Part 1:
The Nuclear Problem:
"The President of the United States and radical environmentalists have said the United States must be carbon neutral, i.e., net zero emissions, by 2050.
The essence of their plan is summarized here:
Close all coal-fired power plants.
Build wind and solar plants with required storage.
Eliminate the use of natural gas for home heating and water heating.
Eliminate natural gas for power generation.
Mandate that all new light vehicles be battery powered.
Promote zero emissions for large vehicles.
Use negative carbon strategies.
... The 2021, Electrification Futures Study, by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL),
has said that accomplishing goals 3 and 5, will require doubling the power generation capacity of the United States.
Where will this additional electricity come from?
... there will only be 6 nuclear power plants in operation in 2050, and this assumes that the two units under construction in Georgia are completed.
4 of these would be closed by 2054.
... it will be necessary to replace over 90% of all existing nuclear power plants by 2050,
or renew the operating licenses of 86 nuclear power plants for 20 years, In other words:
Replace 86 existing nuclear power plants with some other type of generation, OR
Renew the operating licenses of 86 existing nuclear power plants by 2050.
Here are the facts.
In 2012 there were 104 nuclear power plants in operation.
Since then, 10 plants have been closed.
Another 8 plants are scheduled to close by 2025,
leaving only 86 nuclear power plants in operation.
There is every reason to believe more nuclear power plants will be closed beyond the 8 that have already been announced.
The plants that have been closed are being closed for political reasons or because the rigged auctions being used by the RTO/ISOs are making nuclear plants uneconomic.
These closures are in spite of the fact that existing nuclear power plants generate electricity that is far less costly than that produced by wind or solar,
and that they provide baseload power by producing electricity 24/7, 365 days per year.
The closure of eighteen fully operational, safe and reliable power plants ... is a huge cost to all Americans.
Two steps are necessary for these 86 plants to receive their second renewal.
The plant owner must request the renewal, and then the NRC must approve the renewal.
As of this writing, 4 plants have already received their second renewal, and the owners of 11 other plants have either submitted their application to the NRC or have said they intend to ask for the second renewal.
This leaves 71 plants where the owners have not yet indicated whether they will request the NRC to grant a second renewal.
The only conclusion that can be reached relative to nuclear power is:
(1) nuclear will supply less electricity in 2050 than it does today, and
(2) nuclear will not be able to provide any of the additional electricity required to meet the administration’s climate goals,
which, in turn, according to the NREL study, require a doubling of electricity generation.
Where will the additional electricity come from?
... Will we be able to even replace the 18 reactors that have been, or are scheduled for closure?
Or, for that matter, keep all the other 86 in operation?
Source for reactor information
https://www.nrc.gov/reactors.html
Part 2:
The Coal, Natural Gas and Supply Problems
The essence of their plan is summarized here:
Close all coal-fired power plants.
Build wind and solar plants with required storage.
Eliminate the use of natural gas for home heating and water heating.
Eliminate natural gas for power generation.
Mandate that all new light vehicles be battery powered.
Promote zero emissions for large vehicles.
Use negative carbon strategies.
Problem # 2:
Closing coal-fired power plants
Coal-fired power plants currently supply 30% of our electricity?
US total electricity usage was 4,009 billion kWh in 2020, of which coal was 774 billion kWh, or 19%.
It will require 32,725 off-shore wind turbines, rated 6 MW each, with a capacity factor of 45%, to replace the lost generation from closed coal-fired power plants.
Off-shore wind turbines of this size require 3,150 feet between turbines (seven rotor lengths).
There is a total of 9,659 miles of shoreline along the continental United States,
so the off-shore wind turbines would be stacked two deep in the oceans and Great Lakes around the United States.
These 32,725 wind turbines will cost $1.2 trillion at $6,000 per KW.
($6,000 is the average of the costs projected by EIA and IER for offshore wind turbines.)
While GE is testing a 12 MW offshore wind turbine, details as to cost and capacity factor have not yet been confirmed.
Such a unit could reduce the number of offshore wind turbines by more than half, but may not reduce costs.
Problem 3:
Eliminating natural gas combined cycle power plants.
Natural gas power plants generated 1, 617 billion kWh in 2020.
It would require 176,000 on-shore wind turbines, rated 3 MW, with a capacity factor of 35%,
and an area of at least 52,000 square miles, to replace all natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) power plants.
The cost of building these wind installations is $1.4 trillion.
Virtually the entire available area in Montana and Wyoming, where the best winds are located, would be required to replace the NGCC power plants with wind turbines.
Problem 4:
Doubling electricity generation by 2050,
US total electricity usage was 4,009 billion kWh in 2020.
This is the amount of additional electricity that will be needed, according to NREL’s, Electrification Futures Study, to implement the administration’s climate proposal.
Solar hasn’t been addressed in discussing problems 1, 2, and 3, primarily because it only provides electricity during the daytime and automatically raises the issue of storage.
It would require 22,000 square miles, (3.5 square miles per GWh from NREL) to install sufficient PV solar panels to generate the required 4,009 billion kWh.
There is sufficient land area in the Southwestern United States to easily accommodate 22,000 square miles of PV solar.
While PV solar installations in the Southwest could use federal land, it would require huge investments in transcontinental transmission lines to distribute the power.
The 22,000 square miles of PV solar power could be spread around multiple states, though this has some drawbacks, e.g., cost of private land, lower insolation levels, and increased effects from bad weather.
The initial cost of 22,000 square miles of PV solar panels would be $4.9 trillion assuming a cost of $1.10 per watt. (Current costs are approximately $1.40 per watt.)
Storage ... can affect both wind and PV solar.
Sufficient storage must be provided to supply electricity for at least twelve days, otherwise there will come a time when the nation, or large regions of the nation, would experience blackouts.
... former Secretary of Energy Moniz said, Texas had, in the past, experienced nine consecutive days where winds were unavailable.
ISO-NE reported a period of twelve days where insignificant amounts of PV solar were generated.
It’s obvious that solar requires storage when the sun sets if we are to rely on solar to provide reliable electricity without fossil fuels.
According to former Secretary of Energy, Moniz, “batteries will never be the solution” for long term storage.
At this writing, there is no known battery that can store large quantities of electricity for several days. It is, therefore, not possible, at this time, to meet the administration’s climate goal.
Problem 5
Unaddressed Issues
Transmission lines:
... A minimum of $135 billion is required to install transformers of greater capacity in the distribution system.
NREL estimates that the size of the transmission system will have to be increased by 50% to 75%.
The current transmission system is 120,000 miles long.
At $5 million per mile, (500KV, double circuit, MISO, cost estimating guide) the cost for increasing the transmission system by 50% would be $300 billion.
The most difficult problem, with respect to building new transmission lines, is obtaining the necessary permits and authorizations from multiple political jurisdictions with opposition from both Nimby’s and environmental groups.
It will require massive use of takings, using eminent domain, where constitutional issues will have to be addressed.
Negative Carbon Strategies:
The administration’s goal includes the term “net zero” which infers removal of CO2 from the atmosphere.
This is actually a distraction because it is a hypothetical that lacks substance or validation.
Theoretically, there are five ways to effect removal of CO2 from the atmosphere, or for preventing it to reach the atmosphere.
Capturing CO2 from where it is produced, i.e., carbon capture
Using CO2 in a process, such as in the making of steel
Sequestering CO2 underground
Sequestering CO2 in plant growth
Geo-engineering, such as fertilizing the oceans to increase plankton growth to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere
These concepts are either unproven, or have serious limitations or drawbacks.
The concept is a distraction because the breadth of the proposal is unlimited and leads to conjecture rather than facts.
... Capturing CO2 from NGCC power plants will result in a derating of the plant by around 30%,
requiring the building of additional generating capacity to replace the power lost in capturing,
compressing and transporting the liquid CO2 to where it can be sequestered underground.
There can be no assurance that CO2 sequestered underground will remain there for thousands of years.
Only two Class VI wells have been approved for sequestering CO2 underground in the United States, primarily because of the risks involved.
... The issues surrounding negative carbon strategies are never ending, which is why it is a distraction rather than a serious component of any proposal.
Part 3 of this series will provide a summary of these issues, together with conclusions."