“The Nuclear Path”in Power System transition:

Background:

As was described the earlier Trilemma analysis in WattWatch LinkedIn posts, there were two paths for the period 1990-2019 identified to successfully reduce CO2 in the US Power mixes, the Nuclear path and the Wind path (there was also a Natural gas path, applied by Delaware and Nevada, not covered right now since it is not a de-carbonization path as such). First out here is the Nuclear path.

 The idea is to again compare the Sustainability and Affordability parameters for the US states who are on the Nuclear path; New Hampshire, New York, Maryland and Tennessee. Above are the improvements in emission factor, in lb/MWh and system size in terms of Generation in TWh for the start and end year, below the developments in emission factor from 1990 to 2019.

 Sustainability:

 Gridmix improvements:

As can be seen in the graphs above, New Hampshire improve it’s Carbon intensity in their power mix by 74%, by reducing Coal in their mix from 24% to less than 2%, and increasing nuclear from a level of around 40% to 60%.  Petroleum have also been depleted in the mix, natural gas has been added, the share of Renewables is still relatively limited.

 New York score second in this group with 63% reduction of Carbon intensity, also replacing petroleum and coal with nuclear and gas. Nuclear share here increases from around 20% up to above 30%, gas goes from below 20% to just below 40%, so maybe more a gas transition than a nuclear transition.

Maryland with 60% Carbon intensity improvement, has a significant decrease in coal, and in petroleum, here nuclear goes from 20% to 40%, gas from 5% to 35%.

Finally for Tennessee  with 53% Carbon intensity improvement, nuclear goes from around 20% to above 40%, gas increases from 0% to 20%.

As can be seen, there is generally a nuclear + natural gas switch happening, so a balancing part with gas. It is also obvious that until 2019, there are no significant increases on Renewable Energy in any of those mixes/states. But we know that there are ambitions and plans, so for example Off shore wind in New York, and Solar ambitions in Tennessee, to be followed up in the years to come.

Affordability:

As in the earlier Trilemma analysis we will look at Residential and Midsized Industry rates.

Two levels of Residential pricing here, a “Higher” with New Hampshire and New York, a lower with Maryland and Tennessee. Residentials in Tennessee seems to have very competitive prices.

We see a distinct difference for Midsized Industrial rates vs Residential rates, as was discussed in the US Trilemma analysis. New York have seen an exceptional improvement over the last 15 years coming all the way down to Tennessee prices. Here New Hampshire have a price level of their own, more comments can be read in the WattWatch US Trilemma analysis.

Discussion US Nuclear Path:

Even if New Hampshire have a fantastic CO2 improvement, the Affordability is not competitive. New York for Industrial rates and Maryland for both rate types, score better, but Tennessee seems to have the most cost competitive nuclear transition over the 29 years. As can be seen below, startup of Watts Bar 1 in 1996 and Watts Bar 2 in 2016 together with multiple Coal plant retirements have helped in this development (graph below is for federal utility TVA, Tennessee Valley Authority, mainly operative in Tennessee but active in six more states with smaller generation footprints). A further analysis of how Tennessee & TVA have kept their rates competitive vs other Nuclear Path transforming markets, can follow in a next step, if found interesting to any party.

European Nuclear Paths

A few parallels can also be made to the European situation. As was showed in the analysis of World Economic Forum’s 2020 Energy Transition Index, Nuclear was a common denominator for half of the Top10 countries.  https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6710498791176376320 .

Sweden, Switzerland, Finland, the UK and France all have significant amounts of nuclear in their existing Power mixes, also bringing resilience and stability to those systems. With an increasing focus on System costs, even if some parties claim, “RE are now so cheap, nothing else can compete”, it will be shown that to safeguard a low carbon competitive power system, nuclear will play an important role also in the future.

Finland, the UK and France are building new reactors, if though very delayed and over budget. Sweden have closed four reactors until now, the Green “influenced” Government have an 100% RE narrative, that many parties object to. Switzerland have said to close it’s existing reactors over time, Belgium probably too as will Germany due to their U-turn in 2011.

But what if the reason those five nuclear driven markets in the WEF ETI TOP10 are there due to this generation type? And what if the solution to stay there in 10 and 30 years, maintaining Low carbon, Affordable and Secure Power, also is related to a balanced Technology Neutral Power mix?

Well, then there is some thinking to be done by multiple Energy Policy regulators and Experts in the near future. This is also an area that could be explored further, if interest would emerge.

Next WattWatch post will explore the Wind Path in successful Power system transitions, then A System Cost Landscape as well as the 800 B€ Offshore adventure will be explored.