Power Up
If South Africa wants an energy source for her future electricity supply that is safe, clean, economic, reliable, sustainable and with low carbon dioxide emissions, the best choice is nuclear power.
The Government’s IRP 2010 (Integrated Resource Plan for Electricity), published last month, considers various “scenarios” or combinations of energy sources for our future electricity supply. Its “Balanced scenario” sees generating capacity increasing at 3% per year and that by 2030 we shall get 48% of it from coal (currently 85%), with 14% from nuclear and 16% from “renewables”.
The IRP seems fixated on reducing our carbon emissions. This is scientifically silly but, I suppose, politically necessary. There is no scientific evidence that the increase in carbon dioxide is changing the climate in a dangerous way, but there is a powerful ideological lobby in the world’s rich countries that believes it is and wants to punish carbon emissions. This seems the main reason for wanting to reduce our proportion of coal-fired electricity.
But 14% nuclear by 2030 is disappointingly small and new nuclear only by 2023 is disappointingly late. On the other hand, 16% in renewables is unlikely and undesirable.
Nuclear power can provide large amounts of dependable electricity. Hydro electricity could do the same if we had the rivers, but we haven’t. Wind turbines, as has been shown worldwide, are extremely expensive, wasteful of resources – requiring 10 times more concrete and steel than nuclear per unit of electricity produced – and hopelessly unreliable. Because you can never depend on wind turbine electricity, it has low value, if any value at all.
Cape Town offers a good practical comparison between nuclear and wind power. Koeberg nuclear power station produces around 12,600 GWh/year. The nearby Darling Wind Farm has four 1,3MW wind turbines, each 80 m high. Its website – http://www.darlingwindfarm.co.za/ – estimates it should produce 8,6 GWh/year. This means that it would require 5,860 Darling turbines to produce the same amount of electricity as Koeberg – but without the same reliability.
Solar power is better theoretically but even more expensive. The Renewable Energy Feed-in Tariffs (REFIT) give the following prices, in cents/kWh. Wind: 125; concentrated solar power (CSP) without storage: 314; CSP with storage: 231; and Solar photovoltaic: 394. Compare this with Eskom’s current average selling price of 42c/kWh.
Nuclear power has by far the best safety record of any energy source. There is so much uranium and thorium in the ground and under the sea that for practical purposes there is an inexhaustible source of nuclear fuel. Over the full energy chain, nuclear power has very low carbon emissions. Production costs (fuel, operations and maintenance) for nuclear power are lower than for coal, oil or gas.
Higher capital costs have been a key problem for nuclear power. However, modern nuclear stations last 60 years and the new generation – simpler, with fewer components and with more modular construction – will see capital costs coming down, especially for a fleet of reactors rather than a one-off.
There are currently 60 new nuclear power plants being constructed worldwide with a combined capacity of 58,000 MW. The Far East is surging ahead. The excellent Westinghouse AP1000 reactors are now being built in China and the first is on schedule to come on line in 2013.
South Africa should follow the Chinese example. We could have new reactors on line long before 2023.
Copy courtesy of Finweek. Call 086 010 3911 to subscribe.
Story by Andrew Kenny
