The Sussex Affair: The Conspiracy to Hide Renewables Cost?

The Sussex Affair refers to a Canadian document leaked to the media a few weeks ago by some Canadian Conservative Party politicians, The document purports to be to be a strategic plan to support Renewable Feed in Tariffs in Ontario. The document states,

• A number of renewable energy developers have come together to form a lose coalition of interests, to promote renewable energy policy in Ontario and support the agenda set as part of the Green Energy and Economy Act and the Feed‐in‐Tariff program.

• This coalition will be joined by other groups, such as Environmental Defence and the GEA Alliance, as well as labour, economic development, health and environmental stakeholders, to develop common messaging, communications tools (ie. paid and earned media) and targeted local campaigns in areas where opposition to renewable power exists.

• The goal of this effort will be two‐fold:

1. Help support an expedited release of FIT contracts, including those associated with new Bruce‐Milton transmission capacity; and
2. Support the broader government plan for sustained contracting for wind and solar through the FIT Program, as part of the Supply Mix Directive and Long‐Term Energy Plan.

• As renewable energy is also anticipated to be a wedge issue in the election, with the PCs supporting a move away from renewables, this effort should consolidate industry and non‐industry stakeholders in rallying support for a continued focus on green power as important economic, social, and energy policy in Ontario.

The next goal, the one which has created something of a sensation in Canada, states,

• In this, it will be critical to “confuse” the issue in the political/public/media away from just price to include key value attributes such as jobs, clean air, farm income, etc. Renewables cannot be defined by price alone.

The document is marked,

PRIVILEGED AND CONFIDENTIAL

So is this a working document of a deliberate conspiracy to confuse the public about renewable energy costs, or is it a right-wing hoax?

The Document was presented to the public last week by Ontario Conservative Party Opposition Leader Tim Hudak, who stated,

This deck contains evidence of an active push to form a special interest coalition intent on defending the McGuinty government’s costly energy experiments, including massive handouts to industry.

According to The Star story, the Sussex Group has

confirmed it pitched the proposal to a “broad group” — not just its clients — that included people involved in health and the environment to expand the debate about green energy. But it wouldn’t name names.

Sussex spokesperson, Brett James, acknowledged,

I think it was a poor choice of words, because the effort is actually to provide clarity to the debate that right now is only about price, and to make sure that the benefits of clean energy are reflected in the debate as well.

According to The Star story,

Sussex, which has offices in Toronto and Ottawa, has seven active lobbyists on the Ontario registry. Its client list includes the Electricity Distributors Association of Ontario and several renewable energy companies, such as FarmTech Energy, Recurrent Energy and Interwind Corp.

The Sussex document does appear to pull back the curtain on the weeding of "Green" ideological interests, and a seemingly unethical cabal of Renewable manufacturers, and investor rent seekers, who are using the "Greens" to promote subsidy and FIT driven profits at the expense of tax payers and rate payers, not just in Canada, but also in Europe and the United States. The document reveals plans for a well financed campaign intended to garner "Green" support for a FIT conspiracy, and channel that support into votes for the Ontario Liberal Party, which appears to be committed to raising ratepayers costs, in order to pay for local Feed in Tariffs.

The Sussex document is all about PR spin and lobbying, not about energy solutions. It probably reflects similar manipulative PR/lobbying campaigns in the United States. The watchword of the Greens is to

Confuse the public about renewable and nuclear energy costs.

Although the Sussex document does not mention nuclear power, the Sussex clients have no interest in public awareness of the relative cost of nuclear and renewable energy. While renewable advocates such as Amory Lovins, Mark Cooper, Joe Romm, and David Roberts, repeatedly tell the public that nuclear power costs too much, they always avoid offering a realistic comparison of nuclear and renewables costs. The question has to be if Lovins, Cooper, Romm, Roberts and others are being paid to confuse the public about nuclear costs. I don't know, but the reading the Sussex document certainly raises the possibility.

Greens are willingly duped by the pro-renewable spin, and are not inclined to ferrite out the real cost relationship between nuclear power and renewable generated electricity. Green voters believe that they are being virtuous because they are willing to play high prices for renewable generated electricity. Actually they are being nothing more than dupes of renewable business interests.

The last canard is the notion that support for renewable rent seeking, is somehow a Liberal/Left Wing cause. Renewable rent seeking is nothing more than a conspiracy to cheat the public through renewable tax subsidies, and Feed in Tariffs. There is nothing liberal about cheating the public to fill the coffers of rent seeking capitalists. There is nothing left-wing about spreading confusion about renewable and nuclear energy costs. The Sussex document suggested that renewables advocates should

Inventory potential economic/investment/jobs benefits. In other words, if we have 1000MW of new wind/solar contracts coming out, XX manufacturing facilities will be built,, employing XX direct and indirect jobs, with XX person years involved in the generation projects themselves.

Such benefit claims are likely to be full of baloney. In 2009 a west Texas Wind project was projected to receive $450 million in Federal stimulus money in addition to hundreds of millions more in Federal and State tax monies. Project investors lived in China, and the wind turbines were to be built in a Chinese factory, so money appropriated to help American workers and businesses, was actually going to create Chinese jobs and provide income for Chinese investors. Needless to say the pro-renewable, anti-nuclear spin merchants, Lovins, Cooper, Romm, and Roberts, do not tell that part of the story.

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International Panel on Fissile Materials Report Interesting but Still a Fizzle.

A new report from the so called International Panel on Fissile Materials appears to be directed against the Integral Fast Reactor, Barry Brook's favorite energy toy. The White Paper, titled Fast Breeder Reactor Programs: History and Status, offers a one sided account of Sodium Cooled Fast Breeders, their history and prognosis. One of the reports writer's Frank von Hippel, is a controversial nuclear proliferation talking head. Alex De Volpe who also worked with the Soviets on practical nuclear disarmament issues notes:

Frank von Hippel and Amory Lovins are two prominent outspoken opponents of plutonium demilitarization. Examination of their papers and presentations reveals that both tend to omit evidence and citations that contradict their position on the supposed weaponization qualities of reactor and demilitarized grades of plutonium. While short in relevant credentials, each has been actively impeding arms-control and nonproliferation measures described below.

De Volpe often claims the authority of Los Alamos weapons designer J. Carson Marks for his contention that so called Reactor Grade Plutonium mis weaponizable. De Volpi points to a 1990 paper by J. Carson Marks that stated:

Taking “weapon” to signify an object suitable for stockpile by a military organization, then heavily irradiated reactor plutonium would not be attractive for an arsenal of pure fission devices

De Volpe comment's

In Mark’s terminology, “pure fission devices” included essentially any type of nuclear weapon that proliferant nations might seek to develop. His phrase “heavily irradiated reactor plutonium” corresponded to what is now called “reactor-grade plutonium.” (During private, one-on-one discussions with Mark, he confirmed his defining 1990 conclusion, and he didn’t know how or why it was omitted in the 1993 version.)

Mark’s defining syllogism for a “weapon” was as specific as possible. By his criteria, reactor-grade plutonium is not a viable constituent in military stockpiles. In contrast to an ad-hoc group, national military organizations have high standards for an extraordinarily devastating weapon designed to be safely stored during peacetime and reliably delivered under wartime conditions. Mark distinctly advises that national arsenals would not be made out of inferior materials (and no nation is known to have militarily exploited substandard fissile substances).

De Volpi also reported:

Mark wrote a paper, “Reactor-Grade Plutonium’s Explosive Properties,” a definitive description of the topic published in 1990 by the Nuclear Control Institute.[1] At the behest of the Department of Energy, a revised version, “Explosive Properties of Reactor-Grade Plutonium,” was published in a 1993 issue of Science and Global Security (Vol. 4, pp. 111-129), which includes an “Appendix: Probabilities of Different Yields” by Frank von Hippel and Edwin Lyman. [2]

It is instructive to compare the 1990 and 1993 papers which are essentially the same except for a curious, but important difference: Missing from the 1993 version is Mark’s carefully defined term “weapon” as “an object suitable for a stockpile by a military organization.” No explanation for this obvious and crucial omission is supplied with the published revision. My personal interviews and conversations with Mark before 1993 confirmed the intended significance of his 1990 definition.

While reprints of the 1993 paper designate J. Carson Mark as the sole author, the Princeton University website index for Science and Global Security credits the revised paper to “Mark, J.C., von Hippel, F.N., Lyman, E.” The revised version acknowledges that “This article is adapted from an earlier paper” (a reference back to Mark’s original 1990 article).

Reading in between the lines of De Volpi's accounts, there is an unacknowledged and unanswered question about von Hipple's role in the disappearance of the inconvenient sentence from the 1993 version of the Marks' paper. De Volpi adds a long quotation to a 2000 National Academy of Science report

If it is assumed that proliferators in all categories will ultimately be capable of obtaining reasonably pure plutonium metal starting from the dispositioned forms — as we believe to be the case — then the main intrinsic barriers in this category are those associated with deviation of the plutonium’s isotopic composition from “weapons grade.”

De Volpi has noted the unfortunate consequences of von Hippel's reinterpretation of J. Carson Marks' views.

Some individuals have chosen to interpret Mark’s conclusion differently, arguing that because it is possible to make nuclear explosives out of “heavily irradiated reactor plutonium,” nations would actually undertake an expensive and clandestine development program using materials that would lead to uncertain results. Such a suggestion defies engineering logic and historical experience.

Von Hippel has persistently overstated the supposed weaponization qualities of reactor and demilitarized grades of plutonium. Although deficient in direct experience — particularly with nuclear engineering, nuclear weaponization, quality control, and military organizations — he has cavalierly reinterpreted and widely exploited his interpretation of Carson Mark’s published conclusion. Von Hippel has assumed that lack of attractiveness implies that the fissile composition is based on some undefined convenience factor rather than meaningful military standards.

Even with ample analytical experience, and presumably access to some classified information while serving briefly in a government bureaucracy, Von Hippel has persistently underrated the fundamental complexity of nuclear-weapons physics and engineering. He and his acolytes rely on second-hand assurances instead of fundamental specifics about the difficulties in weaponizing degraded plutonium. Von Hippel has employed poorly substantiated “worst-case” methodology to exaggerate the weaponizability of reactor-grade and degraded plutonium. This has lead him to support flawed and overly expensive propositions for less-effective options than offered by the U.S. Department of Energy to demilitarize and salvage the latent energy and economic value of surplus plutonium.

Unfortunately Von Hippel continues to ignore De Volpi's critique of his claims about the weapons use of reactor grade plutonium. In Fast Breeder Reactor Progress, von Hippel states.

The mission of the IPFM is to analyze the technical basis for practical and achievable policy initiatives to secure, consolidate, and reduce stockpiles of highly enriched uranium and plutonium. These fissile materials are the key ingredients in nuclear weapons, and their control is critical to nuclear disarmament, halting the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and ensuring that terrorists do not acquire nuclear weapons.

Both military and civilian stocks of fissile materials have to be addressed. The nuclear weapon states still have enough fissile materials in their weapon stockpiles for tens of thousands of nuclear weapons. On the civilian side, enough plutonium has been separated to make a similarly large number of weapons. Highly enriched uranium is used in civilian reactor fuel in more than one hundred locations. The total amount used for this purpose is sufficient to make about one thousand Hiroshima-type bombs, a design potentially within the capabilities of terrorist groups.

Given the limitations on the explosive potential of Reactor Grade Plutonium devices, the notion that a Hiroshima type device could be built from RGP is highly unlikely, and the notion that terrorists would be capable of building one from RGP traverses well into the realm of the absurd. Von Hippel is trying to frighten the children, with Brothers Grim type stories.

Thus the reader of "Fast Breeder Reactor Programs", should take note that Von Hippel and quite possibly other report writers have agenda's that might in some instances override their obligation to tell the whole truth.

In particular FBRPs is predisposed to recount each of the many LMFBR program failures, while ignoring their successes. The FBRP report fails to assess hard won progress towards program goals, and fails to note that not all of the the program delays reported were due to technical problems. This is fair, but the merit of a research program lies not in the problems that it encountered, but in what was learned and in the success in overcoming those problems. Here FBRP offers no assessment. A problem is simply viewed as a failure, and reactor research is not understood as a learning process.

A further flaw is the failure give proper weight to success. For example, FBRP briefly notes the life history of theExperimental Breeder Reactor-II (EBR-II) , which it describes as

arguably the most successful of the U.S. fast reactors . . .

No mishaps are noted in the report, and indeed, there were none. What was learned about future fast reactor design? American scientists believed that they learned a lot, but FBRP ignores this, for to acknowledge a fully positive outcome is also to acknowledge progress, and to suggest that the project in question might succeed.

Despite its flaws, FBPR has numerous strong points. It does recount histories of experimental fast breeder projects, and offers descriptions of their problems It offers many interesting and useful facts. For example, a table comparing India Fast Breeder Reactors and Pressurized Heavy water reactors. which shows that the nominal levelized of electricity from a single PFBR (500 MWe) was higher than the levelized cost of electricity from indian 700 MWe PHWRs. The case is actually worse than M. V. Ramana presents, because FBPR construction costs are probably going to be above 1 billion dollars, rather than the $648 million he estimates. Ramana's table will show that fuel reprocessing adds significantly to FBPR levelized costs. The lifecycle fuel costs for a single 700 MW PHWR costs less than 1/4th the lifecycle cost of the reprocessed FBPR fuel. The Levelized cost of power from PHWRs is estimated to be, 3.5 cents per kWh, while the FBPR levelized power costs will run, to over 6.3 cents per kWh.

Still even given the higher levelized cost figure for the FBPR, the levelized cost of power from it will be more than competitive with post carbon power costs from nuclear or renewables, in the United States or in Europe. Thus the cost argument does not suggest that India's projected FBR program will handicap the Indian economy. Ramana rargues that for indian Fast Breeders

a capacity factor of 50 percent might well be more plausible. This would result in a levelised cost of 8.35 cents/kilowatt hours (kWh), 139 percent more expensive than PHWRs.

But this assumes no progress on FBR reliability between now and 2050, and even with the higher levelized cost, the Indian economy would still have a competitive advantage in electrical costs. Ramana conclusion might be taken as invalidating the theory offered by FBRP, namely that fast breeder reactors will add to the world supply of weaponizable plutonium:

A more careful calculation that takes into account the plutonium flow constraints shows that the capacity for MFBRs based on plutonium from the DAE’s heavy water reactor fleet will drop from the projected 199 GWe to 78 GWe by 2052.56 If the out-of-pile time were projected to be a more realistic three years, the MFBR capacity in 2052 based on plutonium from PHWRs will drop to 34 GWe.
While these figures may seem large compared to India’s current nuclear capacity of only 4.1 GWe, they should be viewed in relation to the projected requirements, under business-as-usual conditions, of approximately 1300 GWe total generating capacity by mid-century. Further, the only constraint assumed here is fissile material availability. It assumes that there will be no delays due to infrastructure and manufacturing problems, economic disincentives due to the high cost of breeder electricity, or accidents. All of these are realistic constraints and render

Of course, India might shop for RGP on a future international market, or switch to Thorium breeding Molten Salt Reactors (LFTRs) before 2050.

Of the issues raised by FBRP. the most telling is the cost issue. Both the cost of FBR construction, and the cost of fuel reprocessing with fast breeders may block long term implementation in the United States. While FBR technology might be economically justified in India, China and other Asian countries, it might be far to expensive to implement in Europe and North America. What ever FBRP conclusions that might be applied to localized implementations of FBR technology, those conclusions should not be applied to the future costs and value of LFTR technology.

The cost of carbon mitigation with renewables

The National Renewables Energy Laboratory appears to be doing or sponsoring some decent quality research. inadvertently some of that research seems to undercut the case for renewable energy, or at the very least provide what should be a very sobering picture for renewables advocates. Last week I pointed to the Eastern Wind Integration and Transmission Study which appeared to demonstrate that the cost of electricity would rise as wind penetration increased on the Eastern Interconnect. Although the Western Wind and Solar Integration Study has not been completed yet, Some preliminary findings have been reported. I recently reviewed a preliminary study, How do Wind and Solar Power Affect Grid Operations: The Western Wind and Solar Integration Study, by D. Lew and M. Milligan of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and G. Jordan, L. Freeman, N. Miller, K. Clark, and R. Piwko GE. The WWSIS

examining the operational impact of up to 35% wind, photovoltaics, and concentrating solar power on the WestConnect grid in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Wyoming.

I was particularly interested in the operational analysis, which was based on a computer simulation by GE. The simulation looked at 5 scenarios. In the first no wind was assumed and all electricity was generated by four generation sources, Nuclear, Coal, Combined cycle gas turbines, and hydroelectric generation. The second simulation assumed 11% renewables, 10% wind, and 1% solar. The third simulation assumed 20% wind and 3% solar, and the 4th simulation assumed 30% wind and 5% solar. Finally a simulation was run with the same 35% penetration, but using data from a week in July 2006, rather than the week in April 2006 assumed by the other studies. Peter Hawkins has argued that renewables penetration tends to displace Combined Cycles 'gas turbines, rather than coal fired steam plants, and that Open cycle Gas Turbines would be preferred to backup wind, because they would respond more quickly to sudden loss of generation or increased electrical demands. The GE simulations offer a chance to test Hawkins thesis, and the data suggests that indeed the GE simulations supported Hawkins hypothesis. At 11% penetration, only CCGT were displaced, but coal use was completely unaffected. At the 23% penetration level, most of the displacement effected CCGTs, but a small amount of coal displacement began to emerge. At the 35% penetration level for the week in April 2006, a considerable amount of coal generation was displaced, while CCGT use disappeared completely.. Finally the July 2006 simulation suggested that the summer wind problem was adversely impacting wind performance, at the same time electrical demand increased. The shortfall in wind performance had to be made up with CCGTs, and there was no coal displacement.

Estimates of CO2 emissions from CCGTs indicate that they produce about 0.8 pounds of CO2 per kWh of electricity generated. in contrast coal burning generators produce about 2 pounds of CO2 per kWh. Thus when CCGTs are displaced by renewables about 800 pounds or 0,4 tons of CO2 emissions are prevented per MW of electricity generated. When coal is displaced, about 1 ton of CO2 emissions are eliminated. Clearly then it is far more desirable from he viewpoint of carbon mitigation to displace coal burning plants, rather than CCGTs.

As with all National Renewables Energy Laboratory reports, the WWSIS made no attempt to compare renewables costs and performance with nuclear power. But a relatively simple thought experiment can yield some very telling results. First we can assume that nuclear power will displace coal rather than CCGT. The Energy Information Agency estimates that the levelized cost of Advanced Nuclear will be 119.0, or about 12 cents per kWh. If nuclear displaces coal at that cost, the cost of displacing one ton of CO2 would be $119. Now let us take the 11% renewables case. The 2016 levelized cost of wind is 149.3, while the levelized cost of solar thermal is 256.6. Thus the average levelized cost of the 11% renewables is 159.08, and the cost of displacing a ton of CO2 with renewables is $159.0 + transmission costs and other hidden cost of wind generation systems, and the added CO2 emissions of fossil fuel wind backups kept spinning. plus the added CO2 efficiencies of fossil fuel generators used in load leveling and load following roles. Since wind is displacing relatively carbon efficient CCGTs rather than carbon inefficient coal fired generating plants. each MW of CCGT power displaced would produce 800 pounds of CO2, rather than a ton of CO2 produced by the equivalent electrical output of a coal fired power plant. Thus carbon mitigation with the 11% wind April scenario will cost about $400 + hidden costs or over three times as much as nuclear power would costs.

In the April 35% penetration case, wind becomes the predominate source of electricity on most days, and it displaces 2/3rds of coal generation capacity and all the CCGTs. Yet for the July 35% penetration case, wind failed to displace most CCGTs and no coal. Thus the WWSIS study data reported provided in sufficient information for understanding the the potential carbon mitigation costs . However it should be noted that the DoE study, Eastern Wind Integration and Transmission Study(EWITS) found that the cost of total system electrical output increased
dramatically as wind penetration rose to 30%. (Note scenario 4 in figure 8,2)

Note that the cost of electricity is about 13% higher in the 20% penetration scenario 2, but 40% higher in the 30% Scenario 4.

Clearly then increasing wind penetration in the west will increase the level of carbon mitigation as well as its costs. It is also clear that wind displaces CCGTs before it displaces coal, and this increases the cost of carbon mitigation by wind significantly. Carbon mitigation with conventional nuclear would thus appear well over 3 times more cost effective compared to carbon mitigation with wind. The true cost effectiveness advantage of nuclear cannot be gaged until we know more about the hidden costs of wind, but the hidden costs appear to extract greater cost penalties at higher levels of wind grid penetration.

Apples and Oranges? Compairing Nuclear costs with Wind

Renewable advocates often criticizr nuclear power costs, but rarely compare the costs the cost of Nuclear power with renewables. When challenged to make the comparison, renewable advocates will often resort to the apples to oranges dodge. That is when challenged to make a comparison between nuclear electrical costs, and renewable electrical costs, renewable advocates will claim that such a comparison is impossible because it is an apples to oranges comparisons. There are several ways to get around the the apples to oranges dodge. One way would be to compare the cost of generating a kW of electricity for a year (8400 kWhs). Once we do that we quickly would discover that a single nuclear plant would come close to producing the 8400 hundred hours of electricity on its own, while most renewables are going to require substantial help. Photovoltaic generators in very sunny spots, may produce 4 to 5 times their rated capacity every day. But there are 4 hours a day, so the daily electrical output of PV solar generator may only be around 20% of its rated capacity. In contrast a nuclear reactor will generate on average over 9o% of its potential output in a year. Thus one way to compare our apples and oranges is to compare how much of their name plate output actually gets delivered. This if a PV system costs $40 million is is rated at 10 million Watts, but only produces 4 times that amount in a day, then we are paying not $4.00 per 24 hour a day watt, but $4 per 5 hours a day watt. in order to find how much it costs to for for a 24 hour a day watt, we are going to have to multiply our $4.00 by around 5. Thus our watt of 24 hour a day electricity is going to costr about $20.00, Renewable advocates will objet that we don't need for all electricity o be 24 hour a day electricity, but of course the problem is that a good deal of the electricity wind produces, is generated when consumers don't want electricity, while wind does not produce electricity when consumers want it.

I believe that recently, I made a very powerful case against wind generated electricity. I demonstrated that West Texas winds are not matched to consumer demand. I pointed to the admission by a well known West TexasWind developer that the West Texas business exists because of subsidies, not profits. I pointed to arguments suggesting that wind matched to fossil fuel generation does not substantially lower the carbon emissions from wind-fossil fuel generating systems, and that investments in nuclear power would bring far more CO2 reduction, dollar to dollar than investments in wind. My conclusion was that a new West Texas wind project financed by Chinese investments and American stimulus monies, existed solely because government subsidies would be financing much of it, and that those subsidies would primarily benefir chinese workers and investors. The project did little to mitigate the energy related emissions of CO2 from the electrical generation industry, and thus was a a largely wasted investment as far as climate is concerned.

My story got posted on the energy collective, and about the same tme, the energy collective posted another essay, by David Levy, a University of Massachusetts, management professor. Levy, in effect criticized protests against the West Texas wind project on the grounds that were directed to its failure to creat American jobs. Levy suggested that such attitudes place American business related policies at a disadvantage in competition with China.

I can see Levy's point, but in one respect Levy goes off base, He claims

the proposed wind farm will generate plenty of clean power,

This, bot the jobs issue goes to the heart of my case. The words "clean power" are a sort of shibboleth. Levy seems to believe that ifthe words "clean power" can be attached to a project, it is justified. I asked Levy,

David, Do you have any answers to my argument that the proposed Texas wind farm will generate largely useless power that will not meet the needs of Texas electrical consumers, and that money spent on this project would will be far less effectively spent on a nuclear project if CO2 mitigation is the project goal. I suspect that a government subsidy of a nuclear project would create more long term American jobs.

Levy responded,

read that land-based wind power costs a long term average of 4-8c/kWh, depending on location and scale. At least we have plenty of wind online to be able to estimate the costs. True, there are problems of intermittency, but gas powered peak backup is needed for multiple reasons, including plant downtime, etc. It doesn't need to back up wind one-to-one. Intermittency only becomes a major problem when wind reaches 15-20% of grid capacity, a limit being reached in parts of Europe. But a balance of wind, solar thermal (good for the hot afternoons and with some storage potential), some long-distance transmission (esp. across time zones), and new storage technologies will address the issue. We really don't know the long term costs of nuclear, including decommisioning. In Mass., we are paying around 2c/kWh, I think, for the 'transition charge', the nuclear bailout.

Now David's comment raises several questions about wind cost. First, Davod assumes that the price of wind is its true cost. That is not the case. Last year Drew Thornley looked at hidden Texas wind costs. Thornly notes,

Cost estimates for wind-energy generation (not includ- ing costs of building and maintaining wind turbines) of- ten exclude many of wind energy’s costs, such as the following:
• Wind-energy transmission costs;
• Grid-connection and grid-management costs;
• The costs of backing up wind turbines with tradi- tional power sources;
• Lost tax revenues from federal and state subsidies and tax breaks.

Thornley notes another, little noticed. subsidy for wind in Texas:

unlike conventional-power generators, wind-energy providers do not have to pay ERCOT for generation-schedule deviations.† This is no small perk for Texas’ most intermittent energy source, and it distorts wind energy’s price, relative to conventional power prices. The result of this is that non-wind generators, and primarily customers, must bear the cost of ERCOT’s deploying regulation and other reserves when there are large deviations from their schedules.

Thus when Levy recites the "4-8c/kWh" cost for wind generated electricity, he no doubt ignores the hidden costs of wind. Levy tells us that fossil fuel back up need not be one on one. Excuse me professor, but in Texas and indeed in California as well, when summer winds stops blowing and wind capacity factors drop as low as .02, you are going to need one on one backup, if you are going to avoid rolling blackouts when air conditioners start begging the grid for electricity.

Levy's solutions to the problems of wind contained many hidden costs, Build long distance transmission lines, well according to Thornton in 2008 they cost $3,282,828.28 per mile. That does not count against Levy's "4-8c/kWh." Levy does not tell us how much it costs to build and operate a fossil fuel or solar back up system. The Royal Academy of Engineering, estimated that the cost of maintaining and operating a back up fossilfuel system increased the real cost of wind generated electricity by something close to 70%.

CSP facilities currently run to $4 billion per GW, and that gets you 5 GWh per day of electricity. Levy tells us, "Intermittency only becomes a major problem when wind reaches 15-20% of grid capacity"? Ask ERCOT, if they agree.

Professor Levy claims, "We really don't know the long term costs of nuclear." But do we know the long term cost of wind? Given Thornley's observations, we don't even know the short term cost of wind. Wind generators are suppose to last for 25 years, but the data suggest that they last about 16 years. After 16 years they windmills ware out and have to be replaced. Nuclear plants have a nominal life span of 40 years, but many are now being relicensed for 20 more years, and research has begun on extending their life to as long as 80 years. Levi mention "transition charges." How come there are no nuclear transition charges in Texas or Tennessee? Finally uses the strange term, "nuclear bailout." Wind is constantly being bailed out, at the rate of two cents per kWh, what is a nuclear bailout?

If there is an apples to oranges comparison of wind and nuclear power, It would appear that much of the problem is that many costs for renewable electricity are not accounted for when renewable advocates make comparisons.

Interim Nuclear Solutions: The Indian System

I finally teased out how much it cost the Indians to build small Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors. A March 6, 2005 press release from the Indian Department of Atomic Energy stated:

India’s largest and first 540 MWe nuclear power plant (TAPP-4) achieved criticality today morning. . . . The 2x540 MWe Tarapur Atomic Power Project (TAPP-3&4) is adjacent to TAPS – 1&2, the first nuclear power plant to be set up in India. Tarapur, is about 100 kms north of Mumbai. . . . TAPP-3&4 has an approved cost of Rs. 6525 crores, but it is anticipated that the Project would be completed in about Rs.6000 crores. . .,

6000 6000 crores of Rupees is about $1.2 billion. At about 1.1 GW rated output, the cost of the Indian reactors is a little more than a dollar per watt. Smaller Indian 220 MW PHWR probably cost about $260 million per example. These reactors are build without factory manufacture of parts, so Indian PHWR construction costs are nor as low as they could potentially go.

Indian PHWRs burn natural Uranium and do not produce Nuclear waste. Instead they produce fuel for Indian FBRs. The first 500 MW Prototype Indian FBR is slated to go critical in two years will end up costing the Indians Rs.5,000 crores, or about $1 billion, about two dollars a watt. Prototypes often prove to be more expensive than subsequent units, Several unexpected events added to the Indian construction cost. These included the 2004 tsunami. Recovery from the tsunami increased Indian construction costs. Construction costs for an undersea tunnel increased due to unanticipated soil conditions. Subsequent Indian FBRs are expected to cost about 3000 crores per unit or $600 million, about $1.20 per watt of generating capacity. Even at the $2 per wat cost figure for the prototype, the India fast breeder will cost far less that the 22,000 crores to Rs. 46,000 crores $4.4 billion to $9.2 billion) figure forecast by anti nuclear fanatic Arjun Makhijani.

Critics charge that the Indian fast breeder design is not safe. Eventually in a decade the Indians play to begin manufacturing AHWR to be powered by U-233 produced in Indian FBRs.

Meanwhile the Indians are moving forward with plans to expand nuclear production capacity. The Indians anticipate $10 billion in new reactor orders between now and 2012. Indian businesses are now planning to begin exporting the ssmall 220 MW PHWR. i
f they can sell the PHWR to underdeveloped countries at similar cost to those enjoyed byIndian, the Indians should make quite a lot of money.

The Indian nuclear plan although envisioned as long term, has characteristics of an interim nuclear approach. It uses older nuclear technology, manufactured at low cost, and seeks to couple the older technology with a more advanced class of nuclear breeders. Problems with the Indian plan include safety concerns with the Indian sodium cooled fast breeders, and the cost of reprocessing nuclear fuel;. The Indian system is quite complex and involves the use of three distinct reactor technologies as well as two or three reprocessing technologies.
In contrast, the LFTR holds the promise of accomplishing everything the Indian system does with one simple elegant reactor design. Thus the LFTR would promises even lower costs than the now low costs of the Indian nuclear system.