From: jgd@dixie.com (John De Armond)
Subject: Re: Nuclear Power and Climate Change
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 04:36:39 GMT
Organization: Dixie Communications Public Access.  The Mouth of the South.

dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:


>It seems to be a common conception that nuclear power is a good response 
>to any possible climate change problem.  I have challenged this assumption
>before but I will address in more detail here.  

>	Capital cost:			$1000/installed kW
>	Generation cost:		$.05/kWh
>	Plant construction period:	6 years
>	Capacity factor:		65%
>	Lifetime:			30 years

>	No costs for decommissioning, waste, health impacts or political
>	problems are included

Without even addressing the splintered logic  involved in the "less is
more", "conservation is generating capacity" line of reasoning, the
above numbers are enough to destroy the credibility of the report.
Let's look at a few of them.

First capital cost: If we postulate a scenario where the US
commits to an  all-out conversion to nuclear energy, it must
also be postulated that things that need to be done to
streamline the process will be done. Things such as generic
type-accepted packaged units, less complex fault-tolerant
reactor  designs, one stop licensing, putting the intervenors
back out on the  street where they belong and so on.  To suggest
that a plant would  cost $1000/iKW is grossly dishonest.  One
can examine the closest thing the US has had to a type-accepted
design was the GE turnkey BTRs of the MkII generation.   Browns
Ferry is an example.  A very good example since the first two units
were about the last built before the nuclear hysteria sent 
costs to the stratosphere.  Units I and II were built for a total
cost of about $250 million.  At a MW capacity of about 1000 MWE each,
that puts the cost at about $250/iKW.  Technology advancements can 
comfortably be assumed to offset inflation over the period.

Next, plant construction interval.  The japanese have routinely built
conventional LWR plants in 3 years.  A reasonable estimate for a plant
of modest complexity.

Next, availability.  The industry standard of performance for present
day reactors is "outage to outage" availability.  That is, pull the 
rods and run til the fuel runs out.  A one month outage every 18 months
gives an availability of 94%.  High burnup fuel addressing the goal of
extending the fueling cycle beyond 18 months is a current industry
goal.  It is reasonable to assume that an optimized reactor designed
for widespread deployment would have the ability to refuel on-line.
The secondary plant would still need an outage every few years for 
turbine overhaul and so on.  

Beyond that, an optimal design would have multiple fractional capacity
reactors feeding multiple turbines in a matrix.  This would permit
the plant to remain online at reduced capacity if one reactor must be
shut down AND would permit the shutdown of one turbine for maintenance
while the other ran at reduced output.  

Using an availability of 65% in an analysis borders on fraud.

Lastly, lifetime. The design life for present day power plants is 40 years.
Few people in the industry believe a plant will be turned off and 
decommissioned at the end of 40 years.  Conventional practice will be followed
in most cases in which incremental improvements are made continuously and
periodically major overhauls are done.  TVA (the utility I'm most
familiar with) has fossil units almost 100 years old.  There is nothing
there other than some of the concrete that is actually 100 years old.

Consider again Browns Ferry.  It is approaching 25 years old.  There is 
not ever a consideration of shutting down the plant in 5 years.  I was
down for several years for a practically complete overhaul in the late
80s.  It probably has another 20 or 30 years before another overhaul
will be needed.  I think a 50 year lifetime would be a conservative 
planning estimate.  A 30 year estimate is silly.

I'll let others take shots at the rest of the "study".  I've seen enough
in just this little chunk to discredit it.

john
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