Nuclear mitigation of climate change has three major components: THE CO2 PROBLEM: FUEL SUSTAINABLE NUCLEAR REACTORS: RETAIL ELECTRICITY METERING AND BILLING:PRESENTATION OVERVIEW
a) Sufficient public education about the consequences of`the rising atmospheric CO2 concentration to ensure implementation of effective climate change mitigation;
b) Deployment of sufficient fuel sustainable nuclear reactors to fully displace fossil fuels:
c) Electricity system modifications to provide both dependable and interruptible electricity to each consumer.
1) Dependable power is power that is available when and where required by mankind;
2) Mankind needs dependable power for equipment control;
3) Today mankind's main source of dependable power is combustion of fossil fuels;
4) Fossil fuels have the advantages of low cost, high energy density and handling conveneince;
5) However, combustion of fossil fuels produces CO2;
6) Prior to the industrial revolution natural photosynthesis based processes disposed of CO2 as fast as it was produced;
7) Today CO2 is produced 10X to 20X as fast as natural processes can dispose of it;
8) Consequently the CO2 concentrations in both the atmosphere and oceans are rising;
9) The increase in CO2 concentrations decreases both the ocean pH and the temperature dependent emission of thermal infrared radiation into deep space;
10) The decrease in ocean pH negatively affects shell forming marine orgnisms which are central to survival of many marine species and to natural sequestration of CO2 in ocean bottom limestone;
11) The decrease in emission of thermal infrared radiation causes an increase in Earth's surface temperature;
12) The increase in Earth's surface temperature melts ice both on Earth's surface and in clouds;
13) Melting of this ice reduces Earth's planetary albedo which increases Earth's absorption of radiant solar power;
14) The increased absorption of radiant solar power further increases Earth's surface temperature;
15) Steps #11 to #14 above potentially cause a thermal instabiity which will eventually cause an Earth surface temperature rise of about 17 degrees C at which point almost all of the ice has melted;
16) Isotopic analysis of drill cores in ocean bottom limestone shows that a similar spike in atmospheric and ocean CO2 concentration occurred 56 million years ago at a time known as the PETM (Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum);
17) Study of fossils before and after the PETM shows that during the PETM there was a global extinction of all large land animals;
18) In order to prevent near term extinction of mankind it is necessary to halt CO2 emissions;
19) CO2 is a very low energy state compound that does not lend itself to long term compressed gas or compressed liquid storage;
20) Natural gas pockets are almost CO2 free which indicates that CO2 which formed during anaerobic decompositionof biomatter leaked out of the storage, probably via dissolving in ground water to form mobile bicarbonate solute;
21) Long term storage of carbon requires additional energy to convdrt CO2 into free carbon (coal) or hydrocarbons (fossil fuels) or carbonate rock;
22) Natural CO2 disposal processes rely on solar enery and photosynthesis to provide the energy necessary for natural disposal of CO2;
23) The practical way to prevent further fossil CO2 emissions is to prevent further fossil fuel extraction and transport;
24) Preventing further fossil fuel extraction requires adoption of new power and energy sources that do not emit CO2 but that provide clean power when and where required at about the same rate, 21,000 GWt world wide, as do fossil fuels;
25) Mitigating the CO2 problem today requires 21,000 heat sources, each rated at 1 GWt. The projection for 2070 is:
40,000 X 1 GWt.
26) The available clean energy sources are solar, wind, hydro and nuclear;
27) Obtaining 1 GWt of heat from wind generation requires a favorable location and a wind farm containing 1500 X 2 MWe wind turbines each operating at a capacity factor of about 0.33. The required land or ocean shelf area is about 300 km^2.
28) A 1 GWt nuclear reactor together with its nearby support facilities requires less than 50,000 m^2 = 0.05 km^2;
29) Hydraulic and nuclear power can drive synchronous generation to provide dependable electricity;
30) Wind an solar asychronous electricity generation together with surplus synchronous electricity generation can provide interruptible electricity.
31) If the asynchronous generation is uncontrolled, to maintain frequency control the maximum possible asynchronous generation must be less than the minimum grid load and unloaded synchronous generation must remain on line to provide grid frequency stability;
32) Typically grid stability issues limit the maximum average fraction of total energy generated via intermittent asynchronus genertion to about (1 /4) of the energy produced by synchronous generation.
33) Typically the land area required by wind generation and/or the maximum ratio of:
(asynchronous generation) / (synchronous generation)
limit the total installed wind generation;
34) Synchronous generators must be paid for provision of spinning reserve, even if the synchronous generation is not required to provide energy.
35) Hydraulic generation is usually geography limited;
36)The remaining clean synchronous power must be provided by nuclear generation;
37) Most existing nuclear power plants are light water cooled and moderted with thermal neutrons and enriched urnium fuel. These plants only harvest about 0.5% of the available energy in natural uranium and produce TRU at 1 g / kg of natural uranium;.
38) CANDU reactors are heavy water cooled and moderated. They harvest about 1.0% of the available energy in natural uranium and produce about 4 g TRU / kg of natural uranium;
39) Due to a projected natural uranium shortage it is essential to adopt a much more efficient uranium fuel cycle using fuel sustainable sodium cooled fast neutron reactors with periodic fuel reprocessing.
40) To fund the reactors and to efficiently use available interruptible electricity it is necessary bill electricity customers for monthly firm power peak demand, dependable energy used and interruptible energy used.
41) Each electricity customer divides his/her loads into two portions, dependable electricity and interruptible electricity. There is an interval electricity meter that registers peak demand for billing purposes only during periods when use of interruptible electricity by this customer is prohibitied. The interruptible loads must be sheddable under utility remote control but may include battery backup for use when interruptible power is not available for this customer. The two portions share a common energy meter.
42) The price / kWhe is the same for both the dependable energy and interruptible energy. However, the monthly peak demand charge applies only to dependable electricity.
43) Dependable electricity is produced by nuclear reactors. The extra capital cost of these reactors is mostly recovered via monthly peak demand charges.
44) It is assumed that the grid is fed by 13 identical independent synchronus generators.
45) It is assumed that the grid is also fed by uncontrolled intermittent asynchronous generators with a combined maximum peak output equal to the combined output of six of the synchronous generators.
46) It is assumed that the average capacity factor of the asynchronous generation is 0.33;
47) Thus the average output of the asynchronous generation is equal to the combined outputs of two of the synchronous generators.
48) Thus on average the asynchronous generation provides about 20% of the total energy fed to the grid;
49) The fraction of the reactor output capacity available for sale as dependable power is limited to (100 / 130) of the total available reactor output capacity.
50) (15 / 130) of the reactor output capacity is reserved for planned reactor shutdowns but may be used for supply of interruptible power;
51) (15 / 130) of the reactor output capacity is reserved for unplanned reactor shutdowns but may be used for supply of interruptible power;
52) The normal dependable grid load swings from (60 / 130) to (100 / 130) of the installed reactor capacity;
53) the average dependable grid load is (80 / 130) of the installed reactor capacity;
54) When everything is working the fraction of the reactor capacity that can supply interruptible power is in the range (30 / 130) to (70 / 130) of the reactor capacity. Dependable electricity service has priority access to this generation capacity;
55) The price of interruptible electrical energy must be sufficient to recover the costs of generating that electricty using wind and solar generation.
56) A fossil carbon tax may be required to keep the cost of a unit of fossil fuel supplied heat higher than the cost of a unit of resistive heat provided by interruptible electricity.
57) A consumer can improve the reliability of his interruptable power service with a battery bank and power inverter;
58) Most of the reactor capital cost is funded via monthly peak demand charges;
59) This billing methodology requires bi-directional signal communication between the electricity utility and customers who purchase interruptible electricity;
60) The concept of net metering is wrong and must be abandoned because it misallocates electricity costs.
61) The retail electricity pricing system set out herein should be adopted immediately because it encourages maximum use of available clean electricity genertion for fossil fuel displacement.
62) In principle to the extent that interruptible generators can be curtailed by the utility it is possible to increse the utility controlled load. However, along with this increase in controlled load there must be an increase in synchronous capacitance to maintain grid transient stability.