1 / 15

Nuclear Power More Profitable than Coal Nuclear Africa 2014 18-20 March 2014

Nuclear Power More Profitable than Coal Nuclear Africa 2014 18-20 March 2014. Dr. Dawid E. Serfontein School of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering, North-West University , South Africa. Introduction.

tate-quinn
Download Presentation

Nuclear Power More Profitable than Coal Nuclear Africa 2014 18-20 March 2014

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Nuclear Power More Profitable than CoalNuclear Africa 201418-20 March 2014 Dr. Dawid E. Serfontein School of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering, North-West University, South Africa.

  2. Introduction • IEP and IRP Update lay an excellent foundation: very comprehensive set of data and sophisticated modelling tools. • I reviewed both documents for NIASA: • See my summary in conference booklet • + links to NIASA's website. • I found a number of serious flaws in the IEP, which have seriously skewed its results against nuclear:Implementation would impact very negatively on South Africa’s economy and energy security.

  3. Own modelling results: First show the correct way. Business case for nuclear: • Nuclear plants twice as expensive as coal, but: • Last for 60 years, vs. 25-50 years. • Much lower fuel cost than coal. • Load factor = 92%, vs. 20 - 30% for PV solar and wind. • Therefore nuclear produces cheaper power!

  4. Own modelling results (continued) • Calculate LCOE as function of the Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC%): Government invests 100% of the capital as equity. • Nuclear: • Expected case : Overnight cost =$5,500/kW-installed • Pessimistic case: Overnight cost =$7,000/kW-installed. • Coal: • Expected Case: External cost = Only R120/ton CO2 carbon tax. • Pessimistic case: Full external costs.

  5. Conclusions • New Nuclear will produce electricity at a much higher profit than coal. • External cost of New nuclear (R0.005/kWh) is about 50 times lower than that of coal (R0.26/kWh)!

  6. Conclusions • SA should thus deploy nuclear as long lead-time cheap base-load technology. • Add peaking technologies. • Lastly add quickly deployable technologies when shortages loom. • Develop local nuclear project management skills.

  7. Contrast with flawed IEP and IRP Update • Unrealistically high real discount rate has been used:Economic Opportunity Cost of Capital (EOCK) of 11.3%! • Nominal discount rate of 11.3 = 5.3% real discount rate, which would have produced fundamentally different optimisation results. • This massively underestimated the cost efficiency of nuclear power for reducing CO2 emissions. • We propose a real discount rate of 3%.

  8. More flaws • Intermittency costs of wind and PV solar have not been taken into account. • “Time of day” electricity selling prices have not been taken into account, which has also unfairly benefitted intermittent sources, especially PV solar.

  9. Flaws (continued) • Cooking the environmental books with imported CO2emissions. • Led to massive imports of petrol, diesel and natural gas and coal power and hydro: 90% of South Africa’s energy imported! • Would cause massive local job losses, serious problems on the balance of payments, threaten national security. • External costs were not internalised: Gas, coal and nuclear.

  10. Conclusions • Flaws decreased nuclear, gas and wind capacity and inflated solar and coal. • Easyto correct flaws in IEP and IRP Update! • Correction will: • Save massive amounts of money, • boost the economy and job creation • and promote energy security.

  11. Thank you! Any questions or comments?

More Related