McCain's French kiss

Financial Post ^ | May 13, 2008 | Lawrence Solomon

[Delacon]

The Republican nominee backed nuclear this week, but the U.S. shouldn't try to imitate the French disaster

                                    By Lawrence Solomon
"If France can produce 80% of its electricity with nuclear power, why can’t we?,” asks U.S. presidential candidate John McCain. Nuclear power is a cornerstone of Senator McCain’s plan to combat climate change, which he is unveiling this week.
McCain thinks he is asking a simple rhetorical question. As it turns out, he is not. His question is technical, with an answer that will surprise him and most Americans. Nuclear reactors cannot possibly meet 80% of America’s power needs — or those of any country whose power market dominates its region — because of limitations in nuclear technology. McCain needs to find another miracle energy solution, or abandon his vow to drastically cut back carbon dioxide emissions.
Unlike other forms of power generation, nuclear reactors are designed to run flat-out, 24/7 — they can’t crank up their output at times of high demand or ease up when demand slows. This limitation generally consigns nuclear power to meeting a power system’s minimum power needs — the amount of power needed in the dead of night, when most industry and most people are asleep, and the value of power is low. At other times of the day and night, when power demands rise and the price of power is high, society calls on the more flexible forms of generation — coal, gas, oil and hydro-electricity among them — to meet its additional higher-value needs.
If a country produces more nuclear power than it needs in the dead of night, it must export that low-value, off-peak power. This is what France does. It sells its nuclear surplus to its European Union neighbours, a market of 700 million people. That large market — more than 10 times France’s population — is able to soak up most of France’s surplus off-peak power.
The U.S. is not surrounded, as is France, by far more populous neighbours. Just the opposite: The U.S. dominates the North American market. If 80% of U.S. needs were met by nuclear reactors, as Senator McCain desires, America’s off-peak surplus would have no market, even if the power were given away. Countries highly reliant on nuclear power, in effect, are in turn reliant on having large non-nuclear-reliant countries as neighbours. If France’s neighbours had power systems dominated by nuclear power, they too would be trying to export off-peak power and France would have no one to whom it could offload its surplus power. In fact, even with the mammoth EU market to tap into, France must shut down some of its reactors some weekends because no one can use its surplus. In effect, France can’t even give the stuff away.
Not only does France export vast quantities of its low-value power (it is the EU’s biggest exporter by far), France meanwhile must import high-value peak power from its neighbours. This arrangement is so financially ruinous that France in 2006 decided to resurrect its obsolete oil-fired power stations, one of which dates back to 1968.
France’s nuclear program sprung not from business needs but from foreign policy goals. Immediately after the Second World War, France’s President, Charles de Gaulle, decided to develop nuclear weapons, to make France independent of either the U.S. or the USSR. This foreign policy goal spawned a commercial nuclear industry, but a small one — France’s nuclear plants could not compete with other forms of generation, and produced but 8% of France’s power until 1973.
Then came the OPEC oil crisis and panic. Sensing that French sovereignty was at stake, the country decided to replace oil with electricity and to generate that electricity with nuclear. By 1974, three mammoth nuclear plants were begun and by 1977, another five. Without regulatory hurdles to clear and with cut-rate financing and a host of other subsidies from Euratom, the EU’s nuclear subsidy agency, France’s power system was soon transformed. By 1979, France’s frenzied building program had nuclear power meeting 20% of France’s power generation. By 1983 the figure was about 50% and by 1990 about 75% and growing.
Despite the subsidies, the overbuilding effectively bankrupted Electricite de France (EdF), the French power company. To dispose of its overcapacity and stay afloat, EdF feverishly exported its surplus power to its neighbours, even laying a cable under the English Channel to become a major supplier to the UK. At great expense, French homes were converted to inefficient electric home heating. And EdF offered cut-rate power to keep and attract energy-intensive industries — Pechiney, the aluminum supplier, obtained power at half of EdF’s cost of production, and soon EdF was providing similar terms to Exxon Chemicals and Allied Signal.
These measures helped but not enough — in 1989, EdF ran a loss of four billion French francs, a sum its president termed “catastrophic.” The company had a 800-billion-franc debt, old reactors that faced expensive decommissioning, and unresolved waste disposal costs. To keep lower-cost competitors out of the country, France also reneged on an EU-wide agreement to open borders up to electricity competition.
France’s nuclear program, in short, is an economic disaster, and a political one too — 61% of the French public favours a phase-out of nuclear energy.
“Is France a more secure, advanced and innovative country than we are?,” McCain also asked. “I need no answer to that rhetorical question. I know my country well enough to know otherwise.”
But McCain does not know France well enough to know why nuclear power’s negative record over there says nothing positive about what it can do for people over here, on this side of the Atlantic.

                                                            Financial Post
Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Energy Probe and author of The Deniers: The world-renowned scientists who stood up against global warming hysteria, political persecution, and fraud. E-mail: LawrenceSolomon@nextcity.com. Fourth in a series.

[PsyOp]

And we couldn’t sell our excess output to the Mexicans and Canadians because....?

Also, as we increase the use of electrical vehicle, hydrogen cell vehicles, etc., those “off peak” hours are going to see more demand, are they not?

Or... maybe... farmers can install giant grow lights in their fields and run them full blast at night to soak up that excess electricity and speed up the production of all the ethanol were going to need for food to fuel program.

You’re just not thinking outside the reactor containment vessel. ;-]

[tet68]

Not to mention that even if we had to GIVE AWAY all our off peak power, we would still, STILL be ahead of the game by not being owned by the oil producing states, and those neighbors to whom we gave away our power might just improve
their standards of living in the process.

[Delacon]

Good points all. My take though from the article is that nuclear power is only economically efficient and competitive when plants operate at maximum power, that France handles this problem by operating at maximum power and then selling off the excess to an available market that we don't currently have. Anyway this article kinda rained on my pro nuke parade.

[Baladas]

Yes, it boils down to France is not equal to the US in geography and population, therefore, what works there may or may not work here, and that Juan should take that into consideration.

Some hellish imagery in my mind now from the article’s title.

[Boiler Plate]

This guy is an idiot. Nuclear power can be accelerated and decelarated it just takes more time. We aren’t talking about a Ferarri here we are talking about something that can generate the output of a 1000 Ferarris. You use peaking plants for instantaneous unexpected changes.

[Lexinom]

Enlighten us, please.

[HwyChile]

“Anyway this article kinda rained on my pro nuke parade.”

I don't know why that would be the case. Why would we build nuclear plants that produce too much power when we could build the amount that just produces a certain portion of our power and that can run wide open so that no excess need be sold off. France just put too much of its power generation in a non-flexible energy source. If it had only build enough for 50% of its power, it probably would not have a problem.

[wolfpat]

Okay, I have 25 years in the commercial nuclear industry. I’ve been out of it for 4 years (long story).

You can vary the output of commercial reactors. It’s not that hard. It’s just not preferred because of the enormous investment the utilities have in their nuclear plants. General Electric plants are perfect for providing the swing load. They can vary their load by 50% much easier than Westinghouse plants.

[SierraWasp]

This article is BOGUS as far as I'm concerned! The low value night time nuclear power production can also be used to either desalinate sea water, create hydrogen, produce aluminum and a host of other electricity gobling industrial uses. (to say nothing of charging up jillions of electric cars and light trucks)

Hydroelectric is the best peak time source, but this author, who's work on denegrating manGore caused Globull Warming is quite good!!!

[Lexinom]

You seem to be on track.

You’re just not thinking outside the reactor containment vessel. ;-]

LOL!

[ElkGroveDan]

If a country produces more nuclear power than it needs in the dead of night, it must export that low-value, off-peak power.

That's a really lame argument. If we were willing to go full out nuclear, one could envision pricing power at extreme low rates during the low use hours causing industry to crank up their demand at those times. If there is still excess power then it could be consumed by desalinization plants or some other costly, power hungry process.

[Enchante]

The fact that France pursued nuclear power with an overly state-driven and inefficient model does not mean that there are not more efficient and cost-effective ways to utilize nuclear power in meeting the energy needs of the USA.

If 80% nuclear power generation is too much for a country’s electricity grid to absorb 24/7 that does not mean that some lesser % such as 30, 40, 50, or 60 might not be very beneficial.

Also, if/when electric cars and hybrids are becoming cost-effective and widely used, there could well be other uses for that nighttime power (charging batteries, making hydrogen, etc.).

This article is interesting but rather one-sided and backward-looking at a flawed example that is 30 years old (admittedly it is the one used by McCain but that does not mean we must slavishly follow the French model on nuclear power).

[cyberella]

Awesome video:

The same kind of terrorists who support Obama did this:
http://www.frugalsites.net/911/attack/
Never apologize for them.
Never appease them.
Never forget.

[wolfpat]

If you adjust the power output by the rods, you get some weird power fluctuations because of the xenon and samarium. The commercial PWRs use boric acid concentration in the reactor coolant to make power changes.

[woodbutcher]

The solution is easy.

Parts of it are contained in the above messages, so to put the ideas together:

Build nuke plants for the 40% load that exists during night time hours.

Just think of how much power that would amount to!!! Unreal.

Then offer industry cut rates, real low ball cut rates providing they use the power at night.

As more industries come on line, add the required Nuke plants to supply them. That would make available more nuke power for the peak periods.

Then use the coal fired plants to meet peak loads.

I don't know that this will save oil, as I am not sure how much oil is used in the generation of power. It was my impression that most are either coal or gas with gas being used mostly because it is assumed to be cleaner.

[ReveBM]

We could use all the excess power to charge up batteries of electromagnetic rail guns guarding our borders. We could hit ships hundreds of miles off shore with them.

[HwyChile]

“I’m not buying that oil is the only reasonable energy source.”

I agree that conservatives seem to be all pro oil and discount any other kind of power. However, fossil fuels have been the low-cost energy source for years. It was not feasible to have other types of energy, including nuclear energy, because it cost a lot more. Why would someone want to pay more for energy when they could get it for less money? That simple reason is what made fossil fuels king and the only feasible option. However, the rising cost of fossil fuels is changing this fact. Nuclear energy and other sources of energy are now starting to become feasible now that fossil fuels are going up in price.

[Fiddlstix]

If a country produces more nuclear power than it needs in the dead of night, it must export that low-value, off-peak power. This is what France does. It sells its nuclear surplus to its European Union neighbours, a market of 700 million people....

I have a question. Isn't France and their "neighbors" in 'more or less' the same time zones?
That said, wouldn't most of their 'customers' being 'buying' the abundance of 'surplus power' at off peak hours also?
What the heck would those 'customers' be doing with all that 'off peak surplus' which they wouldn't be needing in the first place?
Just askin'

[HwyChile]

“If 80% nuclear power generation is too much for a country’s electricity grid to absorb 24/7 that does not mean that some lesser % such as 30, 40, 50, or 60 might not be very beneficial.”

Bingo! We have a winner here folks. The winning answer. It is actually very obvious from reading the article. If 80% nuclear energy is too much power during portions of the day, don't build 80% nuclear power. If we used the amount just needed for night and ran it 24 hours a day, the rest of the peak time could be filled in with more flexible sources of energy and we still come out a with the right mix and don't need to sell off anything.

[chasio649]

I defer to you...i just know that when we were off of shore power....the rx was not running full tilt all the time.