Might be just a coincidence that Toshiba owns a bunch of Westinghouse shares :-)

The 4S uses metal fuel, but I can’t find details of the required enrichment level. It is supposedly capable of “breeding” its own fuel to some extent, thus improving efficiency and running 30 years with the same fuel. It runs at ordinary atmospheric pressure and all the nasty bits are buried in a pit 30 meters deep. The only bad thing is the liquid sodium (a fire hazard) but possibly also a strong discouragement to anyone considering cutting their way into the core with a mind to borrow the fuel rods.

Given that it uses steam turbines, it probably also needs a water supply, not sure how much.

http://www.atomicinsights.com/AI_03-20-05.html

The final major hurdle imposed by the NRC is the fact that their new, streamlined licensing timeline imposes a 42-60 month delay from the time that the application is filed until it is approved. Very few businesses can afford to finance projects that require almost five years of frequent government interaction – at an ever inflating rate of $200 per bureaucrat hour – before they are even allowed to break ground to build their revenue generation equipment. The only way that even enormous companies like General Electric or Westinghouse have been able to do it is to obtain Department of Energy grants to pay Nuclear Regulatory Commission fees.

There must be potential for research into an economic theory explaining the efficient giving of grants so they can be taken away again in fees.

I think with the stimulus package a massive opportunity was wasted. They could have done things like subsidise green vehicles, solar panels, windfarms and energy efficiency. This would have killed two birds with one stone.

One thing I would like to see more of is tapping the methane emissions of landfills and using it to power generators. Maybe we could also do they do in China and use rotting human waste to generate power.

I wish our politicians had a little more imagination.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AP1000

1. If and when a real global carbon market appears (and there’s reason to believe it will happen well before 2030) the fate of Australia’s particular coal-fired power stations becomes moot.

2. What dd said.

3. Even if the actual replacement of current coal-fired capacity mostly doesn’t happen until 2030 (and, frankly, that’s doubtful; Hazelwood’s owners are fishing around for a government payout to shut themselves down), once carbon pricing is in place companies will have to start planning for it. So, around 2020 or so, if CCS technology isn’t looking promising, they will have plenty of time to scope out the alternatives.

4. Chris, in a nutshell, there will be fewer permits available over time, so the price goes up. That’s the whole point. At some point, it becomes cheaper to either convert existing plant to CCS, or shut it down and replace it with non-emitting plant.

Yes, in terms of emissions outcomes, conventional economic theory suggests that who gets the permits and what compensation is paid won’t affect actual emissions. You’ll get passionate arguments from some disputing this point, though, and there is also the issue of maintaining public support; I think a lot of people might get cranky when they figure out just how much we will be subsidizing the big emitters.

5. There will be large-scale demonstrations of solar thermal, and hopefully geothermal, up and running by 2015, certainly 2020. So a lot of the uncertainty surrounding their viability should be removed by then.

6.There is also the interesting possibility that by 2020 or so small, factory-built nukes may be rolling off the production lines. When it comes to power generation, big is usually beautiful; however, for various engineering reasons (not least you build them in a factory, rather than on-site) there’s reason to believe that they might be cost-competitive. If such things come to exist, they’re game changers. The time to installation goes down radically, the costs are largely fixed, and it might just be possible to use them to convert existing coal-fired plants. Some of them are also radically more efficient in their use of uranium, avoid a lot of proliferation issues, and could even be used to get rid of existing nuclear waste. But – I hasten to add – until they’re actually built and demonstrated, there’s no point getting too excited.

Over time then, the permits would be worth big money and the industries that held them would be foregoing the cash they could get from selling them so there is the incentive right there. The market value of emitting carbon rises over time and the rising tide picks up the most flexible industries first.

It seems to me that the cost of the permits at creation as well as compensatory cash hand outs are irrelevant to the environmental outcome. Or am I speaking rubbish? – I come to Troppo to learn from my betters ;)

what can be done?

Just raise the bloody price of carbon-emitting electricity!

Pretty well all the short and medium term reduction in carbon emissions needed will come from conservation measures. People miss this – we don’t actually need to ban coal plants, etc. In the long run those same prices will indeed favour non-emitting forms of energy (quite likely nuclear), but precisely because the adjustment is long run it will be pretty painless.

And you can use the money you raise with your ETS to cut taxes/ raise benefits for poorer consumers facing the higher electricity prices – the whole deal is highly progressive.

But of course telling the punters they have to pay more for their power is precisely what governments don’t want to do. They’d rather pick those same punters’ pockets for taxes to “compensate” some very undeserving industries.

I understand that the CPRS would allow the importation of carbon permits – so it might be expected that a firm that needed to have carbon permits would import them if that was cheaper than buying the australian carbon permits. A carbon permit from overseas would effectively represent “carbon reduction activity” (of whatever form) overseas rather than in Australia. This could impact whether Australia meets a particular carbon reduction target.

what can be done?

End nuclear power prohibition.

France gets about 80% of it’s electricity from nuclear (10% from hydro). Electricity is Frances fourth biggest export. Nuclear is safe. Historically much safer than many of Australias existing energy sources.

Nuclear produces less nuclear waste and less nuclear fallout than our existing coal fired power plants.

Fast Breeder reactors can be powered using depleted uranium. There is enough depleted uranium currently in storage (ie nuclear waste) to fuel the worlds entire electricity needs (using existing nuclear technology) for 700 years. In the process we would be reducing the worlds stock pile of nuclear waste. That’s right we could power the world using nuclear for 700 years whilst reducing the nuclear waste stockpile. Using existing technology not future technology. Wind farms and solar can’t reduce nuclear waste stock piles.

Nuclear is cheap. Or at least it can be if the regulatory structure is done right.

Nuclear provides 24×7 baseload power with a capacity factor around 95%.

Nuclear is emission free.

Why does Australis prohibit nuclear power? Why are we considering more imposts on our liberties when the removal of one prohibition could ultimately achieve the objectives of elliminating all electricity related CO2 emissions cheaply and safely.