|
Snoopy,
Been pretty busy lately but did have a quick read
of this response. Excellent !!!
Regards,
Cris
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2004 11:14
AM
Subject: Re: [sharechat] Focus on
CEN(Part 4)- Power Station's Fate
Hi Marilyn,
>
>You make a good point about
established hydro power being
>a licence to print money Snoopy.
>
>To wander off topic, some idiot is going to suggest "hey
nuclear
>power is cheap to run".
>
>They are of course
correct nuclear is cheap to run, but they fail to
>take into account
that the byproducts of this process are incredibly
>toxic and difficult
to dispose of. No country which has a nuclear
>power
industry has an economic or generally public accepted means
of
>disposing the byproducts or old reactors.
>
Oh I
don't know. There is a Mr Kim in North Korea who seems to
be
interested in buying up nuclear waste 'for further processing'
;-).
>
>Any proposal to generate nuclear power will be
uneconomic when
>shutdown costs (which in reality are unquantifiable and
open ended)
>are added in.
>
If you define something as
'unquantifiable and open ended' then that
is tantamount to expressing a
personal view that cannot be argued
with- period. I
prefer the more cost based argument.
Last year I went to an energy
seminar in which one of the speakers
was Barry Hill, an Australian nuclear
expert. He told us that nuclear
power plants cost four times
the cost to build compared to gas power
stations of equivalent
output. A nuclear power station would also
cost between four
(if modular units of construction were used) and
seven years to build,
which is quite a long time to have capital tied
up producing no
return.
The wholesale cost per unit for nuclear, Hill estimated at
3.8cUS/kWh.
This is around 6.2cNZ/kWh per unit at current exchange
rates. That is
comparable in cost to the larger scale wind projects
and gas power
stations, but cheaper than micro hydro 7.0-8.5c.
But nuclear power
is not compellingly cheap. And
none of these options compare
favourably with coal. The wholesale
generation cost of coal ranges
between 4.0-.07cNZ/kWh, although a carbon
tax could be expected to
add 1.5cNZ/kWh to those coal figures.
The
second problem with nuclear plant is that because of the high
capital cost
of plant, it doesn't make sense to do it unless you build
a large
one. It is unlikely that any of the existing energy
players
could justify introducing the equivalent of two Clyde Dams into
the
market in one hit without causing havoc in the wholesale power
market.
No competitor is going to allow a player who builds
a nuclear
station to steal away that many customers at
once! Nuclear power is
a base load system that has to be
operated all the time to get the
best economics out of it. You
can't afford to switch your nuclear
power plant on and off to meet
demand if you own one.
The third problem with the nuclear is that
economics of the plant
depend on the cost of capital. With a
5-7% cost of capital you can
make the economics of nuclear look OK on a
'discounted capital price
per unit basis'. However, with
a 12% cost of capital, the economics
of nuclear are
terrible. Because New Zealand, and to a
lesser
extent Australia, are high interest rate countries the cost of
capital
tends to trend towards the 'unacceptable' end of the
spectrum.
In summary, the thing that sinks nuclear power in New Zealand
is the
economic arguments. No need to bring any philosophical
arguments
into it.
SNOOPY
--
Message sent by Snoopy
on Pegasus Mail version 4.02
----------------------------------
"Q:
If you call a dog tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?"
"A:
Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a
leg."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
To
remove yourself from this list, please use the form at
http://www.sharechat.co.nz/chat/forum/
|
See IRG research reports
