THIS IS THE ONLY WAY TO KEEP THE LIGHTS ON?

U.S. needs 45 more nuclear reactors by 2030: study
Bernie Woodall (w/Marguerita Choy), August 3, 2009 (Reuters)
and
Technology Smorgasbord Needed to Meet Climate Goals – EPRI
Peter Behr, August 4, 2009 (NY Times)

SUMMARY
The PRISM/MERGE ANALYSES 2009 UPDATE, from the Electric Power Research Institute, updates a 2007 analysis to include economic and technological changes in the potential power mix that could achieve significant greenhouse gas emissions (GhGs) reductions in 7 areas of power generation without compromising electricity supplies.

The Prism term is a description of reductions, wedge-by-wedge, from the the U.S. Department of Energy/Energy Information Administration (EIA) Annual Energy Outlook 2009 (AEO2009) (April 2009) Reference Case projections for energy consumption.

The MERGE acronym: Model for Estimating the Regional and Global Effects of Greenhouse Gas Reductions.

Advocating what it calls “The Full Portfolio” of technologies, the new update incorporates advances in New Energy and Energy Efficiency to describe the most economic combination of technologies that can meet rising energy demand and maximize GhG reductions. It also points the way toward what research, development and demonstration (RD&D) is still needed in each of the 7 technologies in its full portfolio.

EPRI’s “limited portfolio” does not include new nuclear plants or carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) capability for new and retrofitted coal plants. The Full Portfolio includes: CCS, advanced nuclear, New Energy, Energy Efficiency and Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs).

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The MERGE analysis incorporates variables such as:
(a) current and projected technology costs
(b) fuel costs and reserves
(c) international competition for resources
(d) projected generation capacities and costs
(e) GhG allowance prices
(f) the cost of implementing emissions reductions

The 2009 update adds:
(a) the international target of 80% GhG reduction by 2050
(b) updated technology costs
(c) unconventional resources like shale gas as part of natural gas supplies
(d) CCS retrofit for 60 gigawatts of existing coal plants
(e) grid integration capability to eliminate intermittency issues for New Energies
(f) higher biomass capacities

The analysis sees the U.S. electricity generation sector capable of a 41% reduction in GhGs by 2030 (from 2005 levels), with a potential for a 58% reduction if transportation is included. The reduction is even larger (62%) if the calculations are based on the EIA projections.

The estimate projects 2030 GhG cuts through:

(1) Energy Efficiency, 6.5% (from a maximum achievable potential consumption reduction of 8%)

(2) Transmission and distribution, 0.9% (from a 20% reduction in transmission and distribution system energy losses)

(3) New Energy, 13% (from the deployment of 135 gigawatts, including ~100 gigawatts of new wind, ~20 gigawatts of new biomass, ~15 gigawatts of solar and the other New Energies)

(4) Nuclear, 11% (from deployment of 10 gigawatts of next generation reactors by 2020, 64 gigawatts by 2030)

(5) Coal plant efficiency, 3.7% (from a 3% increase in thermodynamic efficiency of 75 gigawatts of the existing plants, 42% efficiency by 2020 and 49% by 2030 from ultrasupercritical and IGCC plants, 60% efficiency by 2020 and 70% by 2030 from combined cycle plants and 45% efficiency from combustion turbine by 2030)

(6) Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS), 11% (from 90% CO2 capture for all new coal and gas plants after 2020 and retrofit with 90% capture for 60 gigawatts of present plants)

(7) Electric transportation, 9.3% (from 100 million Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs) by 2030 and 3 times the present number of Electric Vehicles (EVs) by 2030)

(8) Electro-technologies in commercial and industrial uses, 3.8% (from replacing 4.5% of primary fossil fuel energy with electricity)

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Cost is significant. EPRI argues that its “Full Porfolio” is a trillion dollars cheaper than a limited portfolio because the biggest savings come from including CCS and new nuclear. The Full Porfolio price of electricity in 2050, EPRI projects, is 43% less than with a limited portfolio.

COMMENTARY
To arrvive at its conclusions, EPRI makes a series of projections about energy technologies. EPRI is a scientific body of distinction and their projections require attention.

Required RD&D to achieve 6.5% GhG cuts from Energy Efficiency:
- standardized communications
- advanced, mobile metering
- system interoperability
- distributed computing

(According to recent projections by McKinsey Global and the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, 6.5% is a gross underestimate of what is possible.)

Required RD&D to achieve 0.9% GhG cuts from transmission and distribution:
- advanced grid management technologies
- wide-area monitoring

(The Smart Grid is coming.)

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Required RD&D to achieve 13% GhG cuts from New Energy:
- improved reliability and decreased O&M costs in wind
- reduced cost and increased variability management in solar PV
- more use of geothermal and solar power plants to augment fossil fuel plants
- pre-processing of biomass for power plants
- bulk and distributed energy storage
- improved grid integration/control technology

(This is a gross underestimate of the New Energy industries’ estimates of what they are capable of. Wind alone expects to provide 20% or more of U.S. power by 2030. Solar expects to provide at least 10% by 2025. A recent MIT study suggested geothermal could provide at least that much. And hydrokinetic technologies (wave, tide and current energies) should be contributing significantly to the power mix in 2 decades. New Energy can and will create more than a 13% reduction in U.S. GhGs by 2030 unless backwards ideas like the ones in this paper bog it down.)

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Required RD&D to achieve 11% GhG cuts from Nuclear:
- tools and methods to get construction done consistently and on time
- management strategy for radioactive waste
- life cycle management of materials and equipment to get 60-year life from plants

(The nuclear industry has yet to even begin to demonstrate they can control the prohibitively excessive costs of construction. EPRI’s assumed “levelized wholesale cost” of new nuclear power: $74 per megawatt-hour; 2008 Lazard study estimate: $107-to-$138 per megawatt-hour. And, almost a quarter century after Chernobyl, there remains no solution to the radioactive waste storage question.)

Required RD&D to achieve 3.7% GhG cuts from efficient coal:
- technologies allowing present plants to operate at higher temperatures and pressures
- improved burning technologies, raising temps to 1400 degrees F.
- improved IGCC with advance combustion and better oxygen separation

(So they can clean up some of the toxins. The problem is the OTHER toxins, like the waste that just destroyed part of Tennessee last Christmas. How many GhGs will cleaning that up generate?)

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Required RD&D to achieve 11% GhG cuts from CCS:
- efficient, cost-effective capture
- commercial-scale storage
- completed pilot and demo projects with post-combustion capture, IGCC capture, oxygen processes

(Demonstration projects are not expected before 2015. Most industry watchers think the technology might be achieved – if it is possible to achieve it cost-effectively – in 2 decades. But there will still be no conclusive proof that sequestration is safe by then.)

Required RD&D to achieve 9.3% GhG cuts from electric transportation:
- standard Smart Grid capabilities to allow PHEV and V2G deployment
- completed pilot and demo PHEV projects

(Pilot projects have already been widely demonstrated. The question of the public’s response remains but its response to the Toyota Prius is pretty indicative.)

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Required RD&D to achieve 3.8%% GhG cuts from commercial/industrial applications of electro-technologies:
- development/demo of end-use technologies

EPRI’s study concludes with a comparison of MERGE, the needs and costs of GhG cuts, and its projections about technology development and finds they are comparable. This does not constitute proof of anything. If it turns out new nuclear cannot be built cost-effectively and CCS is too expensive to do (which they will), next year’s paper can just plug unicorn farts and stardust spew into the same assumptions and get the same results.

Meanwhile, build New Energy and Energy Efficiency.

The good news: EPRI really GETS the urgency of developing the EVs, PHEVs and new transmission.

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QUOTES
- From the EPRI report: “MERGE results indicate that the Prism technology assumptions are reasonable; comparison of the MERGE and Prism technology mixes in 2030 validates this. The generation shares of the different technologies in MERGE are generally consistent with those in the Prism. This suggests that the Prism technology portfolio may also be economically optimal.”
- Steve Specker, president, EPRI: "Our analysis clearly shows the imperative for the electricity sector to move aggressively to deploy a full portfolio of technologies that will lead to low-carbon energy future while limiting costs to the nation's economy..."
- Revis James, Energy Technology Assessment Center director/report co-author, EPRI: "Each of these assumptions is based on the question, can we do that, from a science and engineering standpoint? ... It might be expensive. It might be fraught with policy challenges, but is it feasible to do it technically? The spirit of this, to be candid, is to suspend reality for a moment with respect to the policy challenge and the financial challenge and first just assess the technical potential. Then you can overlay the financial and policy concerns on top of that..."
- James, elaborating: "The real question is how fast we can build nuclear plants, not whether we can build them, and when the sequestration technology is going to be available...Probably the combination of nuclear and coal will be very important for a long time..."
- From the NY Times: "In a politically charged policy environment where energy forecasts vary hugely, the new EPRI study is unlikely to be the Rosetta stone that unites the debate."