Nuclear Energy Losing Out in Sweden
Here’s a great article on the electricity grid in Sweden, one of the best and most reliable in the world today. At issue is the demise of nuclear, a phenomenon based largely on rising costs vis-a-vis competitive energy resources, including wind, that is even cheaper there than it is here. In addition, Sweden places a tax of about 25% on nuclear, and mandates the retrofit of all plants to include a backup core cooler to eliminate the possibility of a Fukishima-style accident–while at the same time, it offers incentives for wind.
The result: nuclear is going away. Not sure that’s a bad thing.
Sadly the nuclear power industry has grown out of military technology and acquired their penchant for secrecy. Within the civil program this has promoted lots of distrust. Latest revelations from Fukushima are that the technology to stop the ongoing radiation leakage will not exist until 2050. The Indian point power plant just north of NYC also has a massive radiation leak that is so far “contained.”
With problematic aging reactors many advocates for nuclear energy today base their arguments on new technology. Thorium reactors are often mentioned. But when we take into account a history of secrecy, an inability to underwrite the scale of the potential risks and constant cost overruns we have to wonder if nuclear is the wisest investment we can make. New technologies are 10 to 20 years from a commercial reactor which would likely be then 10 years away from passing the permitting process. Should we invest in technologies that will not give us benefits for potentially 30 years? We have abundant renewable sources of energy today. Based upon the advances in the last 10 years we could in 30 years easily build out enough infrastructure to equal all present nuclear and likely all of coal power production.
From reading the linked-to article completely, it appears that Sweden’s closing all nuclear plants will result in higher CO2 emissions and cause Sweden to change from a power exporting country to a power importing country.
Sweden will require independent core coolers on all nuclear plants including any existing ones which are still operating. Actually, that is only common sense. It never made sense to design nuclear reactors which required an outside source of power to prevent a meltdown when the reactor was shut down. The relatively new Westinghouse AP1000 reactor meets that requirement via cooling water stored above the level of the reactor. Even better would be reactors which would not require emergency cooling systems.
The liquid fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR) is a good example of a reactor that does not require an emergency cooling system. The superset of the LFTR, i.e., metallic salt reactors, can also be designed so as not to require an emergency cooling system. Unfortunately it will be some years before they are ready for production.
Regarding nuclear power cost overruns, it is likely that we will see renewable power cost overruns when renewable systems have sufficient capacity that their intermittent nature becomes problematic. Solving that problem would require huge energy storage systems which currently are not needed since renewable systems can at present rely on fossil fueled systems to solve the intermittency problem. Thus, nuclear power will become more cost competitive with renewable systems as the percentage of renewable power increases.