At times, the choir can be a trifle, dare I say, obtuse. Several of the more honest members have challenged my statement that, if the marginal capacity factor is low enough, solar, wind, and nuclear are high CO2 sources of power and gas is a low CO2 source. It's time to put some numbers on that claim. Table 1 shows the GKG Grid Model's current Base Case estimates of fixed and variable CO2 emissions for a range of technologies. Fixed CO2 are the CO2 emissions associated with providing the capacity. Variable CO2 are the emissions created when the plant generates a kWh of electricity.
Right on. As we say in Earth Is a Nuclear Planet, the world must decarbonize as fast as humanely possible. Natural gas is a giant improvement over burning coal, wood, and dung. Demonizing all carbon fuels helps no one.
There is no such thing as a fully decarbonized world. The point of this piece is that, even if all you care about is grid CO2, a grid which has some fossil capacity will emit less CO2 than one in which no fossil is allowed, since fossil is the low fixed CO2 source.
Exactly. And the point of my comment is that demonizing any and all fossil fuel inspires futile attempts to totally decarbonize the grid. This leads to depriving poor people of natural gas -- a huge improvement over wood, coal, and dung, which increases carbon emissions.
What if we were to assume a much lower fixed cost on nuclear, like maybe a ThorCon instead of an APR1400? Couldn't we get the cost of nuclear comparable to gas? Then it would make sense to just go all nuclear, and save the cost of gas peakers. To put it in simple terms - if I'm still around 10 years from now, with low-cost nuclear readily available, and I needed an extra 100 MW to cover those demand peaks, would I order a slightly larger MSR in an existing building, or add a new building with some gas peakers. With solar PV, we have no choice. We are now adding 200 MW of solar, backed by 200 MW of gas.
If you are campaigning for the most off-key member of the choir, you are doing a good job. The piece very carefully avoided any mention of costs; the point being that, even if you lived in Greta's imaginary, one dimensional world where the only thing that counts is CO2 you want some fossil capacity on yr grid. Gas/oil CAPEX will always be less than nuclear CAPEX. As soon as you bring costs in, all the cross-over points move to the right. That's why the GKG grid model always installs some OCGT capacity even tho in these ignore-cost figures CCGT dominates OCGT.
I have done some GKG Grid Model runs at ThorCon's should-cost, this is still true. See also
the top row of Figure 2 in Expensive Nuclear's Dirty Secret. These are LWR should-cost runs. Note the gas capacities. If you want a situation in which the model never uses any fossil regardless of the Social Cost of Carbon you will need to come up with a nuclear whose fixed CO2 and whose CAPEX are both smaller than gas/oil. In this piece, the implied SCC was infinity, in which case you will only need a nuclear whose fixed CO2 is less than gas/oil.
Unless we scrap the currently regualtory system, there will be no low cost nuclear in the US, not ten years from now, not 50 years from now.
Sorry to be off-key in yr choir, but please bear with me. I started learning this stuff only two years ago, coming from the anti-nuclear-by-default world most journalists are still in. I certainly don't want any part of Greta's illogical world.
I know you are talking about "cost" not in dollars, but in kgCO2/kWi, so I'll try to be more clear and say $ cost or CO2 cost, and not conflate the two.
I am assuming that the future CO2 costs for different generators would be simply that of the materials to build them in large-scale production, no regulatory costs. The APR1400, or any PWR, needs a huge amount of steel and concrete, not needed for an MSR.
ThorCon is claiming they can build an entire 500 MW plant for $800-$1000 per kW. Assuming the nuclear part of that is 25% (I'm guessing), how does that compare with the dollar cost of OCGT? Can we assume this same ratio for the materials, and then the CO2 cost of those materials?
Finally, when we determine the CO2 cost of materials, can we allow for the fact that much of the primary energy for mining and processing will come from nuclear, not fossil generators.
Right on. As we say in Earth Is a Nuclear Planet, the world must decarbonize as fast as humanely possible. Natural gas is a giant improvement over burning coal, wood, and dung. Demonizing all carbon fuels helps no one.
Mike,
There is no such thing as a fully decarbonized world. The point of this piece is that, even if all you care about is grid CO2, a grid which has some fossil capacity will emit less CO2 than one in which no fossil is allowed, since fossil is the low fixed CO2 source.
Exactly. And the point of my comment is that demonizing any and all fossil fuel inspires futile attempts to totally decarbonize the grid. This leads to depriving poor people of natural gas -- a huge improvement over wood, coal, and dung, which increases carbon emissions.
Sorry. I misinterpreted your comment.
What if we were to assume a much lower fixed cost on nuclear, like maybe a ThorCon instead of an APR1400? Couldn't we get the cost of nuclear comparable to gas? Then it would make sense to just go all nuclear, and save the cost of gas peakers. To put it in simple terms - if I'm still around 10 years from now, with low-cost nuclear readily available, and I needed an extra 100 MW to cover those demand peaks, would I order a slightly larger MSR in an existing building, or add a new building with some gas peakers. With solar PV, we have no choice. We are now adding 200 MW of solar, backed by 200 MW of gas.
MacQuigg,
If you are campaigning for the most off-key member of the choir, you are doing a good job. The piece very carefully avoided any mention of costs; the point being that, even if you lived in Greta's imaginary, one dimensional world where the only thing that counts is CO2 you want some fossil capacity on yr grid. Gas/oil CAPEX will always be less than nuclear CAPEX. As soon as you bring costs in, all the cross-over points move to the right. That's why the GKG grid model always installs some OCGT capacity even tho in these ignore-cost figures CCGT dominates OCGT.
I have done some GKG Grid Model runs at ThorCon's should-cost, this is still true. See also
the top row of Figure 2 in Expensive Nuclear's Dirty Secret. These are LWR should-cost runs. Note the gas capacities. If you want a situation in which the model never uses any fossil regardless of the Social Cost of Carbon you will need to come up with a nuclear whose fixed CO2 and whose CAPEX are both smaller than gas/oil. In this piece, the implied SCC was infinity, in which case you will only need a nuclear whose fixed CO2 is less than gas/oil.
Unless we scrap the currently regualtory system, there will be no low cost nuclear in the US, not ten years from now, not 50 years from now.
Sorry to be off-key in yr choir, but please bear with me. I started learning this stuff only two years ago, coming from the anti-nuclear-by-default world most journalists are still in. I certainly don't want any part of Greta's illogical world.
I know you are talking about "cost" not in dollars, but in kgCO2/kWi, so I'll try to be more clear and say $ cost or CO2 cost, and not conflate the two.
I am assuming that the future CO2 costs for different generators would be simply that of the materials to build them in large-scale production, no regulatory costs. The APR1400, or any PWR, needs a huge amount of steel and concrete, not needed for an MSR.
ThorCon is claiming they can build an entire 500 MW plant for $800-$1000 per kW. Assuming the nuclear part of that is 25% (I'm guessing), how does that compare with the dollar cost of OCGT? Can we assume this same ratio for the materials, and then the CO2 cost of those materials?
Finally, when we determine the CO2 cost of materials, can we allow for the fact that much of the primary energy for mining and processing will come from nuclear, not fossil generators.