Insuring a nuclear renaissance

By nature insurers take a dispassionate, objective perspective when assessing the convergence of risk and consequence. Insurance related developments can therefore serve as a broad industry touchstone – in this case the future of worldwide commercial nuclear power deployment.

Lloyd’s has included a feature in their current issue of Market Magazine. In this article they begin by acknowledging that “The global nuclear industry’s star is rising”. An example of interest being:

“China, which connected its first commercial reactor to its national grid in 1991, now has 11 working reactors and six under construction. It plans a six-fold increase in nuclear capacity by 2020 and then a further three- to four-fold increase by 2030.”

Michael Dawson, Active Underwriter of Chaucer’s Nuclear Syndicate projects most nuclear new-build will simply replace current facilities nearing the end of their design life and that nuclear’s share of energy in developed countries will remain at about 20% until around 2025. Dawson predicts total ‘nuclear business’ to subsequently increase after 2025.

Interestingly for Australia, fuel security is highlighted as a risk whose management is critical to the global expansion of nuclear power. This is consistent with international efforts and attention being given to fuel supply such as the GNEP and a special topic of the IAEA’s 50th General Conference approximately two years ago.

The article discusses specific areas of risk such as construction, flooding and a hypothetical release of radioactive material as well as more recent additions such as those related to environmental impacts and decommissioning.

Mark Tetley, Managing Director of the British nuclear pool, Nuclear Risks Insurers concludes, “I’m very positive about the UK’s nuclear new build framework, as I believe it will be the most sophisticated globally. The insurance market is already playing a central role in helping the Government develop this model.”

The magazine includes numerous inserts and factoids. A few of interest are included below.

Lloyd’s has been involved in nuclear insurance since the British nuclear pool, Nuclear Risks Insurers (NRI), was founded in 1956.

NRI’s capacity comes from eight insurance companies and 16 Lloyd’s syndicates. NRI represents the largest single block of risk transfer insurance capacity in the world, at more than £400m. It also reinsures other nuclear pools worldwide. It covers risks including property, nuclear fuel and waste plants, construction work on nuclear sites and transport liabilities.

In the UK, the industry is governed by various national laws and international conventions. These set limits of damage beyond which the state is effectively the insurer of last resort.

For details of international nuclear liability conventions from the World Nuclear Association.

Australian Nuclear Association - Expanding to Queensland

The Australian Nuclear Association has announced the formation of Australian Nuclear Association Queensland Inc due to the initiative of a group of persons in Queensland interested in promoting the peaceful uses of nuclear science and technology in that state.

Dr Ziggy Switkowski, chairman of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) will address the official launch of ANA Queensland on August 21 in Brisbane. Dr Switkowski's topic: Is the climate right for nuclear power?

With Australians' demand for electricity, and energy in general, expected to double by 2050, Dr Switkowski says he believes the safest, cleanest and lowest cost form of electricity in a carbon-constrained world will be nuclear power.

The ANA is urging supporters of nuclear science and technology in other states to form similar branch organisations.

For further information on the activities of the group please contact the organisation via Email at info@anaq.org.au.

Non-nuclear alternatives don't add up to enough

A very interesting, informed and insightful article from the Canberra Times by Professor Leslie Kemeny.

Obviously Prof. Kemeny understands the difference between 'generation capacity' and actual generated Megawatt-hours [a subtle technical difference often incorrectly utilised in many a 'pale-green' anti-nuclear argument].

As strong arguments often do, this article is packed with objective data and sites demonstrated examples of the technology as well as recent, high profile policy decisions around the world.

Good read.

World Energy Outlook - 2007

I've started to digest this 670-plus page behemoth. Per the publication copyright terms and conditions, I am permitted to copy / share up to 15% (about 100 pages) without prior written approval of the IEA. Be sure, I'm not going to do that, but here are some relevant data that I found of potential interest.

(all emphasis is mine)

From the executive summary

Urgent action is needed if greenhouse-gas concentrations are to be stabilised at a level that would prevent dangerous interference with the climate system. The Alternative Policy Scenario shows that measures currently being considered by governments around the world could lead to a stabilisation of global emissions in the mid-2020s and cut their level in 2030 by 19% relative to the Reference Scenario. OECD emissions peak and begin to decline after 2015. Yet global emissions would still be 27% higher than in 2005. Assuming continued emissions reductions after 2030, the Alternative Policy Scenario projections are consistent with stabilisation of long-term CO2-equivalent concentration in the atmosphere at about 550 parts per million. According to the best estimates of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, this concentration would correspond to an increase in average temperature of around 3°C above pre-industrial levels. In order to limit the average increase in global temperatures to a maximum of 2.4°C, the smallest increase in any of the IPCC scenarios, the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere would need to be stabilised at around 450 ppm. To achieve this, CO2 emissions would need to peak by 2015 at the latest and to fall between 50% and 85% below 2000 levels by 2050. We estimate that this would require energy-related CO2 emissions to be cut to around 23 Gt in 2030 – 19 Gt less than in the Reference Scenario and 11 Gt less than in the Alternative Policy Scenario. In a “450 Stabilisation Case”, which describes a notional pathway to achieving this outcome, global emissions peak in 2012 at around 30 Gt. Emissions savings come from improved efficiency in fossil-fuel use in industry, buildings and transport, switching to nuclear power and renewables, and the widespread deployment of CO2 capture and storage (CCS) in power generation and industry. Exceptionally quick and vigorous policy action by all countries, and unprecedented technological advances, entailing substantial costs, would be needed to make this case a reality.

Clearly, exceptionally vigorous policy action – entailing substantial costs – would be needed to make the 450 Stabilisation Case a reality. Such action would need to start immediately: each year of delay would reduce substantially the likelihood of achieving the target.

The below trend reflects the required energy supply changes required to satisfy the 450 stabilisation case. These changes are to be made IN ADDITION to aggressive changes (which already include significant increases in nuclear power) required to satisfy the 'Alternative Policy Scenario'.

And for those of you worried about the future of coal - fear not. You'll notice that the overall demand for coal doesn't change too much (add the brown and the red) - even within the most aggressive scenario as shown below. Anyone claiming any differently, is just promoting a culture of fear to get votes.

And there is much, MUCH more. Their message is clear - urgent, global action is required 'immediately', and that action will include - among many other changes - the significant deployment of additional nuclear power generation technologies around the world.

GNEP - Nuclear grade clubbing

According to recent news, Australia may be either entering directly into a bilateral agreement with the US (and other countries), formally enlisting in GNEP, or both.

The United States is claiming that Australia's role wold be research oriented. I have no problem with this claim. I believe all the chatter about waste is purely political - and being fanned heavily by Labor for their own gains.

Unless Canberra is full of complete idiots on both sides of the political aisle, the Coalition and Labour both clearly understand that 1) if Australia did accept high level waste from other countries, they could virtually name their price (and subsequently reprocess it and sell it on as reactor fuel - but I digress), but 2) agreeing to this without a lengthy public outreach programme including some very broad education of the general public - would be political suicide.

If you have a look around, you will discover that the US is signing bilateral nuclear agreements with just about every country with a research reactor. Others are dong it as well - including Australia. I believe, with respect to research, the US appears to be playing catch-up following several decades of little support for nuclear power technologies. Australia has a demonstrated research capability, very relevant capability in fact. Just consider how General Electric is capitalising on Australian ingenuity. Personally, one of the most disappointing lines on the page is:

GE has the exclusive rights to develop, commercialize and launch this third-generation uranium enrichment technology on a global basis.

Yet another example of others gaining from Australian innovation. Sure it's great to proudly proclaim "... that's Australian!". But to be blunt - proclamations don't pay the mortgage. It is not too difficult to imagine a day when Australian uranium is shipped to the US, enriched at a GE facility and then shipped back to Australia in the form of fresh fuel [and we don't need power reactors to savor this technological embarrassment, it's quite possible the OPAL reactor fuel could one day take this route. I am fairly certain Argentina gets its enriched fuel from the USA].

I mentioned other agreements. Canada is on the [nuclear] move. Comparisons between Australia and Canada can be quite entertaining. Similar size [33-Million to our 21-Million], loyal servants of Her Majesty, loving and hating America simultaneously, etc. Oh, and I almost forgot - a considerable quantity of the world's Uranium. One notable difference is that Canada not only embraced the nuclear fuel cycle over 5 decades ago, but Canadian engineers designed a unique breed of reactor [the CANDU] that has helped power Canada and more than a few other countries for quite some time now.

This past week the Canadian Province of Ontario announced a bold initiative [find even more here] that appears to be quite serious about mitigating Canada's contribution to climate change - which in case you are wondering is [on a per capita basis] about equal to the US and a little more than 90% of what we spew into the atmosphere here in Australia. Note the plan involves a blended array of strategies, including Nuclear, that will eliminate coal by 2014, not long after Australia plans to have developed our carbon trading strategy [just a bit embarrassing, no?].

And there's more. Canada, with not only a demonstrated research background, but a damn respectable industrial track record to boot, has also been 'invited' to join the GNEP. Here's what The Times Colonist had to say,

The initiative came to light in Canada in May 2006, when Prime Minister John Howard of Australia -- like Canada, a major world supplier of uranium -- visited Ottawa and voiced interest in the U.S. proposal, but also concerns about its possible effect on the mining and export industries.

At the time, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said: "Australia and Canada, as the two major uranium producers in the world, have considerable interest in whatever the United States and the international community have in mind in terms of future uranium development, production and marketing."

He added that he and Howard had "agreed we're going to collaborate very closely together to make sure Australian and Canadian interests are closely protected while the Americans and others discuss the future of that industry."

At least they're being pragmatic about it. No sugar-coating speeches about research. They want to ensure their interests as a supplier of Uranium are protected. And I am confident that Australia's interest in GNEP are the same - as reported in Canada, if not here in Australia. Because, let's face it, mining jobs and healthy exports do pay the mortgage.

As you can probably tell, I have a great deal of respect for the Canadian nuclear programme. They are lean and mean, excellent planners [with the versatile NRU still fully utilised at 50 years old] and even better decision makers. With about 10% of the US population they have managed to essentially equal their technical capability with respect to nuclear power and surpassed them in closely related fields. The USA, for example imports 100% of their Molybdenum-99 [used to make Technetium-99m, the most utilised diagnostic radiopharmaceutical on the planet] and a LOT of that comes from Canada. And before you click that comment link to tell us all about their Maple reactors, take a look around your own glass house.

Canadians also have an interesting approach to increasing enrolment in nuclear engineering programmes.

Anvil Hill Mine Approved

Centennial Coal recently announced the NSW approval of their newest open cut mine in the Hunter. The Anvil Hill Mine will produce up to 10.5 million tonnes of coal per year [that's 1,200 tonnes an hour, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week] for both export and domestic use, create an estimated 1,500 direct and indirect jobs and generate over $400 million in wages and royalties over the next 21 years of operation.

And then there's the recent announcement from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, clearing the large queue of ships [sometimes reaching 70 vessels] waiting to relieve the area of their coal deposits. Demurrage costs were reaching $1 Million a day for heaven's sake.

No mention of the environmental impact of all that coal. But hey, we must feed the beast, right?

I decided to make this post - not so much because I am opposed to coal. In fact I understand significant quantities of coal generated energy will be around for centuries. My point here is to express concern regarding the reality of coal derived energy expansion while environmental fundamentalists preach renewables from a staunchly anti-nuclear position.

If nuclear takes too long to develop; then where are the windmills, solar cells, tidal turbines, geothermal plants, efficiency campaigns, etc. that should have made the above expansion unnecessary?

If nuclear is too expensive; then why has Western Australia found it necessary to introduce legislation making the deployment of nuclear power plants illegal? If there is in fact no credible business case, wouldn't the plans just wither on the drawing board? The hackneyed action by the WA government is - in a sense - acknowledgement that nuclear power is indeed an economically competitive source of no/low emissions energy.

If the risk of nuclear proliferation is too great; I'd like to know how many people have to die in Iraq, Nigeria and elsewhere before the strife inherent to the fossil fuel supply chain is properly addressed.

If nuclear waste [safely reprocessed in several countries, safely stored for decades in the others] posses too great a risk; please tell me why society offers little more than lip service and a few catchy slogans on popular beaches while fossil wastes are indiscriminately dumped, by the millions of tonnes, throughout the globe - resulting in broadly distributed adverse habitats, death and increasing cases of extinction; realities that will remain for future generations to manage for centuries - if they're lucky.

Tips and Ash

The World Nuclear News is reporting that Sparton Resources of Canada has entered into an agreement with Akanani Investment Corp (AIC) to evaluate uranium extraction possibilities from waste coal ash in South Africa.

Rod at the Atomic Insights blog has gone into this issue in a bit more detail.

100's of tonnes of Uranium??? Crikey Rod - will this ash become a proliferation issue?? [Anyone with even a cursory understanding of nuclear technology should get the joke.] Everyone else... be afraid... very, very afraid! Just one more reason why the indiscriminate dumping of fossil power station waste will eventually lead to our demise.

On a more serious note, this is further evidence in support of Haydon Manning's paper where he discusses all the places one finds uranium [i.e. mixed in with other materials that are already being mined].

Further information

Sparton Resources
WNA's Naturally-Occurring Radioactive Materials (NORM) information paper
WNN: Sparton raises share in China program
WNN: WildHorse and Sparton study coal ash
WNN: Project to extract uranium from coal ash

Overview of a Gen-3 Reactor

AREVA's 3rd Generation EPR.

Wood fires up nuclear industry

As reported in the Herald Sun (photo courtesy of):

FREED Iraqi hostage Douglas Wood would happily live next-door to a nuclear power plant, and wants a job helping to develop an Australian nuclear energy industry.

But the Melbourne-based engineer, who was a project manager building nuclear plants in the US, said Australia's engineers and industrial suppliers would be under-qualified to build a local plant.

I fully agree with this conclusion, as I've said here. Wood continues...

But a nuclear industry would have to go offshore for suppliers and engineers with appropriate skill levels.

He'd happily take a job in any emerging industry, however. "Sign me up!" Mr Wood said.

The PM has expressed a hope that Australia will be producing nuclear energy by 2020 but Mr Wood said at least four years would be needed before building could commence, as specialist engineers would have to be trained.

Refusing to name potential sites, he said a coastal location would be best. "It would be logical to use the ocean (as a water source for cooling)."

Nothing quite like the words of someone with practical experience.

So many times in recent months have I read or listened to Australian nuclear industry advocates promote domestic scientific achievements in defence of nuclear energy technology deployment. But I believe this is an erroneous link as the endeavour is principally engineering related (e.g. the application of existing technology to a schedule and budget, where science is more about discovery and the quest to conquer knowledge). And one need not look far to find that nuclear engineering resources around the world are scarce - particularly those under say about 45 years old.

Those who wish to advocate domestic nuclear energy should consider this among other issues.

Queensland Politics

Seems as if Queensland is working to ban nuclear. Is Big Coal behind the push? Is it coincidence that both Labour and the Liberal politicians keep Big Coal's interests in mind while policy pondering on climate change or related matters? As the only real technical challenge to coal as a base-load supplier - what would killing nuclear in Australia mean for Big Coal?

Ruth at We Support Lee has a knack for detailed and informative posts. She's done the research and included many, many relevant links to information and other nuclear bloggers.

I can add no more, but merely pass on the information. Very well worth the read.

Well done Ruth & thanks!!

A few recent news stories...

First - as reported by the Sydney Morning Herald, AGL CEO Paul Anthony is identifying a principal challenge to nuclear in Australia. Since he - or others like him - represent potential investors in nuclear power, I believe nuclear proponents should listen closely.

"Nuclear power stations are uninsurable so the insurer of last resort in all countries has to be the government. The government has to say we're going to underpin the uninsurable risk of the nuclear sector," he said.

He added that nuclear power stations worked on a much larger scale of economy.

"We're talking of thousands of megawatts of generation. It's a long-term investment and nobody really has effectively sorted out the long-term trailing costs of holding redundant nuclear stations for the next 300 years," he said.

So he is seeking bi-partisan political support (for long-term insurability), as well as other long-term assurances. I believe these represent the critical, relevant issue. Long term business security.

Next, Dr. Ziggy Switkowski predicts a decision on nuclear power in Australia by the end of the year in this Sky News report.

Lastly, a fairly generic story from UPI where John Howard and Werner Burkart of the IAEA promote nuclear power, but add no real substantive details (of 'how', 'when', or 'who' is to do 'what' etc.). I wouldn't really recommend it if it weren't so short.

Europe wants to buy WA uranium

As reported in The West Australian:

In his first official WA visit, EU ambassador Bruno Julien will argue that nuclear energy offers the EU a way to slash its greenhouse gas emissions while meeting its future energy needs.

“We need more uranium because we are trying to green our energy supplies, to reduce our CO2 emissions, and it’s our view that we can work with WA.”

[WA Premier Alan] Carpenter has long cited environmental reasons for the ban and says WA would come under immense pressure to take nuclear waste if it sold uranium.

But last month he changed his stance, saying he was opposed to uranium mining because WA may need it to meet domestic energy needs in the future.

Mr Julien acknowledged that uranium mining and nuclear energy were as controversial in Europe as they were in Australia.

But he said it had to be considered as a solution to climate change.

Country of Nuclear Strategic Concern - Australia

Good background reading about potential opportunities for Australia with respect to the nuclear fuel cycle in an international context.

From the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)

Hugh Morgan shares his vision...

As reported in the The Age:

(Hugh Morgan recently formed the company 'Australian Nuclear Energy' (ASIC) (ABR) with Fairfax chairman Ron Walker and fellow mining executive Robert Champion de Crespigny.)

Mr Morgan said the industry faced considerable practical and political hurdles, but he believed it was "just" possible to see nuclear power in Australia within 10 years, if there was the will to embrace more expensive energy sources.

But Mr Morgan conceded nuclear energy faced significant hurdles, the most important of which was a lack of bipartisan political support.

He said for Australia to embrace nuclear energy, consumers would have to accept that energy prices would rise as part of any policy change to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

He said governments might have to review regulations governing Australia's electricity industry because there was no functional national electricity market and energy companies were reluctant to invest.

Mr Morgan endorsed the Switkowski review, which he said had started to focus the energy debate.

US waste specialist(?) warns against nuclear energy

As reported by ABC News:

This is probably a bit redundant. Bloggers everywhere (NEI) (J.F. Beck) are already sounding the alarm on Mr. Kevin Kamps.

But this is part of the nuclear discussion occurring within Australia, so I'll add it here.

Please read/listen, but before you form any concrete opinions please also consider his credentials. To me he is an anti-nuclear activist for sure, but his background lacks any noteworthy technical qualifications or experience (However I see he's done a considerable amount of walking). So I am more than a bit leery of his advice, and certainly see no reason to acknowledge him as a specialist.

I would have expected the ABC to dig a bit deeper on this one. Considering what is at stake, this type of emotive reporting is not all that constructive.

There are many very qualified, genuine specialists right here within Australia. As I find them I try to add their links (or those of a relevant organization) to this Blog.

Grateful for any suggestions.

Home grown information

First have a look at the University of Melbourne's nuclearinfo.net site for "Everything you want to know about Nuclear Power".

For more please have a look a the University of Wollongong's Nuclear Power & Australia website. There you will find interesting information on Nuclear vs. Coal and many other discussions.

If - like me - you prefer information that is more quantitative and objective, you may want to bring something to nibble.