and they have some good points. Energy efficiency measures make fissioning radioactive toxins to produce electricity even less economically viable than it already is.
This is Citigroups analysis of the effects of energy efficiency on the prospects of market based fission reactors in the UK:
2. Energy efficiency is likely to become a bigger driver as technology advances and as awareness rises. It is important to highlight that such measures also fall under the Climate Change agenda of governments, which has been one of the driving forces behind the renaissance of new nuclear.
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Therefore under very conservative assumptions on renewables, we can reliably expect an extra 330TWh of electricity to be generated by 2020, leaving a shortfall of 16TWh to be made up by either energy efficiency or new nuclear. There are currently 10GW of nuclear capacity under construction/development, including the UK proposed plants that should be on operation by 2020.
If we assume that energy efficiency will not contribute, that would imply a load factor for the plants of 18%. Looking at the entire available nuclear fleet that would imply a load factor of just 76%. We do believe though that steps towards energy efficiency will also be taken, thus the impact on load factors could be larger.Under a scenario of the renewables target being fully delivered then the load factor for nuclear would fall to 56%.
(Bold in original; underline is mine)
Citigroup Global Markets European Nuclear Generation 2 December 2008
BTW, new nuclear is being sold by making claims based on load factors of 90% PLUS.
That is why the CBO estimate on nuclear loan guarantees said in 2005, using better numbers than are in place now, that:
For this estimate, CBO assumes that the first nuclear plant built using a federal loan guarantee would have a capacity of 1,100 megawatts and have associated project costs of $2.5 billion. We expect that such a plant would be located at the site of an existing nuclear plant and would employ a reactor design certified by the NRC prior to construction. This plant would be the first to be licensed under the NRC’s new licensing procedures, which have been extensively revised over the past decade.
Based on current industry practices, CBO expects that any new nuclear construction project would be financed with 50 percent equity and 50 percent debt. The high equity participation reflects the current practice of purchasing energy assets using high equity stakes, 100 percent in some cases, used by companies likely to undertake a new nuclear construction project. Thus, we assume that the government loan guarantee would cover half the construction cost of a new plant, or $1.25 billion in 2011.
CBO considers the risk of default on such a loan guarantee to be very high—well above 50 percent. The key factor accounting for this risk is that we expect that the plant would be uneconomic to operate because of its high construction costs, relative to other electricity generation sources. In addition, this project would have significant technical risk because it would be the first of a new generation of nuclear plants, as well as project delay and interruption risk due to licensing and regulatory proceedings.
Note the price - $2.5 billion was to be only for the first plant. Future plants were, according to the assumptions provided by the nuclear industry, expected to have
lower costs as economy of scale resulted in savings.
In fact, since the report was written the estimated cost has risen to an average of about $8 billion.
Wonder what that does to the “risk is that … the plant would be uneconomic to operate because of its high construction costs, relative to other electricity generation sources”?
Does that risk diminish or increase when the price rises from $2.5 billion to $8 billion?