Ten energy presentation_dropbox1011

Energy Policy

Planning to Fail – By Order

Brian CattMember Since 2002

[email protected]

© Brian Catt 2011 www.eurochannel.org

Venue - Date

Whose talking?

• Chartered physicist, electrical engineer and MBA

• 7 years in radiation physics and electronics at NPL, RPS and NRPB

• 2 in chemical engineering research at Imperial College

• 32 years creating new technology business

• Now consulting in high tech marketing, supporting science education and promoting scientific understanding to lay audiences

• 3 year study of energy policy

• Likes challenging irrational beliefs

Searching for simple, quantifiable, communicable truths............and audiences to debate them with

Excercises

1. Who believes we have a competent viable energy policy that will keep us powered into an alternative energy future?

2. Who believes our policy is broadly on the right track and we are subsidising the right things at a time of capital rationing?

3. Who believes alternatives a pointless waste of £100s of Billions that threaten our economic future?

energy use per person vs. income

Why It Matters

..........gdp proportional to energy use

Asia

US energy consumption per capita

300 years of US renewable energies

...renewables inadequate for an industrialising society

Renewables History

The Energy GapPlanning for less when more is needed

massive policy and planning failure – next government...

The Greatest Challenge We Face......

• No energy, no GDP, no anything

• Developed economies require cheap, plentiful, controllable, energy

• We get this from intense fossil fuel , but its finite • and being consumed at an accelerating rate........ prophets of doom?

• Around 1.5B live in developed economies

• Billions more expect to reach developed status by 2050

• Requires x100 increase in energy use per capita

• So 1.5B more developed people doubles energy use

• Fossil resources will be exhausted at an accelerating rate

• Most of what took millions of years concentrating weak alternatives • is already gone in160 years

• At least twice as much to replace direct fossil use by 2050 DECC, I say 3x

......is energy sufficiency

The Word from Westminster..

• Tony Blair: “The choices are stark.....nuclear power is back on the agenda with a vengeance”

• Ed Balls: “Its anti social to oppose wind farms”• David Cameron: “Climate change is the greatest

challenge we face” (but can’t do anything about)

• Chris Huhne

RECENT GOVERNMENT QUESTIONS:

• What’s the difference between power and energy?• Difference between rated power and delivery capability

..........but legislating the laws of physics

The Real Problemsclimate change?.............or irrational beliefs?

• We are 2% of human combustion emissions

• US and China nearly 50%, with large coal reserves left

• We cleaned up our emissions after acid rain

• Global warming may be a giant challenge to mankind but should be a small factor in UK energy planning. Energy sufficiency is our problem

• Politicians have mandated the solution to emission reduction to be wind farms by legislation, when nuclear is far more capable.

• Politicians and economists don’t understand energy sufficiency basics, the media and Greens have lied to the public (George Monbiot, Mark Lynas ref)

• Language and law have been distorted to prefer the incapable

• A PC Energy Inquisition supports the energy theocracy• e.g. “Its anti social to oppose wind farms” - Balls

......uninformed policy makers and media sensationalism

Rational Criteria

– Do alternatives replace fossil?• Adequate• Controllable• Sustainable

– Are they economically robust?• Affordable• Long term price stability• Independent

– Are they environmentally friendly?• Zero carbon• Minimal impact• Safe

What determines what’s best?

Some Core Facts ...scoping the problem

• Electrical energy use currently 400TWH pa from 60GW

• a million million / 400x1012 Wh

• Domestic gas use + road transport = current electricity use

• Electrical energy demand by 2050 expected to double @ minimum at the end of fossil – 800TWh with conservation Source: DECC

• With other uses it could treble e.g: fuel synthesis, de salination

• Moving from gas to electricity quadruples today’s heating bills

• Tripling prices further with “alternatives” is an avoidable stupidity

• We will need much more cheap electricity

• We plan less and more expensive – and subsidise its production

.........................planning to fail?

The Prescribed Solutionthe iconography of alternative power

Too weak for the industrial revolution

Powering the next agrarian revolution?

...........what changed?

The ROC: Wrong Solution by Subsidy

Result: Generators are exploiting ROCs by maximising their quotas of “renewables” using most subsidised and profitable generation, at consumer’s accelerating expense.

..........ideological subsidies are driving us the wrong way

Renewable Obligations Certificates - ROC Negotiable credits currently worth £50/MWh, unblessed power is £30/MWhROC qualification is political decision driven by irrational EC politics vs. economics

Some Simple Costed Consequences

• Each 1p on 400TWh is £4B pa cost to UK plc

• Working cost assumptions (cost to grid):• Nuclear, coal, gas are same £30/MWh cost to the grid or 3p/KWh. • On shore wind 2.5 times this• Offshore wind 4 times including subsidies (3x without)

• Average home energy bill is c. £1k pa for 23 MWh(2 Tonnes of oil/) – DECC

• Every 1p per kWh on this adds £230nb: 85% gas central heating @3p/kWh is £586 (4x if electrical)15% electrical @ 12p/kWh is £414

• Adding offshore wind power to the grid at 13p/kWh doubles prices at 30% wind

• Each 1GW of OS wind power built in preference to nuclear costs £876M pa

• Every 1GW wastes c.£1B pa for 25 years vs. nuclear, or £25Billion per GW

When you need twice as much energypreferring a 4x as expensive alternative to the nuclear solution is dumb

Adequacycan alternatives meet our needs?

• Too weak and variable to be a base load source

• Huge networks are required to collect enough weak energy

– same for all alternatives

• 300,000 of biggest 1MW turbines to deliver 60GW current peak demand

– 3 per Square mile across the whole UK assuming 20% of rated delivery (optimistic)

• Subsidies can’t make energy sources more intense or less variable

– just more expensive

• Wind technology – the best - is 30 years old, its mature not developing

• Alternatives were promoted to offset coal emissions (Sauer Regen)

• Don’t offset much and “Spinning reserve” fossil back up is essential

• Smart grid doesn’t make energy – dumb

.........”woefully inadequate”, unacceptably expensive

Adequacy and Controllability

ANALYSIS OF UK WIND POWER GENERATION NOVEMBER 2008 TO DECEMBER 2010

Stuart Youg Consultants for John Muir Trust - March 2011

Renewable/Sustainable/Independent?

Alternatives are not practical on the real time grid on their own• Base load fossil generation in spinning reserve is mandatory

• Backup when fossil’s gone demands pumped storage for stability - which is limited and makes the alternatives more inadequately expensive

• Without their fossil host parasitic alternatives are pointless

• Alternatives are expensively inadequate- and obsolete at the end of fossil

Nuclear energy is 40% renewable in operation now, it can be close to 100%

• Both powered Fusion and Fast Breeder reactors can achieve sustainability

• The TWR fission reactor will consume depleted Uranium fuel, including Plutonium

• There is a LOT of Uranium Globally to get through the development phase

• We can use the stockpiles of fuel already in the country for decades

• A serious nuclear program will include fuel reprocessing and waste transmutation.

• We are not short of solutions, just investment – or subsidies

.........only nuclear is a truly independently sustainable long term

Comparison of Build and Power Generation Costs from multiple sourcesnb: Each independent source has been "levelised" to reflect a consistent approach to costings and includes all cost from green field to decommissioning, so are directly comparable within a column.

Costings of Main Generation Modalities

(i) 1p/kWh=£10/MWh (ii) included in unit cost

Nuclear Safety?

Work in Progress300MW Fission To Go

JET, ITER (& DEMO)

Fusion on Earth - JET

x10

MAST & TWR

Alternative Reality

Criteria Government’s Alternative Nuclear Alternative

Zero Carbon √ √

Adequate X Too weak √ All you can eat

Controllable X No. Smart grid can’t fix it √ Totally

Cheap X Wind still too expensive after 30 yrs development

√ Today’s prices maintained

Renewable X Depends on fossil BKP √ 40% now, can be 100%

“Eco” X A plague on our countryside

√ Smallest footprint

Safe √ Unless you’re a bird or a ship

√ Safest of all!

Alternative to fossil? X Inadequate, too expensive, obsolete with fossil gone

√ inevitable baseload replacement for fossil

......we are building the wrong thing through bad policy and worse law

Current energy policy and language reverses reality for ideology

What’s our competition doing?

• China plans 132 nuclear plants by 2030 – 6 at a time

• Japan and Korea plan to be 50% nuclear by 2020

• Russia will double its nuclear base by 2030 23GW - 51GW– including Gen 4 Fast Breeders

• Japan, China and Russia have all built new 500Tonne PWR foundries

• America has watched too many Simpsons and still has coal– Also the best up time and close to best safety record in the World

• France: Already there, 85% nuclear, electric long haul TGV, advanced fuel and waste processing, laughing up its sleeve at its stupid neighbours as it also acquires ITER out of JET – and prepares to power its industrial neighbours

• Germany is going back to fossil fuel, Polish Coal and Russian gas– the ones who pushed for expensive carbon reduction, driven by the Green Shirt politics

• We plan Ten nuclear power station by 2020, basically replacement

• Need at least 20 to replace retiring coal and existing nuclear, meet 2020 20%

... UK still has no realistic strategy

The Bottom Line

• Only nuclear can take us past the end of fossil• Alternatives are a pointless and expensive dead end• Alternative subsidies are wasting mounting £Billions• Alternatives could not power even current electrical demand, we will

need 2-3 times today• Nuclear ticks all the boxes

– Zero emissions, plentiful, controllable, highly independent, sustainable, safest

• The maximum ROI is nuclear• We are broke, every £ should count• Capital rationing should apply = common sense

............ideology or economic survival?

An Action Plan

No new science, some process development, reactors are proven safe designsThe logical and inevitable alternative to fossil energy for a developed economy

1. Tell the public the truth

2. Prefer what works best, forget energy multiculturalism AKA “In The Mix”

3. Change Law to level subsidies for zero carbon technologies - invest in nuclear waste and fuel processing R&D program + MAST, ITER

4. Replace all current nuclear plant with proven nuclear upgrades

5. Replace 2015 coal with proven nuclear (already grid connected)- Meets 2020 20% obligations at today’s prices without rationing using nuclear

6. Start trebling the current grid capacity in situ for the end of gas

7. Replace remainder of coal power with nuclear (about 50% of 60 GW)

8. Replace gas fired last - can keep going with shale gas and LNG tankers

9. Gap fill with Gas turbine - on old grid connected city power station sites etc.

10. 800TWh minimum nuclear by 2050 requires 120 1GW power stations

11. All you can eat, Zero emission, independent, sustainable at today’s prices

Thank you – Questions?

Carbon cycle, billions tonnes carbon

CO2 in the atmosphere

Its Getting Warmer

We are using oil faster than we can find it

References and Further Data

• References and Further Data•  • The Royal Accademy of Engineers: (i)• The Costs of Generating Electricity, ISBN 1-903496-11-X ,March 2004 Best detailed levelised comparitive costings across modalities•  • UK DECC DUKES Statistics on Energy Use•  • UK DECC Minister response in Parliamentary Questions on Energy Costs 2008•  • H.Douglas Lightfoot• http://www.nobodysfuel.com/intro.html• Doug has it nailed and his work the best joined up approach I’ve seen. We need a lot more energy, more cheaply, sustainably and zero carbon. We can do it with nuclear power, not other ways. Doug has done the huge task of macro level data collection presented in one

self consistent format to show the truth. •  • Professor MichaelLaughton• 2020 and the realities of electrical power supply NEW POWER / ISSUE 9/ OCTOBER 2009•  Why the grid can’t handle much wind power•  • Coal Combustion: Nuclear Resource or Danger?• Alex Gabbard http://www.ornl.gov/ORNLReview/rev26-34/text/coalmain.html• Emissions from burning coal include uranium and other nuclear materials—potential hazards and resources.• Oak Ridge National Laboratory REVIEW Volume 26 Numbers Three and Four, 1993 •  • The World Nuclear Association: • http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf02.html•  While not independent they have an excellent comparison of costs and all other factors globally, which is not very different in relative magnitude from the RAE or the DTI’s own.•  • Sen Lamar Alexander, Tennessee; • http://alexander.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=GoingToWarInSailboats•  One of many papers offering clear analysis for the lay person and politicians•  • Rate of Decarbonisation:  • We are 2% of global combustion emissions. USA and China are 50% Ref:• We must not hurry into expensive rationed energy as a short term fix led by bad prescriptive law at huge avoidable cost. We must take the cost competitive route for UK plc as are others. A committed programme to replace coal directly then gas with nuclear energyand

minimal CCS will achieve emission reductions to the larger percentages far faster than prolonging fossil power as backup for wind farms. Also cheapest in capital and energy costs.•  • Some countries have large coal reserves they would like to burn cheaply before biting the inevitable bullet of exhaustion, they can control prices and enjoy cheap fossil energy while moving more slowly to nuclear, China and America with half global combustion emissions

being the major factors here. We are 2%.•  • Others without reserves like S.Korea, Vietnam and Japan are going cheap nuclear ASAP. France is already there, We will have to be able to compete with all the above with their continual plentiful cheap energy from fossil and nuclear sources, so must take the best route

to nuclear energy for UK plc, a few % of our emissions short term will make no diference to what happens to the climate in the couple of decades it will take us to nuclearise while US and China are still belting them out.