India Nuclear News and Discussion 4 July 2011

[Theo_Fidel]

I personally think 15-20% nuclear is a must going into the future; as vina pointed out, going the coal way like China did is impractical in Indian context.

I'm having a hard time understanding the difference in impact of 75% coal vs 65% coal. In GOI plan of 450,000 MWhr capacity, coal will become a Trillion ton monster devouring our country side. I don't understand how we avoid this with Nuclear. Whether we like it or not, trying to coax power out of nuclear, 'guarantees' that we go the 'China way'. The problem is our present electricity mix and our desperate craving for electricity. Esp in our U-235 once through plan.

The only way out is to change the way we generate power. A quick calculation shows that (4)x250w solar panels installed on every house roof in TN would generate enough power to take the entire domestic sector out of the grid load. 3-4 pumped storage sites in the TN hills and 3-4 large CSP facilities w/ salt storage could take care of night demand.

At present prices this could be done for less than $10 Billion. Or the rough cost of a single AREVA plant. Not only that it could be done in a matter of 3-4 years not the 15 years scales AREVA is planning with enforced sunset in 40-60 years. There might even be some moolah left for kick-backs and palm greasing.

[vina]

The only way out is to change the way we generate power. A quick calculation shows that (4)x250w solar panels installed on every house roof in TN would generate enough power to take the entire domestic sector out of the grid load. 3-4 pumped storage sites in the TN hills and 3-4 large CSP facilities w/ salt storage could take care of night demand..

Oh oh.. Back to square one even after all that data and math showing how grid is lot more efficient, how 4*250W solar panel every house is so stupidly and stunningly expensive, wasteful and suboptimal , how you need to supply the other 1000 w for 16 hrs when the sun is not shining and how .. etc. etc. including how large the storage facilities have to be etc.

[KLP Dubey]

Oh oh.. Back to square one even after all that data and math showing how grid is lot more efficient, how 4*250W solar panel every house is so stupidly and stunningly expensive, wasteful and suboptimal , how you need to supply the other 1000 w for 16 hrs when the sun is not shining and how .. etc. etc. including how large the storage facilities have to be etc.

This "every house with its own power" fantasy has seduced many, but physical limits make it exceedingly expensive and impractical. In India things like solar water heating will be quite useful and inexpensive but 24x7 electricity is another matter altogether....funny how people protest against a nuclear plant taking 5-10 years to build but seriously consider putting solar panels on rooftops (which will not break even for at least 10 years anyway).

Kishen Lal

[Amber G.]

Catching up on some excellent posts by Dubeyji, Neelaji and others among all that noise.. This caught my eye..

Dubey-ji since a number of people are feeling doling out advice, my 2 paise. It would be nice if your posts consisted of facts to show how Theo was wrong rather than trying to do so by calling him names.

You are not doing any favors to your case by substituting personal attacks for credible information.

A humble suggestion only. Thank you and best regards to you too.

Huh???
Leaving aside this constant whining refrain of "personal attacks" (Thanks Neela and Amit for commenting on those)
Hasn't Dubeyji shown very clearly "how Theo was wrong?"

I have in the past pointed out simple high-school physics stuff... eg .. difference between "energy" and "power" because in Theo's calculation he was not even using the correct units. (This is all documented and archived in the brf dhaga)

(For those, who are unfamiliar, Joule is an unit of energy. Watt (which is joule per second) is an unit of power. Power is rate of energy . The difference is some thing like speed (measured in mph, for example) and distance. .. Theo's use of Watt when he meant energy was akin to saying "distance between Delhi and Mumbai is 60 Miles per Hour..".. Quite silly, if you ask me, not some trivial mistake ...

This resulted in, kid you not, volley of insults hurled at me .. calling me a "foreign agent" and worse... but no corrections/clarification were issued.

Ditto, when I patiently explained how "total body dose" is calculated when he was predicting "dead men walking" because >10 "grays were absorbed by certain Fukushima workers.. (BTW, those "dead men" did not absorb anywhere close to a fatal -- Ld50 or even ARC causing dose)

The trend still continues... Let me just quote a recent post.. just taken randomly to demonstrate, for the record, how serious this problem is.. and how absurd are such "calculations"!

...Per the paper above a field roughly 15 km x 70 km = 10,50 km3 is necessary to get 1200 tons per year. Per page 13 I will assume this entire lot needs to be hauled out and returned to soak 12 times in a year. For a 1 kg of uranium they used 350 tons of fabric and about 400 kg of support frame and structure but only 50kg to 100 kg of frame needs to be hauled in each time. Now in fisheries (Per FAO) roughly 1 kg of diesel fuel is used to haul in 6 kgs of fish, so to haul in 400 kgs of gear and take to shore, 400/6 ~ 65 kg of diesel fuel. But we must keep in mind fish is typically not hauled back and reinstalled in the ocean. So a 50% markup moves it to ~ 100 kg of diesel. Do this 12 times and you have ~ 1200 kgs of diesel consumed per kg of Uranium retrieved. Now 250 tons of U generates ~ 6 Million (100x.7x365x24) MW's of power. So 1 kg generates 6,000,000/250,000 = 24 MW's of electricity. 1 kg of Diesel contains ~ 12 kw. So 1200 kgs of diesel contains 1200x12 ~ 15 MW's of diesel power.

So you expend 15 MW of diesel to get 24 MW worth of U.

First 1+1 =2 not, three, so 15 km x 70 km is 1050 km^2 and not km^3.. but may be that's just a typo..

But..

x tons of diesel generates y Joules (or units of KWH, calorie, BTU ) of electricity (energy) makes sense.. not 6 million MW of power

Gentle readers, it is akin to saying on a full tank (of x liters of fuel) my can travel y MPH
(Normally I generally say , "my car goes about 400 MILES (not MILES/Hour) with tank full of gas)"

I am sure, you would agree, the repeated use of wrong units MULTIPLE times in a single paragraph makes no sense.

Of course, numerical values associated with them are quite silly too, but I need not point that out..
But let me just comment on one number..

...roughly 1 kg of diesel fuel is used to haul in 6 kgs of fish...

(Never mind, assumption that, - experts who were doing cost analysis are so stupid that they have to be told to use these figures from FAQ fisheries - is beyond pale)

hmm...!
1 Kg fuel to "haul" 6 Kg of fish .. is BASIS here for such calculation...

Has such basis being applied when billions ton's of coal is "hauled"?
Has such basis being applied when stored pumped method is being used to send water up the western ghats?

Speechless!

[Amber G.]

BTW, folks, those who are scientifically oriented and want to have better understanding about energy in different forms and how to get rough estimate may like to keep an earlier post of mine for reference..

Just like bed , adc is quite practical to use..

Here is the link:
http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... i#p1272699

Hope, this is useful..

[Amber G.]

The only way out is to change the way we generate power. A quick calculation shows that (4)x250w solar panels installed on every house roof in TN would generate enough power to take the entire domestic sector out of the grid load. 3-4 pumped storage sites in the TN hills and 3-4 large CSP facilities w/ salt storage could take care of night demand..

Oh oh.. Back to square one even after all that data and math showing how grid is lot more efficient, how 4*250W solar panel every house is so stupidly and stunningly expensive, wasteful and suboptimal , how you need to supply the other 1000 w for 16 hrs when the sun is not shining and how .. etc. etc. including how large the storage facilities have to be etc.

Just curious, after reading earlier calculations which "shows" 1 Kg of diesel for hauling 6Kg of fish type basis... how much impact such calculations have when all those solar panels are hauled to every roof top.. not to mention hauling whatever is being hauled in those pumped storage sites..

[Theo_Fidel]

Things change. Costs have come down dramatically. Waiting for Nuclear has meant no power at all for large chunks of India. It is far cheaper to take the power to them.

[Anand K]

What's the "carbon footprint" for one of these ecotopian solar panels? We should not stop at that.... there's also the supporting structures/frames (will that be a national standard or you have to provide a number of options-roof, ground or are you thinking BIPV) and solar regulators and cabling & containment and errr, batteries and inverters. I mean, from manufacture in some numbered Chinese plant to installation on Ram Dulari's hut or a small village somewhere in South Central Orissa? Forget the DDP price aspect per kWp (peak onlee), we are going to save the world right? So it follows we shouldn't muck it up further trying to make a solution, no?

IMHO small grids/networks/power sources for rural India is not a TERRIBLE idea per se, but to get there you need a national base/capaility... a substantial infrastructure and widespread education level/soft skills which ironically can be made possible only by conventional/nuke power... at least in this phase.
Now the energy security problems of the rural poor do not end with simply installing such a system courtesy some sarkaar mai-baap ischeme? The effort needed to educate the locals/local self government/whateverwallahs on basic facts (like don't drape saris over the panels, don't steal the distilled water, don't cannibalize them JBs and for God's sake keep an eye on the batter liquid gauge etc etc), switching and other critical O&M aspects. I mean, if you are taking the power to "them" (BTW, who or what exactly is this "them"), they should know how to run the system and maintain it to a degreeQ Or do you want the S.E.Bs to do it for them village-by-village or panchayat-by-panchayat basis? Think of all the power and telemetry and manpower requirements for such a widespread Power System SCADA and asset management system! We don't even have decent smart grids in the metros now!

JMTC.

PS: Already in many parts of rural India power mafias are rampant. These good souls have already "taken the power to them".... and it's not a pretty sight. Somebody here got some personal exp. on that?

[Theo_Fidel]

It is not that difficult. For those willing to try. India is still at ground level, little power goes a long way. The key thing is power is free. No need to feed the ego/wallet of fat cat executives.

http://hindu.com/2005/01/07/stories/200 ... 592000.htm

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes ... s-nalgonda

This automatic system can provide light for 12 hours in the night. BEE distributed LED lamps to the households at 50% subsidy. "We don't have much problem in using them. If we face any problem with solar panels, Nedcap which has supported the initiative helps us," Ch Chandrasekhar, a villager, told TOI. He says that there is 70% decrease in their electricity bill after they started relying on solar power and LED lamps.The village panchayat played an active role in convincing the people to use solar bulbs when there was some resistance to the proposal. "Not just villagers but the village panchayat has also benefited from this. We are saving Rs 1 lakh per year ever since we switched over to this programme," V Venkatesh, former sarpanch, told TOI. Buoyed by the success, officials are planning to implement a similar project in Miryalaguda at a cost of Rs 5 crore.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-develo ... n-pictures

[Theo_Fidel]

http://world.time.com/2012/06/26/india- ... gonewsedit

http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/ ... f6878.html

[Theo_Fidel]

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city ... 482072.cms

Residents of the Muslim dominated village claim that not a single drop of water was received from the facility. "I do not know why this was constructed in the first place," said Saifuddin, a villager. Ask a villager as to when did he receive power and he would gawkily look at you. "I think we got the power one day for four hours last year. Ever since, there have been only power cuts," said Mohammad Shareef of Mohammad Kheda village, housing a population of near 700.

It was on May 25 that Neda roped in a private agency to install a solar panel that provides between 700 to 1200 Kw of power to drive the 15 HP motor. "The initial capital cost may be high, but that is recovered swiftly within years," said Tarun Singh, the chief executive officer of the private company associated with the project. "There has to be some solution to the ever rising power crisis in the state. What other than the solar energy. The pump would work throughout the day and will continue to fill the over head tank. It automatically shuts down in the night, when there is no sun," Singh said.

[hnair]

JMTC.

whoa!! I thought I was seeing a shimmering mirage in the alkali flats near the kave kamplex...... A big welcome back from me personally and glad you are posting again. very nice

[Theo_Fidel]

It is useful to remember what Solar used to cost. It is now 1/10 that. The key is the economics has changed dramatically. I too frowned on solar till recently. Times change.

http://www.altdotenergy.com/2009/03/ind ... d-village/

Now the children of the village play or study under electric lamps in the nights, listen to the radio and watch TV, all because of solar energy. It is an 8.7 kilowatt power plant. Installed at a cost of Rs 31.5 lakh, it provides electricity to all 69 houses in the village. Development Alternatives, a non-profit organisation, in collaboration with Scatec Solar of Norway, gave the village the Community-based Solar Power Plant. Rampura is 17 km from Jhansi.

One gets the feeling NPCIL will build all these nuke plants only to discover the whole of India has passed them by. How do you compete with FREE power.

[Neela]

It is truly a sad state that this thread
(a)gets inundated with poor arguments that are backed by very disgraceful mathematics
(b) genuine experts like KLP Dubey -ji are made to waste their time firefighting absolute garbage from 2 or 3 posters.


I am sure most will agree that this thread is also not the place to discuss Solar energy. Neither is this thread a place to host articles on Solar energy and make ignorant comparisons with nuclear.

I have enough posts from KLPD, AG, Amit and myself to show that some are here not to engage and learn but to instead indulge in plain silly arguments. There are enough posts here which have raised scientific and mathematical clarifications from some posts and these have been left unanswered. Shoot and scoot and then coming back with totally unrelated posts is not really mature.

With this in mind, I think it is time that we veer back to discussions on Nuclear.

[archan]

^^ Indeed, now it seems it is time to fix that. Let us see:
A couple of days ago, as a moderator I had made a request.

How about you guys take a break for a week or so? If you cannot put forward your views without resorting to personal attacks then what is the point?
We have tried not to interfere much but you guys are not helping. This applies to both sides of the debate, to Sanku, to Neela, to vina among others. Kindly self moderate unless you want us in. Thanks.

Considering that it fell on deaf ears. The request was repeated.

There are still personal comments added at the end of some of the posts even after my post. If this continues, the results will be unpleasant. Two people involved are skating on verrrry thin ice, one use of warning and off they go, one for a month and one for three.

These are excerpts from posts made after the moderator request.

----------------------------------------

Sanku ji with his infinite gyan has been saying..

Sarcastic comment, deliberately directed towards a user.

Thanks for the comment. Yes, people will get 2+2 = 4 even if those "two's" are "extraordinary small" or have "small PLF" ( ) " value... and for those 2.5 posters still arguing that simple math says more about them than the underlying math.

The Math may be correct, but there is no need to comment on the personality of any user. This was exactly what I had requested that people avoid. If you can bring such good data to back up your points, I don't see what is the reason to indulge in such mud slinging.

For people who can't interpret even a simple graph, (and for those who can too )

yet another sarcastic comment aimed at increasing noise on the forum.

Dear Sanku,

Instead of spouting polemics
..
..
Added later: Gustaphi maap, Sanku ji

Was unnecessary. Ask for more data, sure, but this is encouraging the other party to respond in kind.

Thank god your eagle eyes spotted his duplicity. Just imagine, all the gentle unsuspecting souls who read this thread could have been duped if you hadn't alerted us. What would we do without you, Sanku ji?

Exactly what the moderator request was about - to not call each other in a sarcastic manner as it increases tu-tu main-main on the thread. But you people continued this..
in another post..

Sanku,

Over the years I've come to a personal conclusion that you have major comprehension problems

uncalled for, personal attack again.

If I only had a paise every time Sanku cried "personal attack"....

Again, comment on the user instead of the subject.
more of it..

The Gyan came to me late, however, better late than never...

I was worried about the cry of "personal attack" that's why I worded my post very carefully. However, unfortunately the subtle difference was lost. What to do?

Warnings shall now be issued and some will get bans. Sanku has already been banned for 3 months. This will hopefully give a chance for everyone involved to cool off.

[arun]

And back to regular programming …………….

Kudankulam plant all set for commissioning

[KLP Dubey]

Thanks for nice post(s) and welcome to BRF

Thanks, have enjoyed reading your educative and sensible posts in this thread.

Best Wishes,

KL

[SSridhar]

India inches closer to NSG membership

[Gus]

^should be interesting to see the usual suspects reactions. Is the actual 'non-paper' available?

[Gerard]

With this in mind, I think it is time that we veer back to discussions on Nuclear.

Indeed. The personal attacks need to stop.

Simultaneously engaging in personal attacks and reporting everyone and their aunty is a bit much. It is wasting the time of the forum moderators and we have had quite enough. I had to warn Sanku about this only a short time after he came back from a 1 month ban. So now he is banned for 3 months.

Let us get back on topic please.

[abhischekcc]

Welcome back Anand K.

Where are you put up these days - still in Barbaria?

[alexis]

It is useful to remember what Solar used to cost. It is now 1/10 that. The key is the economics has changed dramatically. I too frowned on solar till recently. Times change.

http://www.altdotenergy.com/2009/03/ind ... d-village/

Now the children of the village play or study under electric lamps in the nights, listen to the radio and watch TV, all because of solar energy. It is an 8.7 kilowatt power plant. Installed at a cost of Rs 31.5 lakh, it provides electricity to all 69 houses in the village. Development Alternatives, a non-profit organisation, in collaboration with Scatec Solar of Norway, gave the village the Community-based Solar Power Plant. Rampura is 17 km from Jhansi.

One gets the feeling NPCIL will build all these nuke plants only to discover the whole of India has passed them by. How do you compete with FREE power.

In your own example, if the facility is supposed to work for 20 years and i take Rs.50,000/year as O&M cost (low - you need a person to clean the panels atleast once a month and monitor the output) and Rs.5/unit as cost of alternate power, the project IRR is 6.9% => clearly unviable. This is a simplistic assumption but shows why solar is unaffordable on a large scale. By the same calculation, to have a project IRR of 14% (hurdle rate for most investments), the cost of power is Rs.7.25/unit.

The solar projects are viable for villagers because of subsidy. If there is no subsidy, no one will use solar lamps.

You are right that solar energy is becoming cheaper; however it will take atleast a decade for it to become competitive/affordable. Rooftop may become a viable alternative for domestic lighting for rural areas then. Even then land is an issue for grid connected projects. For industrial uses, we would still be dependent on coal/nuclear/gas/hydro.

[Neela]

Govt puts Koodankulam 3-4, Jaitapur n-units on fast-track

Koodankulam Units 3 and 4 will be VVER 1200.

[Neela]

Been following up on site usability after plant stated operational life. No reasons exist against replacing existing cores/steam turbines etc with newer , better ones i.e. evolutionary designs which require little change to core architecture
( This is not life extension. life extension apparently is done for 10 years after the initial life lapse - nuclear industry standard)
Will update once I find more info.

[Theo_Fidel]

Alexis,

The key numbers are these.

1 MW of new Nuclear @ 75% plf 30 crore/MW (Areva) = 6570 MW annual generation.

1 MW of new PV @ 2600 annual hours, 12 Crore/MW (Charanka) = 2600 MW annual generation.

At FIT of Rs 6. Debt 70%. Assuming Nuclear maintenance cost 5 lakhs per MW vs .5 lakhs for solar. Now I'm not including decommission, storage issues, long term security, etc.

New Nuclear IRR is 11.75% (It is negative at FIT of 5)
New Solar IRR is 12.01%

Now it is anticipated that PV costs will decline to the 7 crore/MW range in 2017, 5 years. And will decline even further by 2022.
At 7 crore Solar IRR is 18%.

You can see how as new PV gets cheaper new Nuclear starts getting crushed. Due to lack of fuel and low tech maintenance PV critical number is initial cost. As that declines, IRR sky rockets compared to other fuel/security/maintenance bases energy sources.

Now we can take things one step further and distribute PV directly to population and eliminate the entire grid intermediary (which is non-existant in much of India anyway) and reduce costs even further.

This is not accounting for the DAE/NPCIL annual grant of $2 - $2.5 Billion annually. In fact if we matched that grant for PV in 20 years we would get roughly 30,000 MW of distributed Solar across the nation, or roughly 15 million x 1 kw, which would be enough for 1/3 of Indian households to have at least 8 hours of power a day. Free power. No debt at all. And you have to ask what would people would prefer, depending on a wildly erratic/nonexistent grid or have some measure of local control over their lives.

Now it is not my case at all the Nuclear does not have advantages. By increasing things like PLF or plant size Nuclear can gain an edge but costs are only going up. And it is a far closer run thing than people realize. But the economic equation has changed dramatically. I would not have said this even 12 months back. You see what would happen when PV hits $.30 per Watt. The effect would be not dissimilar to what Natural gas is doing to coal and nuclear in the USA.

[Anand K]

Errr.... MW denotes capacity, no? Not generation.
Then there's the Availability Factor thing too.... besides Capacity Factor. There's a reason they call it "MWp" and not simply "MWe".
IMO comparing O&M costs and even IRR of PV park and *nuclear plant* is simply an apples to iPhones comparison. The project scale, scope, impact, financing are worlds apart. If you want to do an IRR and O&M comparison, do it with a large CSP Power Plant with all ancillaries and connected to the grid vs a Nuclear Power Plant.


abhishekcc-ji,
Not in New Gomorrah anymore..... I'm in a classified location in South East Asia. (Everydin I rail against the heavens for not sending me here sooner). Still in the energy & utilities side though....

[Neela]

From a chaiwallah;
Quoting as is:

when we say lifetime of any reactor is "t", what is meant is the following: after "t", the entire reactor, with all its components will have to be subjected to evaluation of safety of each compoentn, carry out non-destructive tests to evaluate remaining life of each component, sometimes subject the evaluation to international assessment fro atleast crucial components, replace those not considered safe, get license for running the reactor for additional "t2", may be five years or different time for different components and run the reactor for additional time. this process is repeated fro three o four times, every time the number of extension years coming down.
at one point we ll reach a time when costwise, it is better to abandon the reactor rather than go for extension of lifetime. that s the time the reactor is ready for decommissioning.the major problem in declaring a reactor as ready for decommissioning, is problem in identification of space, huge cost of building another reactor and generation of waste, without extracting the best out of the components remaining healthy life. so normally postponed as much as poss.
The crucial part - like the core of the reactor is anyway replaced every nine months or one year since the fuel becomes weak to produce the target power.

I have asked what abandoning means and whether the site can be re-used. Let me see if I get something.

[Theo_Fidel]

http://www.financialexpress.com/news/tw ... t/968352/2

Two workers at the Rawatbhata Atomic Power Station in Rajasthan have suffered exposure to high doses of radioactive tritium and are under observation. The incident took place on June 23 at Unit 5 of the plant during routine maintenance work. "There was no abnormal release of radioactivity to the environment," Nalinish Nagaich, Executive Director, Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited said from Mumbai. He said there was localised increase in tritium concentration in the building of Reactor-5 due to the opening of the moderator cover gas line where the welding jobs were to be performed.

[alexis]

Alexis,

The key numbers are these.

1 MW of new Nuclear @ 75% plf 30 crore/MW (Areva) = 6570 MW annual generation.

1 MW of new PV @ 2600 annual hours, 12 Crore/MW (Charanka) = 2600 MW annual generation.
At FIT of Rs 6. Debt 70%. Assuming Nuclear maintenance cost 5 lakhs per MW vs .5 lakhs for solar. Now I'm not including decommission, storage issues, long term security, etc.

New Nuclear IRR is 11.75% (It is negative at FIT of 5)
New Solar IRR is 12.01%

A nuclear plant nowadays works at higher than 80% PLF; even at 80% PLF, it is 7008 MWh of generation.
No PV plant in India can have 2600 MWh of annual generation with current technologies! Maximum i have seen is a PLF of 22% ie 1927 MWh. As a banker i usually finance solar projects assuming a plf of 20% or less.

Now please do the maths and tell me which has a higher IRR at FIT of 6. IRR for solar at FIT of Rs.5/unit is also negative!

You are also not taking into account degradation of PV modules. it is typically 0.5-1% every year.

Now it is anticipated that PV costs will decline to the 7 crore/MW range in 2017, 5 years. And will decline even further by 2022.
At 7 crore Solar IRR is 18%.

You can see how as new PV gets cheaper new Nuclear starts getting crushed. Due to lack of fuel and low tech maintenance PV critical number is initial cost. As that declines, IRR sky rockets compared to other fuel/security/maintenance bases energy sources.

No doubt about this; Solar will be cheaper over time compared to coal and other energy resources. We are discussing a power shortage now and not 10 years into future.

However you have not taken into account cost of storing solar energy in your calculation! The cost of Rs.12 crore/MW (it has now declined to 10 crore/MW) does not include cost of battery and dc-ac conversion. This is a significant deterrent and these costs have to come down for widespread adoption of solar energy.

Now we can take things one step further and distribute PV directly to population and eliminate the entire grid intermediary (which is non-existant in much of India anyway) and reduce costs even further.

This is not accounting for the DAE/NPCIL annual grant of $2 - $2.5 Billion annually. In fact if we matched that grant for PV in 20 years we would get roughly 30,000 MW of distributed Solar across the nation, or roughly 15 million x 1 kw, which would be enough for 1/3 of Indian households to have at least 8 hours of power a day. Free power. No debt at all. And you have to ask what would people would prefer, depending on a wildly erratic/nonexistent grid or have some measure of local control over their lives.

This grant is for R&D and is not germane to this discussion.

Now it is not my case at all the Nuclear does not have advantages. By increasing things like PLF or plant size Nuclear can gain an edge but costs are only going up. And it is a far closer run thing than people realize. But the economic equation has changed dramatically. I would not have said this even 12 months back. You see what would happen when PV hits $.30 per Watt. The effect would be not dissimilar to what Natural gas is doing to coal and nuclear in the USA.

As has been pointed out repeatedly, PV cell cost is only a part of the issue! Other issues like land, transmission corridor, power storage etc are to be considered.

[Theo_Fidel]

All transmission, land, power shortage issues remain with nuclear as well. Reactor started today 'may' operate in 15 years! Honestly it has taken us much long usually. KKNPP was 25 years for instance, with a proven design and no design changes and a willing population most of the time. It is unlikely the new reactors will go smoothly. In Jaitapur the locals are girding for a fight to the death with the construction crews. AREVA and NPCIL are still arguing over the design and what components are 'necessary'. Even China for instance the Gen3 plant is suffering delay after delay and Panda getting quite impatient over the numerous cost over-runs. And distributed PV has the advantage of not needing transmission at all!

WRT your idea of 90%+ plf, it has not borne out in International practice long term. They maybe 90% this year only to suffer a critical fault that sidelines the facility for many months if not years. Indian reactors too have suffered numerous faults over the years. So much so that several have been 'de-rated' permanently. You may also be ignoring parasitic plant losses, often in the 10%-15% range. Not only that often Nuclear plants can not be backed down so electricity often gets 'grounded'. Nuclear operators often trumpet yearly plf's and don't mention 'life-time' plf for a reason.

I'm also uncertain how this helps our power shortage 'now'. If you felt like it, you could build 10,000MW equivalent of PV in the next 12 months. CSP in 16 months. At least here in south TN large chunks of worthless land has already begun pooling for the purpose.

To satisfy you I went back and did the IRR again, but this time I used the latest capital costs number of Rs 8.5 crore per MW for PV using 2000 hours of sun.
IRR was 12.65 @ Rs 6. Again it is a close run thing. Like I said as the capital costs decline the IRR becomes disproportionately promising.

BTW I'm of the opinion that the low load factors of the early PV facilities is a function of poor siting and design. For instance the Adani facility in Bitta is NOT ideally oriented. When I ran their sun angles their performance is only 92% of perfect orientation. I'm not sure why this is, though I suspect the terrain/lack of experiance had something to do with it. Over time PLF' of 24% to 26%, which are global best performance, will become more frequent as skilled designers are used.

Your point on storage is a legitimate one. I'm of the view that India has specific geo-graphic advantages, Western ghats & Vindhyas & Himalayas, that will allow us to overcome it relatively easily compared to other nations. Pumped storage from just the Pykara lake is enough for the whole of TN for 24 hours for instance. Right now 14 hours of Salt storage is a Rs0.25 per kw cost item for large 50MW+ solar CSP facilities. I can't imagine that that is a show stopper.

Still the longer we futz around, the more likely it is that we won't be able to access the cheapest power available.

[Theo_Fidel]

Meanwhile, a little nugget....
*deleted by mod*

http://www.neimagazine.com/story.asp?se ... de=2062563

The former chairman of India's Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd, S. K. Jain, has been elected chairman of the World Association of Nuclear Operators' Tokyo Centre governing board.

Jain retired from NPCIL in May. As a nuclear utility, NPCIL is affiliated with Tokyo centre, as is Korea's KHNP, China's CNNC, Pakistan's PAEC, Taiwan's TPC and about 13 Japanese utilities.

[chaanakya]

A nuclear plant nowadays works at higher than 80% PLF; even at 80% PLF, it is 7008 MWh of generation.
No PV plant in India can have 2600 MWh of annual generation with current technologies! Maximum i have seen is a PLF of 22% ie 1927 MWh. As a banker i usually finance solar projects assuming a plf of 20% or less.

Now please do the maths and tell me which has a higher IRR at FIT of 6. IRR for solar at FIT of Rs.5/unit is also negative!

If you spend 11 crore per MW for Solar power at 20% CUF and 100 % PLF you start getting electricity within six months of investment. FIT of 7-8 at current prices would see plant giving its full return within 20-25 years.
While for other power plants you need to invest say 6 Cr per MW for a 500 MW capacity with 80% plf , first trickle of electricity would come only after 5-10 years. and by that time one would have spent 3000 cr without seeing electricity. I know bankers have deep distruct for anything which has uncertain policy environment and unproven parameters. Dont worry solar is catching on fast.

You are also not taking into account degradation of PV modules. it is typically 0.5-1% every year.

No alexis, you should look at this in a different way. After power plant has returned your cost fully with profit it still provides power up to 80% of its rated output which is almost free except for O&M.


No doubt about this; Solar will be cheaper over time compared to coal and other energy resources. We are discussing a power shortage now and not 10 years into future.

If it is a question of power shortage now then nuclear cant help much. You need easily deploy-able solutions and wind and solar are the answer. 123 deal cant deliver power overnight. When we talk of nuclear we need to see beyond 50 years it passes 10% range in power mix .

However you have not taken into account cost of storing solar energy in your calculation! The cost of Rs.12 crore/MW (it has now declined to 10 crore/MW) does not include cost of battery and dc-ac conversion. This is a significant deterrent and these costs have to come down for widespread adoption of solar energy.

Direct supply does not require storage. 1 MW and above plant do not store but evacuate electricity to the grid. Storage solutions are key to intermittancy but then there are solutions which makes grid serve as storage. Indian grid is so large that RE intermittent wont affect it if it is managed at central level rather than at state lavel. New report , yet to come out , has this recommendation. Wind power in TN would be evacuated to National grid and managed by POWERGRID.


Now it is not my case at all the Nuclear does not have advantages. By increasing things like PLF or plant size Nuclear can gain an edge but costs are only going up. And it is a far closer run thing than people realize. But the economic equation has changed dramatically. I would not have said this even 12 months back. You see what would happen when PV hits $.30 per Watt. The effect would be not dissimilar to what Natural gas is doing to coal and nuclear in the USA.

As has been pointed out repeatedly, PV cell cost is only a part of the issue! Other issues like land, transmission corridor, power storage etc are to be considered.

These issues are even more relevant in case of other type of energy. Here at least you can reclaim the land back if you want. PV is more into decentralised generating, smart grid and microgrid serving 30% of power needs for domestic consumers. Transmission would become more of issue for large plants for which you need to build dedicated evacuation line. Storage is an issue for all sources of power. Nuclear power to be viable needs to run all the time. You cant take it off line to manage demands. That is why it is called as base load provider. catering to constant demand in the grid.

Nuclear energy will al;ways have its place in energy mix just as RE would have. Currently it is more that 36% of total energy counting hydro. Nuclear is less , much less, but would grow in response to increase in energy requirement. Argument becomes flawed when one is talked about at the expense of the other.
besides Nuclear power plants comes with its own issues and problems well debated here. Some of us also believe that even solar panels can explode and cause irreversible damages to people, economy and environment. What to do.

[alexis]

Nuclear energy will al;ways have its place in energy mix just as RE would have. Currently it is more that 36% of total energy counting hydro. Nuclear is less , much less, but would grow in response to increase in energy requirement. Argument becomes flawed when one is talked about at the expense of the other.
besides Nuclear power plants comes with its own issues and problems well debated here. Some of us also believe that even solar panels can explode and cause irreversible damages to people, economy and environment. What to do.

Dear chaanakya, i am fully in agreement with you that renewable energy has its importance in the mix; but not at the expense of nuclear/thermal sources.

Regarding the points raised, even accounting for the gestation periods, a thermal coal project yields higher returns. The capital cost of nuclear seems to vary too much and i dont have a fix on it. I used the US DEA data for calculation of cost of generation for nuclear. That source gave better returns for nuclear.

A solar plant can generate for 25 years while a nuclear plant can generate for 40 years. The problem as i see it is that at current scenario, investors cannot make any return from solar projects at a reasonable tariff of Rs.7/unit. This is the real hurdle and not the opposition from any anti-solar lobby for the widespread adoption of solar.

For 10,000 MW of solar projects, you need 50-60,000 acres of land; this is not easy to acquire in India - as you know solar requires a specific land for optimal CUFs.

Transmission is an issue in India; now the burden of creating transmission lines are offloaded to utilities and that cost is not loaded on to the project by the regulators unlike a thermal source. Since solar plants are 5-10 MW separated over a large distance, it is difficult to offtake. I personally know PV projects getting delayed due to absence of transmission facilities.

Storage is not needed now because the grid does the storage! If the wind/solar sources in the generation mix crosses a threshold, then grid storage is no longer possible. This threshold depending on how smart the grid is, varies from 10% - 80%! With no redundancy in transmission capacity in India, i believe the figure is closer to 10%.

Regarding distributed lighting for domestic purposes, solar is a good option. However for industrial load, either storage or diesel backup would be required. Please read http://www.science20.com/news_articles/ ... able-92011 - this attempts to solve the storage problem

There is no doubt that solar holds the most promise for the future but nuclear will be needed to reduce the dependance on coal in the energy mix

[Theo_Fidel]

A solar plant can generate for 25 years while a nuclear plant can generate for 40 years.

I think the modern standard is 40+20 for Nuclear. Then it has to be decommissioned and the land goes through a decades to centuries? Long 'cooling off' period. Solar plants will operate for ever. To the end of humanity. There is no fixed retirement age for Solar panels. They have zero moving parts and if taken care of there is no set retirement period. My colleague took me to a installation at a weather center here that had 20x50W ARCO solar panels installed in the late 1960's. They are still generating 80% of their rated output 40+ years later. When they do expire regular replacement will be needed as part of maintenance costs. This is likely to be less than Nuclear maintenance. For instance nuclear turbines are replaced every 15-20 years at great expense.

For 10,000 MW of solar projects, you need 50-60,000 acres of land; this is not easy to acquire in India - as you know solar requires a specific land for optimal CUFs.

Right now NPCIL's sterilization zone requirements need roughly 4000-5000 acres for every inland Nuclear site. Coastal sites come with a requirement of 2,500 acres or so with the added attraction of banning fishing/ocean access from a large coastal perimeter. Nuclear needs to be near water meaning more productive land. Solar can use the most desolate blasted land.

...nuclear will be needed to reduce the dependance on coal in the energy mix.

There is not much difference between 2.5% nuclear vs 5% nuclear, esp. for the staggering investment involved. All our attempts to depend on Nuclear have resulted on greater dependence on coal. The numbers simply speak otherwise.

As I said the longer we futz around with our nuclear infatuation, the more coal we will burn. Rinse repeat.

That said if I was the banker, I would be fairly cautious with solar. It does not have the track record Nuclear or Coal has. And yes even at $100 per ton coal has better IRR than even new nuclear. I have always advocated that only solar plants above 100MW are commercially viable. At that scale banks can go in as a consortium. The transmission cost challenge is easier to overcome and only large EPC operators will be able to deal with the project requirements. Unfortunately GOI went the other away. I don't disagree with the need to create an eco-system of bidders but an eye-clinic and a chit fund would not be my first choice for the long term bidding problem, yet they were selected by GOI. Distributed power overcomes this by directly competing with the retail cost of Electricity. In Most of California for instance developer+bankers offer a 12 year program of average bill 80% electricity discount lease after which electricity is free and belongs to the owner.

[alexis]

Dear Theo,
With current and near future technology, storage is an issue for solar. Distributed solar makes sense for domestic customers but industrial is a different case. Also you appreciate the difference in land requirement for a thermal/nuclear and a solar project of equal capacity. Till we are able to solve these issues, solar cannot replace coal from the mix.

The next best alternative is nuclear; that is all i have seen people advocating here.

[chaanakya]

That said if I was the banker, I would be fairly cautious with solar. It does not have the track record Nuclear or Coal has. And yes even at $100 per ton coal has better IRR than even new nuclear. I have always advocated that only solar plants above 100MW are commercially viable. At that scale banks can go in as a consortium. The transmission cost challenge is easier to overcome and only large EPC operators will be able to deal with the project requirements. Unfortunately GOI went the other away. I don't disagree with the need to create an eco-system of bidders but an eye-clinic and a chit fund would not be my first choice for the long term bidding problem, yet they were selected by GOI. Distributed power overcomes this by directly competing with the retail cost of Electricity. In Most of California for instance developer+bankers offer a 12 year program of average bill 80% electricity discount lease after which electricity is free and belongs to the owner.

1000 MWp has been installed under SPV system , most of it financed by banks and tariff fixed assuming healthy returns on Investment.
That too from almost Zero to 1000MWp. Not many of them is of above 5 MWp size. I think bankers would have to come around sooner than later.

But this is Nuke dhaaga and discussing solar would be OT here.
Let us discuss the cost of cleaning up FUK-D and 20 SQKM out of bounds for Humans for god knows how many years in appropriate Nuke dhaaga (international)

[Katare]

Most solar project auctioned has quoted Rs10/unit to Rs15/unit. Govt will fetch most of the cost as consumers will pay only Rs 5/unit. Things are improving and will keep improving but with current technology solar cant replace backbone of power grid. Solar cells need another technical breakthrough to become a true solution to become the dominant component in energy mix. They need to find cells that have better conversion than 20%, that don't loose efficiency with increasing temperatures, can use entire solar spectrum (200 to 2500nm), less moistue sensitive i.e. do not need glass cover (my company has just launched a thin plastic film that replaces glass and we can't make it fast enough). CSP also suffers from non availability of materials of very high specific heat to store large amount of energy, transfer hot fluids, non glass reflectors etc. Solar is an exciting field with much promise but sucess is not assured by any means.

Nuclear is a proven business with assured rate of return on investment. So nuclear energy has to bea critical component of Indian energy security. But IMO, goal of energy security can't be achieved without pushing "all of the above" button. Let all of them flourish, some will not survive but others will exceed our projection. Only time will tell. Cheers!

[Bade]

http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/tam ... 650744.ece

With the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project likely to be commissioned in August, Russia has agreed to extend a $3.4-billion credit for setting up two more 1,000-MW atomic power plants at the same site in Tamil Nadu.

The two nations signed a protocol on Tuesday in Moscow for financing units 3 and 4 of the Kudankulam project, under which the Russian Federation will extend export credit amounting up to $3.4 billion for 85 per cent of the value of works, supplies and services provided by the Russian organisations for the two units.

[Theo_Fidel]

http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/tam ... 658880.ece

Adequate technology and experience are available with the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) for transporting spent fuel from one location to another by rail and road in a safe manner without any public hazard.

This was stated in a note when a batch of petitions relating to the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNPP) came up before a Division Bench of Justices P. Jyothimani and M. Duraisamy for further hearing on Thursday.

The note, filed through NPCIL counsel Krishna Srinivasan, stated that at Kudankulam, spent fuel from the reactors would be stored in the spent fuel pool designed for the storage of spent fuel assembly.

The pool capacity had been designed for storing spent fuel assemblies for eight years and unloading of the total reactor core at any moment of the nuclear power plant operation.

As practised in the other nuclear power plants, after eight years of storage, the spent fuel would be stored in ‘Away From Reactor’ (AFR) facility. This may be constructed either at the KKNPP or at some other sites which would be decided at the appropriate time.

[nelson]

AERB approval for fuel loading at Kudankulam

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/a ... epage=true