Australia Unto UAE

Just for fun, let’s combine a couple of topics into something miasmic – who knows, maybe even phantasmagoric. Lately, we’ve noted that despite some expectation in the press that nuclear energy would go gently into that long night, it seems be staying out in the daylight. Even countries that have notably downbeat on ever implement nuclear energy have shown at least shivers of interest.

Thus, this editorial in the Canberra Times:

The United Arab Emirates is not a country that springs to mind as one in need of nuclear power. The small federation on the Arabian peninsula has oil reserves ranked as the world's sixth largest, and could conceivably use this resource to generate cheap and plentiful power for decades.

The news hook here is that UAE has pacted with Australia for some of its plentiful uranium to run its reactors, but I found the Canberra Times’ bluntness, which can sound a little rude to American ears, to be refreshing:

Although the UAE's foreign minister stressed that it was not a commercial export agreement, anti-nuclear campaigners in Australia criticized the development, saying that not only was it out of step with energy developments elsewhere in the world, but that it risked adding to the region's volatility.

Such anti-nuclear sentiment is routine in the environment movement, though seldom accurate or rationally based.

The editorial takes a swing at the German decision to close plants, saying that “it is by no means clear that this is practicable or advisable.”

Can’t say there’s anything to disagree with here, but it does beg the question, what then about Australia, mate?

It makes good sense for the UAE to go nuclear: doing so allows it to save its non-renewable oil for export rather than using it to generate electricity, and significant new economic development opportunities will be created in the process. Would that Australia was similarly pragmatic about its own long-term energy strategies.

Not to tell an Australian his or her business, but just wait. It only seems a matter of time.

PS: The headline is great: Dismiss Nuclear Energy at Peril – although, to be honest, the editorial doesn’t match its headline that well.

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And it we’re going to tweak Australia with the UAE even if inadvertently, it only seems proper to see how the UAE is doing with its nuclear facility.

The United Arab Emirates geared up Wednesday to begin construction of its first nuclear energy plant after the oil-rich country's nuclear regulator gave its blessing for work to begin.

The green light by the UAE's Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation will make the seven-state federation the first country in more than two and a half decades to begin building its first nuclear power plant.

This happened last month. The home page for the UAE regulator, acronym FANR, is English friendly and worth a visit. Maybe the good English language has to do with the way UAE builds website and perhaps something more to do with FANR’s director, General William Travers, who hails from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Just as a reminder, most of UAE’s seven emirates are very lightly populated (Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah have about 80 percent of the population) and the country in total has about 8.2 million people. That’s almost double its population five years ago, largely due to foreign workers – only about 30 percent of the current population is native Emirati.

The nuclear facility will take some advantage of the fact that most of UAE’s land could be considered remote.

The license covers the construction of the first two reactors of a plant slated for a remote coastal site near the border with Saudi Arabia.

So we know that UAE will be getting uranium from Australia. What about the reactors?

ENEC in late 2009 awarded the $20 billion contract to build the power plant to a consortium led by Korea Electric Power Corp. The Korean company beat out more seasoned atomic power producers in France, Japan and the United States. It will be the first time South Korea is building a nuclear plant overseas.

ENEC is the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corp., which will operate the facility. The first reactor is expected to go online in 2017.

I’ve no real point here – well, maybe that the UAE has been remarkably determined to get a nuclear energy infrastructure up and running and have wasted no time doing so. We’ve been following this since at least 2008 when it still looked as though Abu Dhabi would go it alone with the help of the British. And now ENEC is assembling the pieces it needs to be online by 2017. All this activity has an almost old-fashioned vibe to it, doesn’t it?  - to a time when essential infrastructure projects could go from ideation to fruition in no time flat. (We should note that the American projects in Georgia and South Carolina are zipping right along, too.)

A model of the UAE nuclear energy facility. I may have overlooked it, but it seems not to be named yet. Maybe it’ll be Al Ruwais after the nearest town.

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Can California Survive Climate Change Without the Help of Nuclear Power?

California’s Environmental Protection Agency is required to prepare what are called “periodic science reports on the potential impacts of climate change on the California economy.” This is carried out by the Climate Change Center within the California Energy Commission. The overarching findings contained in the most recent report, ‘Our Changing Climate 2012,’ are seemingly stark:

• “Temperatures in California will rise significantly during this century . . . by 2050, California is projected to warm by approximately 2.7 degrees F above [year] 2000 averages, a threefold increase in the rate of warming over the last century.”
• “Springtime warming – a critical influence on snowmelt – will be particularly pronounced.”
• “Summer temperatures will rise more than winter temperatures . . . Heat waves will be more frequent, hotter, and longer.”
• “Wildfire risk in California will increase as a result of climate change.”

The report (to watch the press conference announcing the findings, click here) also delves into energy use in the state the result of a dramatically warmer climate. No surprise: the report posits longer and appreciably hotter summers will “notably” increase annual household electricity consumption for air conditioning. “Increases in average temperature and higher frequency of extreme heat events combined with new residential development across the state will drive up the demand for cooling in summertime,” the report says.

More than 20 percent of California’s electricity generation today comes from hydro, and of that generation, more than 150 hydro plants – 75 percent of the hydro fleet – are located in high elevation (above 1,000 feet). These sites will be vulnerable to the effects of dryer, warmer conditions, creating diminished snowpack, the report says.

It’s impossible to read the climate change impact report and not conclude that if the projections come to pass, even greater stresses will be placed on California’s baseload generation in the years ahead. In fact, the report concludes the state will need to build more baseload capacity in response to changing conditions. “In the near term, higher temperatures in the next decade could increase demand by up to 1 Gigawatt during hot summer months – a substantial amount that would require the construction of one large new power plant in California or the purchase of costly peak power from external sources.”

Hard to imagine any new coal plants getting sited in California, and there’s a moratorium on building new nuclear. Meanwhile, anti-nuclear groups like Friends of the Earth have swarmed into the state this year and noisily advocated for the permanent shuttering of San Onofre, one of the state’s two nuclear power plant sites, and home to 2,200 megawatts of electricity generation. 

Researchers and environmental scientists in no small numbers believe these forecasted climate conditions are already set in motion, without much hope for reversal, at least not in the next couple of decades. They believe it’s getting hotter and hotter in the Golden state, and that energy consumption will have to rise. Meanwhile, California has mandatory greenhouse gas reduction targets to be met, the first arriving in less than 10 years’ time.

Here at NEI, we take pains to point out that we are not climate scientists, and therefore can't and won't pass judgement on projections like these. If policymakers in California are using this document as a guide for future actions, we can only ask this: can the state and its economy possibly move forward without a clean, reliable and emission-free source of baseload electricity like nuclear energy?

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Upside Down Down Under

I mentioned the other day that nuclear energy is not everyone’s best friend – sad but true - and named Australia as having a particularly long-lived animus toward it. That’s been crumbling over the last few years, as Australia has found it difficult to move forward with its carbon emission reduction plans.
According to the World Nuclear Association, in 2009 Australia generated almost 54 percent of its electricity from black coal, 22 percent from brown coal and 15 percent from natural gas.
That’s not the mix that will achieve the country's goal. Hydro is on the list at 4.5 percent, but other renewables barely register. Australia is rich in resources, a net exporter of coal and uranium (more on this below). And of course, it is blessed with considerable sunshine and wind.
In the meantime, the country has taken an exceptionally aggressive stance on greenhouse gasses by passing new energy legislation (think cap-and-trade married to a carbon tax), encouraging energy efficiency and implementing (and incentivizing) wind and solar energy installations.

The Australian Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency – a nice descriptive title – has more on this.

This aggressive effort to rein in greenhouse gasses may be a bit implausible. The Brookings Institute, a Washington think tank, gets to the heart of this about as well as we could:

Although Australia has approximately 23 percent of the world’s uranium reserves, there is currently no political support for building nuclear power stations. These factors highlight that reducing CO2 emissions from the electricity sector will be significantly more challenging for Australia than for the U.S.

Brookings also offers a chart that updates the World Nuclear Association’s chart of Australia’s energy sources to 2011 – and they’re the same as in 2009.

That may help explain why there has been some thaw among the antipodeans regarding nuclear energy.

Neither major political party formally backs domestic nuclear power, but the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Bob Carr, has said it should remain an option and the Resources Minister, Martin Ferguson, has insisted it is still ''a live debate in Australia, despite the best efforts of the Greens and non-government organizations to demonize the discussion''.

(The major parties are the Liberals – who are <sigh!> conservative – who names these parties, anyway? - and Labor – who are the liberals. Labor has the majority currently, with Julia Gillard as prime minister.)

Some thaw, I admit, not a full-bore melt. At least this leads to an exceptionally lively debate. Imagine an American anti-nuclear group amping up the message to 11 and you get this:

The report on the catastrophic potential of nuclear warfare has important implications for the ongoing debate over nuclear power. Apologists for the nuclear industry trot out any number of furphies [tall tales] in their efforts to distance nuclear power from weapons of mass destruction proliferation, but the facts are in. There is a long history of ostensibly peaceful nuclear programs providing political cover and technical support for nuclear weapons programs — and an expansion of nuclear power can only exacerbate the problem.

Yes, the facts are in. The human race is doomed. Visit www.nei.org for a full measure of furphies.
In contrast, nuclear energy advocates will rarely tread into panacea or utopia-like territory. Still, the more careful language does have an impact:

Nuclear power should be considered if the carbon tax does not make renewable energy competitive against coal and fossil fuels, former chief scientist Robin Batterham has said.

His comments echoed those of the chair of climate change at Adelaide University, Barry Brook, who said last week that it was ''inevitable'' Australia would be forced to choose nuclear power, most likely by 2020.

''If geothermal doesn't deliver fairly quickly, that takes that off the list,'' Professor Batterham said. ''If wind doesn't get its economics an awful lot better fairly quickly, there isn't going to be a big increase [in wind power].''

Well, nothing’s “inevitable” except death and taxes, but Brooks’ insistence does have a zeal to it.  The story goes on to say that Batterham believes that nuclear energy is not the slam dunk Brooks imagines. Still, he says, “Let's make sure we shake a few [energy] alternatives as well as seeing nuclear coming to a house near you.''

So – new nuclear build in Australia next year? Let’s not get crazy. But the presence of a bracing debate and support from key government officials – plus the country’s determination to meet its greenhouse gas emission targets – brings it closer than it’s ever been. Hmm - maybe New Zealand is not as out-of-the-question as it once seemed.

The Ranger uranium mine. Did we mention that Australia has uranium? A lot of uranium. According to the World Nuclear Association, “Australian exports over the last five years have averaged just over 10,000 tons/year U3O8, and in 2009 provided 15.7% of world uranium supply from mines.   Uranium comprises about 35% of the country's energy exports in thermal terms.” Australia holds about 23 percent of the world’s uranium reserves, the largest in the world. Talk about energy security! Now it just needs the facilities to be secure with.

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By the Numbers: The Benefits of New Hampshire’s Seabrook Nuclear Station

Today, the Seabrook Public Library is showing a film that highlights the start of the anti-nuclear power community. The film is about a long-ago protest in 1977 in which activists opposed to nuclear energy tried to occupy the Seabrook plant site during construction. Seabrook finally got built, and in the 22 years since it began producing electricity, it has amassed an impressive record of economic and environmental benefits.

Reliable Electricity

According to the Energy Information Administration, the Seabrook nuclear power reactor (1,247 MW) is the largest in New England and provided 42 percent of New Hampshire's 2011 electricity generation. Since it began commercial operation in 1990, the unit has produced a total of 189,684,433,000 kilowatt-hours, or more than enough electricity to power New York or Illinois for a year.

According to NextEra, its owner, Seabrook generates enough power to supply the annual needs of 1.4 million families and businesses.

Environmental Benefits

If Seabrook wasn’t in operation, the electricity for those 1.4 million families and businesses would likely be generated from fossil fuel plants. In 2011, based on data from EIA and EPA, Seabrook’s clean nuclear electricity avoided the emission of 6,200 tons of sulfur dioxide, 1,400 tons of nitrogen oxide, and 4.0 million metric tons of carbon dioxide that would have otherwise come from fossil fuel plants.

That volume of carbon dioxide is equivalent to the CO2 emissions from 774,000 cars each year. For perspective, there are only 619,000 cars in New Hampshire.

If a coal plant had been built instead of Seabrook, it would have emitted nearly 190 million metric tons of CO2 over 22 years - more than the CO2 emissions from the entire state of New York in 2009. If a natural gas plant had been built instead of Seabrook, it would have emitted nearly 94 million metric tons of CO2 over 22 years - nearly equal to all of Arizona’s CO2 emissions for the whole of 2009. (For background, one metric ton of CO2 is emitted for every megawatt-hour (MWh) generated by a coal plant. Similarly, one-half of a metric ton of CO2 is emitted for every MWh generated by a gas plant.)

Natural Resources Saved

Besides avoiding emissions, operation of the Seabrook nuclear station also avoids massive quantities of coal, natural gas and land resources that would otherwise be consumed in replacing Seabrook’s electricity output.

The amount of coal saved since 1990 is about 95 million short tons, or nearly the amount of coal consumed in a year by Texas - the largest state consumer of coal.

Had Seabrook been a natural gas plant, 1.5 trillion cubic feet of gas would have been consumed since 1990 which is more gas consumed in a year than each of the three largest state consumers of gas: Louisiana, Florida and New York.

(Based on EIA figures, about half a short ton of coal is consumed to generate one MWh and about eight cubic feet of gas is consumed to generate one kWh.)

Besides the amount of coal and gas avoided by Seabrook, it’s useful to point out how much land would be required if the unit were replaced by wind turbines or solar panels. In order to produce the same amount of electricity in a year as Seabrook does, you need about 290 square miles of wind turbines or about 80 square miles of solar panels. The Seabrook station, on New Hampshire’s coast, covers 1.5 square miles.

(The source of the renewable land info is found here and the calculations above account for solar and wind’s low capacity factors.)

Although it doesn’t burn coal or gas, Seabrook does use nuclear fuel. Since it began operation 22 years ago, Seabrook has used 550 metric tons of nuclear fuel. This quantity is small enough to store on Seabrook’s site and even small enough to fit on a Best Buy parking lot, including the fuel assemblies and protective covers.

Economic and Community Benefits

According to NextEra’s website, Seabrook provides many economic benefits to its employees and the community. During normal operations, the station employs 1,100 people. During the refueling and maintenance outages that take place every 18 months, the number of employees doubles to 2,100.

Further, each year, the plant pays $100 million in employee salaries which then trickle down through the economy, and another $20 million in property taxes that goes to the local communities to pay for schools, roads and other public services.

Many More Years of Service

Seabrook is one of the younger nuclear stations in operation and has another 18 years before its current 40-year license expires. The unit has applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to operate for 60 years and there is much discussion and research going on in the industry to determine how nuclear plants can operate for 80 years. Seabrook could be around for quite a few more generations -- helping to avoid emissions and save resources while providing substantial economic benefits and reliable electricity to its community, New Hampshire and New England. As the nuclear critics will celebrate their efforts, in reality, it’s a great thing for the community, and the country, that the station was actually completed and put into service.

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CNN Fails to Provide Context on Heat Waves, Droughts and Power Plants

Earlier today, CNN aired a report by reporter Sandra Endo concerning how high temperatures are impacting the operations of American nuclear energy facilities. In initially reporting the story, CNN failed to contact any party that owns or operates any of the nations 104 nuclear reactors.

After we contacted CNN, NEI's Steve Kerekes was interviewed for an updated version of the story, one that we've been led to believe will air sometime between 5:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. U.S. EDT today.

The following response to the initial CNN report was written by NEI's Thaddeus Swanek:

CNN has aired a report in which it failed to provide context on the water needs of power plants that draw cooling water from lakes, rivers and the ocean. Though all thermal power plants—coal, natural gas and nuclear—use water for cooling purposes, CNN focused solely on nuclear energy facilities.

It also did not mention the electric sector's positive track record for maintaining power production during severe heat waves. Specially, nuclear power plants in many regions suffering extreme heat safely produce electricity 24/7 to keep consumers cool and businesses operating.

Thermoelectric power generation is among the smallest consumptive uses of freshwater by any economic sector, at 3 percent of total consumption—about one-half of residential consumption. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, thermoelectric power generation accounts for 3.3 percent of freshwater consumption nationwide, about the same percentage as the industrial sector (3.4 percent) and raising livestock (3.2 percent). These power plants withdraw more water than any other economic sector, but they return 98 percent of the water they withdraw back to the natural source. Among electricity sources, certain renewable energy systems exceed thermoelectric power plants in water consumption.

Here is a detailed look at the CNN report.

Myth: Only Nuclear Power Plants Need a 'Significant Supply' of Water

The CNN report left the impression that only "...nuclear power plants depend on a significant supply of reliable water to cool reactors." The report failed to mention that all fossil fuel (coal, oil, natural gas) plants need large amounts of water to operate.

The Facts

Nuclear power plants, like all thermal power plants, require significant amounts of water to generate electricity. Companies that operate nuclear power and fossil fuel plants have temperature limits, set by state environmental regulators, for water they discharge from their facilities back into local water bodies. As these water bodies get warmer during heat waves, these facilities may have to cut back on power production in order to meet those limits.

However, this is very rare for nuclear power plants. In fact, nuclear power plants have a track record of keeping electricity flowing even during record-setting heat waves.

Consider these facts:

• The United States experienced 170 high temperature records in June. During that month, America's nuclear power plants—which follow stringent temperature limits on heat discharge—operated at an average of 90 percent capacity factor. Capacity factor is the ratio of the actual energy produced to the maximum possible during a given time period.

• Severe, prolonged heat had a negligible effect on power production from nuclear power plants.

• Nuclear power plant water use is comparable to coal plants. Natural gas plants use less water. (For water usage rates of different electricity generating sources, see the NEI study on water use below).

• Power plants observe the temperature limit of their discharge water as set by the state regulatory authority, which determines the temperature that is safe for fish and plant life. Generally, nuclear energy and fossil-fuel plants return to full power when temperatures conditions in the water bodies allow it.

For more information, see the NEI article "How to Cool a Power Plant" and the NEI study "Water Use, Electric Power, and Nuclear Energy."

Also see NEI's blog for articles on water use during heat waves and droughts here and here.

We'll report back, if warranted, once CNN re-airs the report.

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Almost 700 Million People Without Electricity in India

It's almost impossible to get your arms around the sheer size and scope of the blackout that's struck India over the past two days. Estimates say that about 670 million people are without electricity. As the New York Times noted, that's roughly equivalent to the entire population of Europe or more than the population of North and Central America combined.

By way of comparison, the largest blackout that ever struck North America, the 2003 outage that hit the Northeastern U.S. and parts of Canada, deprived about 50 million people of electricity for about two days. As we've seen in the past, power outages in advanced economies can lead to economic disruption and loss of life -- something that should give all of us pause when considering the magnitude of this event.

I'll close with some words from NEI's Senior Vice President of Government Affairs, Alex Flint:

The earth has 7 billion people on it. Today, 2 billion of those people’s principal source of energy is burning firewood or dung. More than 1 billion people have no access to electricity, and non-OECD electricity growth will far surpass that of OECD countries for several generations.

As we see population growth in those countries, we will see tremendous demand for electricity and energy of all sorts. It’s a moral imperative. There is a correlation between life expectancy and access to electricity.

India, pre- and post-blackout, as seen from Russia's Roskosmos satellite.

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Japanese Contenders

The Times has the story:

The race in Yamaguchi Prefecture between Tetsunari Iida, the founder of a renewable energy research institute and a leading figure in Japan's emerging antinuclear movement, and Shigetaro Yamamoto, a conservative former government official, had been seen as a test of how much the grass-roots protest movement had influenced public opinion.

This is the part that could use a little more elaboration.

Although Mr. Iida lost, the results were encouraging for the antinuclear camp, with a strong showing in a region considered to be a conservative stronghold. With 99 percent of the votes counted, Mr. Yamamoto had received 252,420 votes, or 47.6 percent, to Mr. Iida's 185,567 votes, or 35 percent, according to the public broadcaster NHK.

I assume conservative candidates usually win in Yamaguchi with a higher proportion of the vote, but however you slice it, 35 percent is a dreadful number. To put a different spin on this – and this is about politics, so the name of the game is spin – Iida may have run as a single subject, anti-nuclear energy candidate. Single issue candidates rarely win because constituent interests run to more than one issue in almost any given election.

But, really, what does it matter? If the anti-nuclear crowd wanted this to be a referendum, so be it. They lost. They don’t get to turn a miserable drubbing into some kind of symbolic victory. They get to eat dust for dinner. That’s what happens when you lose. That’s politics.

Tetsunari Iida. We’re being a little harsh here, but really, Mr. Iida may be a perfectly viable candidate in a different context. More issues and close attention to prospective constituents and their needs may do the trick for him, even in a district not in total sync with his views.

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