Chemical Technology May 2016

COMMENT

by Dr Anthonie Cilliers, Pr.Eng The case for nuclear power

I am extremely pro-nuclear, not because I work in the industry. I work in the nuclear industry because I cannot see a viable alternative for supplying the country with clean energy. Maybe I am missing some- thing; I hear on a daily basis about renew- able energy being able to supply all the needs of the country. When I do the calcula- tions, however, things simply don’t add up. Based on information from the US Energy Information Administration (eia.gov) the capac- ity factor for nuclear was 92,2 % in 2015 in the US, with wind at 32,5 %, PV at 28,6 % and solar thermal at 22,7 %. This is average data over the entire year for a very large country, so the notion that the wind is always blowing somewhere simply is not true. To put this data into perspective we need to calculate how to install a stable MW of elec- tricity from these sources. One MW installed wind will provide on average 325 kW over the entire year, 1 MW PV 286 kW, thermal solar 227 kW and nuclear, 92 2 kW. This also means that for an equivalent wind and nuclear MW, 2,84 times the capacity of wind needs to be installed. (For solar this factor is 3.22, for PV and 4.06 for thermal solar.) Since these sup- plies are still intermittent, an equal amount of storage still need to be installed, thus these storage mediums are, in my estimation, 80 % efficient, at best. This brings the factor for wind to 3,408, PV to 3,864 and thermal solar to 4,872. When comparing cost, we are talking about cost per installed kW. We then translate that to kWh to determine the cost per unit of electric- ity. From my calculation above it is clear that installed kW does not translate directly to kWh. If we make the (very incorrect) assumption that the storage medium costs the same per kW of storage as the generating capacity, we see that the cost to install a nuclear equivalent kW of wind will rise to 4,408 times that of the peak

capacity installation cost. (For PV this factor is 4,864 and for thermal solar, 5,872.) While some claim that the cost of wind en- ergy can be as low as 57c/kWh, the real base load price rises to R2,51/kWh, for PVs, R2,77/ kWh and for solar thermal, R3,35/kWh. This is if I assume all sources can provide a kWh at 57c/kWh when available. Unfortunately, reliability has a price tag. The other argument is that renewable en- ergy (RE) can augment gas turbine electricity production. Here the calculation is simpler. If, for every 1 MW of gas turbine supply we install 1MWof RE, it will simply result in a reduction of one’s gas bill by 32,5 %, 28,6 % and 22,7 % re- spectively. Based on the additional capital cost of the installations I am not sure if this viable. Germany’s case is an interesting one. With a total installed base of 39 698 MW of solar PVs in the country, the capacity factor in Germany for PVs is at 14 %. That results in an average capacity of 5 557,72 MW over a year. With storage of 6 000 MW being 80 % efficient, they would have 4446,18 MW of solar base load capacity available. Because of this, this massive PV capacity only contributes 6,2 % of the consumed kWh in the country. I am not against RE. Not at all, I believe it has a place, but when I hear comments that the uncertainty of the price of nuclear power will prevent us from moving forward, I cannot help but wonder how the other energy sources costs stack up. Nuclear power has unique capabilities that make it impossible even to consider a low carbon energy future without it being part of the mix. I would welcome any comments. I truly want to find solutions for the country to be real and effective.

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Email Dr Anthonie Cilliers at: Anthonie.Cilliers@nwu.ac.za, or telephone: +27 18 299 1312.

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Chemical Technology • May 2016