|
Jed Rothwell wrote:
> Somewhat more technical info is here: > I am surprised at that high capital costs for wind power shown in the first graph. Jed, you shouldn't be surprised - because as you have written yourself - these costs are largely manipulated by whatever "political" doctrine is in vogue in the region at the time and whatever lobby or PAC wants to get their payola-product put in place: whether it be ethanol or solar or in the case of nuclear - it is usually pressure coming from the "anti" side. For instance - take nuclear. Atomic Energy of
Canada is widely advertising to every country on earth EXCEPT in the
USA that they willll come to your site and install a pair of the
newer ACR700's at just over US $1,000/ kw capital cost. A recent project in
Quinshan China finished with two Candu's in 46 months, on-budget and ahead of
schedule. Fixed price. The Chinese are going to add many more of these, and we
should be doing the same, or at least using this price as a bargaining
tool.
Everybody's got a different figure for capital cost of nuclear, but when it gets down to a real quote it's a far different thing. You can get a real quote from Canada - and if it turns out that the US $1,000/ kw capital cost got bumped up to $4,000 by special interest in the USA - then that is politics. I have a file cabinet full of such calculations based on real numbers, but they are worthless! The actual cost vs. the price-paid (anything to do with energy) is largely artificial. The price-paid for the old style (pressuized, or boiling water) US plants, using "offical" numbers is indeed high - but these doctored numbers, coming through offical channels, are often meaningless and/or politically manipulated. For instance, at Watts Bar - a TVA multi-reactor
plant which got caught up in the political whirlwind of misplaced
environmentalism - the cost of the plant tripled overnight, and the construction
time extended six years from just having to add those massive concrete cooling
towers. Were they necessary? In some places they may be - but there,
or in plants sited near dams, the water to be released without the towers,
which ended up being three-fourths of the total plant cost (counting the extra
interest due to the delay), was actually colder than the river water before the
dam was in place. IOW, hydroelectric dams are great for cooling water, but that
benefit was not taken into account,
...nor have any hydroelectric dam operators ever
been made to reheat the discharged water back up to the pre-dam temperatures.
Hydroelectric is the darling of everyone - but it produces abnormally low water
temperature, which can change the ecology of rivers below the dam. The obvious
"smart" solution is to site a smaller nuclear plant at every hydro-site but
without the cooling towers...duh!
Its all political - and if you want to compare
apples-to-apples - look at actual quotes from actual suppliers,
particularly in other countries where a flat price was agreed on ahead
of time - and toss the offical manipulated pricing data into the round
file.
Jones
|
