Nuclear Shake Ups

A few quick articles before I go off and do something more productive.

[Updated]
Some newer articles added at end and then we need a change of topic.

Germany Plans Reunification-Style Speed to Build Grids for Cleaner Energy

Bloomberg, March 21

Germany may accelerate power-line projects to transmit more renewable energy to consumers after Japan’s nuclear disaster rattled voters in Europe’s biggest electricity market.

The Economy Ministry is preparing to use fast-track powers last exercised in 1990 when a newly united Germany had to build transportation infrastructure as fast as possible to replace crumbling roads in the east and improve connections in the country, according to a ministry document obtained by Bloomberg News. Control over power grids would be taken by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government from states and local councils.

“The scale of the challenge is comparable with infrastructure needs after reunification,” according to the document, an outline for a draft to be presented to the cabinet in two days. Power storage sites will be exempted from paying grid fees for 20 years rather than the current 10.

Merkel last year agreed to extend the life of Germany’s nuclear reactors in return for receiving 15 billion euros from their owners to help build the grids. The plan also commits the four main utilities to pay a nuclear tax from this year through 2016 of 2.3 billion euros annually.

Another 5 billion euros was earmarked for offshore wind parks. The steps cumulatively aim to speed Germany’s target of generating 80 percent of energy from renewable means by 2050.

The US and Australia have similar geo-political attributes.

The Political Demise of Nuclear Power in the U.S

Huffington Post, March 21

While there may be good reasons for nuclear power to be used as a bridge fuel to a renewable energy future, I am confident that nuclear power is politically dead in the United States. This makes the research and development of alternative energy and carbon capture and storage that much more important and urgent. It also means that environmentalists who have either reluctantly or enthusiastically embraced nuclear power as a form of carbon free energy should move on to other solutions. The catastrophe in Japan will not soon be forgotten, and it will shape the politics of nuclear power plant siting for decades.

This analysis is based on a few fundamental facts of American political structure. Despite the strength of our national government, this remains a federal system of divided power. States retain sovereignty, and we have a deeply rooted tradition of local control of land use. Our national elected leaders pay a great deal of attention to geography and to opinion leaders at the community level.

The "Not-in-my Backyard" (NIMBY) syndrome is not a passing fad in American politics; it is a central element of land use politics in communities throughout this country. While it is true that the definition of a noxious facility varies from place to place, no one doubts the ability of an American locality to veto a land use they do not like.

The images of earthquake and tsunami damage will be combined with the nuclear accident and form a single image in the public's mindset about nuclear power.

And in a country that has trouble maintaining roads (at least where I am) never mind the drainage system…

Courting Chernobyl in Ring of Fire Is Lunacy: William Pesek

Bloomberg, 20 March

Here a word for Indonesia as it mulls a nuclear future: Don’t!

Taxing subsidised fossil fuels

John Watson at The Age (with help from the Australian Conservation Foundation) points out the meaninglessness of applying a carbon tax to a commodity produced by a heavily subsidised industry. See the original for the final details.

Twelve billion holes in plan to cut carbon
John Watson, March 10, 2011

[Given the current orthodoxy of fee market everything often espoused by Govt and others], why does Australia's government effectively promote fossil fuel use at a cost of about $12 billion a year?

A carbon price, in effect, would already be operating if only government did not feel the political need to insulate energy and road users from demand-driven prices.

Tax incentives to use fossil fuels are so great that their value exceeds forecast revenue from the Rudd government's rejected emissions scheme for years to come. The Gillard government has yet to finalise its resurrected carbon price, but it is unlikely to outweigh the entrenched carbon bias. The $12.2 billion in fossil fuel incentives dwarfs the $1.1 billion for climate policy in 2010-11, and the gap has grown by $1 billion since 2007-08.

The opposition is making wild claims about future power bills based on carbon price guesstimates of $26 a tonne. If all emissions were priced equally - they won't be - the total cost impact would be about $14 billion a year. That's little more than existing tax incentives for fossil fuel use.

It is not carbon pricing but the strain of soaring demand on ageing power infrastructure that has driven up Victorians' electricity bills by almost 60 per cent in five years, even with government price controls and subsidies.

One of the worst [political fixes ever] was driven by political panic in 2001, when John Howard ended indexation of the petrol excise. The bowser price fell all of 2¢ to 89¢ a litre, but the hit to the budget was enormous. Revenue losses have mounted to at least $3 billion and, by some estimates, as much as $6 billion this financial year. In 2001, the oil price had "soared" to $US29 a barrel. It's now above $US100. The near-doubling in the Australian dollar's value from US50¢ to parity has softened the blow, but finite supplies are driving up prices. No political fix can reverse that.

[Politicians] are suckers for compensatory fixes. The biggest is almost $5 billion a year in fuel tax rebates to producers. Much of this goes to the same miners who resisted a fair return to taxpayers on the soaring value of publicly owned mineral resources. How do they justify keeping fuel rebates as well?

Condensate exemptions will still cost the budget $580 million this year, while $1 billion is lost to aviation fuel excise exemptions. Fringe benefits tax concessions for company cars, which create an incentive to drive more, cost $1.1 billion a year. There's no tax incentive to use efficient, low-emissions public transport.

Where is the outrage at industry protection and price distortion? The principle of consumption taxes is the more you consume, the more you pay. Instead, the heaviest users feel less pressure to develop greater energy efficiency or more sustainable sources. The longer we put off this inevitable adjustment, the harder it becomes.

The Australian Conservation Foundation has a pdf with some figures and an interview with ACF Executive Director Don Henry;

Australia spends $11 billion more encouraging pollution than cleaning it up

New analysis shows the Australian Government spends $11 billion more on subsidies that encourage greenhouse pollution than it does on programs to tackle climate change.

Our analysis shows funding for programs to address climate change has increased by about $500 million since 2007-08, but incentives that encourage pollution have ballooned by more than $1.5 billion.

“There has been a lot of good talk about addressing climate change, but unfortunately the numbers tell a different story,” said ACF Executive Director Don Henry.

“In 2007-08 our government spent $480 million on programs to tackle climate change, but then it spent $10.6 billion on subsidies that promoted fossil fuel use.

“This financial year the spending on climate programs is up to around $1 billion, but the fossil fuel subsidies are up too, to a massive $12 billion, meaning the Australian Government is spending $11 billion more encouraging pollution than on cleaning it up.

“The Fringe Benefits Tax concession for company cars is like a virtual pollution factory, invisibly chugging out just as much greenhouse pollution every year as a medium-sized coal-fired power plant – only the fringe benefits tax break doesn’t produce any energy – it’s just a dead weight on the economy, the Budget and the environment.

“We need to stop putting taxpayers’ money into pollution promotion and start investing in clean energy, like wind and solar,” Mr Henry said.

Coldry - Comfortable Coal?

From the title of the following article you would assume that there was some ground breaking news to follow... but then the headline doesn't say what this technology would be cheaper than.  Interesting that this article appeared so soon after the bad news from Queensland (Carbonuncle - below).

Cleaner brown coal said to be cheaper emissions reducer
Mathew Murhpy, SMH, Dec 22.
A MELBOURNE-BASED company has claimed that a cleaner version of brown coal could cut Victoria's greenhouse gas emissions at less cost than a combination of wind energy and fossil fuels. Environmental Clean Technologies uses a patented process that alters the chemical composition of brown coal - a high emitter of greenhouse gases when burnt - into a pellet form of black coal, a cleaner alternative. Chief executive Kos Galtos said the Coldry technology could meet Victoria's 20 per cent emissions reduction target, or 13 million tonnes of greenhouse gas, at lower cost than hybrid generation such as wind and gas or wind and brown coal.

"Could" as in may be possible in the future. The ECT website is at least upfront about the environmental impact of coal.

Some may dismiss any attempt to label any form of fossil fuel as ‘Green’.
We agree! There is no such thing as clean coal.
However there is ‘cleaner’ coal. So what is the basis for understanding the ‘Green’ credentials of Coldry?  It comes down to two simple concepts:

• Net Energy Footprint
• Net Carbon Footprint

The net energy footprint of a lignite drying technology must be positive, while its net carbon footprint (including end use) must be negative. Coldry is not a zero emission solution. It is a transitional solution that mitigates emissions now. The reality is, even with best efforts, society will use coal for a while to come, until cleaner energy alternatives are developed to a level affordable to average citizens

The process has passed the pilot scale and the company plans to build larger scale units which according to the website will process:

• 167,000 TPA of Coldry from 60% moisture coals,
• 220,000 TPA of Coldry from 50% moisture coals,
• or 300,000 TPA of Coldry from 40% moisture coals.

If the units above (TPA) mean tonnes per annum then surely this is a long way from producing the stated reductions claimed above?

To put this in perspective the Loy Yang Power Station has an 18 hour reserve coal bunker of 70,000 tonnes and 30 million tonnes are extracted from the pit every year. So 300,000 tonnes (from 1 Coldry unit) is about 1% of the production from the Loy yang Pit.

The ECT Website claims that the process is;

Immediately deployable in existing brown coal boilers (10% to 20% of total energy mix), Decreasing coal requirements (7% to 14%), Reducing emissions (6% to 11%) and Reducing ash accumulation (2% to 4%)

Which I think means that ~20 of these units are needed for Loy Yang.

For more on Brown Coal try:
Advances in the Science of Victorian Brown Coal
The Science of Victorian brown coal: structure, properties, and consequences for utilization