Nuclear Power for Australia?

Should the electricity production in Australia go nuclear?

In this entry we'll calculate the number of reactors that would be required to produce 50% of the electricity in Australia.

Before even starting, here we state two facts:

1. Australia is the Saudi Arabia of Uranium reserves: they have 31% of the world total. The country in second place, Kazakhstan, has less than HALF Australia's reserves.*

2. Australia has the 4th largest global reserves of Thorium.**

Other countries would certainly kill to own these amounts of fissile material.

Now, let's make the math.

According to the IEA, Australia produced 228,152 GWh of electricity in 2013.  Let's convert this to average power:

     228,152 GWh / 24 hours / 365 days = 26.045 GW.  For simplicity, let's leave it at 26 GW.

50% of the above power is 13 GW. So now let's calculate how many 1 GWe nuclear power plants would be required to supply 13 GW of electrical power.

To be conservative, let's say that the capacity factor of these reactors is 85%. Thus:

     13 GW / 0.85 / 1GWe = 15.29 nuclear reactors.  Let's round it up to 16.

That's it! 16 reactors is all that Australia needs to replace 50% of its electricity and thus dramatically reduce its carbon emissions (in 2013, 86.4% of Australia's electricity was produced with combustible fuels).***

With their current reserves, Australia essentially has enough U / Th to power a civilization "forever."

Sure, the Australian coal industry would suffer greatly, but this is probably the price that has to be paid to reduce emissions Down Under.

The growth in Australia's electricity consumption is projected to amount to only 1.4% per year, so by 2035 they would need 22 reactors to supply 50% of its electricity. China today is building 28, so 22 should be a perfectly achievable objective for a developed country like Australia.

Feel free to add to the conversation on Twitter: @luisbaram

Thank you.

*
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Nuclear-Fuel-Cycle/Uranium-Resources/Supply-of-Uranium/

**
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/current-and-future-generation/thorium/

***
http://www.iea.org/statistics/relatedsurveys/monthlyelectricitysurvey/

****
http://www.bree.gov.au/sites/default/files/files//publications/aep/australian-energy-projections-report.pdf

Hey, Wait a Minute!

Nuclear power has many advantages about which we have written extensively in the past but there is a question we need to ask today.

Do we have enough uranium reserves to power a "nuclear renaissance?" Let's run the math.

Today, our global total primary energy supply (TPES) is equivalent to 12,717 Mtoe (million tons of oil equivalent).

For the year 2035 the IEA (International Energy Agency) predicts two scenarios, one at 16,961 and the other at 14,870 Mtoe.  For simplicity let's use the mathematical average of the above: 15,916.

Today, nuclear energy provides 5.7% of our TPES.  

In order for nuclear to be a very significant energy source that would help us to drastically reduce our carbon emissions, let's say we target for 25% of our TPES by the year 2035 to be uranium based nuclear power.

How much uranium would we need per year and, most importantly, what are our current known reserves?

According to MIT (below), 200 tons of natural uranium are required to produce one Giga Watt of electricity for a full year.  That means currently we use close to 65,000 tons per year**.

For the 2035 scenario, we would need grossly (25% / 5.7%) x (15,916 Mtoe / 12,717Mtoe) * 65,000 tons = 356,802 tons every year.

According to Wikipedia (below) the current uranium reserves are around 5.5 million tons, so this would turn out to be around 15 years of supply.  Not very encouraging.  Sure, more reserves will be found, but still...

On the other hand, today we have close to 430 nuclear power reactors.  Assuming the same average power from new reactors as we have right now, we would need an additional 1,930 reactors, in other words, commissioning an average of 88 new reactors EVERY year for 22 consecutive years (and this without decommissioning any of the current ones).

Sorry, but this ain't going to happen.

With respect to the uranium shortage, thorium looks, on paper, quite promising, but even if it did go mainstream soon, the thorium build out would have to be of monumental proportions (see above).

Conclusion: moving to a low carbon economy is MUCH more difficult than is generally realized.

**Annual nuclear electricity production: 2,765 TWh * 1,000 = 2,765,000 GWh
2,765,000 / (1GW x 24 hrs. x 365 days) x 200 tons = 63,128 tons.

References:

http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/name,31287,en.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium_reserves

http://mitei.mit.edu/system/files/The_Nuclear_Fuel_Cycle-all.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power

A Little Stuff Goes a Long Way

How much uranium is required to power an average home in the USA for a full year***?

According to Energy Efficient Homes for Dummies by Rik DeGunther, the average North American home consumes 8,400 kWh in a year.

Since 200 tons of natural uranium produce one GWe of electricity for a full year*, grinding the numbers we arrive at the following figure: 192 grams of uranium per year (less than 7 ounces). As a reference, the iPhone 5 weights 140 grams. Considering that uranium is 70% more dense than lead, this is indeed a very small amount (around 25% more volume than the one occupied by the current iPod Shuffle).

Now, let's compare this to the amount of coal that would be required for the same purpose**** (today, close to 40% of the world's electricity is produced with coal).

According to How Stuff Works, one kilogram of coal produces 2.70 kWh of electricity**.  Making the math we arrive at a total of 3,111 kilograms (6,800 lbs) to power the same typical North American home (PLUS more than eight tons of carbon dioxide emitted to the atmosphere).

We are talking of many orders of magnitude of material difference!

The mass of coal required is 16,200 times larger than the equivalent amount of uranium, but since the density of coal is only 1.1 to 1.5 grams per cubic centimeter (vs. 19.1 for uranium), the VOLUME of the needed coal would be at least 206,000 times as great as the equivalent uranium volume.

Wow!

We are not saying that uranium is clean, but considering the amount of material that has to be mined, transported and finally "burned", uranium is cleaner (actually, much, much, much cleaner) than coal.

Oh! and did we mention uranium powered utilities produce almost no CO2 during operation?

* http://mitei.mit.edu/system/files/The_Nuclear_Fuel_Cycle-all.pdf

** http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/energy/question481.htm

*** In a nuclear power plant.

**** In a coal fired power plant.