Antinuclear

For Australia – a cautionary nuclear tale from New Brunswick, Canada

New Brunswick’s nuclear-powered rate hikes, Commentary, by Janice Harvey, July 8, 2024,  https://nbmediacoop.org/2024/07/08/new-brunswicks-nuclear-powered-rate-hikes/

The abject failure of this and previous governments’ energy policies is on full display these days. In the 1970s, New Brunswick was one of only three provinces that bought into the federal government’s agenda to build out a civilian nuclear power industry. Quebec has since shut its nuclear generators down, leaving only Ontario and New Brunswick as the nuclear flag-bearers. How has that worked out for us?

NB Power has come to the Energy and Utilities Board (EUB) with a request for the biggest rate hikes in the utility’s history. While the details are buried in thousands of pages of documents filed with the EUB, evidence from previous EUB hearings makes it crystal clear that the utility’s single greatest financial liability driving up power rates is the much-vaunted Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station.

Point Lepreau has been a financial white elephant since its construction ended up costing three times the original price tag. Its planned 30-year lifespan (over which all this extra cost was to be amortized) was cut short by premature aging of critical reactor components, prompting a decision to undergo an expensive refurbishment, which was to extend the life of the plant by a fantastical 40 years. At the time, the then-PUB determined based on the evidence that refurbishment was too big a financial risk for New Brunswickers to handle and recommended against it. The Lord government went ahead anyway.

Like the original construction, the refurbishment went way over the timeline and budget. The result has been very poor performance, a miserable 60 per cent in 2022 compared to the wildly optimistic 90 per cent capacity assumption that the EUB rejected. The costs of replacement power alone during these shutdowns have repeatedly sabotaged annual financial performance projections. Now, Point Lepreau is facing even more expensive upgrades to fix problems that were not dealt with during the refurbishment.

In short, Point Lepreau is the most unreliable and most expensive power generator on the grid, responsible for the lion’s share of NB Power’s debt. It is not going to get any better. Keeping it afloat until 2040, its new end-of-life target, is going to mean more of the same – throwing scarce money down a deep, black hole paid for by ever-rising power rates.

Despite the overwhelming evidence that New Brunswickers cannot afford nuclear power, the Higgs government has doubled down on nuclear, floating an equally fantastical proposition that the next generation of nukes – so-called small modular reactors – will quarterback New Brunswick’s climate change strategy, while an SMR export industry is expected to drive economic growth. To that end, New Brunswick taxpayers have already fronted a total of $35 million to two private nuclear upstarts, neither of which has designed or built a reactor. This is despite lots of reasons to put their rosy promises of “clean” nuclear-fueled prosperity in the same wishful thinking category as JOI Scientific’s power-from-water scheme that so beguiled NB Power executives.

Just as the EUB rate hearings got underway, an entirely predictable hitch in the Higgs’ nuclear dream occurred. It seems like the SMR upstart ARC Clean Energy is on its way down and out, taking $25 million provincial dollars and $7 million federal with it. If we’re lucky, Moltex Energy, propped up by $10 million in provincial and $50.5 million in federal tax dollars, will be close behind, and we can breathe a sigh of financial relief. The longer this nonsense persists, the more of our tax dollars will go into the nuclear black hole, and the greater the delay in meeting our climate change pollution targets.

Even if Moltex hangs on, or some other SMR promoter replaces them, any electricity that might eventually flow from an SMR will be, like Point Lepreau, the most expensive power on the grid – entirely unaffordable and unnecessary. The Higgs government knows this, passing legislation this spring requiring NB Power to buy electricity from the planned privately-owned SMRs regardless of price, a silent admission that electricity from SMRs, should they ever see the light of day, will be more expensive than any alternative. In other words, SMRs will drive up your power bill.

Meanwhile, the June 22nd issue of The Economist features the exponential growth of solar energy worldwide, the cost of which – even with storage – is falling exponentially. Other than home retrofits, this is the cheapest new power on offer.

The nuclear cost numbers are there for all to see. For elected representatives to support this industry, knowing people cannot tolerate higher power rates, is grossly irresponsible and a betrayal of trust. Renewables naysayers are depriving New Brunswickers of the benefits of this global energy transition. This – and our nuclear-powered rate hikes – need to be on the ballot on October 21.

Janice Harvey is the chair of the Environment and Society program at St. Thomas University

July 11, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | energy, news, nuclear, nuclear-energy, nuclear-power | Leave a comment

Small Modular Nuclear Reactors cost concerns challenge industry optimism

Reuters, Paul Day, Jun 27, 2024

Concerns over the potential cost of small modular reactors (SMRs) and the electricity they produce continue to cast a shadow over growing optimism for new nuclear.

Proponents say that the recent faltering history of large nuclear projects missing schedules and running over budget are just teething problems for a new industry in the midst of a difficult economic climate.

However, critics claim it as proof that nuclear is not economically viable at all, and it will take too long faced with pressing climate issues.

There is little doubt that new nuclear will, at least initially, be more expensive to develop, build, and run than many are hoping. 

New Generation IV reactors, such as SMRs, are likely to produce hidden costs inherent in the development of first-of-a-kind technology, while high commodity and building material prices, stubbornly high inflation, and interest rates at levels not seen for decades are adding to mounting expenses for the new developers.

NuScale’s cancelled deal to supply its SMRs to a consortium of electricity cooperatives due to rising power price estimates prompted The Breakthrough Institute’s Director for Nuclear Energy Innovation Adam Stein to write that advanced nuclear energy was in trouble.

Speaking during an event at the American Nuclear Society (ANS) 2024 Annual Conference in June, Stein said nothing had changed to fix the fundamental challenges nuclear faces since he wrote that in November, but there was a greater sense of urgency.   

“Commodity prices have come down slightly, though interest rates are largely still the same and those are risks, or uncertainties, that are outside of the developer’s control,” Stein said during an event at the American Nuclear Society (ANS) 2024 Annual Conference.

“Until those can be considered a project risk, instead of unknown uncertainties, they are not going to be controlled at all and can drastically swing the price of any single project.”

Enthusiastic hype

These criticisms clash with growing enthusiasm (critics say ‘hype’) surrounding the new technology.

Twenty two countries and 120 companies at the COP28 conference in November vowed to triple global nuclear capacity by 2050, and developers are making sweeping promises about the capabilities and affordability of their latest creations, many of which will not be commercially available in North America or Europe until the early 2030s.   

SMRs, defined as reactors that generate 300 MW or less, cost too much, and deployment is too far out for them to be a useful tool to transition from fossil fuels in the coming 10-15 years, according to a recent study by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA).

“SMRs are not going to be helpful in the transition. They’re not going to be here quick enough. They’re not going to be economic enough. And we really don’t have time to wait,” says co-author of the study Dennis Wamsted.

Existing SMRs in China (Shidao Bay), Russia (floating SMR such as the Akademik Lomonosov), and in Argentina (the still under-construction CAREM) have all cost significantly more than originally planned, the IEEFA says in the study ‘Small Modular Reactors: Still too expensive, too slow, and too risky.’

Construction work on the cutting-edge CAREM project has been stalled since May due to cost-cutting measures by Argentina’s President Javier Milei, the head of National Atomic Energy Commission (CNEA) told Reuters.  

The billions of dollars the U.S. and Canadian governments are pouring into nuclear power through subsidies, tax credits, and federally funded research, would be better spent on extra renewables, Wamsted says.

Some 260,000 MW of renewable energy generation, mostly solar, is expected to be added to the U.S. grid just through to 2028, the study says citing the American Clean Power Association, way before any new nuclear is expected to be plugged in.

“Federal funds to nuclear is, in our opinion, a waste of time and money,” says Wamsted.

High uncertainty…………………………………………….

https://www.reutersevents.com/nuclear/smr-cost-concerns-challenge-industry-optimism

June 28, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | energy, news, nuclear, nuclear-energy, nuclear-power | Leave a comment