Harvard Asks 31 FakeNews Papers be Retracted from Journals

[_Gunnar]

This Scientific American Article: Coming Clean about Nuclear Power is very informative and makes a lot of good, thought provoking points about excessive paranoia over nuclear power and how it can be made safer and more economically viable, but it also expresses some legitimate cautions. It is definitely a worthwhile read.

[_Gunnar]

India cancels plans for huge coal power stations as solar energy prices hit record low

India has cancelled plans to build nearly 14 gigawatts of coal-fired power stations – about the same as the total amount in the UK – with the price for solar electricity “free falling” to levels once considered impossible.
Analyst Tim Buckley said the shift away from the dirtiest fossil fuel and towards solar in India would have “profound” implications on global energy markets.

According to his article on the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis’s website, 13.7GW of planned coal power projects have been cancelled so far this month – in a stark indication of the pace of change.

[_Chap]

This Scientific American Article: Coming Clean about Nuclear Power is very informative and makes a lot of good, thought provoking points about excessive paranoia over nuclear power and how it can be made safer and more economically viable, but it also expresses some legitimate cautions. It is definitely a worthwhile read.

So:

Ever since Japan’s battered Fukushima Daiichi reactor complex began emitting radiation in March, calls to abandon nuclear power have risen in the U.S. and Germany, among other countries. If only it were so simple. Nuclear contributes 20 percent of the U.S. power supply and a significant share in other developed countries. If we gave it up, what would replace it? Pollution from fossil-fueled power plants shortens the life span of as many as 30,000 Americans a year. Coal companies lop off mountaintops, hydraulic fracturing for natural gas threatens water supplies, and oil dependence undermines the nation’s energy security. Then there is the small matter of greenhouse gas emissions. Clean renewable technologies will take years to reach the scale needed to replace the power we get from splitting atoms.

Nuclear power’s benefits for climate and security are clear. But still the public worries about safety—and no wonder. The industry and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) claim that nuclear power is safe, but their lack of transparency does not inspire confidence. For example, an Associated Press investigation in March revealed 24 cases from December 2009 to September 2010 in which plant operators did not report equipment defects to the NRC. The industry and regulators must regain the public’s trust.

That does not necessarily mean more regulations. Plenty of safety rules have been put in place since the 1979 Three Mile Island accident. The trouble is that regulations are not being enforced rigorously. The NRC has to mete out stiff penalties for violations and make every action transparent to us all. It will have a chance to demonstrate its resolve when it submits its review of all 104 commercial reactors to the White House, due this month. A crucial test will be what the review says about several plants that are already on the agency’s watch list for safety issues.

Evacuation plans are a sore point for many citizens. The agency advised Americans in Japan to stay 50 miles away from Fukushima, yet within the U.S. the emergency evacuation radius is only 10 miles. What is the proper limit? Are evacuation plans subjected to serious tests? If exercises showed that residents around a plant could not leave quickly enough, the NRC should consider shutting it down. A good test case is the Indian Point plant 38 miles north of New York City. Evacuating the 20 million people who live within 50 miles staggers belief. To its credit, the NRC will work with New York governor Andrew Cuomo to review the plant’s safety ahead of the scheduled relicensing review in 2013.

The NRC must also be scrupulous about licensing new plants. If an operator proposes a site that is too close to an earthquake fault, or too close to oceanfront that is vulnerable to a tsunami or hurricane storm surge, or downriver from a huge dam that could burst, then the NRC should reject the bid. Similarly, if the utility could not protect spent fuel pools or casks from being breached during a severe accident, which happened in Japan, the NRC should not license it. Saying no to a suspect plant would do more than anything else to restore public confidence.

The industry argues that advanced technology will ensure safety. The 22 new reactors proposed in the U.S. use so-called Gen III+ designs that are safer than today’s reactors, which date to the 1970s or earlier. Building them could displace new coal plants or relieve the pressure to extend the life of old reactors that should instead be retired. Yet, as the article “Planning for the Black Swan,” by Adam Piore, on page 48 notes, the new plants may have weaknesses. Manufacturers should pursue even safer, meltdown-proof designs that they have experimented with but shelved, such as liquid fluoride thorium reactors and pebble bed reactors. China is developing both. In the end, however, no technology is 100 percent safe, and better designs cannot eliminate the need for careful siting and emergency planning.

Americans need clarity from the federal government, too. Reactors across the country have accumulated 72,000 tons of spent fuel. Some utilities have packed four times as many spent fuel rods into temporary holding pools than the structures were designed to contain. The government poured $9 billion and decades of effort into the planned permanent repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, with little to show for it. Then President Barack Obama scuttled the project. The waste continues to pile up. At some point, officials will have to face down the citizen refrain of “not in my backyard.”

Nuclear power has a good safety record, but when it fails it can fail catastrophically. Now is the time to make tough, transparent decisions that could regain public trust. Otherwise, the public might make the ultimate call: “no more nukes.” 

[_Chap]

India cancels plans for huge coal power stations as solar energy prices hit record low

India has cancelled plans to build nearly 14 gigawatts of coal-fired power stations – about the same as the total amount in the UK – with the price for solar electricity “free falling” to levels once considered impossible.
Analyst Tim Buckley said the shift away from the dirtiest fossil fuel and towards solar in India would have “profound” implications on global energy markets.

According to his article on the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis’s website, 13.7GW of planned coal power projects have been cancelled so far this month – in a stark indication of the pace of change.

Here's the original paper from the website of the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis:

IEEFA Asia: India’s Electricity-Sector Transformation Is Happening Now

Basically, coal-burning power stations simply don't have a future under these conditions. Building more now is likely to result in piles of 'stranded assets'. Time to retool Pennsylvania to solar panel manufacture? The US has huge areas ideally suited to solar energy production ...

The Indian energy market transformation is accelerating under Energy Minister Piyush Goyal’s leadership.

The most recent and most persuasive evidence is the collapsing cost of solar electricity—a collapse that has gone beyond anyone’s expectations, and the results are in: solar has won.

The global energy market implications are profound.

Recent events have given manifest life to Mark Carney’s landmark 2015 speech in which Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, warned of stranded-asset risks across the coal industry. This month alone has seen the cancellation of 13.7 gigawatts (GW) of proposed coal-fired power plants across India and an admission that US$9bn (8.6GW) of already operating import-coal-fired power plants are potentially no longer viable.

To put an Australian and a global seaborne thermal coal-trade perspective on it, these development strike at the very viability of the Carmichael export thermal coal proposal. They speak as well to a worldwide transition in progress.

India solar tariffs have been in freefall for months. A new 250MW solar tender in Rajasthan at the Bhadla Phase IV solar park this month was won at a record low Rs2.62/kWh,[i] 12 percent below the previous record low tariff awarded across 750MW of solar just three months ago at Rs2.97/kWh.

The Bhalda Phase record lasted two days, with a more recent 500MW Indian solar auction coming in at Rs2.44/kWh, 7 percent below Bhalda Phase.

Lest anybody think this latest result is uncommercial or unsustainable, 40 percent of the tender was won by SBG Cleantech, a joint venture between Softbank of Japan, Foxconn of Taiwan and Bharti Enterprises of India—among the largest, most serious and most successful companies in Asia.

Corroboration from further afield came last month in the result of a reverse auction carried out for 250 MW solar at Kadapa in Andhra Pradesh where a tariff of Relief Society 3.15 was quoted by Solairedirect Energy India, a subsidiary of French power giant Engie.

That Rs2.44/kWh this month was 44 percent less than the Rs4.34/kWh solar tariff awarded to Fortum of Finland in January 2016 for a project at the Bhadla Solar Park-II in Rajasthan. At the time of the Fortum tender win (itself a price that was down 25 percent year over year versus the previous record low), market analysts said the Fortum price could not be repeated.



We see solar pricing continuing to become even more competitive over time.

Several forces are at work.

In December 2016, India released its 10-year Draft National Electricity Plan, calling for the installation of a cumulative 275GW of renewable energy capacity by 2027, as well as 97GW of other zero emissions capacity (primarily large scale hydro, but also nuclear). Relative to a planned total system capacity of 650GW, the plan sees thermal power capacity falling from 69 percent of India electricity-generation mix in March 2016 to 43 percent by 2027.

Three years ago—when Goyal provided a new energy-policy roadmap under Prime Minister Narendra Modi—any such plan would have been considered impossible. Today it still looks ambitious but absolutely feasible. The deflationary results of solar’s growth make the US$200-300bn capital investment requirement commercially viable. The capital inflows into India are the ultimate endorsement by global financial markets.

While collapsing solar prices might suggest a reduced emphasis on the buildout of hydro electricity and wind farm capacity, IEEFA views expansion of these two renewable energy resources as firmly on target. The relatively low cost of hydro at Rs1-4/kWh makes plans for accelerating long-stalled investment in this sector a clear government priority. The phenomenal success of India’s SECI holding its first 1GW reverse auction for wind in February 2017 saw a Rs3.46/kWh result, down 20 to 30 percent on previous wind auction results across India.

The politics are sound. Expanding domestic sources of new zero-emissions capacity not only builds energy security by accelerating the diversification of India’s electricity sector away from the current excessive reliance on coal power, but also underpins the economic/current account gains from ceasing thermal coal imports.

Energy efficiency is also playing a key role in this electricity transformation, with the rapid implementation of high efficiency LEDs proving an excellent opportunity to moderate electricity demand growth relative to the strong economic growth targets of 7 to 8 percent annually. Grid efficiency improvements and improved smart grid capacity to incorporate ever greater amounts of variable supply into the grid are still to be resolved or funded, but the technology advances here, too, are profound, with solutions already widely known and tested in pumped hydro storage and the rapidly diminishing cost of lithium-ion batteries.

One huge implication rises now from India’s long planning for a now clearly-excessive buildout of new coal-fired power plants, which would require lots of now high-cost imported-coal-fired power.

The Reserve Bank of India has increasingly warned of rising non-performing loans and the stranded asset risks congesting the Indian banking sector as creating a major impediment to growth.

EXAMPLES OF COAL-PLANT CANCELLATIONS AND STRANDED-ASSET REALIZATIONS ARE COMING THICK AND FAST, and just this month India has seen five major announcements:

The state of Uttar Pradesh cancelled bids for 3.8GW of coal-fired power priced at Rs4.16/kWh due to surplus power supply. In an illustration of the rate of change evident across India, these tenders were only raised in September 2016;
Essar Power put its 2GW Gujarat power plant in for a debt recast plan, citing unviability of its import-coal-fired power plant;
The state of Gujarat formally cancelled plans for a 4-GW import-coal-fired power plant on the Kathiawar peninsula;
2.3GW of coal-fired power plants in Odisha planned by BGR Energy Systems and Kalinga Energy & Power were cancelled; and
a 2,400 MW coal-based power plant proposed by Odisha Thermal Power Corporation Ltd stalled after its coal supply plan fell over as uncompetitive. That followed the cancellation of a 2-GW import-coal-fired power plant by Tata Power in Odisha in January 2017.
This month, the state of Gujarat has seen curtailed supply of electricity from various coal-fired power plants, including from Adani Power due to its unviable imported coal scheme. While the state government is worried about a possible supply shortage, one of the growing strengths of India’s electricity system is surplus power, and Gujarat has been able to buy into lower-cost traded supply.

IEEFA acknowledges that with investment already sunk and with the long-life nature of energy system infrastructure, coal will be used for decades to come. But we see a rate of growth now that will be nothing like previously forecast.

Transition will not be painless. As management warns that Adani Power’s 4.6GW Mundra import coal-fired power plant is no longer competitive, similar risk is being faced by Tata Power’s 4.0GW Mundra plant. These plants will curtail production rather than lose money with every unit of production. But beyond the write-off of some US$600m of contingent profits the Supreme Court of India has ruled that Adani Power is no longer entitled to, IEEFA would point to the likely conclusion that a US$1-2 billion writedown of the the US$5bn plant is in the cards. A written-down plant can be reconfigured to be viable, particularly if cheap (US$20/t) domestic coal can be procured without exorbitant rail freight costs. This is a plan the Government of India is working toward.

It is telling that the Bhadla Phase IV solar park in Rajasthan is developed by Adani Renewable Energy, a division of Adani Enterprises Ltd, the owner of the Carmichael proposal and sister company to Adani Power, owner of the potentially stranded 4.6GW Mundra imported coal-fired power plant.

Adani Renewables has newly emerged as one of the leading solar and wind developers in India, as well as one of the largest solar module manufacturers. The Adani Group is evolving its strategy to align with the new realities, albeit with inevitable collateral damage along the way in a story similar to those that have unfolded around European power utilities like E.ON and RWE.

Tim Buckley is IEEFA’s director of energy finance studies, Australasia.

RELATED POSTS:

IEEFA Update: Signs in Bangladesh of a Budding Electricity-Sector Transition

IEEFA Asia: Moon Jae-In’s Ascension in Seoul Is Another Blow to Asia’s Coal Industry

IEEFA Report: A Renewables Path to Japanese Energy Security in a Post-Nuclear Era



[i] Rs2.62 / kWh equates to US$41/MWh at the current Rupee to US$ exchange rate of 64.18. Rs2.44 equates to US$38/MWh. Rs2.97 equated to US$44/MWh at the then Rs67/US$. Rs4.34 equated to US$64/MWh at the then Rs68/US$.

[Guest]

Thanks, Chap, for further amplifying the points about the rapidly increasing viability of renewable/carbon neutral energy sources. Whether of not Water Dog is honest or reasonable enough to admit it, his credibility on both climate change and the viability and potential of renewable/green energy continues to plummet precipitously. The comparison between him and flat earthers only becomes more and more apt.

[_Res Ipsa]

Dog, this is the problem I see with nuclear power. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytime ... a.amp.html It’s almost a repeat of what happened in the Pacific Northwest in the 1980s. I’m still paying for nuclear negawatts in my power bill. Welcome to the club, North Carolina.

Ironically, the Obama’s Clean Power Plan could have made the difference in getting these plants finished.

I do support taking steps to keep existing nukes online rather than shutting them down and replacing them with natural gas.

As long as Yucca Mountain gets finalized, I don’t have any other objections.

[_Gunnar]

Dog, this is the problem I see with nuclear power. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytime ... a.amp.html It’s almost a repeat of what happened in the Pacific Northwest in the 1980s. I’m still paying for nuclear negawatts in my power bill. Welcome to the club, North Carolina.

Ironically, the Obama’s Clean Power Plan could have made the difference in getting these plants finished.

I do support taking steps to keep existing nukes online rather than shutting them down and replacing them with natural gas.

As long as Yucca Mountain gets finalized, I don’t have any other objections.

I fully agree with that. I favor keeping the nuclear power plants currenty running til the end of their useful life, as long as they continue to be operated safely with all due precautions in place. Certainly dismantling them only to replace them with natural gas powered or other types of fossil fuel powered plants is stupid. I am not entirely convinced, however, that our future energy needs can only be met by heavy reliance on additional nuclear powerplants.

[_canpakes]

Gunnar, I don't know how to help you. All I can say is that my living crosses heavily into this space. My opinions are not informed by anything I read online but by my first hand knowledge.

Using the reasoning provided by the Right on such topics, it's safe to say that your opinion can be discarded as nothing more than the prejudiced rantings of someone who just wants to keep making money from his current line of work.

[_Gunnar]

Gunnar, I don't know how to help you. All I can say is that my living crosses heavily into this space. My opinions are not informed by anything I read online but by my first hand knowledge.

Using the reasoning provided by the Right on such topics, it's safe to say that your opinion can be discarded as nothing more than the prejudiced rantings of someone who just wants to keep making money from his current line of work.

That seems more and more likely as we see more of WD's arguments.

[_Water Dog]

Gunnar, I don't know how to help you. All I can say is that my living crosses heavily into this space. My opinions are not informed by anything I read online but by my first hand knowledge.

Using the reasoning provided by the Right on such topics, it's safe to say that your opinion can be discarded as nothing more than the prejudiced rantings of someone who just wants to keep making money from his current line of work.

Honey, I make money any which way, makes no difference. Actually, I make a lot more with renewables.