
By news reports, only the sirens were mentioned as a reason why the plant was
not allowed to return to operation. Since FPL had crews working on site 24
hours a day for over a week repairing damage, I would say it is safe to
assume that there was in fact other damage on the site. But I don't recall
any of it being newsworthy (there's that word again) enough to rate its
specific mention on the air.
My theory of relativity is simple. Go look at pictures of the Burger King
headquarters or Homestead AFB to get a judge for "relative to".
>= So why should I believe Turkey Point is that much better designed than
>= Homestead AFB?
>
>The plant was undamaged.
So? There were MANY cases throughout south Dade where two houses next to
each other, built by the same home builder at the same time, sustained
significantly different amounts of damage. If they were built on the same
design, how could one be better designed than the other?
The conventional plant at Turkey Point had two stacks - one was damaged to the
point of having to be torn down and the other sustained no significant damage.
Despite being the same design, you want me to believe that one was better
designed that the other simply because one was damaged and the other wasn't?
"The plant was undamaged" is hardly a solid scientific data point to back
up your assertion. Can you provide any engineering evidence that the
buildings at Turkey Point are better designed than the structures at
Homestead AFB? Structural engineering reports? Architectural references?
Anything at all besides your obviously unfounded beliefs?
>Despite your implications, the containment could
>not possibly have been damaged because the plant is back in operation.
What implications? I thought I overtly stated a number of times that the
containment buildings were not structurally damaged. Do you actually read
what you are responding to or do you just fly off the handle whenever
you are sufficiently unarmed with facts?
>Your beliefs are immune to facts. I'm not going to bother trying to alter
>them.
Funny, that's pretty close to my impression of you.
William Carroll
>>I do not know how USAF "hurricane-proof" specs compare with NRC "hurricane-
>>proof" specs, but I doubt they vary by a factor of two or three. I'll
>>repeat what I said: FPL was very lucky to escape Andrew with as little
>>damage to Turkey point as they sustained.
>Visit a plant sometime and observe the construction and you will understand
>just how "lucky" TP was. Not meaning to sound smart-assed with that
>suggestion, simply suggesting a fact-finding trip.
<very good description deleted for bevity>
>Bottom line, the reason the TP plant, anthromorphicly speaking, yawned
>at the hurricane was not luck but design.
I've seen many pictures of nuke plant construction and am familiar with
the excesses of concrete poured. Frankly, I think public hysteria has
caused many to be overdesigned. But I also think the nuke industry is
stupid in pormoting plants in some locations.
Let's look at a scenario that isn't far fetched considering the actual damage.
Suppose the damaged stack had gone over in the wind, with some pieces
falling on one of the containment buildings, knocking some concrete off,
but only some chunks a foot or two deep. No breaching of the containment,
and no real danger of it either.
The news reports would say "Containment vessel at Turkey Point damaged",
the layman would think that means breached, the Greenpeacers (who have
a good presence here) would pitch their tents at the plant entrance and
the plant would be years, if ever, before splitting atoms again.
It doesn't take a containment breach to shut a plant down. Or create a
public uproar similar to TMI.
It was stupid to locate a plant where it could take the leading edge of a
hurricane, and FPL was lucky to get through it as well as they did.
William Carroll
j...@dixie.com (John De Armond) writes:
>wcar...@encore.com (William Carroll) writes:
<explantion deleted for brevity. if you missed it, go back and read it.
it is worth your time.>
>The siren system is NOT a part of the plant other than there is a trip
>button on the control panel.
This is definitely NOT the impression given by news reports.
>>So why should I believe Turkey Point is that much better designed than
>>Homestead AFB?
>Because we tell you it is.
But you admittedly have no more experience or knowledge of USAF specs than
I have of either. I'm sure the AF felt just as good about the integrity of
their hangars as you do about the integrity of a nuke plant. Frankly, I
don't think anyone has the necessary experience weathering hurricanes to
fell confident in their assumptions about what will happen in one.
E. Michael Smith
>e...@michael.apple.com (E. Michael Smith) writes:
>
>>Diesels can burn natural gas. (Masters Thesis in the Berkely Engineering
>>Library, I don't remember the authors name, demonstrated stationary
>>diesel plant on natural gas.)
>
>One of the things I've done at several nuke plants is performance qualify
>the standby diesel generators so I have quite a bit of experience with
>these beasts.
>
>A demonstration and anything in production with a proven track record
>is very different.
There are also available commercial production conversion kits to
convert a diesel to use propane and natural gas as well. I didn't
include this in the first post in the interests of brevity. If you
would like, I can post the stuff. (I posted it once a few years ago...)
>>Diesels can come up almost instantly.
>
>The typical tech spec for standby diesel generators is off-to-full-load
>in 10 seconds. They can - barely - but at a huge cost.
You will note that in my post I also stated that diesels were being
phased out due to high cost ... We agree...
[...]
>>Diesels can power Very Large Ships. (Pistons several feet in diameter,
>>many per engine...) Practical diesel generators can be Very Large...
>
>But not VERY VERY large. Combustion turbines of 100 MWE or larger
>are not that uncommon. The diesel generators at Sequoyah (largest I've seen)
>were 10 MWE and required two 16 cylinder ship-type engines per generator.
So you would use 10 of them, which makes them expensive, which we both agree
on ...
Richard Stead
> Suppose the damaged stack had gone over in the wind, with some pieces
> falling on one of the containment buildings, knocking some concrete off,
> but only some chunks a foot or two deep. No breaching of the containment,
> and no real danger of it either.
I truly wish that had happened. A whole chimney's worth of bricks slammed
into the containment structure at full hurricane force. The resulting lack
of any damage at all (maybe some small scrapes) might have silenced a lot
of protests against nuclear power. The structure is densely reinforced
concrete, at most you could break out a chunk a couple inches deep - not feet -
the rebar is too close together. But the material would more likely just
flake at the point of impact from a ballistic brick - it would be hard to
notice. If the brick hit head-on, the structure would suffer no damage at all.
E. Michael Smith
I've tried to make it entertaining along the way... Give it a try
before you give up and hit 'n' ...
In article <51...@seismo.CSS.GOV> st...@skadi.CSS.GOV (Richard Stead) writes:
>In article <1993Jan6.0...@michael.apple.com>, e...@michael.apple.com (E. Michael Smith) writes:
>> In article <51...@seismo.CSS.GOV> st...@skadi.CSS.GOV (Richard Stead) writes:
>> >In article <1993Jan5.1...@vexcel.com>, de...@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
>> >If you take a small producer, for example, incentives and long term
>> >reductions in energy costs may not offset his cost to convert, particularly
>> >if downtime during conversion is included.
>>
>> There will be a full spectrum of players with the full range of
>> marginal costs. By definition, most of them will be near the
>> mean difficulty to converst and your example of a small producer
>
>Why? How can you say this is by definition?
There will be a full spectrum of players since we are talking about
the whole economy. All == full.
Most of them will be near the mean, since the definition of 'mean' is
that point in the middle.
(For a statistical treatment, it would be stated as modal point, that
point which most data points are near... grossly simplified,
but gross simplification seems to be what is needed here... the
more exact answer would be that modal point was what most data
points were near but that mean was the statistical mean and might
not match the modal point exactly; however since we are dealing with
a very large sample space {all the economy}, modal point and mean are
substantially coincident. Since we are using standard English rather
than statistics, the common usage of mean is acceptable and the use
of modal point would confuse as many folks as it enlightened).
Yes, it is true, the middle is the middle by definition.
>I was responding to a post that
>claimed current technology would permit 54% savings if all equipment was
>100% converted. In no way can you assume from that, that by definition
>most will be near the mean - when you then assume that "mean" means able
>to profitably and easily convert.
Pardon me? I never assumed that 'mean' ment able to profitably and
easily convert, only that they would be at the middle of the difficulty
range and that your examples were on the 'hard' end of the range.
And, yes, we can assume that by definition most will be near the 'mean'.
You distort my words.
>I could propose technology that would
>cost $1 million/ kW-h to convert. Then how many industries could convert?
>You can't just assume that only a few exotic cases will not be able to convert.
This makes no sense whatsoever. You propose another blatantly false case
then try to generalize it back to reality. So? There is a fine line
between an absurdum ad reductum argument and an absurd one...
>> >And a lot of old equipment
>> >will not be upgradible.
>>
>> So it will be replaced in toto with new machines. This is common
>> in industry.
>
>Common is a reasonable word here, but that does not mean "vast majority".
If I ment 'vast majority' I'd have said so. I didn't, so please don't
try to imply that I did. Simple majority, I could be convinced to
support, but the time frame would be in dispute. Maybe over a decade
and a half ...
>I will agree it is not unusual to find complete retooling especially
>in large industries with a history of such practice and rapidly changing
>products to justify it. Auto production is an excellant example. However -
>check a few wood shops, and you will find that most of the equipment present
>has never been replaced. Similarly for textile operations.
Um, the US textile plant is making a comeback on the world competitive
market exactly because they finally got it through their thick heads that
new automated tooling costs were preferable to going out of business.
Yes, the textile operations are buying new machinery. Wood shops I
can't speak to, other than to point out that US Sawmills are closed
largely thanks to log exports to Japan et. al. where new plant was
built. Grow or die. The plant WILL be replaced with new tooling,
the major question is will it be US or Japanese {Korean, Indian, etc.} ...
>> >Some very old motor-driven factory machines will
>> >simply not accept any motors of modern design.
>>
>> Some, but not many in my experience. Even the 100 year(ish) old
>> junk in the cannery I worked in (in the '70s) had plain round
>> motors held in by a couple of bolts. In general, the older a
>> chunk of machinery, the simpler and less cranky the motor mount.
>> Yes, you can find something bizzare enough to meet your description.
>> It just isn't representative.
>Some equipment,
>however, has particular hp requirements at particular speeds. Matching
>that could be difficult, and not matching could be a hazard to workers.
>The rest of the machine is often designed around motors available at the
>time it was built. Too much and the machine could fail, too little and
>it may be underpowered for its job.
I think this is just bogus. I don't have a GE motor catalog at hand,
but I find it incredulous to claim that the desired HP/RPM couple
cannot be had. If nothing else, that is what a change of pullys is for.
>And slapping a resistor into the circuit
>is not necessarily going to solve the problem, and even if the resistor works,
>are you still going to get that 54% improvement or is the motor now out of
>its most efficient range?
No, you don't use a resistor, you use a semiconductor speed controller
with built in power factor correction as is being retrofitted to large
numbers of motors for the efficiency it gains. (We are presently
planning for variable speed AC fans as an efficiency improvement over
the present all-or-nothing ones ... via a speed controller...)
>> >or the entire machine trashed (along with any jigs,
>> >etc. the factory had invested in that go with the machine) and a new one
>> >purchased.
>>
>> This happens every so often anyway. It is called depreciation.
>> We cycle Crays in about 5 years. (Cut our energy usage by
>
>And you obviously have something a lot of small producers do not. It is
>called money.
No, my budget is strongly constrained from prior years. Talk to any
user of Cray computers. They are obsolete in 5 years since by then
they do not meet the definition of a supercomputer any longer (within
a factor of ten of the fastest machine in existance is a good working
definition.) We replace our X/MP48 with a Y/MP232E. For those who
don't know right off hand, that acually reduced our compute power a
smidge. (We got more memory though). It was economical to do so
because it cut our power bills by something like $50k/month. (That
figure is from memory and may be off some, but then again, I can't
get too specific in public statements about my budget ... 8-{ )
Just remember that Apple had layoffs just a year or so ago :-|
>> >Neither option will be economical in many cases, nor will
>>
>> Only the economic ones will be done, most economic first. At
>> the end of a 10 year cycle of this, the less economic ones are
>> now much more likely to be economical to do, since the machinery
>> is now 10 years further along in its life cycle.
>
>What difference does 10 years make on a 100 year old peice of equipment?
Not much, only 10%. Then again, MOST plant is depreciated on the
schedules dictated by the tax code, which focusses on 20year and
less schedules. Buildings may be anywhere from 18-40 years
depending on a bunch of tax stuff. The typical plant does not
run on 100 year old tools in 100 year old UN-MODIFIED buildings!
(I hope it is self evident that most of American plant and buildings
are not the same as they were in 1893 ...)
>How is 10 years going to help a small producer who can't afford to
>upgrade at all?
He will either find a way to upgrade, or gradualy go out of business
from efficienct competitors. (Or will be in a (minority) of the
industry that can compete on old equipment and will not upgrade).
That is the hard lesson of the last couple of decades of job loss
in America. Compete or die.
>Just because existing equipment is ten years older
>does not mean it suddenly costs less to replace.
Yes, it does. Your depreciation write off stops. Your maintenance
costs rise. The (10 year newer, now) replacement equipment is now
10 year newer technology and even MORE productive. It is now less
costly to replace, since you get {less power cost, more depreciation
write off, higher productivity, less maintenance, etc.}
>This is only true
>for large manufacturers who really do have an equipment cycle. Small
>producers do not necessarily have any such cycle.
Everyone has an equipment cycle. They may not have a plan for it.
They may not have a sinking fund for replacement. They may not have
a clue... but there equipment will age, obsolece, and decay plan or not.
>They buy a machine
>once and it is expected to last for as long as they are in that line
>of business.
And some small fraction may have an equipment cycle that lasts longer
than their business, but then they have an equipment cycle that has
'scrap value' that is high when the leave the business since they
can sell the machine to another entrant.
>Sorry, not all manufacturing works exactly like you
>were taught in microeconomics.
Yes, it does. Microecon does not constrain how the shop conducts
their affairs, it only describes those affairs and points out how
optimisation COULD be done if that player desired to do it. At
least in the Microecon I studied, stupid players were allowed.
[...]
>> >Basically, Germany's GDP decoupled due to efficiency improvements and due
>> >to a shift in types of goods produced as a percent of market share. Also,
>>
>> Said shift being part of the deffinition of economic growth! I make
>> computers, my granddad made horse shoes...
>
>Oh, and you are only 16 years older than your granddad? You've got strange
>family practices.
No, my Grandad left Blacksmithing and started farming. My Dad left the
farm and did construction work, owned a couple of restaurants, and then
went into Real Estate. I've worked in {farming, restaurants, cannerys,
semiconductor fabrication, programming, computer center management }
and a couple of others that don't warrant mention. The last statistics
I heard had the typical person changing careers something like 3 times
in their life ...
>> In my experience, it takes NO social change. I have achieved a 50%+
>> reduction in my home energy usage with NO change of my lifestyle.
>> (It was a 'design goal' that my wife not notice a thing ;-)
>
>I doubt it.
Doubt all you want. I've posted the PG&E bills here. The change
happened over a (relatively short) 4 year time span, and most of
the benefit was in the last single year. Nothing dramatic happend
in that time in our family sociology (other than the addition of
a second child with slight increase in washer/dryer use...)
[ FAT example deleted ...]
>So I believe you are as truthful as possible in your statement and
>belief. I just doubt that it reflects reality.
When one has specific devices that were replaced at specific times
with immediate observed reductions in the power bill thereafter it
doesn't take a social scientist to state the simple facts. THE
biggest 'hit' was the 'fridge. The old one took 800w AVERAGE.
That is about $2/day or $60/month. The new one is $60/YEAR.
CF's did most of the rest. (Though we DO use more light now, since
it is cheaper, but that isn't an error in your favor ...)
You may doubt all you want. You have no way to know, and I accept
that you will remain ignorant of the details of my lifestyle. (Thank
God.) I won't rehash the details of efficiency improvments at home
in this thread. I'm not a rabid conservationist, though. I just
changed some easy to change stuff that had no effect on lifesytly.
>> >However, if we produce the same
>> >things, and use the same things to maintain our lifestyles 16 years from
>> >now as we do today,
>>
>> A blatantly false assumption. I bought a new fridge that uses
>> far less electricity than the old one. It does the same job, but
>> it isn't 'the same thing'. I replaced incandecent bulbs with CF
>> bulbs with no change in life style. They are not 'the same thing'.
>
>This asusmption assumed from the start, from today, that 100% of everything
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Which assumption? The original poster did, not me. He assumed 100%
conversion. You assumed NOTHING changes. You're both wrong.
Some fraction will convert, increasing over time (cumulative things
do that...). It will asymptotically approach 100%, but never reach it.
I've only asserted that many of the consumers of power, and maybe even
'most' of the power consuming equipment would be converted to more
efficient forms.
>> Starting from the false premise of my choosing, I, too, can 'prove'
>> any point I wish ...
>
>And you have tried.
No, I have not. Someone else assumed 100% penentration, not I. I have
only pointed out your failings...
>> >and we increase GDP by 5%, we directly increase energy
>> >use by the same amount. Some simple examples: steel uses the same amount
>> >of energy per ton regardless of how many tons are produced, as long as
>> ^^^^^^^^^^
>> >the same process is used. So a 5% increase in steel production = a 5%
>> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>> Another false assumption. We are busy rebuilding our steel industry
>> by scrapping the in-efficient old hearths for new furnaces. We are
>> doing this 'cause the Japanese and Brazilians have destroyed our
>> ability to compete. As a side effect, we are being far more effective
>> at producing steel per BTU.
>
>Likewise, this assumption was premised on the assumption that 100% conversion
>to the most efficient technology already happened and all new capacity
>is the most efficient.
This paragraph makes no sense. If you are saying that YOU assumed that
100% conversion to the most efficient had already happened and you were
just projecting growth, then you are wrong because 100% has NOT been
done yet (though some has). If you are saying that someone else
assumed 100% conversion already, then don't attribute it to me AND
state such assumptions when you present a model so that the obvious
flaw can be seen without repeated posts ...
>> >increase in energy consumed. [...]
>> >Anyway,
>> >the 5% growth rate is an excellant growth rate, but I think we should
>> >shoot for that.
>>
>> It is an unsustainable rate unless you are modernizing from a
>> pre-industrial state, IMHO.
>
>And how do you plan to provide for increased population?
Increased US population would take about 1-2%, I THINK. We are not
adding population at 5%/year ...
>> >Most economic planners seem to be willing to settle with
>> >4% as comfortable. 3% is considered barely getting by and 2% is considered
>> >unsatisfactory - a recession.
>>
>> Flat out wrong. A recession is defined as three successive quarters
>> of Negative Growth. 2% is not less than zero.
>
>Not under new politics.
[...]
>So we grow, but it's recession. The choice of word is not mine, I would
>not call the past 4 years a recession.
So you parrot someone elses wrong statments as truth, since you
subscribe to 'new politics'. I'll keep that in mind in your future
postings...
>I agree we did not grow fast
>enough, however. 2% is not enough to allow for population growth - 2%
>growth will result in growing unemployment, because people will enter
>the job market faster than they can be absorbed.
Please site a source for your assertion that we are adding population
in the US at a rate higher than 2%. I don't believe it.
Job growth is not tied, 1 to 1, with economic growth. We have added
more jobs to the economy than we have added growth. This is the
basis for the complaints about lousy jobs... Remember Quayle saying
that jobs were available at MacDonalds? The people may well be
employed, but not making good wages. This is a disjoint topic
from the question of power efficiency and somewhat disjoint from
the question of economic growth (as discussed here).
>> >Bush was defeated on economic issues while
>> >we had about a 3% growth, so don't say we can live with it.
>>
>> Bush was defeated 'cause he didn't dump Quayle and was generally
>> being a weeny. This has nothing to do with energy efficiency.
>
>No, it has to do with energy, because Bush was defeated on economic issues.
>Every analysis of the compaign has pointed to that.
I'm not going to get sucked off into a post mortem of the election...
>> Conservation is not hard, is not synonymus with deprivation, can
>> EASILY hit a target of cutting use to 1/2 for home and office
>> space, and takes NO CHANGE OF LIFESTYLE. It will have a MAJOR
>> market penetration because it is being written into the
>> building codes! (I know, my facilities folks keep pointing
>> out to me the new building codes we have to meet 8-{ )
>
>You are confusing conservation and efficiency - they are different.
>Efficiency improvement is doing exactly the same thing with less energy.
You are correct, I've forgotten to split the hair of conservation
vs efficiency improvement. I guess 'efficiency improvement' should
be substituted for 'conservation' in some of my prior statments.
It seems like a silly hair to split, though, since most folks
don't know when it is being split ...
>Conservation is doing less. Doing less is a lifestyle change, by
>definition. And while it is true that much of new construction and
>new products will be more efficient, this doesn't address conversion
>of existing construction and products. New houses might be insulated
>to R40 for all I care, but that isn't going to reduce heat losses
>from housing projects constructed in the 40's and 50's. And these
>are now low-income housing - the residents cannot afford the high
>cost of insulating their homes.
Paron me? MY house was built in the 50's ... Are you telling me that
I live in 'low-income' housing? (And I just inherited my Moms house.
It was built in the 1890's ...).
My house had a PG&E sponsored ZIP (Zero Interest Program) energy audit
done about 5 years ago. We added blown in wall insulation. The
montly cost was less than the energy saved and was taken from our
PG&E bill. This program was available to ALL comers, without reguard
for income... My Mom's house has some kind of Gov't sponsored Senior
Citizens Rehab loan done on it so she got energy improvements. (Largely
insulation and better windows). This program is available to all
commers who are Senior Citizens and meet some income standard. One
of her rental houses was done under a similar plan for low-income
rentals. The Residents don't pay for the cost of insulating, the
landlord gets a (4% in our case) sweetheart loan from the Rehab
agency to do the work ... I know, I know, personal experience is
only anecdotal and can't possibly count ...
>
>So back to my point - I assumed 100% conversion to 54% more effecient
>technology today (not a year from now, but right now, instantaneous).
>I also assumed that every new product was also 54% more efficient.
>I then simply computed how many years until new energy capacity is
>required - 16 years.
Using an unrealistic 5%/year compound grown rate with no recessions
at all ...
>Now, do you have nay real arguments against
>that? The 54% is not mine - it was posted. The 5% is, but if you
>want to bicker about that, you will have to grant me less than 100%
>conversion,
I DO want to bicker about the 5%, since exponential growth models
are particularly sensitive to the exponent chosen...
which should easily bring the time back to 16 years.
Make the should a 'could' and I'll agree. *I* have not asserted that
your conclusion was wrong (i.e. that 16 years would come and go with
no new capacity needed). I have asserted that (conservation/efficiency
improvments) are far easier to do than you stated. I have pointed out
where I felt your arguement was flawed.
(I don't care so much if your conclusion is right or wrong, as I do
that you get to it correctly ;-)
Richard Stead
:> This is God Awful long, and mostly just rebuts Richards points, but
:> I've tried to make it entertaining along the way... Give it a try
:> before you give up and hit 'n' ...
:> >> >If you take a small producer, for example, incentives and long term
:> >> >reductions in energy costs may not offset his cost to convert, particularly
:> >> >if downtime during conversion is included.
:> >>
:> >> There will be a full spectrum of players with the full range of
:> >> marginal costs. By definition, most of them will be near the
:> >> mean difficulty to converst and your example of a small producer
:> >
:> >Why? How can you say this is by definition?
:> Yes, it is true, the middle is the middle by definition.
You recommend to "Give it a try". I just did. You were dishonest right at
the start here by selectively quoting my challenge and distorting the question
and then ridiculing me in the answer to your distortion. Time to hit 'n',
and consider adding you to a kill file.
Gary Coffman
>
>I do not know how USAF "hurricane-proof" specs compare with NRC "hurricane-
>proof" specs, but I doubt they vary by a factor of two or three. I'll
>repeat what I said: FPL was very lucky to escape Andrew with as little
>damage to Turkey point as they sustained.
One of the design basis criteria for containment is being able to withstand
a power dive crash of a fully loaded 747 into the containment structure
without breach. Now hurricanes are massively powerful storms, but they
can't even vaguely approach that degree of point force. No sheetmetal
and steel frame hanger, or wood framed housing compares even vaguely to
the many feet of steel reinforced concrete of a containment structure.
You'd come closer if you compared it to Saddam's Bunker or Cheyenne
Mountain.
Gary
--
Gary Coffman KE4ZV | You make it, | gatech!wa4mei!ke4zv!gary
Destructive Testing Systems | we break it. | uunet!rsiatl!ke4zv!gary
534 Shannon Way | Guaranteed! | emory!kd4nc!ke4zv!gary
Lawrenceville, GA 30244 | | emory!ke4zv!ga...@gatech.edu
Gary Coffman
>
>This ignores the ability to build a 'stop gap' solution, like gas
>turbines, at a slightly higher cost, to buy the time to choose either
>a much improved nuclear or a much more efficient alternative energy
>source, such as solar in 20 years...
The problem with this approach is that gas turbine plants, fuel cells,
and the like are a lot more than "slightly higher cost" alternatives.
That's why they are restricted to peaking needs today. Replacing base
load plants with peaking technology is economic suicide for a utility
and it's customers.
John De Armond
>>A demonstration and anything in production with a proven track record
>>is very different.
>There are also available commercial production conversion kits to
>convert a diesel to use propane and natural gas as well. I didn't
>include this in the first post in the interests of brevity. If you
>would like, I can post the stuff. (I posted it once a few years ago...)
Go ahead and post. I hope this is something mainstream and not the
diesel equivalent of some of these home-shop electric car conversions.
I'm very interested but dubious. For the last year or so I've been
researching diesels relative to power generation because I plan on
co-generation for my house to get out from under our Plant-Vogtle inspired
electric rates using our still relatively cheap natural gas supply.
The scientific literature says basically that NG or propane can be
burned via intake introduction but that starting, particularly
in adverse conditions still requires cylinder injection of a suitably
high cetane fuel. I picked up some SAE papers in December on the
topic. One paper describes some recent developments on electronically
controlled direct cylinder injection for NG but it is definitely
still in the experimental stage.
John De Armond
>Suppose the damaged stack had gone over in the wind, with some pieces
>falling on one of the containment buildings, knocking some concrete off,
>but only some chunks a foot or two deep. No breaching of the containment,
>and no real danger of it either.
>The news reports would say "Containment vessel at Turkey Point damaged",
>the layman would think that means breached, the Greenpeacers (who have
>a good presence here) would pitch their tents at the plant entrance and
>the plant would be years, if ever, before splitting atoms again.
While I don't disagree with the predicted media and political reactions,
at some point in time, someone's going to have to say "f*ck the lay
opinions when making these decisions." The health equivalent would
be to ban blood donations because of some small segment of the population's
irrational fear that AIDS can be caught during donations. It, like
fear of nuclear power, is thoroughly irrational and not based on fact
but it won't go away. Even if one does not want to say f*ck it,
the problem still remains of how to pick what irrationality will pop
up next.
As far as a falling brick causing damage, remember the containment is
designed to withstand everything from an airliner crash on down.
When the terrorists fired anti-tank missiles into the
French Super Phoenix, the explosions only chipped out a couple of inches
of concrete. The brick is not very aerodynamic and thus its terminal
velocity - if it could be achieved in the distance involved - would be
fairly low.
The concrete used in containment and other safety
structures is fairly special and not like anything you're liable to run
into elsewhere. TVA pioneered a process for using fly ash as an additive
to increase the strength and make it resilliant. I believe this process
was used for most NP construction. At Sequoyah, during the interminable
rip-outs-and-redos in an attempt to chase the ever-moving NRC regs,
I watched workers trying to break out this concrete. Jackhammer
bits would bury up in it without causing cracking. When hit with a
hammer, the blow was highly damped with no bounce. Amazing stuff.
John De Armond
>Thank you, John, for the excellent explantion.
Yer welcome :-)
>>The siren system is NOT a part of the plant other than there is a trip
>>button on the control panel.
>This is definitely NOT the impression given by news reports.
Media lie or mislead? nah.. :-)
To expand on this a bit, the emergency siren system is designed to
make sure every person inside the 10 mile radius evacuation zone can
be warned of emergencies. sirens are not mandated; Midland opted
for supplying a radio to every resident inside the area, but they
are the most common. At almost every plant I've been involved with,
the sirens are triggered by radio, the rest were by dedicated phone
lines. Each siren site contains a motor driven siren of from 10 to
50 horsepower, a radio receiver and controlling electronics. each
siren is individually addressable plus there is an "all call" code
for simultaneously triggering them all. (Interesting aside.
At TMI we had a real problem with a prankster. They forgot to design
in a time stamp into the control protocol which enabled the prankster
to record the audio tones broadcast for the "all call" and then
drive around while playing them back through a low power transmitter.
He'd trigger 2 or 3 sirens at once. They time out after 10 minutes
but it kinda degraded the public confidence in the system.)
The central control and transmitter is located at the off-site
Emergency Operations Center for the simple reason that it might be necessary
to sound an alarm after the plant has become uninhabitable after an
accident. There is a circuit - two redundant ones, actually - from
the EOC to the control room so the operators can trigger the sirens
AND so they can do routine testing which involves firing them off
once a week, typically at noon on Saturday. At TMI, for example,
they just installed a couple of industrial grade pushbuttons in a box
and bolted it to the shift supervisor's desk. This desk is located
inside the horseshoe control board area but not on the board.
>>>So why should I believe Turkey Point is that much better designed than
>>>Homestead AFB?
>>Because we tell you it is.
>But you admittedly have no more experience or knowledge of USAF specs than
>I have of either. I'm sure the AF felt just as good about the integrity of
>their hangars as you do about the integrity of a nuke plant. Frankly, I
>don't think anyone has the necessary experience weathering hurricanes to
>fell confident in their assumptions about what will happen in one.
My comment was semi tongue in cheek. I actually do have a decent bit
of knowledge by virtue of seeing pretty detailed pictures of the
wrecked buildings on TV. I can compare what I see to what I know
about regarding nuclear plants. I've a real problem with any metal/sheet
metal building being called "hurricane proof". I wonder if the USAF
really does call 'em hurricane proof or is this more "media enhancement"
of the facts.
Making a NP survive just about any natural disaster short of a volcano
is pretty easy. Determine what the worst weather has been, double
that and then pour enough concrete to withstand it. Make sure
all outside openings are either above the high water mark or equipped
with water-tight doors and away you go. There is little practical limit
to what can be withstood using this method. Hey, you ought to see
what constitutes earthquake-proofing the place. :-)
Paul Dietz
>The problem with this approach is that gas turbine plants, fuel cells,
>and the like are a lot more than "slightly higher cost" alternatives.
>That's why they are restricted to peaking needs today. Replacing base
>load plants with peaking technology is economic suicide for a utility
>and it's customers.
Gas turbines are not restricted to peaking needs. At least one
utility, VEPCO, has installed a gas-fired combined cycle plant for
baseload; its overall efficiency is > 50%. More generally, gas
turbines are used for cogeneration; these units obviously do not
run just at peak times.
The cost of these is higher, especially if the price of gas goes
up. But they can be brought on line quickly, so there is not the
cost of carrying as much excess capacity.
Paul F. Dietz
di...@cs.rochester.edu
Don Palmrose
> hurricane, and FPL was lucky to get through it as well as they did.
>
>
> William R. Carroll (Encore Computer, Ft. Lauderdale FL) wcar...@encore.com
>
>
Then think about this one, William: if it stupid to build a nuclear power
plant that is designed to survive a huricane without causing damage to the
core and without releasing radioactivity, why is it *not* stupid for people to
build and live in an area where they are guarenteed to take the leading edge
of a hurricane?
Since there is a large population in southern Florida, you included, there
must be a near-by power plant. I would hope that you will admit that Turkey
Point withstood the huricane much, much better than the fossil-fuel plant
next to it. Given that, the large population, utilities have to either build
a fossil or a nuclear power plant for their base load, and the nuclear power
plant is built better than a fossil-fueled plant when it comes to surviving
storm damage, I would think that most people would rather have the nuclear
plant that could be back on line within 2 days or 2 weeks (depending on the
condition of the electrical grid).
If you are not one, so be it. However, I do have a hard time understanding
your logic on this one issue. I think I understand it, but I clearly do not
agree with it and I think you are overlooking the logic I have stated above.
I would hope you understand my statements above and see the point I am making.
So, give it some thought and I look forward on hearing your thoughts on my
points.
Don Palmrose
P.S. I like your quote from Petronius Arbiter.
Dean Alaska
>In article <1993Jan6.0...@michael.apple.com>, e...@michael.apple.com (E. Michael Smith) writes:
>> In article <51...@seismo.CSS.GOV> st...@skadi.CSS.GOV (Richard Stead) writes:
>> >In article <1993Jan5.1...@vexcel.com>, de...@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
>> >If you take a small producer, for example, incentives and long term
>> >reductions in energy costs may not offset his cost to convert, particularly
>> >if downtime during conversion is included.
>>
>> There will be a full spectrum of players with the full range of
>> marginal costs. By definition, most of them will be near the
>> mean difficulty to converst and your example of a small producer
>
>Why? How can you say this is by definition? I was responding to a post that
>claimed current technology would permit 54% savings if all equipment was
>100% converted. In no way can you assume from that, that by definition
>most will be near the mean - when you then assume that "mean" means able
>to profitably and easily convert. I could propose technology that would
>cost $1 million/ kW-h to convert. Then how many industries could convert?
>You can't just assume that only a few exotic cases will not be able to convert.
Since the ease of the cost of efficiency retrofits is the subject,
I though I would include this summary of costs from the EPRI report:
Industrial Process Heating ~$.007/kwh
Residential Lighting
Res Water Heating
Comm Water Heating
Comm Lighting
Comm Cooking
Comm Cooling
Comm Refrigeration
Industrial Motor Drives ~$.025/kwh
Res Appliances
Electrolytics
Res Space Heating ~$.033/kwh
The amount of total US electricity consumption saved for 100% market
penetration for the industrial motor drives is about 10%. This is the
largest component. As you can see, the costs are not very high.
>>
>> A blatantly false assumption. I bought a new fridge that uses
>> far less electricity than the old one. It does the same job, but
>> it isn't 'the same thing'. I replaced incandecent bulbs with CF
>> bulbs with no change in life style. They are not 'the same thing'.
>
>So back to my point - I assumed 100% conversion to 54% more effecient
>technology today (not a year from now, but right now, instantaneous).
>I also assumed that every new product was also 54% more efficient.
>I then simply computed how many years until new energy capacity is
>required - 16 years. Now, do you have nay real arguments against
>that? The 54% is not mine - it was posted. The 5% is, but if you
>want to bicker about that, you will have to grant me less than 100%
>conversion, which should easily bring the time back to 16 years.
>
%5 is a healthy growth rate for G7 countries. With recessions averaged
in, I would imagine a lower value would be aprropriate for a long-term
projection. Maybe 3% per year average?
>
>--
>Richard Stead
>Center for Seismic Studies
>Arlington, VA
>st...@seismo.css.gov
Since the EPRI report has been the subject of a recent thread, I thought
I should clarify some aspects that I have quoted. The efficiency
percentages quoted are MTP figures, which stands for Maximum Technical
Potential. MTP values have been computed for a wide variety of
replacement technologies and represent the percentage of total U.S.
electricity demand which would be saved if every piece of technology
of this type was replaced in the U.S. Obviously they represent best
case estimates since all old equipment will never be replaced. How
close we come to the MTP for a particular type of equipment depends
on how strongly we pursue retrofitting. Although a hard push to
reach these efficiencies would cost more in capital investment, it
could reinvigorate the U.S. economy through both the creation of new
jobs and the availablilty of new competitive technologies that could
raise the MTP even further.
Along with the percentage value is a cost value in cents per kwh for each
type of equipment. This number combines the retrofit cost and the
electricity saved by the retrofit amortized over the life of the unit
at a 5% discount rate. Since this savings is essentially
permanent, as opposed to conservation savings which can be short-lived,
it is often referred to as new capacity although it isn't actually so.
A graph of MTP figures has % electricity (or maybe GWH) on the
horizontal axis with the cost value on the vertical. The curve is
actually a step function with the width of each step representing the
MTP savings for a particular type of technology and the height of
each step the difference in cost from the
previous type of equipment to the next one. The ordering of the
equipment types is in increasing order of cost so that the step function is
always rising.
Lower MTP figures usually represent a cutoff at some cost, indicating
cheaply available efficiencies while the higher percentages include
more expensive retrofits. The cheaper technologies are:
As to the issue of economic growth without increased electricity supply:
These well-established methods [DSM] are so effective that when
Southern California Edison Co had a peak load of 15 billion
watts, in 1983-1984, it was able to reduce its forecast of
peak demand by more than 500 million watts in a single year.
At the same time, California's appliance and building standards
increased electricity savings even more. Annual savings
represented 8.6% of the utility's peak demand at the time and
cost the utility only about 1% as much as building and running
a new power station. If all Americans saved as much electricity
as fast as those 10 million did, the U.S. economy could grow by
several percent every year while total electricity use decreased.
Scientific American 9-90
note: DSM = Demand Side Management
Obviously we are not talking about wishful thinking, but methods that
are tried and proven successsful in one of the largest urban areas in
the U.S.
--
==============================================================================
Dean Myerson (aka dingo in boulder) de...@vexcel.com
==============================================================================
Peter Hardie
=This is getting really silly,
Correct.
=and I sent an extensive reply via email,
It hasn't arrived yet.
=but I wanted to defend a few points publicly.
=har...@herald.usask.ca (Peter Hardie) writes:
=>Which clearly implies, whether you like it or not,
=
=Dear Peter, you are in no way qualified to be the sole arbiter of what I
=may or may not imply with any statement. If you wish to read things into
=what I write, I can't stop that. But if I say there was no such implication,
=then you must accept that.
I have never attempted to be the sole arbiter of what *you* implied. I have
only been pointing out what I implied from your posts. You have done the
same thing with me. But you have avoided my attempts to get you to clarify
the central points. For example:
=>and given that you admit you have no idea of the
=>plant's condition before or after the storm,
=
=Which, of course, is not what you asked for nor what I said. You asked for
="the precise DAMAGE to the containment buildings",
So you did understand the question ...
=not some "idea of the
=plant's condition before or after the storm". There is a difference. I do
=have an idea of the plant's condition before and after the storm. Do you?
and yet again you didn't answer it but change the topic and ask me another
question. You did that once before and expected me to "Be precise".
I answered your question. Precisely.
=Please do not state [that your] interpretations of what I write are the
=same as my thoughts and intentions when I wrote it. They are not.
Obviously. And since you continue to avoid answering my questions, which
would have clarified your "thoughts and intentions", you've managed to drag
this out to the point that I have lost interest.
Gary Coffman
>Obviously we are not talking about wishful thinking, but methods that
>are tried and proven successsful in one of the largest urban areas in
>the U.S.
Yes, and it's an area that now has a net out migration of population for
the first time in it's history, a net decline in jobs, and the lowest
economic growth of any region in the US. Related?
Dean Alaska
I don't think they are related. I have not heard of any problems relating to
energy supply, although I have heard, and know of, a lot of other problems.
If you think they are related, please describe how it is so.
Gary Coffman
>In article <1993Jan9.1...@ke4zv.uucp> ga...@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) writes:
>>In article <1993Jan8.2...@vexcel.com> de...@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
>>>Obviously we are not talking about wishful thinking, but methods that
>>>are tried and proven successsful in one of the largest urban areas in
>>>the U.S.
>>
>>Yes, and it's an area that now has a net out migration of population for
>>the first time in it's history, a net decline in jobs, and the lowest
>>economic growth of any region in the US. Related?
>
>energy supply, although I have heard, and know of, a lot of other problems.
>If you think they are related, please describe how it is so.
Obviously this is speculation, but California is notorious for leading
in environmental regulation in the US. I'm postulating that these
regulations have begun to have serious economic effects in California.
I'm aware that there are *other* factors at play, such as the aerospace
cutbacks from declining defense expenditures, and a large non-productive
population, but I suspect that the "greening" of California is finally
beginning to take it's toll on the productive sector. Businesses are
moving out whatever the reason.
On a possibly related note, economists are now projecting that 1993
will only see two G7 countries with positive economic growth rates,
and they are the top two per capita energy consumers.
Steinn Sigurdsson
>To claim a capital cost of $1000/kw is extremely optimistic...perhaps
>even fanciful. In today's dollars foir an LWR or a CANDU (excluding
>heavy water) a capital cost of $2000/kw may be fair.
I have no experience in costing nuclear power plants of any kind, but
I did read the article in The Economist for Nove 21-27 '92, entitled
Nuclear Power -- Losing ist charm. On page 22 there is a little table
of capital costs of US nuclear power plants by year of construction
start, 1982 dollars per kW. There you will find that for the 5 plants
started in 1976,77, the estimated cost at start of construction was
$794, at half-way, $1065, and at completion, $2132.
So, that should put the discussion of $250/kW or even $1200/kW to rest,
no? Unless of course The Economist is to be dismissed as a pinko,
liberal, econazi rag?
No, but how much of the cost increase was due to interest costs
on capital while operating permits were delayed by legal action and
design reviews - as opposed to actual construction cost?
I've been involved in determining costs of hydro power stations,
and _the_ uncertainty in deciding whether to go ahead with
construction is whether nuclear power stations will become cheap
enough to undercut the hydro - with essentially all the uncertainty
attributed to delays rather than materials or labour.
The article is very pessimistic for any increase in installed capacity
except a small increase in France, Japan, and Canada, and even there
the economics are only slightly better than fossil fuel plants.
Japan's latest goal was to more than double their nuclear capacity
in about 30 years (to go from 23% or so to 47% - with the higher
percentage at higher total capacity, so actual nuclear capacity more
than doubles).
| Steinn Sigurdsson |For people are different |
| Lick Observatory |And so are nations |
| ste...@lick.ucsc.edu |You can borrow ideas |
| "standard disclaimer" |But you can't borrow situations - B.B. 1991 |
E. Michael Smith
>:> This is God Awful long, and mostly just rebuts Richards points, but
>:> I've tried to make it entertaining along the way... Give it a try
>:> before you give up and hit 'n' ...
>:>
>:> >> >If you take a small producer, for example, incentives and long term
>:> >> >reductions in energy costs may not offset his cost to convert, particularly
>:> >> >if downtime during conversion is included.
>:> >>
>:> >> There will be a full spectrum of players with the full range of
>:> >> marginal costs. By definition, most of them will be near the
>:> >> mean difficulty to converst and your example of a small producer
>:> >
>:> >Why? How can you say this is by definition?
>:>
>:> Yes, it is true, the middle is the middle by definition.
>
>You recommend to "Give it a try". I just did. You were dishonest right at
>the start here by selectively quoting my challenge
The original paragraph was:
*** STUFF FROM ORIGINAL ***
Why? How can you say this is by definition? I was responding to a post that
claimed current technology would permit 54% savings if all equipment was
100% converted. In no way can you assume from that, that by definition
most will be near the mean - when you then assume that "mean" means able
to profitably and easily convert. I could propose technology that would
cost $1 million/ kW-h to convert. Then how many industries could convert?
You can't just assume that only a few exotic cases will not be able to convert.
*** END STUFF ***
I accurately quoted THE question that pertains to my posting.. I also
trimmed out the long statement of your position, much of which is
directed at someone elses post about 100% conversion. (I presume that
folks who want the whole text can go back and re-read it. Heck, my
posting ran to 447 lines as it was, largely due to over-inclusion of
quotes. You want me to quote everything you post?...) I see no dishonesty.
I can say it is by definition since I see it as a question of looking
at a large sample space (ALL the economy) and looking for the (mean/
modal point). You see it as being some issue of pre-defining 'mean'
as 'profitably and easily converted'. That is your problem, not mine.
When you ask me to clarify MY position, please do not pre-suppose
that I must do so in the context of YOUR pre-conceptions of it.
The question of 'how many industries could convert' was not addressed
for two reasons. First, it was predicated on a position that I do
not hold (note that the sentence starts with 'Then' and points to
a preposterous premise of $1M/kW-h). You wanted me to respond to
a scenario of $1m/kW-h ? Second, I don't see it as an issue of
industries converting, I see it as an issue of energy USES being
converted without regard to the particular industry.
>and distorting the question
Where is the distortion? The QUESTION was quoted fully. It asked
for MY reasons for being able to claim that most players will be
near the mean difficulty to convert by definition. I have not
advocated that this must mean 'easy to convert', only that this
indicates that YOUR example was flawed in that it was pre-suposing
a difficult to convert case was typical. Note please: I clearly
stated that *I* believe that there will be a full range of players
with a full range of difficulties. *I* also stated that I believe
that these will be converted, easiest first. I have made no
representation about where the equlibrium will be struck on conversion
(what percent of 'difficulty to convert' will be the cutoff).
>and then ridiculing me in the answer to your distortion.
If you feel ridiculed, that is something that you have brought to
the debate. Please don't blame me for your emotional responses.
>Time to hit 'n',
>and consider adding you to a kill file.
Feel free. I will respond as I see fit to topics, you may chose to
participate or not. It is an open forum.
Steinn Sigurdsson
I can say it is by definition since I see it as a question of looking
at a large sample space (ALL the economy) and looking for the (mean/
modal point). You see it as being some issue of pre-defining 'mean'
as 'profitably and easily converted'. That is your problem, not mine.
When you ask me to clarify MY position, please do not pre-suppose
that I must do so in the context of YOUR pre-conceptions of it.
Not adequate: consider this postulated distribution of costs vs
frequency for energy sources in the community.
f
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Neither the mean nor the mode have the properties you desire,
and I contend this is a not unreasonable model of reality...
* Steinn Sigurdsson Lick Observatory *
* ste...@lick.ucsc.edu "standard disclaimer" *
* Help save the youth of America *
* Help save them from themselves *
* Help save the sun-tanned surfer boys *
* And the California Girls *
* - BB 1986 *
Allen Brown
: in environmental regulation in the US. I'm postulating that these
: regulations have begun to have serious economic effects in California.
: I'm aware that there are *other* factors at play, such as the aerospace
: cutbacks from declining defense expenditures, and a large non-productive
: population, but I suspect that the "greening" of California is finally
: beginning to take it's toll on the productive sector. Businesses are
: moving out whatever the reason.
: --
: Gary Coffman KE4ZV | You make it, | gatech!wa4mei!ke4zv!gary
I moved out of the Bay Area of California because I didn't like it
there. It was too crowded and too polluted. I am a chip designer.
The vast majority of the chip designers here in Corvallis wouldn't
move back to the Bay Area if you paid them 50% more, for the same
reasons. (We have talked about it.) If lots of engineers feel this
way it drives up the cost of labor.
In other words lots of us moved out of California because it wasn't
"green" enough. And this is not speculation.
--
Allen C. Brown abr...@cv.hp.com or hplabs!hpcvca!abrown or "Hey you!"
"'Moderation in all things' is for wimps."
E. Michael Smith
>e...@michael.apple.com (E. Michael Smith) writes:
>
>>>is very different.
>
>>There are also available commercial production conversion kits to
>>convert a diesel to use propane and natural gas as well.
...
>Go ahead and post. I hope this is something mainstream and not the
>diesel equivalent of some of these home-shop electric car conversions.
>I'm very interested but dubious.
They are production stuff from folks who do diesel for a living.
Not whacko back room conversion sunshine uber alles stuff.. I'll
see if I can find it in The Archives ...
>For the last year or so I've been
>researching diesels relative to power generation because I plan on
>co-generation for my house to get out from under our Plant-Vogtle inspired
>electric rates using our still relatively cheap natural gas supply.
>
>The scientific literature says basically that NG or propane can be
>burned via intake introduction but that starting, particularly
>in adverse conditions still requires cylinder injection of a suitably
>high cetane fuel.
You got it. Start on diesel. At about 25% power, begin NG induction.
Continue to full power. You might be able to back off the diesel to less
than 25%, but I'm not sure what the lower bound would be. I priced a
kit about 2 years ago. It was about $2k from a company back East.
>I picked up some SAE papers in December on the
>topic. One paper describes some recent developments on electronically
>controlled direct cylinder injection for NG but it is definitely
>still in the experimental stage.
Right again. Direct injection of NG is a pain, at best.
If you have a small diesel available, just start it up and set the
throtle at about 25%. Valve some propane or NG into the air intake
and see what happens.
--
E. Michael Smith e...@apple.COM
'Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has
genius, power and magic in it.' - Goethe
I am not responsible nor is anyone else. Everything is disclaimed.
Dean Alaska
There is a lot of speculation going around here about financing these
improvements, but not many actual numbers. I assume that Steinn's
frequency axis above means contribution to consumption for the
technology whose cost for replacement is on the horizontal axis.
The cheapest replacements are for residential and commercial
lighting, and their "frequency" is modest, though not trivial.
The single component with the highest frequency has a moderate
cost.
What I fail to see is why Steinn thinks the relationship
of these two figures would produce a curve that fits any continuous
model, be it exponential or a polynomial. There is no coherence
between different technologies and their related costs and uses.
I will examine the EPRI report, which provides these very numbers,
and report back.
--
==============================================================================
Dean Myerson (aka dingo in boulder) de...@vexcel.com
==============================================================================
Steinn Sigurdsson
There is a lot of speculation going around here about financing these
improvements, but not many actual numbers. I assume that Steinn's
frequency axis above means contribution to consumption for the
technology whose cost for replacement is on the horizontal axis.
This is meant to be a differential distribution, with cost per kWh
saved on the horizontal axis and energy consumption weighed frequency
on the vertical axis. Basically the curve says you can make some rapid
gain cheaply, that somewhat more expensive efficiency gains are
available for moderate costs and the remaining efficiency gains
increasingly hit diminishing returns and that there are a lot of
efficiencies attainable in principle (_more_ than the "easy"
efficiency gains) which are expensive. The graph was very deliberately
scale free!
The cheapest replacements are for residential and commercial
lighting, and their "frequency" is modest, though not trivial.
The single component with the highest frequency has a moderate
cost.
What I fail to see is why Steinn thinks the relationship
of these two figures would produce a curve that fits any continuous
model, be it exponential or a polynomial. There is no coherence
between different technologies and their related costs and uses.
??? Any distribution is going to have a differential curve
that is continuous with even moderate graining (note finite resolution
of x-axis) - unless there is a jump discontinuity in the integrated
efficiency attainable. And of course with finite data I can _always_
give you a polynomial fit. The curve I presented is a conjectured
coarse grained curve - it may have lots of small bumps, I may have got the
intermediate behaviour badly wrong but I contend I got the endpoints
qualitatively right, discarding the tail out to infinite costs :-)
I will examine the EPRI report, which provides these very numbers,
and report back.
| Steinn Sigurdsson |Strong and warm and wild and free |
| Lick Observatory |Your laws do not apply to me |
| ste...@lick.ucsc.edu |Come eat and drink and sleep with me |
| "standard disclaimer" |We can be what we want to be - B.B. 1991 |
Dean Alaska
| *
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----*-------*----*------------------------
0 1 2 3 4
Horizontal axis: cents/kWh capital and installation cost
amortized over the life of the unit (5% discount rate)
Vertical axis: Maximum Savings Potential (billion kWh)
The energy savings are from potential DSM programs and do not
include efficiency gains that would normally occur without
such programs which increases the numbers by 40%.
The energy savings are described as the conservative case. The
optimistic case almost doubles the figures. That would make the
total savings about 1.5 TWh. For the conservative case, there are
some components at higher costs but a total of over 700 billion kWh
of savings are available below 4 cents with another 120 billion
or so between 4 cents and 13 cents. Those savings that add up
to the 700 billion kWh at the 5% discount rate range up to
almost 8 cents at a 20% discount rate with the majority still
under 6 cents. 1990 technology is assumed for efficiency
improvements. Pardon the ascii resolution.
My source: EPRI report CU.3032.12.90 "End-Use Energy Efficiency" p. 14
EPRI source: Barakat & Chamberlin, Inc.;
New England Energy Policy Council
Well, Steinn, I think you would need a pretty high order polynomial to
fit to this data (or a hell of a lot of breakpoints :).
Steinn Sigurdsson
In article <STEINLY.93...@topaz.ucsc.edu> ste...@topaz.ucsc.edu (Steinn Sigurdsson) writes:
>In article <1993Jan12....@vexcel.com> de...@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
>
> In article <STEINLY.93...@topaz.ucsc.edu> ste...@topaz.ucsc.edu (Steinn Sigurdsson) writes:
> >In article <1993Jan11.2...@michael.apple.com> e...@michael.apple.com (E. Michael Smith) writes:
> >
> > I can say it is by definition since I see it as a question of looking
> > at a large sample space (ALL the economy) and looking for the (mean/
> >Not adequate: consider this postulated distribution of costs vs
> >frequency for energy sources in the community.
> >
> >
> > f
> > |
> > |
> > | *
> > | *
> > |* *
> > | * *
> > | * *
> > | * *
> > | * *
> > | * *
> > | * *
> > | * * *
> > | ***
> > |
> > |____________________________________ $$$
> >
> >Neither the mean nor the mode have the properties you desire,
> >and I contend this is a not unreasonable model of reality...
>
>on the vertical axis. Basically the curve says you can make some rapid
>gain cheaply, that somewhat more expensive efficiency gains are
>available for moderate costs and the remaining efficiency gains
>increasingly hit diminishing returns and that there are a lot of
>efficiencies attainable in principle (_more_ than the "easy"
>efficiency gains) which are expensive. The graph was very deliberately
>scale free!
> ??? Any distribution is going to have a differential curve
>that is continuous with even moderate graining (note finite resolution
>of x-axis) - unless there is a jump discontinuity in the integrated
>efficiency attainable. And of course with finite data I can _always_
>give you a polynomial fit. The curve I presented is a conjectured
| *
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| *
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----*-------*----*------------------------
0 1 2 3 4
Horizontal axis: cents/kWh capital and installation cost
amortized over the life of the unit (5% discount rate)
Vertical axis: Maximum Savings Potential (billion kWh)
The energy savings are from potential DSM programs and do not
include efficiency gains that would normally occur without
such programs which increases the numbers by 40%.
My source: EPRI report CU.3032.12.90 "End-Use Energy Efficiency" p. 14
EPRI source: Barakat & Chamberlin, Inc.;
New England Energy Policy Council
Well, Steinn, I think you would need a pretty high order polynomial to
fit to this data (or a hell of a lot of breakpoints :).
Try rebinning it in groups of three! I'd also be very interested in
the graph past 50mill/kWh!
Why, I get a perfect fit with only a 15th order polynomial,
what's the problem?