I believe
that some energy industries are better off in public ownership, and as such ,
support the public ownership ethic.
It was
therefore very disappointing to read the press release - reproduced below - this morning from the national UK
Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), owner of the Sellafield nuclear site,
which included two significant factual errors, so egregiously inaccurate, that
they may be deemed deliberate ”fake news.”
The media
release asserted of the Calder Hall ‘Magnox’
nuclear plant: “Hailed as the
dawn of the atomic age, it made Britain a world leader in the civil nuclear
industry.”
But, in
fact, Calder Hall was
not a ‘civil’ nuclear power plant, but a plutonium production plant run by the
UK Atomic Energy Authority for the Ministry of Defence ( then called the Ministry
of Supply) to provide nuclear explosive materials for nuclear warheads.
In fact it was clearly
stated at the time of the plant’s opening, in a remarkable little book entitled
Calder Hall: The Story of Britain’s First Atomic Power Station, written
by Kenneth Jay, and published by the Government’s Atomic Energy Research
Establishment at Harwell to mark Calder’s commissioning in October 1956.
Mr Jay wrote:
Major plants built for
military purposes such as Calder Hall are being used as prototypes for civil
plants . . . the plant has been designed as a dual-purpose plant to produce
plutonium for military purposes as well as electric power . . . it would be
wrong to pretend that the civil programme has not benefitted from, and is not
to some extent dependent upon, the military programme."
The media release also
asserted, entirely inaccurately, that Calder Hall “provided carbon-free electricity for 47
years.”
A recent and
comprehensive Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) of greenhouse gas emissions from
differing power generation technologies by Mark Jacobson, professor of civil
and environmental engineering at Stanford
University, California - and director of its Atmosphere/Energy Program -
have indicated that nuclear
CO2 emissions are between 10 to 18 times greater than those from renewables. He
is very qualified for such analysis, being also Senior Fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy, and at
the Woods Institute for the Environment,
where he has developed computer models to study the
effects of fossil fuel and biomass burning on air pollution, weather, and
climate.
Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and
energy security† Energy & Environmental Science,
1 December 2008
In a newly completed
chapter by Professor Jacobson in a forthcoming energy book, Evaluation of
Nuclear Power as a Proposed Solution to Global Warming, Air Pollution, and
Energy Security, in 100% Clean,
Renewable Energy and Storage for Everything [Textbook in Preparation] https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/WWSBook/WWSBook.html) he argues cogently:
“There is no such thing as a zero- or close-to-zero emission nuclear
power plant. Even existing plants emit due to the continuous mining and
refining of uranium needed for the plant. However, all plants also emit 4.4
g-CO2e/kWh from the water vapor and heat they release. This contrasts with
solar panels and wind turbines, which reduce heat or water vapor fluxes to the
air by about 2.2 g-CO2e/kWh for a net difference from this factor alone of 6.6
g-CO2e/kWh.
“Overall,” he concludes, “emissions
from new nuclear are 78 to178 g-CO2/kWH, not close to 0”
See also, a meta-study by
Dr
Benjamin K Sovacool, Professor of Energy Policy at the Science Policy Research
Unit (SPRU) at the School of Business, Management, and Economics, part of the University
of Sussex, who serves as Director of the Sussex Energy Group and Director of
the Center on Innovation and Energy Demand [which involves the University of
Oxford and University of Manchester] “Valuing the greenhouse gas emissions from
nuclear power: A critical survey, Energy Policy, 36,
2940-2953, 2008.
He concludes the
following:
“This article screens 103 lifecycle studies of
greenhouse gas-equivalent emissions for nuclear power plants to identify a
subset of the most current, original, and transparent studies.
It
begins by briefly detailing the separate components of the nuclear fuel cycle
before explaining the methodology of the survey and exploring the variance of
lifecycle estimates. It calculates that while the range of emissions for
nuclear energy over the lifetime of a plant, reported from qualified studies
examined,
is from 1.4 g of carbon dioxide equivalent per kWh (g CO2e/kWh) to 288 g
CO2e/kWh, the mean value is 66 g CO2e/kWh. The article then explains some of
the factors responsible for the disparity in lifecycle estimates, in particular
identifying errors in both the lowest estimates (not comprehensive) and the
highest estimates (failure to consider co-products). It should be noted that
nuclear power is not directly emitting greenhouse gas emissions, but rather
that lifecycle emissions occur through plant
construction, operation, uranium
mining and milling, and plant decommissioning.”
NDA
must know these two assertions were false: why did they include them?
History made as final fuel leaves
iconic nuclear plant
Defueling
operations are complete at Sellafield’s Calder Hall.
Published 3
September 2019
From:
The Charge
floor in Calder Hall - back in the 50s and now
It means the
world’s first full-scale nuclear power station is empty of fuel for the first
time since the 1950s.
The achievement
marks an important milestone in the decommissioning of Sellafield.
It also means
the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s Magnox Operating Programme is a step
closer to completion.
The opening of
Calder Hall by the Queen in 1956 sparked national celebration.
Hailed as the
dawn of the atomic age, it made Britain a world leader in the civil nuclear
industry.
When the
station was switched on, nearby Workington became the first town in the world
to receive heat, light, and power from atomic energy.
Calder Hall’s
Magnox design was the template for Britain’s first generation of nuclear power
stations and the technology was exported around the world.
The station
provided carbon-free electricity for 47 years. It stopped generating power in
2003 and defueling began in 2011.
Stuart Latham,
head of remediation for Sellafield Ltd, said:
This is a truly
iconic moment.
Calder Hall was
the birthplace of the civil nuclear industry. It inspired the world and put our
site at the forefront of the atomic age.
Completing the
defueling programme is an important moment for Sellafield.
The defueling
team have completed the task safely and professionally and have a made a huge
contribution to our mission.
Removing fuel
from Calder Hall’s 4 reactors was a complex task.
A total of
38,953 spent fuel rods had to be carefully retrieved from the station’s 4
reactors.
The same
machines that were used to load fuel into the reactors during its operational
life were used to pull it out.
Once removed,
the fuel was transferred in shielded flasks to Sellafield’s Fuel Handling
Plant.
After being
cooled in a storage pond, its casings are removed and the rod taken to
Sellafield’s Magnox Reprocessing Plant to be reprocessed. This extracts the
reusable uranium and plutonium from the fuel.
Calder Hall’s
reactor buildings will now be placed into a state known as ‘care and
maintenance’. In due course they will be fully decommissioned and demolished.
More
information on Calder Hall
No comments:
Post a Comment