Nuclear power: the new generation

The new Finnish nuclear reactor at Olkiluoto (OLK3)
The new Finnish nuclear reactor at Olkiluoto (OLK3)

Nuclear power may or may not be an unfortunate necessity. But a look at Finland should temper any optimism about construction costs.

The government’s decision in early January 2007 to support (or, more precisely, not oppose) the construction of nuclear power plants in the UK prompted strongly felt responses from all sides. To the electricity generating industry, nuclear power represents an attractive way of reducing emissions. To most – but by no means all – environmentalists, the push for more nuclear power is both a mistake and a missed opportunity: a mistake because no country has yet shown that nuclear waste can be stored effectively, and a missed opportunity because nuclear baseload generation reduces the incentive to develop wind and tidal power.

This article looks at what we can learn from the building of the nuclear power station at Olkiluoto (OLK3) on the western coast of Finland. The ground works started here in early 2004 and the plant is now due to open in 2011. Does this project give us confidence that nuclear power stations can be constructed at a reasonable cost and to a reliable timescale?

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The promise of cellulosic biofuels

Switchgrass biofuel crop
Switchgrass biofuel crop

Will next-generation biofuels have a less destructive effect on agriculture? A study just published by US government scientists suggests that so-called ‘cellulosic’ ethanol has much better energy balance than today’s biofuels.[1] By energy balance, we mean the energy used to make the fuel compared to its energy value when burnt in a car’s engine. News summaries of the paper’s contents focused on one estimate that suggested that to make cellulosic biofuels might only need 6% of the energy value contained in the fuel. Depending on which crop is used, where it is grown, and how it is refined, most of today’s biofuels have only a weakly positive energy balance. So the paper gives hope that we might expect considerable progress towards carbon-neutral transport fuels when we can start refining all vegetable matter, not just foodstuffs, into fuels.

Cellulosic biofuels may well become important sources of motor fuels. There is certainly huge amounts of money flowing into the field. Unfortunately none of the news articles covering the US research pointed out the technology for turning cellulose into fuel is still a long way from commercial viability. Yes, we can turn grass into ethanol, but at prices which will double the price of petrol. And the greenhouse gas savings will almost certainly not be as attractive as the paper suggests, not least because the authors did not include the serious impact of nitrous oxide emissions from fertilised fields.

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Carbon uptake by plants and trees is vulnerable to autumn warming

Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere rise by about 2-3 parts per million every year and the rate is slowly increasing. As well as this upward trend, there is an annual cycle: carbon dioxide levels fall in the northern hemisphere summer and rise strongly in the winter. The reason is that most of the vegetated land area is in the northern hemisphere and during the northern summer plants and trees absorb CO2.One effect of increasing spring and autumn temperatures has been to increase the length of what is loosely called ‘the growing season’. Plant growth can start earlier in spring and can continue until later. It might be thought that this would help vegetation take up more CO2, acting as a counterweight to increased fossil fuel use.

Research published in Nature in early January very strongly suggests that this is not happening. Warmer autumns are associated with a bringing forward of the date at which plants start losing CO2, not the reverse. Higher spring and autumn temperatures are tending to decrease the length of the period each year in which northern hemisphere plants are taking up carbon. If this research is confirmed, this is yet another potential positive feedback because higher temperatures might diminish the ability of biomass to take up carbon.

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Carbon capture at E.ON's Kingsnorth coal plant

E.ON's planned Kingsnorth supercritical coal plant
E.ON's planned Kingsnorth supercritical coal plant

E.ON’s plan to install supercritical coal-burning technology on its Kingsnorth site in Kent was (unsurprisingly) supported by the planning authority. A more interesting question is why E.ON persisted with the application in the first place. Even carbon efficient power stations emit far more carbon than gas plants. A high price of carbon would make the Kingsnorth coal plant uneconomic. The answer to the question must be that E.ON is confident that supercritical coal plants can be economically retrofitted with carbon capture technology (CCS). So even if the carbon price increases dramatically, coal will still be competitive.

E.ON’s US operation is closely aligned with the co-operative FutureGen venture, which plans to build a coal gasification plant in the US within five years. This power station will then capture CO2 and store it in sandstone. FutureGen gasification carbon capture technology is ‘pre-combustion’, unlike the ‘post-combustion’ focus in Europe. US electric utilities are now assuming that coal plants without CCS will not be allowed. But in both the US and Europe there seems to be a prevailing assumption that a $30 per tonne CO2 price is sufficient to cover the cost of CCS technology, meaning coal will eventually be back in the power station mix.

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Patagonia: a clothing company that wears its heart on its organic cotton sleeve

The US drags its feet in climate negotiations. A few hours after being harassed into signing the Bali accord, the White House started to distance itself from the hazy targets agreed by the rest of the developed world. But some American companies lead the world in environmental policies. The best businesses disclose more about their manufacturing processes and their carbon footprint than almost any European or Asian companies. One of the best examples is Patagonia, a highly-regarded maker of specialist outdoor clothing. To jaded European eyes, its environmental plans look almost embarrassingly earnest and idealistic. The admissions of its own weaknesses are delivered with a humility that we rarely see on this side of the Atlantic. What UK business would voluntarily describe the production processes of one of its key products as ‘not sustainable’? Or admit that a complex chemical in the water repellent used in its outer garments (and those of all its competitors) is highly persistent and building up in the environment?

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Biodiesel from algae

AlgaeShell announced an investment in a Hawaii-based plant to make biodiesel from algae. Algae are the most promising route to low-cost fossil fuel replacements. Yields per acre will eventually be a multiple of other sources of liquid fuels, such as maize, wheat and palm oil. The other key advantage of algae is that they can be used to sequester carbon dioxide from fossil fuel combustion.

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UK offshore wind farm development

The UK government has announced an intention to allow offshore wind farm development around most of the UK. John Hutton suggested that about 33 GW capacity could be added by 2020. This would provide about 25% of current UK electricity demand (which is itself rising by 1 to 2% per year).

Simple calculations suggest that this change may add about 15-25% to UK electricity bills. Offshore wind is more expensive to construct and operate than onshore wind farms. The announcement may suggest that the government believes that offshore wind can be pushed through but that onshore farms are likely to be successfully opposed. The big push for offshore wind seems to mean that the government is losing faith in nuclear.

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Household batteries

Inventions that take the breath away with their simplicity and elegance are rare. The new rechargeable batteries from USBCell qualify for this honour. As their name indicates, they are AA batteries that are recharged by the USB port on a laptop or other powered device. They are not cheap, but will repay the investment by being far easier to recharge than conventional rechargeable AAs. The carbon savings from these batteries are not large. My calculation is that they might save 10kg of CO2 a year in a household full of portable devices. But they will, of course, reduce the waste going into landfill.

The company that makes the batteries has won some important awards for its innovation. More importantly, it also has some extremely interesting views on the evolution of home electricity demand. It correctly points out that a larger and larger fraction of home energy is used in 12V, not 240V appliances. We waste a lot of energy switching 240V AC down to 12V DC. Its next products include a box that will allow all DC devices (phones, handheld consoles, laptops) to be efficiently charged. Eventually, it will be possible to use cheap(-ish) solar power collectors to charge all the battery DC devices in the home. The savings in carbon would be worthwhile (but probably outweighed by the purchase of one extra TV).

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Conservative Party policy on local generation of electricity and heat

The Conservative Party published a policy paper in early December on decentralised production of energy. It argues for heavy subsidy for small-scale generation of electricity. The report is useful in focusing on the need to minimise the finance and administrative burdens on small generators. However, it omits any consideration of the costs of the scheme it proposes. It is woefully ill-informed about developments in other countries. The Conservatives have subscribed to a romantic view about micro-generation and are choosing to ignore the huge costs of subsidising inefficient local generators. If they want large-scale low-carbon generation they should either back nuclear, remove the planning problems with wind, subsidise tidal or biomass power, or invest in CO2 capture.

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CBI/McKinsey report on climate change

The CBI brought out a report on climate change. It argues that the UK can achieve emissions reductions at a sufficiently rapid rate to meet the government’s old target of 60% cuts by 2050. The optimism is underpinned by McKinsey work that assesses 120 different options for reducing carbon dioxide, ranging from domestic solar panels to carbon capture. McKinsey assesses what carbon price is necessary to create the incentives for business and consumers to switch to using these technologies. The McKinsey analysis appears to show that getting the UK on track will need carbon prices in excess of €90 by 2020, though this number will then fall.

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Smart metering

The world understands ‘smart metering’ in many different ways. Gordon Brown used the expression in his first speech on climate change. He meant devices that give visual real-time indication of electricity consumption, largely in homes. To the UK Conservative Party (see this issue of Carbon Commentary) it means conventional meters that can record the export of electricity from a house, as well as its use. Smart meters are much more useful than either of these two definitions suggest. Their primary value will be to adjust the price of electricity depending on the level of demand. This frightens politicians because they fear the backlash from users complaining of the horrendous cost of peak-time electricity use. But if we are to increase the percentage of electricity coming from intermittent and/or unreliable sources, smart meters are a necessity.

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Heathrow expansion

The government announced that it was minded to allow Heathrow to expand. A new runway and sixth terminal will increase capacity from 480,000 to 702,000 flights. The government’s consultation documents – totalling hundreds of pages – did not provide an estimate of the impact on CO2 emissions. In this article, we offer a tentative figure of about 16m tonnes as the potential maximum impact of the proposed expansion. After multiplying by 2.7 to account for the other pollutants created by aviation, the increase takes the total UK emissions from aviation up to 144m tonnes of CO2 equivalent.

Another piece in this newsletter discusses Gordon Brown’s statement in the same week that total UK emissions from all sources may need to fall to no more 155m tonnes by 2050.

The disjunction between government policies on aviation and climate change is startling.

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Community-owned wind farms

In Denmark and Germany, large numbers of individuals own shares in local wind farms. If the government encouraged this in the UK, a large part of the local opposition would disappear. Onshore wind farms in windy locations are good investments which could form an effective part of many people’s pension plans. One of the few co-operatively owned wind farms in the country has almost finished raising its funds. Investors have put up £3m to buy two existing turbines in the Fens. Locally owned wind farms should be encouraged as a cost effective means of cutting emissions.

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Eco housebuilding

After decades of foot-dragging, the UK construction industry has begun to see the importance of good insulation and higher environmental performance. Large housebuilders are beginning voluntarily to build their major developments to a better standard than required by building regulations.

Housebuilders also see the increasing commitment by government to increasing the mandatory standards for home insulation and other environmental characteristics. By 2016, all new homes will have to be ‘zero carbon’.

A report just released by estate agents Knight Frank examines whether buyers are prepared to pay the cost of the eco-improvements. The answer seems to be a cautious ‘yes’.

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Shai Agassi and the big batteries

TeslaShai Agassi, the California-based software superstar who wanted to run SAP but left the company in March when he didn’t get the top job, has come back into the spotlight as the CEO of an electric car start-up. The new company is funded by $200m of venture capital and investment bank money. This makes it one of the best-funded start-ups in history. Agassi does not intend to make electric cars. Wisely, he is leaving this to the auto industry. He is focusing on the batteries. He’ll lease them to anybody with an appropriate car and he’ll develop large networks of ‘filling stations’ where the driver can quickly take out a discharged battery and swap it for a fully charged version on long journeys. By 2010, he wants a hundred thousands electric cars on the roads of California and elsewhere.

The obstacles are huge. Although lithium-iron-phosphate battery technology is improving rapidly, and will continue to do so for decades, full-size car batteries now cost at least €7,000. Getting mainstream manufacturers to build large volumes of electric cars that will take his batteries is another formidable challenge. Third, he has to persuade retailers to install the equipment to swap batteries automatically.

But our weary European scepticism needs to be rested for a moment. The long-run economics favour this idea. My sums suggest that at current UK petrol prices it costs at least six times more to drive a mile on petrol than it does on electricity. Battery prices will fall and performance will improve. At some point it is going to be so much cheaper to power a car with electrons rather than octane that even the slothful auto industry will switch. When the market has tipped it won’t be long before passenger cars are all electric. Agassi may be too early, and his business model may require too much capital, but electric cars are coming soon.

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Hillary Clinton’s climate change plans

Hillary ClintonThe US presidential contenders are laying out their plans for climate change mitigation and adaptation. Mrs Clinton’s proposals are noteworthy for their commitment to re-engage with the global negotiations over future emissions caps and for her ambitious acceptance of the need for an 80% reduction in US emissions by 2050. The 80% target is rapidly becoming the preferred option of world politicians, a more ambitious target than the UK’s 60% figure. (The UK’s Climate Change bill will allow the new Climate Change Committee to recommend an increase to 80% if appropriate.) Mrs Clinton espouses a cap-and-trade system for US emissions. Unlike the EU’s approach, she proposes to auction the permits. She will continue the disastrous US policy of encouraging the conversion of corn to bioethanol. She looks to renewable electricity to provide 25% of US power.

She will add to federal expenditure on R+D, but the number proposed is insufficient to have much effect. She stresses the high cost of energy (gas, motor fuels and electricity) to American citizens but not does mention that the impact of her measures will be to increase energy costs, not reduce them.

Mrs Clinton’s plan is calm and measured. Contrast her statesmanlike tone with David Crane, the CEO of a large electricity generating company, in a 14 October article in the Washington Post. Crane writes, ‘We are not running out of time, we have run out of time’ [his italics]. He argues that the US government should put an immediate price on carbon emissions to incentivise a rapid switch to carbon capture and storage in the US power sector. His tone is desperate: ‘I am a carboholic’ but I want to stop, he writes. We could all do with a similar sense of urgency from Mrs Clinton.

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