“Nuclear Power Will Kill the Coal Industry”

Many reader’s will be familiar with Australia’s Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) and their now-slightly-infamous “nuclear energy threatens coal jobs!” position.

But could nuclear power really “kill the coal industry” in Australia? I don’t think so.

Total production of raw black coal in Australia in 2006 was 405 Mt (million tonnes). This production represented a small increase of 1.6% over the 2005 figure of 399 Mt. After processing, a total of 317 Mt of metallurgical and thermal black coal were available for both domestic use and export in 2006.
(I’ve taken these statistics from the Australian Coal Association website.)

In 2006, Australia’s domestic consumption of black coal for electricity generation amounted to 62.4 million tonnes of black coal. Hence, domestic electricity generators consume only about 20% of Australia’s output of processed black coal. Other domestic industrial uses of coal, such as steel production, account for about three percent, with the entire remaining 77% being exported.

(The ACA’s statistics refer exclusively to black coal – however, brown coal is a much smaller resource, relatively, and since we have the statistics for black coal, I’ll limit the discussion to black coal.)

Hence, under the worst case scenario (or best case scenario), we may envisage a future in which every coal-fired generator in Australia is closed down and replaced by nuclear power plants. This would result in cutting Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions in half – at the cost of a 20% reduction in coal demand. If we were to see half of Australia’s coal fired plants closed down and replaced by nuclear energy, we will see a 10% reduction in coal revenue.

I don’t think a 10% to 20% downturn in revenue constitutes “killing the coal industry” – and I really don’t think that the coal industry has anything to worry about for the foreseeable future.

Spoonman Podcast discusses nuclear power for Australia

“Spoonman” (an Australian host of a radio program, on the Triple M network) has produced a good little podcast, where he discusses the prospects of nuclear power in Australia, alongside Zygmunt Switkowski, the well-known nuclear physicist who heads up ANSTO, and headed the Howard government’s Uranium Mining, Processing and Nuclear Energy Review.

Here’s the podcast (a typical mp3 download) – it’s worth listening to.

Nuclear Power for Australia: Where to put it?

In 2007, combustible fuels, mostly coal, generated 224,771 GWh of electricity, 91.8% of Australia’s 244,777 GWh of electricity generation. [Source - IEA's International Monthly Energy Statistics, May 2008.]

If we were to replace all this electricity generation with nuclear fission, using nuclear power reactors each with a nameplate capacity of 1100 MW and a capacity factor of 90 to 95%, just like the United States’ nuclear power routinely achieves, then 25 nuclear reactors are required to replace all those fuel-combustion plants.

The UMPNER report (aka the Switkowski report) found that “In one scenario, deployment of nuclear
power starting in 2020 could see 25 reactors producing about a third of the nation’s electricity by 2050.”

I have to admit, I don’t quite follow that, because as above, based on the 2007 IEA statistics, 25 nuclear reactors could supply 92% of Australia’s electricity. I suppose they based that figure on the predicted increase in consumption between now and 2050, which is completely reasonable, of course.

Anyway, since the UMPNER report’s release, “25 reactors” has been the benchmark in political debate over the potential for a nuclear-powered Australia.

Now, Penny Wong states:

“The last election showed that Australians are absolutely of one mind about not having 25 nuclear power plants dotted around their suburbs and in and around their cities.”

That’s funny, because when I went to fill out the ballot paper, I didn’t notice anything about a referendum on nuclear energy. In fact, I believe if such a referendum were ever done, Wong and Garrett might be in for a rude surprise – a recent poll I posted to a large Australian online forum of computer users found 90 percent of respondents in favour of nuclear power for Australia. Not the most formal statistics, I know, but it gives you some idea.

[Thanks to Nuclear Australia for reproducing Senator Wong's sound bites.]

This comes hot on the heels of Ian MacFarlane’s call last week not for nuclear power, but merely for the rational discussion of nuclear power. The mere discussion of nuclear power is taboo for the Federal Government.

Furthermore, Wong says:

“Are they really saying that they have a plan for 25 nuclear reactors in Australia? Where are they going to put them?”

Now, 25 nuclear reactors does not mean 25 nuclear power plants – we can generally put two (or three, or four, or seven, or just one, but we’ll say two, usually, on average, for argument’s sake) nuclear reactors at the same power plant.

So, where do we put them? If we put 25 nuclear reactors in Australia, we need 13 sites for plants.

Since I’m not a politician, maybe I can break the taboo, and actually start naming names? Where could we put nuclear power plants?

Firstly, three plants can go outside of Morwell, replacing their 6000 MW or so of brown coal fired capacity, taking advantage of the region’s access to the electricity grid, ability to support large heat sinking capacity, the skills and labour base there, and so forth, as required to support large coal fired power plants.

Another two can go in Port Augusta, South Australia, replacing the coal-fired stations there.

Three nuclear power plants can go in various sites in Queensland, replacing the coal-fired generators there, at Gladstone, for example.

Three nuclear generating stations can go in the Hunter Valley in New South Wales, again replacing the majority of the states’ coal-fired generating capacity.

Another plant can go at other sites in the state, at Eraring, for example, or somewhere else on Lake Macquarie or on the coast.

Co-locating and ultimately replacing coal fired power plants with nuclear power, provides known access to local rivers or lakes, or existing cooling towers, even, that provide heat sinks suitable for large heat engine plants, provides good access to roads and logistics, provides a solid local labour market and engineering base with relevance to the electrical, mechanical and thermohydraulic engineering and technical trades required to run a large power plant, and provides solid access to the electricity generation infrastructure.

Finally, it would be sensible to stick one last reactor over in WA, outside of Perth. Kwinana could be well suited.

So, there you go. If these were deployed by 2050, we would see a 50% reduction in Australia’s anthropogenic emission of greenhouse gases, relative to present levels, with the stationary energy generation by way of fossil fuels accounting for 50% of greenhouse gas emissions.

Anyway, these are just some of my thoughts, and my answer to Wong’s question, and the oft-asked question of where the nuclear power plants should go. I’m not a politician, of course – working out where to develop different heavy industries is not my day job.

Case-control study of lung cancer risk from residential radon exposure in Worcester County, Massachusetts.

A few months ago, a rather interesting-sounding paper was published in Health Physics:

Case-control study of lung cancer risk from residential radon exposure in Worcester County, Massachusetts; Thompson et. al. Health Physics 94(3):228-241; 2008.

Home exposure to radon, a naturally occurring radioactive decay product of radium, has been thought to be the second leading cause of lung cancer, after cigarette smoking. Chemically inert, it can percolate out of the ground into basements.

The study was initiated and managed by Donald F. Nelson, now professor emeritus of physics at WPI, during the 1990s, a time when concern over the link between residential radon exposure and lung cancer was growing. Nelson says the aim was to try to establish what level of radon exposure actually correlated with significant lung cancer risk and to establish a safety zone for home radon levels.

The results of the study were described by their own authors as “surprising” and “stunning”: Clear evidence of radiation hormesis. It looks like Bernard Cohen has been vindicated after all.

“We were certainly not looking for a hormetic effect,” says co-author Joel H. Popkin of Fallon Clinic and St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester. “Indeed, we were stunned when the data pointed to that conclusion in such a strong way.”

A study of lung cancer risk from residential radon exposure and its radioactive progeny was performed with 200 cases (58% male, 42% female) and 397 controls matched on age and sex, all from the same health maintenance organization. Emphasis was placed on accurate and extensive year-long dosimetry with etch-track detectors in conjunction with careful questioning about historic patterns of in-home mobility. Conditional logistic regression was used to model the outcome of cancer on radon exposure, while controlling for years of residency, smoking, education, income, and years of job exposure to known or potential carcinogens. Smoking was accounted for by nine categories: never smokers, four categories of current smokers, and four categories of former smokers. Radon exposure was divided into six categories (model 1) with break points at 25, 50, 75, 150, and 250 Bq m-3, the lowest being the reference. Surprisingly, the adjusted odds ratios (AORs) were, in order, 1.00, 0.53, 0.31, 0.47, 0.22, and 2.50 with the third category significantly below 1.0 (p < 0.05), and the second, fourth, and fifth categories approaching statistical significance (p < 0.1). An alternate analysis (model 2) using natural cubic splines allowed calculating AORs as a continuous function of radon exposure. That analysis produces AORs that are substantially less than 1.0 with borderline statistical significance (0.048 <= p <= 0.05) between approximately 85 and 123 Bq m-3. College-educated subjects in comparison to high-school dropouts have a significant reduction in cancer risk after controlling for smoking, years of residency, and job exposures with AOR = 0.30 (95% CI: 0.13, 0.69), p = 0.005 (model 1).

There is more discussion and commentary at PhysOrg, here.

It will be very interesting to keep an eye on research in this area in the future, especially given the famous debates between the likes of Bernard Cohen and William Field over their radon dose response research.

Dangerous fossil fuels

News reports are starting to emerge on a horrifyingly large fuel-air explosion, and continuing explosions and fires, at a propane distribution depot in Toronto.

This is seriously not cool. Despite the terrifyingly large vapor explosions, reports thus far are that there have been no major injuries or fatalities – hopefully it stays that way.

Electric vehicles: A quantitative look.

For argument’s sake, I’ll start with an assumption that the fuel economy of your average petrol-fuelled ICE passenger car is about 7 L per 100 km under conventional conditions.

7 L / 100 km corresponds to about 15.1 kg carbon dioxide emissions per 100 km.

(You can use the above expression in Google Calculator, and just substitute in any alternative figure for the fuel consumption for your particular car, if you like.)

(In the above calculation I’ve used the assumption that petrol is basically pure n-octane in chemistry terms, in terms of its density and carbon content.)

Obviously, better fuel economy means better CO2 emissions economy and vice versa.

(For readers in the US (or elsewhere) who would prefer the Imperial units, try this link instead. Fuel economy of 30 MPG will correspond to about 0.6 pounds of carbon dioxide per mile.

The Blade Runner Mk. II BEV, for example, (which you can buy in Australia now), requires a charge of 95 amp-hours at 240 V, and has a range of 120 km, corresponding to an electric power consumption of 190 Wh (Watt-hours) per km.

(Similarly, if we know the charger’s current draw, voltage, charge time, and the vehicle’s operating range for a single charge, then the electrical energy required to run the car for a given range is straightforwardly calculated for any EV.)

The tech specs for the Tesla Roadster claim that its electric power consumption is 110 Wh/km.

The specifications for the Mitsubishi i-MiEV correspond to about 154 Wh/km average.

In Australia, the average GHG emissions intensity for electricity generation is 1000 gCO2/kWh. (In Victoria, it’s obscene, about 1300-1400 gCO2/kWh.)

Therefore, the equivalent CO2 emission for the BladeRunner is 19 kg CO2 per 100 km, for the i-MiEV it’s about 15.4 kg / 100 km, and for the Tesla Roadster it’s about 11 kg CO2/100 km.

So, for electricity generation like Australia’s, the i-MiEV is about the same, in terms of its indirect greenhouse gas emissions intensity, as an average, reasonably fuel efficient, petrol-burning ICE car. The BladeRunner is significantly worse than an ordinary car, and the Tesla Roadster is significantly better – but I guess the Tesla represents what is essentially a top-of-the-line EV, with a price tag to match.

At the moment, in Australia, there is absolutely nothing to be gained at all, in terms of greenhouse gas emissions reduction, from electric vehicles. (Unless you get a Tesla). (In fact, choosing an EV over a new, relatively efficient petrol or LPG fuelled conventional ICE vehicle, which you could easily get for the same kind of budget, could very well represent a significantly worse choice, in terms of GHG emissions.) For that to change, what is required is a large reduction in the greenhouse gas intensity of electricity generation – replacing coal-fired generators with nuclear power or other clean electricity generation.

However, the greenhouse gas intensity of Australia’s electricity supply is very bad, by global standards. Ontario (in Canada) is an example of a place where extensive uptake of nuclear power, and extensive access to hydroelectricity, have almost completely displaced coal-fired generation, and provide electricity with extremely low greenhouse gas emissions intensity – about 200 gCO2/kWh, or 20% of the Australian average. In Sweden or France for example, you’ll see much the same.
In the US, for example, on the average, it is somewhere in between.

Thus, under these conditions, the BladeRunner has equivalent GHG emissions of about 3.8 kg CO2 per 100 km, 3.1 kg/100 km for the i-MiEV, and about 2.2 kg/100 km for the Tesla – all of which are far superior to any ICE vehicle.

Embarrassingly predictable?

Here’s a powerpoint presentation from an excellent presentation given by Kirk Sorensen about the use of thorium as a nuclear energy resource.

Of course, the Powerpoint slides themselves are not as good as the whole presentation, and in and of themselves they can be a little hard to follow, without the presenter, but unfortunately you have to deal with that with any presentation where you’ve only had a chance to pick up the slides after the fact.

This presentation was prepared over a year ago – but I was only reading it last week. As for the title of this post – there was something, on a related note, that I found a little amusing.

Check out the 6th slide, in Kirk Sorensen’s presentation, and compare it to the oh-so-factual and educational graphics used in Joseph Romm’s recent post on GristMill. Isn’t it uncanny – just when you thought that nobody trying to construct a coherent (?) argument of some kind against the use of nuclear energy could actually be that silly.

Joe Romm has got another post up recently that’s worth looking at as well, in which he attempts to reinforce the notion that the linear-non-threshold hypothesis is somehow factually motivated, and that every little contribution to low doses of ionising radiation is dangerous. I’m sure some readers will be interested in going and leaving a comment in response to that.

Still, Romm deserves some credit for correctly pointing out that on the grounds of ionising radiation dose, as well as numerous other ecological and health impacts, coal-fired electricity generators are far more dangerous than nuclear power plants.

Also, in one final note, congratulations to Rod Adams on the momumental 100th episode of The Atomic Show podcast. That’s a monumental effort, producing 100 episodes of interesting, unique high-quality podcasting, interviews and commentary, and I look forward to the next 100 episodes to come.