Eighteen separate plants with 28 individual utility-scale nuclear projects are working their way through the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Each share a common characteristic with their operating cousins built in the 1970’s and 1980’s: their actual construction price will be far more than today’s estimates–generally between $8,000 to $10,000/kW. (And as I will explain in a separate post next week, micro nuclear, such as designed 125 MW and 335 MW models, is no panacea with cost problems associated with first generation technology.)
Hoping to reduce the rate of construction cost increases, utilities today are using lump sum pricing and standardized designs to better manage the construction and completion risks. However, nuclear fuel price uncertainty–both purchase and disposal of spent fuel costs–may also push up future operating costs. Future nuclear fuel reprocessing is the answer everywhere but the U.S.…
Continue ReadingIn response to my recent post about whether passenger trains save energy, a reader asked about the “life-cycle costs of both forms [rails vs. highways] of transportation.”
Such a life-cycle analysis was the focus of a study by researchers at UC (Berkeley), which I mentioned in the previous post (but incorrectly identified as UC Davis).
Their answer is that neither form of transportation is clearly superior to the other; it depends on such things as load factors. Japan’s bullet train from Tokyo to Osaka, which serves more than 60 million people in a 300-mile corridor, is probably more efficient than driving. But the same train from (say) Eugene, Oregon, to Seattle would probably be a huge waste of resources because it would not likely fill enough seats to justify the energy costs of construction.…
Continue ReadingKen Maize’s recent post arguing for a strong grid instead of a smart one made an important point: the Smart Grid is largely an assortment of tweaks and minor fixes that lets America’s utilities get by with the transmission status quo to cope with the growing demand and integration of intermittent renewables.
Policy should instead aim at a strong grid. Redundancies and “excess” capacity could better maintain reliability and lower delivered power costs in a world of monopoly utilities. It would also facilitate market transactions if competitive retail and wholesale power markets prevail.
Maize has well-founded concerns about how utilities in a smart-grid world will
… Continue Reading1) administer their new gizmo-heavy systems;
2) justify the benefits that small consumers will get in return for higher bills, and
3) make up for the prospect for increased vulnerability to innocent or serious hacking.