Consumers Energy, One Energy
Plaza, Jackson, MI 49201, (phone) (517) 788-0550
http://www.cmsenergy.com/content.aspx?id=1028
________________________________________________________________
Nuclear heat is 20 times cheaper than coal
"Enriched
uranium is sold by a unit called a Separative Work Unit (SWU) that is a "made up"
number used to describe the amount of effort that went into separating the U-235
atoms from the U-238 atoms. The higher the enrichment, the more SWUs were needed
to achieve that separation and the higher the cost (for the same number of
pounds). To buy the uranium from a uranium enrichment plant, you will have to
buy it in the form of uranium hexafluoride which will run about $1,000 per pound
for about 4% enriched material. To buy the uranium from a nuclear fuel
fabricator as finished reactor fuel in fuel rods and fuel assemblies, that would
roughly triple the cost of the uranium.
So, a single uranium fuel pellet has the same energy value as three [3.5
per NEI] barrels of oil. Each pellet weighs about 2 grams. Based on a
cost of $3000 per pound and there are 453 grams in a pound, then each pound of
uranium fuel is worth about 675 barrels of oil which is currently going for
about $62,500.
Therefore, uranium fuel is cheaper than oil by about a factor of 20.
Source(s): I am a nuclear engineer."
"A single uranium fuel pellet the size of a fingertip contains as much energy as 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas, 1,780 pounds of coal or 149 gallons of oil." - Nuclear Energy Institute.
Pound for pound, uranium makes 3 million times as much heat as coal but does not cost 3 million times as much to mine and manufacture. - JH
Here's how far cheaper heat from uranium makes repowering PAY BIG TIME !
Notice that in the left chart, coal fuel is 80% of the cost of making electricity, and nuclear fuel is 26% of the cost of making electricity - using Generation II nuclear technology. In the chart at the right, it cost 2.75 cents to produce a kiloWatt-hour of electricity by burning coal in a coal boiler while it cost 1.87 cents to produce the same amount of electricity from a nuclear boiler.
________________________________________________________________
B.C. Cobb's Opportunities
(Based upon publicly
available information)
1. B.C. Cobb's Coal Consumption
The world average coal price was about US$100 per delivered Ton in December, 2010.
Since one ton of coal will produce 3.6 tons of CO2, B.C. Cobb's 744,357 tons of CO2 (CARMA, 2007) were produced by burning 267,985 tons of coal, which is costing them about US$ 27 million per year or $270 million for 10 years.
If B.C. Cobb obtained two 25 MWe
Hyperion reactors ($50 million each for 10 years of
full-power heat) and completely stopped using coal,
The neat thing about converting an existing power plant to nuclear - other than saving a ton of money - is that, if desired, by adding steam selector valves at the turbine, they could have a nuclear/coal dual fuel power plant.
Many fuel experts expect the cost of coal to double over the next five years.
________________________________________________________________
2. Carbon Mitigation Credits
According to CARMA
If carbon mitigation credits were realized by converting from coal to nuclear, that would add US$ 18.6 million per year to B.C. Cobb's revenue stream.
BACKGROUNDER:
Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Development_Mechanism
http://new.globalccsinstitute.com/
It might be more to everyone's benefit if we begin with repowering the supersized power plants in those developing countries that have them.
2 cash streams come immediately to mind when thinking about CO2 mitigation via nuclear repowering.
1. Nuclear heat is 20 times cheaper than coal heat.
2. Carbon mitigation credits
are going for about €19 (Euros) (US$25) per ton these days, with market highs of
Speaking of Carbon Capture and Sequestration technology as a candidate for Carbon Mitigation Credits:
"If CCS would be accepted as a method for reducing the emission of GHG's into the atmosphere a CCS project could generate an additional income stream to cover its investment and operating cost from the sale of Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) used within the CDM system as the unit of measure for one ton of CO2e that did not go into the atmosphere." - - Henk Sa and Lodewijk Nell, Carbon Capture Journal, Nov-Dec 2010, p-6. (See: http://www.carboncapturejournal.com/index.php )
- The decision to include CCS projects under the CDM came
in the dawn hours of the closing day of climate talks at the
UN Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Mexico.
Kyoto - UN
Accepts CCS .pdf
If something as "iffy" as CCS is acceptable as a carbon mitigation technology, nuclear repowering should be a certainty.
The optimal "developing country" supersized power plant would be on navigable water, burning imported coal. That sounds like the world's biggest CO2 emitter, Taichung, in Taiwan to me. China is a non-annex 1 signatory to the Kyoto Protocol, i.e., a developing country.
________________________________________________________________
3. Carbon Tax
Currently a U.S. peer-reviewed carbon tax of $12 per ton is being discussed.
For 744,000 tons CO2 per year, that would come to about $9 million per year.
________________________________________________________________
4. Carbon Capture Cost if B.C. Cobb decided to continue to burn coal
Postcombustion Carbon Capture and Storage will, according to Vattenfall, cost between $25 to $75 per ton or between $ 6.7 million to $20 million per year.
About 25% of the CO2 will slip past the capture equipment and the capture equipment itself will suck off about 25% of B.C. Cobb's electricity. In addition, the liquid captured CO2 will have to be transported and injected into the ground somewhere.
CO2 is lethal in concentrations above 10% so there will have to be some sort of insurance to protect against a Bhopal type of leakage accident. Small earthquakes are cited as being the most probable cause of a leak.
Carbon Capture CO2 Slippage Credits?
If, according to the Waxman-Markey Bill, the EPA is going to allow as much as 50% of the CO2 slip past the Carbon Capture equipment, shouldn't a coal plant that converted to nuclear get a similar CO2 credit?
This could go a long way toward using a conventional small slow reactor such as Westinghouse's IRIS for establishing saturated steam pressure and then obtaining superheat and reheat from a natural gas boiler.
20% CO2 slippage is being talked about as about being as good as it will get.