As a libertarian free-marketeer I also agree we should not be subsidising the nuclear industry.

And we still don’t even know where to put or what to do with the nuclear waste.

Lean is entirely a loon on this.

MOX is a way of using up hte plutonium so that it cannot be used in bombs. This is why Al Gore set up a similar system to process the Soviet Unions plutonium into civilian reactors.

@2. Andreas Moser

And we still don’t even know where to put or what to do with the nuclear waste.

Seriously, we do. There is an established process to vitrify the waste (so when stored it cannot contaminate the water course) and suitable underground storage sites have been identified around the country. All that is needed is the political will to go ahead and sign the contracts. Governments so far have lacked the backbone. Huhne is particularly spineless. He would prefer the waste to remain in a far less suitable state on the surface than to do the responsible thing and sign off the disposal.

If you are both an environmentalist and economically literate, you ought to know that things like carbon emissions are what’s known as externalities, not priced by the market or accounted for in calculations of profit and loss, hence you ought to advocating using taxes and subsidies to correct for these externalities.

So subsidizing green technology and infrastructure should be acceptable both to environmentalists and mainstream market economists.

Of course the size of the subsidy is another matter, but we are told climate change is a very very bad thing worth spending lots of money to avert, and better informed people than I think nuclear will probably be part of the mix and useful w.r.t to energy security and, for example, not relying solely to solar power piped up from the Sahara. Anybody who thinks the UK will ever come close to powering itself with (non-nuclear) domestic renewables should not be taken seriously.

In addition to the direct value of nuclear power plants, there is also an “option value” to keeping both nuclear R&D going and nuclear operations, in order to get better at it.

These are potential answer to the question posed in the OP. It is however, quite possible that the sums of money involved are not justified and it is true the nuclear industry has a dreadful track record of failing to deliver.

@3. Tim Worstall

Indeed. And to answer Sunny: until we have found a renewable energy source that is 100% reliable to meet the UK’s demand we have to diversify the generation. Since coal is dirty, oil and gas are running out, and CO2 storage is a bigger danger than radioactive waste, that means we have to have nuclear.

Of course we could also try to persuade people to use less electricity, but with the current obsession with electric cars I suspect that electricity usage will relentlessly rise.

if we look at the timetables for providing new generation and decomissioning the old, there is a (rather worrying, to my mind) gap starting to appear… this is why we are funding nuclear at the moment. I blame the previous governments Energy minister.

I for one am stocking up on logs and candles for approx. 2015 in anticipation….

@5 Luis Enrique: “…it is true the nuclear industry has a dreadful track record of failing to deliver.”

And dreadful records on disclosure (eg reporting of accidents) and aggressive policing. But I am a reluctant convert and believe that we have to reinvestigate nuclear power. Not on the terms that were offered in the 1980s and 90s, but addressing the failings that made nuclear power so unappealing in the past. As Richard Blogger wrote, we need diversity of energy supply and thus we have to reconsider nuclear power.

@OP, Sunny: “Not just hugely expensive and non-viable, but also highly dangerous.”

Windmills have been around for donkey’s years. The modern wind turbine has been around for 35 years (I’m talking about prototypes) and cannot produce electricity at the same cost as coal. Some days wind is really effective, but over a year the numbers don’t work too well. Which is why countries that buy wind power pay a subsidy for it.

Nuclear power has been around for 60 years. For most of that time, costs and numbers were disguised because it was so closely related to the nuclear weapons industry. And as I have acknowledged previously, nuclear power is associated with illiberal conduct. Society’s distrust of the nuclear power industry is not without foundation.

However, some people believe that they can produce commercial nuclear power at a cost similar to coal fuelled electricity. And the country that is physically closest to the UK produces 80% of its electricity via nuclear. France could buy coal and gas on the international market in the same way as the UK, but they put their money into nuclear power. Perhaps “hugely expensive nuclear power” imposes a burden on French companies, but I don’t recall it being cited in international economics comparisons.

And, yes, traditional nuclear fission power generation is risky and creates unpleasant by-products. Thankfully, nuclear science has progressed since Calder Hall.

We have to think again: the risks of nuclear power versus the risks of uncertain power supply, by weather or politics.

Not to forget that wind and solar power have huge subsidies attached to them to make them viable. That’s before you factor in the roughly 90% standby latency you need behind them from gas-fired plants, jsut in case the wind drops.

I suppose we could go the German route, with wind farms that were supposed to last 25 years falling apart within 10, not producing the power they were meant to, having much higher maintenance costs yet still demanding massive government subsidy.

Or we could go nuclear for the most part, like France, and use reliable green energy sources (like wave/hydro and geothermal) where available and appropriate.

(Declaration of interest: I blog on nuclear issues for Greenpeace International)

There are several problems that come with MOX. First, the plutonium content is easier to extract than from spent nuclear fuel meaning it presents more of a proliferation risk. There are just 39 MOX reactors worldwide and none of them effectively burn the plutonium.

On the wider issue of nuclear energy, we have to remember that it is a mature technology. It’s at or close to the end of its learning curve – the technology has nowhere left to evolve to. The new Generation III reactors are shaping up to be something of a disaster. The only two being built in Europe right now are massively over budget and years behind schedule. They’ve been beset by thousands of construction defects and the nuclear regulators in France, Finland and the UK have questioned the integrity of the control and safety systems. The Chinese are building the same model and its having exactly the same problems.

Nuclear is also a crappy investment. Wall Street won’t touch it. The World Bank hasn’t funded a reactor project since 1959. The risk of default on reactor financing is an eye-watering 50%. I can’t think of a reactor that’s been built anywhere in the world without some kind of public subsidy. If there are any, they’re rare. New reactors are at the planning stage all over the planet but collapse as soon as they get to the question of financing. Turkey, Bulgaria, the US, Canada, South Africa, Romania, Poland, Czech Republic and quite a few others are struggling to get new build projects financed.

Renewables on the other hand are close to the beginning of their learning curve. Solar and wind are getting cheaper and more efficient all the time. So much so that there is serious talk of solar being viable in northern Europe.

If this is a question of fighting climate change then we need to ask ourselves if we can wait for new nuclear reactors. The new ones in the UK for example are billed to come online in 2018/19. However, reactors that are built to schedule and budget are few – the government planning sets a deadline of 2025 for these new reactor to be built. I’d put good money on these reactors being ready closer to 2025 than 2018.

If nobody else does, the nuclear industry thinks renewables are a goer. The industry says its wants to see a mix of energy sources but is fighting hard for a cap on renewables. It knows that renewables get a bigger foothold before new reactors are complete then nuclear is finished.

We can talk about fast breeders, thorium reactors and Generation IV reactors if you like but they’re not going to be producing electricity commercially (if at all) for another 20 years at least.

And all that’s before we get to the ethical and philosophical considerations about what we do hundred of thousands of tons of high-level nuclear waste, some of which remains dangerous for 160 million years.

I’ll shut up now.

Luis provided a link to Without Hot Air, which is certainly worth reading.

The man behind it, David MacKay (blog), is Chief Scientific Advisor to the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC).

DECC has made available a calculator tool to help us understand the decision-making process:

The intention of this ‘play Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change’ approach is not to imply that the energy system could or should be centrally planned, but to help people understand the range of possibilities that are open to us; the trade-offs; the common themes shared by energy pathways that add up; and the scale of action required.

“First, the plutonium content is easier to extract than from spent nuclear fuel meaning it presents more of a proliferation risk. ”

Yes Justin: but much more difficult than nicking a piece of already purified plutonium. Which is what we’re worried about. Cranking all that old bomb material through an MOX plant reduces the risks of proliferation. If we didn’t already have plutonium lying about, you would be correct: but we do, so you’re not.

“Solar and wind are getting cheaper and more efficient all the time.”

Indeed they are. And when they’re economically viable then everyone will naturally use them. But let’s wait until they are before insisting everyone does use them, eh?

(Declaration of interest: I work on certain types of renewables/low carbon systems. I’ll get very rich indeed if one specific technology gets taken up on a large scale.)

“about what we do hundred of thousands of tons of high-level nuclear waste, some of which remains dangerous for 160 million years.”

Slightly over egging the pudding there. “Dangerous” in the same way that granite rocks in Cornwall are going to remain dangerous for the next 4 billion years as a result of their natural uranium content.

“Higher than background radiation” or the danger of the ore the materials come from, more like 3,000 years.

Oh, and my favourite point: the entire nuclear cycle produces less radiation than coal fired plants.

Justin,

I don’t wish to argue with you, because I don’t know this subject like you do, but this looks like a key claim to me:

“It’s at or close to the end of its learning curve – the technology has nowhere left to evolve to.”

Even if the generation II technology is mature, isn’t there scope to learn how to build it and run it more cheaply? I’ve read about small-scale reactors, but I’m not sure one whether that’s gen II tech or not.

From what you say about generation III reactors, it sounds like the engineers are still very early on the learning curve, although I get the impression you’re not optimistic about improvements.

Justin,

I can’t think of a reactor that’s been built anywhere in the world without some kind of public subsidy.

What energy production plants haven’t been built with some kind of public subsidy?

If the answer is ‘none’, the point seems a bit disingenuous.

I’d go for nuclear any day, and store my canful of waste in a deep hole in my own garden. It makes more sense to me than burning fossil fuels, coal especially.

Of course, coal contains radioactivity that is released, along with its carbon, into the atmosphere when it is burned.

Nuclear is a no-brainer once the alternatives have been studied.

Forgot to add that,

China has committed itself to establishing an entirely new nuclear energy programme using thorium as a fuel, within 20 years. The LFTR (Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor) is a 4G reactor that uses liquid salt as both fuel and coolant. China uses the more general term TMSR (Thorium Molten-Salt Reactor).

India’s already running a thorium reactor and Russia is making the same noises.

I know someone who produces thorium: which is a bit of a pain as no one actually uses it any more*. It’s a waste from his other production. But he’s storing it, rather than sending it off for disposal. As he’s certain that in the next decade or two there will be people sniffing around for thorium to put into reactors.

(* little tale from the frontlines of the metals industry. One year, back a few, I was responsible for near 80% of US trade of thorium. One customer wanted a 13 lb bar of it and the next year, looking at the trade stats, I could see that total trade in thorium was $30,000 or so, including my $24,000 13 lb bar…..)

Tim @ 13:

I do try hard not to over-egg things because I’ve found that the facts themselves are dramatic enough. Iodine-129, a product of nuclear fission, has a half-life of 16 million years but remains dangerous for 160 million.

Indeed they are. And when they’re economically viable then everyone will naturally use them. But let’s wait until they are before insisting everyone does use them, eh?

The same should be said for nuclear shouldn’t it?

Luis Enrique @ 14:

Even if the generation II technology is mature, isn’t there scope to learn how to build it and run it more cheaply? I’ve read about small-scale reactors, but I’m not sure one whether that’s gen II tech or not.

The thing is, the cost of nuclear is actually rising. In 60 years nobody’s found a way to build and run reactors more cheaply. Also, a push for nuclear reactors builds in bottlenecks. There are only a few places making the heavy reactor parts required and their order books are full for years by all accounts.

From what you say about generation III reactors, it sounds like the engineers are still very early on the learning curve, although I get the impression you’re not optimistic about improvements.

No, I’m not optimistic and neither, it seems, are the industry. They’re already looking at going back to Gen II reactors especially in the developing world where safety legislation isn’t as stringent as it is in the West. The EPR Gen III reactors being built in Finland, France and China are huge – they’ll be the biggest reactors the world has even seen. All three are experiencing the exact same problems them being started years apart.

ukliberty @ 15:

What energy production plants haven’t been built with some kind of public subsidy?

If the answer is ‘none’, the point seems a bit disingenuous.

I should have been a little clearer. My point is that nuclear has had billions in subsidies for the last 60 years. Largely for historical reasons to do with bomb-making. The nuclear industry in the UK is now saying it can build reactors without public subsidy – I don’t believe them. There are subsidies and then there are subsidies, however. They’ll find a way.

“Iodine-129, a product of nuclear fission, has a half-life of 16 million years but remains dangerous for 160 million.”

Hmmm….

“129I is one of the 7 long-lived fission products that are produced in significant amounts. Its yield is 0.6576% per fission (U-235).”

So not very much of it then.

And given the way that half lives work, after 160 million years there’s 0.00098% of the original amount left. That’s an interesting use of the word “dangerous”. You know, 0.00064% of the weight of the original U 235 atom that fissioned?

“129I decays with a half-life of 15.7 million years, with low-energy beta and gamma emissions, to xenon-129 (129Xe).”

Low energy beta and gamma? Sure, you wouldn’t want to drink it but other than that, not really very important…..

Tim @ 18

It’s true you do hear talk of thorium reactors but commercial viability seems a way off yet. France’s AREVA, the big kid on the nuclear block who can be found everywhere in the world aren’t interested.

@Tim,

“And given the way that half lives work, after 160 million years there’s 0.00098% of the original amount left. That’s an interesting use of the word “dangerous”. ”

Err, no, that is 0.00098 or 0.098%. It is still not that much, albeit iodine being quite dangerous as a radioactive isotope because our bodies are relatively keen on absorbing it.

“You know, 0.00064% of the weight of the original U 235 atom that fissioned?”

Actually, and I know you made the mistake with the %age, the correct figure is 0.000347% of the weight of the original U235 – you forgot to allow for the relative scarcity of production.

(Disclaimer of interest: I spent around 8 years of my life living about 30m from a fission reactor …)

You are correct on the decimal point. My bad.

Justin,

I should have been a little clearer. My point is that nuclear has had billions in subsidies for the last 60 years. Largely for historical reasons to do with bomb-making. The nuclear industry in the UK is now saying it can build reactors without public subsidy – I don’t believe them. There are subsidies and then there are subsidies, however. They’ll find a way.

But public subsidy isn’t bad in itself, is it? Or is it?

What’s Greenpeace’s position on nuclear? Are they saying we should not have any nuclear at all?

19. Justin – “I do try hard not to over-egg things because I’ve found that the facts themselves are dramatic enough. Iodine-129, a product of nuclear fission, has a half-life of 16 million years but remains dangerous for 160 million.”

And the cadmium spread across the countryside by coal fired power stations is poisonous forever. What’s your point?

“The thing is, the cost of nuclear is actually rising. In 60 years nobody’s found a way to build and run reactors more cheaply. Also, a push for nuclear reactors builds in bottlenecks. There are only a few places making the heavy reactor parts required and their order books are full for years by all accounts.”

Well this is not really true. There is an easy way to make reactors cheaper. The Green movement has been trying to kill them for decades by making each and every one more expensive. This is where the costs are and where savings can be made. For a start, there is no point holding expensive, decades-long inquiries into the safety of every single reactor. Once the general type has been approved, there is no reason to revisit those issues for every reactor. That would massively reduce the costs right there.

If orders were secure, the major manufacturers could tool up for any level of production we cared to build. There is no fundamental reason for a bottleneck.

“The EPR Gen III reactors being built in Finland, France and China are huge – they’ll be the biggest reactors the world has even seen. All three are experiencing the exact same problems them being started years apart.”

The EPR is 1650 MWe. That is not so much greater than the 1200 MWe reactors that were built in the 1970s. The Chinese reactors are too new to have had major problems. The French and Finnish ones suffer from Green protests and political delays but that is virtually the only problems they share.

ukliberty @ 24:

But public subsidy isn’t bad in itself, is it? Or is it?

I suppose it depends on where you stand politically and what the money’s been spent on. Greenpeace’s position is that nuclear is a tried and failed technology that’s had its chance and blown it.

What’s Greenpeace’s position on nuclear? Are they saying we should not have any nuclear at all?

Yep, Greenpeace is anti-nuclear for a number of reasons. The economics stink, the waste problem is not solved, and even if hundreds of new reactors are built they will only make a small dent in carbon emissions. We’re talking only a 6% reduction for a trillion dollar outlay. Alternatives laid out in the Energy Revolution scenario sees 95% of electricity produced by renewables by 2050.

Energy Blueprint?

That’s the one that starts out with “first we use half as much energy as we currently do” and then we balance the sums is it?

26. Justin – “Greenpeace’s position is that nuclear is a tried and failed technology that’s had its chance and blown it.”

The closest Greenpeace has come to a scientific fact was lying about the amount of toxic waste in the Brent Spar. They are in no position to make a competent comment on nuclear technology.

“Greenpeace is anti-nuclear for a number of reasons. The economics stink, the waste problem is not solved, and even if hundreds of new reactors are built they will only make a small dent in carbon emissions. We’re talking only a 6% reduction for a trillion dollar outlay. Alternatives laid out in the Energy Revolution scenario sees 95% of electricity produced by renewables by 2050.”

This would be improved if the word “not” was added liberally. The economics are fine. The politics are the problem. There are dozens of possible solutions to the waste problem from vitrification to burning it up. Hundreds of reactors would replace most of our fossil fuel power generation which would make a serious dent in our emissions. Renewables cannot come close to the same level of reliability or even cheapness and certainly they cannot provide any significant fraction of our power in the near future. It is coal and gas or it is nuclear.

The French and Finnish ones suffer from Green protests and political delays but that is virtually the only problems they share.

Not strictly true. In both Finland and France, the concrete base was of the wrong quality and cracks were found. Welding in the cooling systems was unsupervised, substandard and had to be redone. For a whole year there were no welding supervisors onsite, welders had no specifications and tests on the quality of the welding were not carried out. The Finnish EPR was found to have around 3,000 construction defects. Nuclear regulators in Finland, France and the UK have all expressed concerns about the interdependency of the EPR’s control and safety systems. None of these are the fault of the Greens or politics.

And don’t forget China which is having exactly same problems with their EPR.

Justin,

In both Finland and France, the concrete base was of the wrong quality and cracks were found. Welding in the cooling systems was unsupervised, substandard and had to be redone. For a whole year there were no welding supervisors onsite, welders had no specifications and tests on the quality of the welding were not carried out. The Finnish EPR was found to have around 3,000 construction defects.

This isn’t a ‘nuclear problem’ but a ‘supervision problem’.

And the ‘waste problem’ seems political, not technlogical.

Should we really being taking advice from Greenpeace, an anti-democratic, law-breaking, auguably trerrorist organisation.

This isn’t a ‘nuclear problem’ but a ‘supervision problem’.

True. As soon as we can figure out how to run projects of this unprecedented scale and complexity properly, I’ll consider nuclear to be a goer. I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting though – humans remain stubbornly fallible.

The economics are fine. The politics are the problem.

Ah, if only that notorious radical green tree-hugger Maggie Thatcher hadn’t axed the British nuclear programme…

The Can we live on renewables? chapter of Without Hot Air.

Tim,

That’s the one that starts out with “first we use half as much energy as we currently do” and then we balance the sums is it?

IIUC, for the EU, it’s a third!:

This dramatic reduction is a crucial prerequisite for achieving a significant share of renewable energy sources in the overall energy supply system, compensating for the phasing out of nuclear energy and reducing the consumption of fossil fuels.

I think there will be an “energy revolution” if people are forced to sit in the dark.

DECC’s 2050 pathways analysis report says that,

In order to meet electricity needs without new nuclear, it is assumed that compared to Pathway Alpha, we significantly increase effort from onshore and offshore wind and from distributed solar PV (the equivalent of 5.4 square metres of panels per person by 2050). Imports of bioenergy are significantly increased compared to Pathway Alpha, such that the UK would import an amount of bioenergy equivalent to its entire projected market share by 2050, based on IEA figures. Energy demand is reduced in both the domestic and commercial sectors from lighting, appliances and cooking. As in Pathway Beta, efficiencies are seen in the aviation sector. Even more than in Pathway Beta, the challenges of balancing the electricity grid are very substantial: we would need an extremely substantial increase in storage, demand shifting and interconnection.

I think there will be an “energy revolution” if people are forced to sit in the dark.

What’s the problem with efficiency? I mean, purely on the “sitting in the dark” front, CFLs use ~20% of the energy of an equivalent incandescent, and LEDs are ~1%. I reduced my personal electricity usage by fully 50% simply by not leaving stuff on 24/7. We can dramatically reduce electricity usage (and save a lot of money into the bargain) simply by not being so absurdly wasteful with it. Unless you feel you have some kind of moral obligation to give your electricity supplier as much money as humanly possible…

@35 Dunc

And the electric / hydrogen cars? Where does that energy come from?

@36: I don’t recall saying anything on the subject. Is this some new rule, that I have to have solutions for every possible facet of an issue before we can acknowledge any solutions for any aspect? No partial solutions allowed? Perfection or bust? Good luck with that.

besides, there are plenty of practical problems with the large-scale adoption of either electric or hydrogen cars besides where the power is coming from. I don’t see why I should have to provide solutions to imaginary problems.

Dunc,

What’s the problem with efficiency? I mean, purely on the “sitting in the dark” front, CFLs use ~20% of the energy of an equivalent incandescent, and LEDs are ~1%. I reduced my personal electricity usage by fully 50% simply by not leaving stuff on 24/7. We can dramatically reduce electricity usage (and save a lot of money into the bargain) simply by not being so absurdly wasteful with it. Unless you feel you have some kind of moral obligation to give your electricity supplier as much money as humanly possible…

I don’t have a problem with it in principle, I’m just trying to understand if it can be sufficiently improved and what the trade-offs are of doing that.

According to the DECC calculator, by 2050, it would require a heroic but not law of physics breaking effort to reduce domestic lights and appliances demand by 60% and non-domestic by 30%. But it seems that possible efficiency improvements in other areas are harder to gauge – for example, “Evidence suggests that between 1997 and 2008, bus fuel efficiency actually fell by around 21%”.

@38 Dunc

The problems are fewer if we allow ourselves to use nuclear, that was my point.

The trouble with all the real alternatives apart from wave power is that they cannot match nuclear for baseload or footprint. The issue of waste is exaggerated. It is dangerous, but so is the alternative of carrying on burning coal. In fact coal is worse as it releases huge amounts of greenhouse gas, radioactivity and toxic matter into the environment.

And wavepower has big technical problems so far.

I would be happy to have a compact, sealed nuclear power source to power my community and to store the waste locally. Having been a licensed radiation worker twenty years ago and still being cancer free and child rich I don’t share the fears many have, irrationally, due to hysterical anti-nuclear propaganda. (I worked with the usual biological tracers such as P32, S35, I125 as well as In111 and used a neutron source to activate other materials. I was never exposed to radiation doses above legal limits but believe me at times the counter was a bit noisy!)

> According to the DECC calculator, by 2050, it would require a heroic but not law of physics breaking effort to reduce domestic lights and appliances demand by 60% and non-domestic by 30%.

In the lab, they can now get 80% of the electricity into light with LEDs

Compare traditional bulbs – 1%
CFL – 2-3 %

So it’ll be 5 or 10 or 20 years until it gets to production – but we will eventually have lighting at 1/80 the electricity.

That’s using barely more than 1% of what we all used just 5 or 10 years ago before CFLs.

That is hopeful.

32. Dunc – “True. As soon as we can figure out how to run projects of this unprecedented scale and complexity properly, I’ll consider nuclear to be a goer. I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting though – humans remain stubbornly fallible.”

And yet we routinely build thermal power plants of this general size – and hydro-electric ones that are even bigger. Much bigger. We know how to run projects of this scale and complexity. We do it all the time.

“So it’ll be 5 or 10 or 20 years until it gets to production – but we will eventually have lighting at 1/80 the electricity.

That’s using barely more than 1% of what we all used just 5 or 10 years ago before CFLs.”

Sadly, that’s not the way that lighting works. If it gets cheaper we just use more of it.

Over the last three centuries light has got a great deal cheaper: candles to CFLs. But we still spend 0.7% of our total incomes on light. as we did when we were using candles.

This may or may not project out to LEDs but it’s absolutely certain that if the cost declines to 1/80th, we will increase the use of light, not simply use the same but cheaper amount.

This is one of the problems with these Greenpeace etc projetions: they’re always, but always, ignorant of economics.

@43 Tim

You assume that prices won’t go up

And yet we routinely build thermal power plants of this general size – and hydro-electric ones that are even bigger. Much bigger. We know how to run projects of this scale and complexity. We do it all the time.

From an engineering point of view, thermal or hydro plants are much simpler, and we have much more experience in building them.

So, what’s your explanation for why nobody seems able to build a nuclear power plant to their own specs, timescales and budgets? Why can’t they do the welds properly? Why can’t they even pour concrete right?

Sadly, that’s not the way that lighting works. If it gets cheaper we just use more of it.

Whilst I agree that Jevon’s Paradox is a problem here, I can’t help but feel that it has to top out somewhere. There’s only so much lighting you can use – nobody wants to light every room in their house to high noon levels 24/7.

“Whilst I agree that Jevon’s Paradox is a problem here, I can’t help but feel that it has to top out somewhere. There’s only so much lighting you can use – nobody wants to light every room in their house to high noon levels 24/7.”

Indeed, elasticities do change. But what’s surprising about Nordhaus’ finding (pretty sure it was him) is how static it’s all been so far. Centuries at 0.7% of income. Over orders of magnitude of cost per lumen.

But what’s surprising about Nordhaus’ finding (pretty sure it was him) is how static it’s all been so far. Centuries at 0.7% of income. Over orders of magnitude of cost per lumen.

I think we’re talking at slightly cross-purposes here. My background is in physics, not economics, and I’m interested in energy, not money. One is subject to hard physical limits, the other isn’t (or so economists keep telling me). As resource limits start to bite, I fully expect that the amount we pay for energy will go up, even if the actual amount of energy we use goes down.

“I think we’re talking at slightly cross-purposes here. My background is in physics, not economics, and I’m interested in energy, not money. One is subject to hard physical limits, the other isn’t (or so economists keep telling me). As resource limits start to bite, I fully expect that the amount we pay for energy will go up, even if the actual amount of energy we use goes down.”

Could well be: but that isn’t my point. Rather, the very interesting one that even when lighting prices do go down, we don’t seem to spend less money on lighting: we just buy more of that now cheaper light.

45. Dunc – “From an engineering point of view, thermal or hydro plants are much simpler, and we have much more experience in building them.”

Not much simpler. A bit. It is true that we have more experience building them and that is probably a large part of the problem.

“So, what’s your explanation for why nobody seems able to build a nuclear power plant to their own specs, timescales and budgets? Why can’t they do the welds properly? Why can’t they even pour concrete right?”

A small part of it is that lack of experience, but I think a large part is an attempt by the Greens and the Left to end the industry by other means.

“Whilst I agree that Jevon’s Paradox is a problem here, I can’t help but feel that it has to top out somewhere. There’s only so much lighting you can use – nobody wants to light every room in their house to high noon levels 24/7.”

I think they do. I know people who leave their air conditioning on in their office all weekend – even though they are not in. But even if they don’t, as lighting gets cheaper, people will use more of something else. The more efficient we become, the more energy we use.

47. Dunc – “As resource limits start to bite, I fully expect that the amount we pay for energy will go up, even if the actual amount of energy we use goes down.”

What resource limits? What resource are we close to running out of that cannot be easily and fairly cheaply substituted? I expect that the more we pay for energy, the less we use, and of course the less we use, the more it will cost. Which is why I think the only way energy prices are going to go is downward. In the future, if the past is any guide, we will use vastly more energy and it will be much cheaper.

Which is an excellent thing as our quality of life is roughly proportional to energy use

Rather, the very interesting one that even when lighting prices do go down, we don’t seem to spend less money on lighting: we just buy more of that now cheaper light.

The general principle is fairly well understood, and has been since William Stanley Jevons was looking at the efficiency of early steam engines. What I think is interesting is that we’ve probably now hit the point where price is no longer a limiting factor for most people, certainly in domestic applications. Lighting is now so cheap as to be practically free, so I don’t expect that relationship to continue to hold (unless lighting becomes much more expensive again).

I turn the lights off when I leave a room, but it’s not to save money. It’s cheap enough (and I’m flush enough) that I would never notice the difference.

“So, what’s your explanation for why nobody seems able to build a nuclear power plant to their own specs, timescales and budgets? Why can’t they do the welds properly? Why can’t they even pour concrete right?”

A small part of it is that lack of experience, but I think a large part is an attempt by the Greens and the Left to end the industry by other means.

How exactly are “Greens and the Left” messing up Areva’s sub-contractors’ ability to weld to spec or pour concrete without it cracking? I didn’t know we had magic powers.

What resource limits? What resource are we close to running out of that cannot be easily and fairly cheaply substituted?

It’s not so much “running out” as “increased cost of utilisation”. Take NG as an example (currently the single largest component of our electricity generation) – our domestic supplies are running down rather badly. We can import via pipeline or by shipping LNG, but both of those options are more expensive than domestic supply, and both are subject to increasing competition from other buyers. (Fun fact: there is currently around 3 times more LNG gasification capacity in the world than liquefaction capacity. That’s a serious import / export imbalance, and inevitably means that somebody isn’t going to be able to import as much LNG as they’d like.)

as our quality of life is roughly proportional to energy use

I’m unconvinced about the robustness of that relationship, once you get past a reasonable minimum. Average US per-capita energy consumption is approximately twice that of Britain – do they have twice the “quality of life”?

52. Dunc – “How exactly are “Greens and the Left” messing up Areva’s sub-contractors’ ability to weld to spec or pour concrete without it cracking? I didn’t know we had magic powers.”

I don’t think they are. But I do think they quibble over minor details and make disputes over those minor details as Jesuitical as possible.

“It’s not so much “running out” as “increased cost of utilisation”. Take NG as an example (currently the single largest component of our electricity generation)”

An exceptionally bad example as natural gas is so substitutable. Given coal gasification, we are not looking at a shortage of supply for hundreds of years.

“our domestic supplies are running down rather badly. We can import via pipeline or by shipping LNG, but both of those options are more expensive than domestic supply, and both are subject to increasing competition from other buyers.”

So we have invested poorly in infrastructure. That is not a systemic problem. That is not running out of the resource.

“I’m unconvinced about the robustness of that relationship, once you get past a reasonable minimum. Average US per-capita energy consumption is approximately twice that of Britain – do they have twice the “quality of life”?”

Yes, I think they do. The British are marked by their ability to get a lot of satisfaction out of very little, and yet if they were given the choice of moving somewhere more energy-intensive – America or Australia or New Zealand – they would leave. The British people are voting with their feet. They also consume as much energy as comes their way.

An exceptionally bad example as natural gas is so substitutable. Given coal gasification, we are not looking at a shortage of supply for hundreds of years.

You can’t run the installed base of CCGTs (or domestic appliances, for that matter) on coal gas, it has a different calorific value and burn rate. When we switched from coal gas to NG, we had to retrofit every single gas appliance in the entire country. This wasn’t a cheap or trivial undertaking then, and going in the opposite direction is worse, because it’s much easier to reduce the flow rate through a burner from its original design spec than it is to increase it. You simply can’t retrofit most of the appliances currently in use for coal gas.

So we have invested poorly in infrastructure. That is not a systemic problem. That is not running out of the resource.

WTF are you talking about? The decline in domestic production has nothing to do with poor infrastructure investments, it’s due to depletion of the fields.

Yes, I think they do. The British are marked by their ability to get a lot of satisfaction out of very little, and yet if they were given the choice of moving somewhere more energy-intensive – America or Australia or New Zealand – they would leave.

Australia and New Zealand are much closer to the UK in per-capita energy consumption than they are to the US. Perhaps the desire of Brits to move to these locations has more to do with the weather?

You want to move somewhere with a very high per-capita energy consumption, on the assumption that this leads to an improved quality of life? Well, the top countries you should be looking at are Bahrain, Iceland, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. Qatar has a per-capita energy consumption of almost 3 times that of the USA – do they have 3 times the “quality of life”?. Are Americans lining up to more there en masse?