Comments on Nuke Pro: What is the Real kWH Cost of "New Generation Nuclear"? It's 15 Cents per kWH, The Most Expensive Electricity Source We Can Build

Sending to stock [at] hawaii dot rr dot com ...

2016-07-20T13:08:19.200-07:00

Sending to

stock [at]
hawaii dot rr dot com

Nothing troll-like in your question. In short, wh...

2016-07-20T12:57:29.674-07:00

Nothing troll-like in your question.

In short, whoever does the EIA predictions is a long term crack smoker. They have continued to predict rising prices for wind and solar as prices continue to fall. This goes back a few years.

The DOE has many different parts. The prices for wind and solar I used come from DOE annual price reports. I'm going to copy in my standard info on those prices and where I got them. (Note that these are prices from 2014, 2015 prices will be lower and we should get them a bit later in the year when the annual reports are released.)

Wind = $0.0235/kWh average 2014 PPA (subsidized).

DOE "2014 Wind Technologies Market Report"

http://energy.gov/eere/wind/downloads/2014-wind-technologies-market-report

Solar = $0.05/kWh PPAs (subsidized) being signed in the US Southwest. Working backwards through a LCOE calculation extrapolates a cost of about $0.02 higher for the less sunny Northeast.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory entitled “Utility-Scale Solar 2013: An Empirical Analysis of Project Cost, Performance, and Pricing Trends in the United States”

http://emp.lbl.gov/sites/all/files/utility-scale-solar-2013-report.pdf

PPA prices for wind and solar are lowered about 1.5 cents by PTC (Production Tax Credits). Both wind and solar are eligible for 2.3 cent/kWh tax credits for each kWh produced during their first ten years of operation. Half of 2.3 is 1.15, but getting one's money early has value. That means that the non-subsidized costs of wind are a bit under 4 cents and solar is running 6.5 to 8.5 cents/kWh.

http://energy.gov/savings/renewable-electricity-production-tax-credit-ptc

Now, back to the EIA prediction (fantasy building) office. They are predicting either 32% or 34% of our electricity will come from coal in 2040 (depending on which report you read).

They've made that prediction knowing that 1) coal's market share has been dropping since the late 1990s and was down to 33.2% in 2015, 2) we have about 25% of our coal plants scheduled to close very soon, and 3) the US has quit building coal plants.

(We're on track for coal to produce less than 30% of our electricity in 2016.)

Let me give you a link to an article dealing with other crackadoodle EIA predictions.

http://cleantechnica.com/2014/01/10/horrible-eia-forecasts-letter-cleantechnica-readers/

Bob, not sure if you ever sent those graphs, send ...

2016-07-20T06:13:17.570-07:00

Bob, not sure if you ever sent those graphs, send now and I will post them.

I want to refresh this article into a new one.

CaptD, TY for all your efforts, someday I will sha...

2016-07-20T06:10:33.720-07:00

CaptD, TY for all your efforts, someday I will shake your hand.

Cesium the Day! I can out guess the markets. P...

2016-07-20T06:08:54.296-07:00

Cesium the Day! I can out guess the markets. Printing tens of trillions of dollars will eventually drive inflation. It take a while, but there is no option. Also running a "company" with an annual overspending of 1T is the same as printing, so in a 17T economy that is over a 5% inflation rate just from government overspending.

Currently, the deflationary depression that we have been in is masking the effects of the printing.

Bob: Love your numbers and don't want to be a ...

2016-07-19T22:59:03.869-07:00

Bob: Love your numbers and don't want to be a troll, but I'm curious as to whether you see a discrepancy between your numbers and the EIA LCOE estimates, and, if so, how you would account for those discrepancies. g'luck.

Bob: Good point. I'd also lower the estimate...

2016-07-19T22:49:55.847-07:00

Bob: Good point. I'd also lower the estimated inflation rate. Markets are currently predicting inflation a lot lower than 3%. You need some strong justification to show why you can out-guess the markets.

Foo foo: Let's see, the Germans spent $1T on ...

2016-07-19T22:48:16.649-07:00

Foo foo: Let's see, the Germans spent $1T on 38GW net capacity using 10 year old technology for RE. Nuclear will spend $20G for 1GW net capacity using brand new technology. Hmmm... RE is starting to sound pretty good.

SALUTE to both Bob and Stock for yet another GREAT...

2016-01-09T15:03:18.624-08:00

SALUTE to both Bob and Stock for yet another GREAT discussion with enough factual info that the rest of US can learn how the cost of Nuclear compares with the cost of both PV and Wind.

@ Bob great comment man, keep them coming. Funny ...

2015-10-12T17:03:14.892-07:00

@ Bob great comment man, keep them coming.

Funny how you just can't convince the "true believers" seems like only 1 person out of 10 has the capacity to change their mind.

Lifetime. Let's be generous and give nuclear ...

2015-10-12T12:44:10.061-07:00

Lifetime.

Let's be generous and give nuclear a 15 cent/kwh price for the first 30 years. Then assume normal operating costs of 2 cents/kWh (that fair?) for the next 30. Assume no refurbishing/major repair bills. Now we're averaging 8.5c/kWh.

Assume a 25 year life for wind. Wind is currently selling for just under 4c/kWh on a 20 year PPA and has operating costs of about 1c/kWh after payoff. So 20 years at 4c + 5 years at 1c + 25 years at 4c + .... Let's be hard on wind and say 4c/kWh 60 years. Four cents which includes rebuilding the wind farm twice to stretch it out to 60.

Solar is falling rapidly but let's go with the unsubsidized current price of ~6c/kWh. We don't know how long solar panels last. Our oldest panels are now about 40 years old and going strong. A solar farm built today and producing 6c power during the 20 year payoff is likely to run another 20 years at 1c/kWh. Assume the worst, rip out the solar farm at age 30 and build a new one. Now we're at at about 4.5c/kWh over a 60 year span.

Summary:

Nuclear 8.5c/kWh. Assuming no major repairs. And that's a subsidized price.

Wind 4c/kWh. No subsidies.

PV solar. 4.5c.kWh. No subsidies.

The price of wind is expected to continue to fall, to move somewhere below 3c/kWh. The price of PV solar is expected to fall to 2c (sunny places) to 4c (less sunny places). Nuclear has never seen a price decrease. The 8.5c - 4c gap is fairly sure to widen.

Citigroup estimated the LCOE for the Vogtle plants...

2015-10-12T12:29:01.245-07:00

Citigroup estimated the LCOE for the Vogtle plants at 11 cents/ kWh if there were no further budget overruns. They also said that it is highly unlikely that future plants could reach that 11c price point because they wouldn't have access to the extremely low cost financing rate Vogtle received.

After the Citigroup LCOE was released Vogtle was further delayed enough to add another 2 cents to their cost, making it 13c/kWh.

I'm not sure we should try to make too much of Ivanpah's price Most new tech (and this is a first US build) starts very high, Prices can come down considerably with experience.

Capacity factor is built into the LCOE of electricity. In your second sentence you seem to be wanting to add it in twice.

Pricewise Vogtle is an outlier (very low financing rate). Bids since 2008, had the plants been built, would have meant electricity well over 15 cents/kWh.

Recently new nuclear has been priced out for the North Anna site (North Anna 3). “The cost estimate for its proposed North Anna 3 unit in Virginia now exceeds $19 billion, or about 19 cents per kilowatt-hour”

http://thebulletin.org/what-epa%E2%80%99s-clean-power-plan-means-nuclear-energy8763

Realistically we shouldn't be looking at the cost of Ivanpah. It's highly unlikely that thermal solar without storage could ever compete with PV solar. PV solar (unsubsidized) is now about 6c/kWh in the US SW. It is expected to fall to about 2c/kWh in the sunny places and about 4c/kWh in the less sunny.

Thermal solar, if it gets used, would likely only be used with storage. As a fill in for PV solar and wind.

Nuclear can't compete with a combination of PV solar, wind and storage. If you would like I can flesh out those numbers for you.

NOTHING in this world that moves has a 60 year des...

2015-10-12T11:03:24.107-07:00

NOTHING in this world that moves has a 60 year design life, without extreme measures. For instance, my '66 Mustang already hit 50 years old, and runs great and everything works to spec. But I have rebuilt it (twice)

Systems have an "economic" life, and 30 years is about the right number for most things. House electric systems, at 30 years, replace them, no matter what.

I will be glad to review your economic work up of Ivanpah. Personally I think as R&D it is OK, as an attempt for a real world project, plain stupid.

The difference between nuclear and solar is that solar has to step far outside the box to find a stupid system, nuclear only has to open the pandora box to show it is stupid, sorry I couldn't help it. I will look forward to your analysis.

2 questions? What the basis for 30 year life, the ...

2015-10-12T10:27:40.109-07:00

2 questions?
What the basis for 30 year life, the AP1000 has a 60 year design life.
Can you make the same cost comparision with solar, say the Ivanpah project in Ca and figure in capacity factor for salar (25%) vs nuclear (90%) and determine the recovery costs to the debt.

Ivanpah, 377MW, 25% capacity factor, $2.2B, ($1.7B loan guarantee), 30 year design life.

It appears that Vogtle will have to charge about $12/MW-hr to recoup the construction cost and Ivanpah will be about $100/MW-hr.

What is "Very much like the Stanford study pr...

2015-08-12T23:13:26.055-07:00

What is "Very much like the Stanford study predicted"?

As far as I can tell that slide stack contained little in the way of prediction. It just illustrates the rather obvious. If we manufacture solar at rapidly accelerating rates we could start using more energy than solar panels currently make. And then over a few years that energy would be paid back.

I'm guessing that it's from some undergraduate seminar.

13.94 in 2000. 29.21 in 2014. That's a diffe...

2015-08-12T23:07:02.856-07:00

13.94 in 2000. 29.21 in 2014. That's a difference of 15.27.

" The cost-driver is the EEG Feed-in Act surcharge, which has risen from 0.41 cents in 2003 to 6.24 cents today."

See anything wrong with that statement?

The Feed-in Act surcharge is 6.24 of the 15.27 e-cent difference. 41% of the difference. How can that be THE cost-driver when it represents less than half of the increase.

And where is the credit given to renewables for lowering the wholesale cost of electricity over that period?

No Trick Zone? I'd say Big Fat Liar Zone.

And we're crying big crocodile tears because the coal industry is failing? I guess that makes sense if you're a climate change denier site and are trying to attack renewables.

Very much like the Stanford study predicted: http:...

2015-08-11T21:54:43.941-07:00

Very much like the Stanford study predicted:
http://energyseminar.stanford.edu/sites/all/files/eventpdf/Energy%20Seminar%20April%202nd%202012%20v4.pdf

Was off by 10 years!! In 2000, when the Feed-in A...

2015-08-11T21:51:17.499-07:00

Was off by 10 years!!

In 2000, when the Feed-in Act was introduced, Germans paid only 13.94 cents per kilowatt-hour, which at the time had hardly changed since German reunification in 1991. After the liberalization of the power market in 1998, the price of power even dropped some. Today, in 2014, the price is now 29.21 cents per kilowatt-hour, i.e. it has more than doubled in 14 years. The cost-driver is the EEG Feed-in Act surcharge, which has risen from 0.41 cents in 2003 to 6.24 cents today. It represents 22% of the cost of a kilowatt-hour.
...........
Because of the expansion of renewable energies and because they must be bought first by the power companies, the conventional power plants no longer operate at full-capacity. If the wind blows briskly and the sun is shining, then the conventional power plants must reduce their production. And when the wind dies down and the sun doesn’t shine, then the conventional power production must ramp up again. As a result the capacity utilization and the output of the conventional power plants is substantially reduced and generation becomes inefficient and more costly. A businessman who is only allowed to sell when the weather is bad of course cannot earn anything and would soon go bankrupt. The very same is true today with conventional power in Germany.

Moreover, the situation is getting worse as renewable energy continues to expand. Conventional power plants have since become so uneconomical that power plant operators prefer not to build any new ones and to switch off the old ones. New plants are no longer being planned and old power plants are being left on because the federal government has made it illegal to shut them down in attempt to keep the supply intact. Naturally all the added costs ultimately have to be borne by the power consumer.
.........
http://notrickszone.com/2014/12/07/germanys-electricity-price-more-than-doubles-electrocuting-consumers-and-markets/

Yes, that's comparing the base price to the to...

2015-08-11T20:56:32.571-07:00

Yes, that's comparing the base price to the total price.
My bad.
Thanks for that.

"Have you ever seen a government repeal a tax...

2015-08-11T20:41:21.883-07:00

"Have you ever seen a government repeal a tax in the few years?"

The German FiT charge that retail customers pay is time limited. It goes away as the FiT payments expire. It's not a "tax" but a cost recovery system.

If the German government wanted to keep that money coming they would have to pass a new tax.

I don't know where you got the 13.94 for 2010...

2015-08-11T20:36:33.981-07:00

I don't know where you got the 13.94 for 2010. Eurostat ("The" European official database) states 23.74 for the first half of 2010 in Germany. 29.74 for the last half of 2014.

http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/help/new-eurostat-website

The base price (price with no taxes or levies) of retail electricity for 2010 was 13.81.

I wonder if someone made a 'little mistake"?

German household rates in 2010 were 13.94 eurocen...

2015-08-11T20:14:29.670-07:00

German household rates in 2010 were 13.94 eurocent/kWh
and by 2013 were 29 eurocent/kWh, a 108% increase in 3 years!!!

Enuf said.

Bob, Whether or not it is related to energy is ir...

2015-08-11T20:06:10.287-07:00

Bob,

Whether or not it is related to energy is irrelevant at this point.
Have you ever seen a government repeal a tax in the few years?

It doesn't matter anymore, they are broke, they need the revenue.
Any excuse will do. The camel has it's nose in the tent.

"Continued relief in retail prices depends on...

2015-08-10T22:54:16.538-07:00

"Continued relief in retail prices depends on whether power companies pass savings from lower wholesale prices to consumers, and whether the surcharge levied to fund the Energiewende falls again next year. In any case, a clear downward trend in prices is far from certain."

German subsidies (FiT) are time limited. Within a few years the earliest participates will start aging out. The high retail cost of electricity is due to taxes and some of those taxes are used for covering the subsidy.

The only reason German retail prices wouldn't decrease would be if their government decided to place some additional taxes on the cost of electricity. (Think sales tax. Revenue that goes into the general coffer and has nothing to do with energy.)

Let's look at how costs break out for retail customers in Germany...

In 2013 the average household electricity rate was about 29 € cents / kWh according to the BDEW (Energy industry association).

The composition:

8.0 cent - Power Generation & Sales
6.5 cent - Grid Service Surcharge

5.3 cent - Renewable Energy Surcharge
0.7 cent - Other Surcharges (CHP-Promotion, Offshore liability,...)

In addition there are some taxes & fees that go straight into the government's bank account:

2.1 cent - EcoTax (federal government)
1.8 cent - Concession fees (local governments)
4.6 cent - Value added tax (19% on all of the above) - (federal, state & local governments)

So 8 + 6.5 or 14.5 euro cents go to electricity purchase and delivery. About 19 US cents. That's higher than the US 12.5 cent average, but less than a penny higher than New York and Connecticut.

Value destruction is side effect of progress. Dig...

2015-08-10T22:47:18.722-07:00

Value destruction is side effect of progress.

Digital destroyed the value of Kodak film.
Computers destroyed the value of typewriter companies.
Henry's Model T destroyed the value of buggy makers.
Bronze tips destroyed the value of flint knapping.

While fossil fuels are valuable, have been valuable in the past, they are also very destructive and we must quit using them as quickly as possible.
---

", there does not seem to be any physical evidence for RE to supply more than ~50% of the advanced civilization's energy at this time, unless there is some unexpected breakthrough in the battery paradigm"

Wrong. If we have no further advancement with batteries we could create all the storage we need at an affordable price with pump-up hydro. 100 year old, proven technology and no shortage of places to install.