WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.374 align:middle line:84% [SQUEAKING] [RUSTLING] [CLICKING] 00:00:03.374 --> 00:00:11.880 align:middle line:90% 00:00:11.880 --> 00:00:14.760 align:middle line:84% SCOTT KEMP: We're going to start mostly with a review of things 00:00:14.760 --> 00:00:18.200 align:middle line:90% that I've said in this course. 00:00:18.200 --> 00:00:22.880 align:middle line:84% So this is just a help keep these things in your brain. 00:00:22.880 --> 00:00:25.700 align:middle line:84% But also, this is your chance to ask questions. 00:00:25.700 --> 00:00:28.640 align:middle line:90% 00:00:28.640 --> 00:00:31.080 align:middle line:84% Your last chance to ask questions if something 00:00:31.080 --> 00:00:34.760 align:middle line:90% didn't make a lot of sense. 00:00:34.760 --> 00:00:37.300 align:middle line:90% It's going to be the key points. 00:00:37.300 --> 00:00:38.820 align:middle line:84% We have lots of time for questions. 00:00:38.820 --> 00:00:41.720 align:middle line:84% So don't hesitate to raise your hand. 00:00:41.720 --> 00:00:44.560 align:middle line:84% Otherwise, we'll be done maybe a little bit early. 00:00:44.560 --> 00:00:49.920 align:middle line:84% So we began the semester with the proposition 00:00:49.920 --> 00:00:53.000 align:middle line:84% that we wanted to do decarbonization, 00:00:53.000 --> 00:00:55.120 align:middle line:84% and to understand that, we needed 00:00:55.120 --> 00:00:59.120 align:middle line:84% to know how bad climate change was so we knew 00:00:59.120 --> 00:01:00.920 align:middle line:90% how much money to spend on it. 00:01:00.920 --> 00:01:04.480 align:middle line:84% And what we found out was that this is a very murky problem. 00:01:04.480 --> 00:01:06.860 align:middle line:84% There's something called the social cost of carbon, 00:01:06.860 --> 00:01:09.580 align:middle line:84% which we've talked about, but how it's calculated 00:01:09.580 --> 00:01:10.660 align:middle line:90% is just a mess. 00:01:10.660 --> 00:01:15.180 align:middle line:84% So it's to remind you that one of the inputs in the calculation 00:01:15.180 --> 00:01:17.860 align:middle line:84% is how much temperature change do you get 00:01:17.860 --> 00:01:20.100 align:middle line:90% for a certain amount of CO2? 00:01:20.100 --> 00:01:23.340 align:middle line:84% And over 125 years, we have not reduced 00:01:23.340 --> 00:01:24.980 align:middle line:90% the uncertainty on that number. 00:01:24.980 --> 00:01:27.700 align:middle line:84% And it's still too big to really do this calculation 00:01:27.700 --> 00:01:28.440 align:middle line:90% meaningfully. 00:01:28.440 --> 00:01:31.220 align:middle line:84% Then that number gets put into these crazy equations, which 00:01:31.220 --> 00:01:35.420 align:middle line:84% are just completely contrived and have these weird functional 00:01:35.420 --> 00:01:40.620 align:middle line:84% forms that make it so that the effect goes 00:01:40.620 --> 00:01:43.980 align:middle line:84% as the exponent of the temperature squared. 00:01:43.980 --> 00:01:48.340 align:middle line:84% So obviously, it's very overdramatic responses 00:01:48.340 --> 00:01:49.740 align:middle line:90% to temperature change. 00:01:49.740 --> 00:01:55.340 align:middle line:84% And so it's not surprising that we get very low confidence 00:01:55.340 --> 00:01:56.560 align:middle line:90% in these numbers. 00:01:56.560 --> 00:01:58.680 align:middle line:84% And what we find is that the IPCC, who 00:01:58.680 --> 00:02:01.600 align:middle line:84% is supposed to be the vanguards of all this, 00:02:01.600 --> 00:02:04.600 align:middle line:84% to give us the truth, they have these wonderful technical 00:02:04.600 --> 00:02:05.140 align:middle line:90% reports. 00:02:05.140 --> 00:02:08.479 align:middle line:84% If you ever have the time, this working group 1 00:02:08.479 --> 00:02:10.820 align:middle line:84% is there technical working group. 00:02:10.820 --> 00:02:13.280 align:middle line:84% It's a big document, but it is worth 00:02:13.280 --> 00:02:18.080 align:middle line:84% reading cover to cover just to understand what's going on. 00:02:18.080 --> 00:02:22.000 align:middle line:84% Good Thanksgiving weekend reading. 00:02:22.000 --> 00:02:25.080 align:middle line:90% No, work on your paper. 00:02:25.080 --> 00:02:27.480 align:middle line:90% But the killer is this. 00:02:27.480 --> 00:02:29.920 align:middle line:84% At the end of the day, the uncertainties 00:02:29.920 --> 00:02:32.760 align:middle line:84% are all based on this expert judgment, 00:02:32.760 --> 00:02:37.320 align:middle line:84% and not in the fundamentals of the science. 00:02:37.320 --> 00:02:39.280 align:middle line:84% Totally worth reading this stuff. 00:02:39.280 --> 00:02:41.700 align:middle line:90% So where does that leave us? 00:02:41.700 --> 00:02:43.320 align:middle line:84% It leaves us in this murky morass 00:02:43.320 --> 00:02:48.240 align:middle line:84% where we know, OK, we know CO2 has positive radiative forcing. 00:02:48.240 --> 00:02:52.000 align:middle line:84% We know it's reaching unprecedented levels 00:02:52.000 --> 00:02:53.760 align:middle line:90% in the environment. 00:02:53.760 --> 00:02:56.200 align:middle line:84% We also know that the temperature is changing, 00:02:56.200 --> 00:02:59.220 align:middle line:84% but exactly how much of that we can attribute to the CO2 00:02:59.220 --> 00:02:59.760 align:middle line:90% is hard. 00:02:59.760 --> 00:03:01.480 align:middle line:90% There are other causes of that. 00:03:01.480 --> 00:03:06.000 align:middle line:84% IPCC says roughly half, but other causes are, for example, 00:03:06.000 --> 00:03:09.340 align:middle line:84% the ocean, which has 1,000 times the thermal capacity 00:03:09.340 --> 00:03:12.980 align:middle line:84% of the atmosphere and is constantly cycling heat 00:03:12.980 --> 00:03:17.020 align:middle line:84% on 1,000-year timescales into the deep ocean. 00:03:17.020 --> 00:03:19.740 align:middle line:84% So the atmosphere is this very thin, flimsy layer 00:03:19.740 --> 00:03:22.220 align:middle line:84% that's totally driven by ocean circulation, which 00:03:22.220 --> 00:03:23.980 align:middle line:90% we don't understand. 00:03:23.980 --> 00:03:26.420 align:middle line:84% Plus, we're coming out of an Ice Age, 00:03:26.420 --> 00:03:27.980 align:middle line:90% and other things are happening. 00:03:27.980 --> 00:03:33.620 align:middle line:84% So it's really hard to know how much climate abatement we need 00:03:33.620 --> 00:03:36.180 align:middle line:84% and how bad it will be going forward. 00:03:36.180 --> 00:03:37.780 align:middle line:90% So what do we do? 00:03:37.780 --> 00:03:41.340 align:middle line:84% Well, we say that a rational climate policy 00:03:41.340 --> 00:03:44.220 align:middle line:84% should have this principle that the benefits should 00:03:44.220 --> 00:03:46.060 align:middle line:90% exceed the cost. 00:03:46.060 --> 00:03:50.085 align:middle line:84% And some climate policies would have enormous costs. 00:03:50.085 --> 00:03:51.460 align:middle line:84% If you're going to just eliminate 00:03:51.460 --> 00:03:54.650 align:middle line:84% all carbonaceous forms of energy right now, 00:03:54.650 --> 00:03:58.630 align:middle line:84% we would triple the cost of electricity, of energy, 00:03:58.630 --> 00:04:02.710 align:middle line:84% and that would have huge and devastating cost to society, in 00:04:02.710 --> 00:04:05.070 align:middle line:90% especially in poorer countries. 00:04:05.070 --> 00:04:09.670 align:middle line:84% So the cost of that decarbonization matters. 00:04:09.670 --> 00:04:13.830 align:middle line:84% The second insight here is that the idea 00:04:13.830 --> 00:04:20.089 align:middle line:84% that we should have zero carbon is not coming from anywhere. 00:04:20.089 --> 00:04:22.870 align:middle line:84% There's some cost-benefit trade-off. 00:04:22.870 --> 00:04:25.510 align:middle line:84% And if the marginal cost of abatement of carbon 00:04:25.510 --> 00:04:28.630 align:middle line:84% goes up, as you're trying to get rid of that last unit, which 00:04:28.630 --> 00:04:32.750 align:middle line:84% is almost always how physical systems work, then 00:04:32.750 --> 00:04:34.630 align:middle line:84% at some point, it's better to just 00:04:34.630 --> 00:04:37.750 align:middle line:84% have a little bit of carbon emissions. 00:04:37.750 --> 00:04:40.990 align:middle line:84% So whenever you start out trying to build a policy 00:04:40.990 --> 00:04:43.910 align:middle line:84% framework around the idea that we have to have 0, 00:04:43.910 --> 00:04:45.870 align:middle line:90% you've already made a mistake. 00:04:45.870 --> 00:04:47.730 align:middle line:84% And it seems like a benign mistake 00:04:47.730 --> 00:04:49.730 align:middle line:84% because you say, well, we want to be close to 0. 00:04:49.730 --> 00:04:51.750 align:middle line:84% We don't know what it is, but close is good. 00:04:51.750 --> 00:04:54.090 align:middle line:84% But actually, it matters when you 00:04:54.090 --> 00:04:58.930 align:middle line:84% start doing simulations and modeling because it forces 00:04:58.930 --> 00:05:02.130 align:middle line:84% extreme solutions in simulations, 00:05:02.130 --> 00:05:05.090 align:middle line:90% because it must be equal to 0. 00:05:05.090 --> 00:05:07.250 align:middle line:84% And then you get these weird trade-offs 00:05:07.250 --> 00:05:11.610 align:middle line:84% where suddenly, all right at the end, all kinds of technologies 00:05:11.610 --> 00:05:13.610 align:middle line:84% that have a little tiny carbon intensity, just 00:05:13.610 --> 00:05:15.860 align:middle line:84% get thrown in and replaced with super expensive, crazy 00:05:15.860 --> 00:05:17.290 align:middle line:90% technologies. 00:05:17.290 --> 00:05:18.190 align:middle line:90% Yep. 00:05:18.190 --> 00:05:19.450 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: I have one question. 00:05:19.450 --> 00:05:21.070 align:middle line:84% I don't know if it's related to here, 00:05:21.070 --> 00:05:23.450 align:middle line:84% but it relates to climate policy. 00:05:23.450 --> 00:05:26.330 align:middle line:84% After this course, I based my career in climate, 00:05:26.330 --> 00:05:29.410 align:middle line:84% and I have become climate skeptic. 00:05:29.410 --> 00:05:32.490 align:middle line:84% And the question is based on, like everything 00:05:32.490 --> 00:05:35.730 align:middle line:84% you're telling us, would you have posed for the IRA? 00:05:35.730 --> 00:05:36.510 align:middle line:90% SCOTT KEMP: IRA? 00:05:36.510 --> 00:05:38.450 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: The Inflation Reduction Act? 00:05:38.450 --> 00:05:40.590 align:middle line:90% SCOTT KEMP: Oh, would I have-- 00:05:40.590 --> 00:05:42.090 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: If you were a policymaker. 00:05:42.090 --> 00:05:43.673 align:middle line:84% SCOTT KEMP: Would I have supported it? 00:05:43.673 --> 00:05:44.690 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: Yeah. 00:05:44.690 --> 00:05:47.450 align:middle line:84% SCOTT KEMP: I don't know enough about the details. 00:05:47.450 --> 00:05:50.630 align:middle line:84% Given the amount of graph that seems to be in there, maybe not, 00:05:50.630 --> 00:05:54.670 align:middle line:84% but I don't really know the details 00:05:54.670 --> 00:05:56.490 align:middle line:90% enough to answer that question. 00:05:56.490 --> 00:05:56.990 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:05:56.990 --> 00:05:59.870 align:middle line:90% 00:05:59.870 --> 00:06:00.370 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:06:00.370 --> 00:06:04.210 align:middle line:84% So people are going to say this and nothing 00:06:04.210 --> 00:06:06.710 align:middle line:84% you're going to do about it because they're going to say it. 00:06:06.710 --> 00:06:12.230 align:middle line:84% But in your mind, you should be thinking more sophisticated. 00:06:12.230 --> 00:06:14.638 align:middle line:90% And how do we want to do this? 00:06:14.638 --> 00:06:16.430 align:middle line:84% We want to start out with technologies that 00:06:16.430 --> 00:06:18.330 align:middle line:90% have low-cost decarbonization. 00:06:18.330 --> 00:06:22.710 align:middle line:84% We also want to do that decarbonization as early 00:06:22.710 --> 00:06:26.070 align:middle line:84% as possible to prevent the effects of CO2 00:06:26.070 --> 00:06:28.030 align:middle line:90% from warming the atmosphere. 00:06:28.030 --> 00:06:30.110 align:middle line:84% So we want to choose technologies 00:06:30.110 --> 00:06:33.830 align:middle line:84% that we want to choose an economic path that 00:06:33.830 --> 00:06:36.210 align:middle line:84% gets us the most decarbonization to the dollar, 00:06:36.210 --> 00:06:39.510 align:middle line:84% to get the most CO2 out as early as possible. 00:06:39.510 --> 00:06:41.870 align:middle line:84% If we choose an expensive technology 00:06:41.870 --> 00:06:44.710 align:middle line:84% but we have a fixed budget, then we 00:06:44.710 --> 00:06:47.118 align:middle line:84% do less decarbonization because we only 00:06:47.118 --> 00:06:48.410 align:middle line:90% have a certain amount of money. 00:06:48.410 --> 00:06:51.130 align:middle line:84% So we want to always choose the cheapest technology 00:06:51.130 --> 00:06:53.370 align:middle line:84% to start with and then work our way up 00:06:53.370 --> 00:06:54.710 align:middle line:90% to the more expensive ones. 00:06:54.710 --> 00:06:58.433 align:middle line:84% So we'll talk about that at the end of the class today. 00:06:58.433 --> 00:07:00.850 align:middle line:84% And the other thing is we just want to choose technologies 00:07:00.850 --> 00:07:02.770 align:middle line:90% that are fast to implement. 00:07:02.770 --> 00:07:05.890 align:middle line:84% If we're going to stake the future on microreactors 00:07:05.890 --> 00:07:08.170 align:middle line:84% and it's going to take 15 years, or fusion, 00:07:08.170 --> 00:07:11.850 align:middle line:84% and take 15 years to get that built in, 00:07:11.850 --> 00:07:14.950 align:middle line:84% licensed, and then another 10 years to build the first plant. 00:07:14.950 --> 00:07:16.390 align:middle line:90% We're talking 25 years from now. 00:07:16.390 --> 00:07:19.570 align:middle line:90% That's just stupidly long. 00:07:19.570 --> 00:07:23.330 align:middle line:84% We need to think about what we can do today. 00:07:23.330 --> 00:07:26.470 align:middle line:84% So these are just principles that guide us. 00:07:26.470 --> 00:07:28.990 align:middle line:84% They don't tell us exactly what technologies to choose, 00:07:28.990 --> 00:07:31.770 align:middle line:84% but they are what I would argue is the framework 00:07:31.770 --> 00:07:34.250 align:middle line:90% for rational policy. 00:07:34.250 --> 00:07:37.770 align:middle line:90% OK, here's a blank slide. 00:07:37.770 --> 00:07:40.810 align:middle line:84% So the cost structure and financing 00:07:40.810 --> 00:07:42.890 align:middle line:84% of energy generation technologies 00:07:42.890 --> 00:07:45.710 align:middle line:84% turns out to be really important. 00:07:45.710 --> 00:07:50.830 align:middle line:84% And that is what we spent so much of our class talking about. 00:07:50.830 --> 00:07:53.670 align:middle line:84% The key things that you should take away from this 00:07:53.670 --> 00:07:57.910 align:middle line:84% are that costs decompose into capital costs, fixed costs, 00:07:57.910 --> 00:08:05.030 align:middle line:84% and annual fixed costs, and variable O&M. We convert capital 00:08:05.030 --> 00:08:08.670 align:middle line:84% cost into an annualized one using this equation 00:08:08.670 --> 00:08:12.270 align:middle line:84% to find essentially the cost of the loan payment required 00:08:12.270 --> 00:08:13.550 align:middle line:90% to pay back. 00:08:13.550 --> 00:08:16.390 align:middle line:84% But what we learned is that that loan payment 00:08:16.390 --> 00:08:20.910 align:middle line:84% can escalate dramatically if the construction times are long. 00:08:20.910 --> 00:08:25.910 align:middle line:84% So quick to build is important, especially in high interest rate 00:08:25.910 --> 00:08:26.890 align:middle line:90% environments. 00:08:26.890 --> 00:08:33.309 align:middle line:84% And this is why when we have government-financed construction 00:08:33.309 --> 00:08:37.270 align:middle line:84% projects, which don't have to necessarily pay interest, 00:08:37.270 --> 00:08:40.150 align:middle line:84% it's more easy to get nuclear done. 00:08:40.150 --> 00:08:45.230 align:middle line:84% So in countries like France or India-- 00:08:45.230 --> 00:08:48.430 align:middle line:84% in India traditionally, historically, not anymore, 00:08:48.430 --> 00:08:51.310 align:middle line:84% but they actually just had a line item in the budget. 00:08:51.310 --> 00:08:52.970 align:middle line:84% This is how much we can afford to spend 00:08:52.970 --> 00:08:55.530 align:middle line:84% this year on continuing the construction 00:08:55.530 --> 00:08:57.090 align:middle line:90% of the nuclear reactor. 00:08:57.090 --> 00:08:59.730 align:middle line:84% And it just financed each year out of the budget. 00:08:59.730 --> 00:09:03.530 align:middle line:84% And so that fixes the problem, helps 00:09:03.530 --> 00:09:06.690 align:middle line:84% address the problem of high capital cost technologies, 00:09:06.690 --> 00:09:10.090 align:middle line:84% because you don't pay all that interest on the loan. 00:09:10.090 --> 00:09:14.770 align:middle line:84% But in a capitalist society, where 00:09:14.770 --> 00:09:17.050 align:middle line:84% we have privatized energy production 00:09:17.050 --> 00:09:19.250 align:middle line:84% and you have to borrow money from the market, 00:09:19.250 --> 00:09:22.010 align:middle line:84% now those capital costs matter a lot, 00:09:22.010 --> 00:09:26.890 align:middle line:84% and construction costs matter a lot. 00:09:26.890 --> 00:09:30.050 align:middle line:84% Now, the problem is that nuclear has been a high capital cost 00:09:30.050 --> 00:09:33.930 align:middle line:84% technology, and there's enormous debate over this, 00:09:33.930 --> 00:09:35.230 align:middle line:90% about how expensive it is. 00:09:35.230 --> 00:09:42.050 align:middle line:84% So if you remember Vogtle, which is the reactor that has recently 00:09:42.050 --> 00:09:45.710 align:middle line:84% been finished here in the United States, 00:09:45.710 --> 00:09:54.750 align:middle line:84% if we inflate it to $2,025 cost around $20,000 per kilowatt 00:09:54.750 --> 00:09:56.550 align:middle line:90% of capacity. 00:09:56.550 --> 00:10:02.390 align:middle line:84% When that plant was pitched, they said it would cost 00:10:02.390 --> 00:10:05.310 align:middle line:90% somewhere between 2 and $7,000. 00:10:05.310 --> 00:10:08.670 align:middle line:84% And that capital cost escalation is 00:10:08.670 --> 00:10:11.930 align:middle line:84% what makes nuclear, A, unaffordable 00:10:11.930 --> 00:10:16.310 align:middle line:84% but also is B, what drives uncertainty in policy. 00:10:16.310 --> 00:10:19.290 align:middle line:84% If it's $2,000, then it's fantastic. 00:10:19.290 --> 00:10:21.710 align:middle line:84% We should be building as much nuclear as possible. 00:10:21.710 --> 00:10:25.050 align:middle line:84% If it turns out to continuously be $20,000, it's a problem. 00:10:25.050 --> 00:10:29.010 align:middle line:84% And so you all know this, but that is really, 00:10:29.010 --> 00:10:31.790 align:middle line:90% really an important number. 00:10:31.790 --> 00:10:34.750 align:middle line:84% So another feature that we learned 00:10:34.750 --> 00:10:36.790 align:middle line:84% about, as associated with this economics, 00:10:36.790 --> 00:10:41.670 align:middle line:84% is that if you have a high capital cost technology, 00:10:41.670 --> 00:10:47.050 align:middle line:84% it's important for that plant to operate as much as possible. 00:10:47.050 --> 00:10:51.150 align:middle line:84% It's got to pay back that loan, that loan payment. 00:10:51.150 --> 00:10:54.050 align:middle line:84% That bill comes in every month, regardless of whether they 00:10:54.050 --> 00:10:55.430 align:middle line:90% make electricity or not. 00:10:55.430 --> 00:10:58.890 align:middle line:84% So they prefer to run all the time. 00:10:58.890 --> 00:11:00.890 align:middle line:84% And that gives us a condition that we 00:11:00.890 --> 00:11:02.850 align:middle line:90% learn is called baseload. 00:11:02.850 --> 00:11:07.850 align:middle line:84% So baseload is really an economic phenomenon. 00:11:07.850 --> 00:11:11.170 align:middle line:84% It's a limitation associated with high capital cost 00:11:11.170 --> 00:11:12.250 align:middle line:90% technologies. 00:11:12.250 --> 00:11:14.810 align:middle line:84% You can run the plant in a non-baseload way. 00:11:14.810 --> 00:11:17.450 align:middle line:84% It's just that the effective price per electricity 00:11:17.450 --> 00:11:22.650 align:middle line:84% is going to scale as inversely with the capacity factor. 00:11:22.650 --> 00:11:27.670 align:middle line:90% So it's not a feature. 00:11:27.670 --> 00:11:29.690 align:middle line:84% You hear people talk about people saying, 00:11:29.690 --> 00:11:32.090 align:middle line:90% oh, we need baseload generation. 00:11:32.090 --> 00:11:34.830 align:middle line:84% No, we do not need baseload generation. 00:11:34.830 --> 00:11:37.490 align:middle line:90% We need reliable generation. 00:11:37.490 --> 00:11:40.370 align:middle line:90% We need dispatchable generation. 00:11:40.370 --> 00:11:42.500 align:middle line:90% But we don't need baseload. 00:11:42.500 --> 00:11:46.940 align:middle line:84% So is nuclear reliable and dispatchable? 00:11:46.940 --> 00:11:50.260 align:middle line:84% Kind of yes, but actually, not as dispatchable as 00:11:50.260 --> 00:11:54.740 align:middle line:84% people might think, because you can't ramp it up and down really 00:11:54.740 --> 00:11:58.740 align:middle line:84% fast unless you also build some kind of thermal storage 00:11:58.740 --> 00:12:01.620 align:middle line:84% that is attached to the nuclear plant. 00:12:01.620 --> 00:12:03.800 align:middle line:84% So you can dispatch it a day ahead, 00:12:03.800 --> 00:12:07.740 align:middle line:84% but you can't dispatch it five minutes from now 00:12:07.740 --> 00:12:10.780 align:middle line:84% because you can't just do this with a nuclear plant. 00:12:10.780 --> 00:12:15.620 align:middle line:84% So it's kind of there, but it is not flawless. 00:12:15.620 --> 00:12:16.980 align:middle line:90% What about renewables? 00:12:16.980 --> 00:12:18.460 align:middle line:90% Are they dispatchable? 00:12:18.460 --> 00:12:21.260 align:middle line:84% Not normally, but if you mix them, 00:12:21.260 --> 00:12:26.400 align:middle line:84% if you do overbuild and storage, they become dispatchable. 00:12:26.400 --> 00:12:29.220 align:middle line:90% So they both are imperfect. 00:12:29.220 --> 00:12:33.740 align:middle line:84% And they both can be fixed with more tech and more cost. 00:12:33.740 --> 00:12:35.900 align:middle line:84% But it's just important to understand 00:12:35.900 --> 00:12:39.960 align:middle line:84% the kind of quick conversation piece about baseload 00:12:39.960 --> 00:12:42.720 align:middle line:90% is really misleading. 00:12:42.720 --> 00:12:47.800 align:middle line:84% So we learned given all these limitations of cost, 00:12:47.800 --> 00:12:49.278 align:middle line:84% how do we choose the optimal mix? 00:12:49.278 --> 00:12:50.820 align:middle line:84% And we talked about screening curves. 00:12:50.820 --> 00:12:54.040 align:middle line:84% And I'll revisit this at the end of class today. 00:12:54.040 --> 00:12:58.860 align:middle line:84% This only works if you have fully dispatchable tech 00:12:58.860 --> 00:13:02.400 align:middle line:84% because it assumes that you can choose which technology you 00:13:02.400 --> 00:13:04.240 align:middle line:90% want at will. 00:13:04.240 --> 00:13:06.935 align:middle line:84% That's not perfectly true for renewables, 00:13:06.935 --> 00:13:08.560 align:middle line:84% and it's not perfectly true for nuclear 00:13:08.560 --> 00:13:14.200 align:middle line:84% either, although we tend to avoid putting renewables 00:13:14.200 --> 00:13:15.585 align:middle line:90% on this kind of chart. 00:13:15.585 --> 00:13:16.960 align:middle line:84% The best way to do it is actually 00:13:16.960 --> 00:13:23.760 align:middle line:84% to have a code that looks at every hour of the year and says, 00:13:23.760 --> 00:13:25.540 align:middle line:90% what is the demand. 00:13:25.540 --> 00:13:28.120 align:middle line:84% And what technologies are available, and having 00:13:28.120 --> 00:13:31.680 align:middle line:84% constraints so that they can't ramp up too fast or too slow? 00:13:31.680 --> 00:13:33.380 align:middle line:90% How much sun is shining? 00:13:33.380 --> 00:13:34.760 align:middle line:90% How much wind is blowing? 00:13:34.760 --> 00:13:37.060 align:middle line:84% And that code that does that is called GenX. 00:13:37.060 --> 00:13:39.960 align:middle line:84% And they use this in the Future of Nuclear Energy Report. 00:13:39.960 --> 00:13:41.940 align:middle line:84% It was run by Jacopo Buongiorno here. 00:13:41.940 --> 00:13:44.680 align:middle line:84% And I'll just give this as one of the results. 00:13:44.680 --> 00:13:47.820 align:middle line:84% This is for so-called mid-cost, according 00:13:47.820 --> 00:13:49.840 align:middle line:90% to them, cost of nuclear. 00:13:49.840 --> 00:13:51.660 align:middle line:84% And this is percent decarbonization 00:13:51.660 --> 00:13:52.680 align:middle line:90% along the x-axis. 00:13:52.680 --> 00:13:57.260 align:middle line:84% And you see in their own codes from this very pro-nuclear group 00:13:57.260 --> 00:14:03.700 align:middle line:84% that nuclear only shows up here, right at the edge, above 90%. 00:14:03.700 --> 00:14:08.120 align:middle line:84% And the amount that shows up is actually on a fractional basis, 00:14:08.120 --> 00:14:11.580 align:middle line:84% less than we have currently installed in the United States. 00:14:11.580 --> 00:14:14.720 align:middle line:90% So this is the problem. 00:14:14.720 --> 00:14:17.420 align:middle line:84% If this would not be the case, if we could bring the cost down 00:14:17.420 --> 00:14:19.500 align:middle line:90% below their mid-cost projection. 00:14:19.500 --> 00:14:23.460 align:middle line:90% But it's just too expensive. 00:14:23.460 --> 00:14:26.880 align:middle line:84% So we want to bring down the cost. 00:14:26.880 --> 00:14:28.740 align:middle line:90% This is the problem. 00:14:28.740 --> 00:14:34.180 align:middle line:84% So we have this narrative-- climate change, cost matters. 00:14:34.180 --> 00:14:36.040 align:middle line:90% Cost determines who wins. 00:14:36.040 --> 00:14:37.920 align:middle line:84% And now we need to bring down the cost. 00:14:37.920 --> 00:14:40.440 align:middle line:84% So we looked globally at the history 00:14:40.440 --> 00:14:42.420 align:middle line:84% of all the builds in the United States, 00:14:42.420 --> 00:14:44.460 align:middle line:84% in France, in Korea, in Japan, in India, 00:14:44.460 --> 00:14:46.440 align:middle line:90% which I didn't put up here. 00:14:46.440 --> 00:14:48.380 align:middle line:84% All countries except for Russia and China, 00:14:48.380 --> 00:14:50.680 align:middle line:84% because we don't have reliable cost data from those two 00:14:50.680 --> 00:14:52.000 align:middle line:90% countries. 00:14:52.000 --> 00:14:59.320 align:middle line:84% And what emerges is a kind of general trend 00:14:59.320 --> 00:15:03.720 align:middle line:84% that there's basically little to no actual cost 00:15:03.720 --> 00:15:07.300 align:middle line:84% reduction apparent across all of these programs. 00:15:07.300 --> 00:15:09.400 align:middle line:84% India was the only one that showed steadily 00:15:09.400 --> 00:15:11.400 align:middle line:90% decreasing costs. 00:15:11.400 --> 00:15:14.960 align:middle line:84% But then we learned that was because India's reactors are 00:15:14.960 --> 00:15:17.800 align:middle line:84% steadily getting bigger and bigger. 00:15:17.800 --> 00:15:21.400 align:middle line:84% So once you fix the size of the reactors, 00:15:21.400 --> 00:15:25.880 align:middle line:84% we do see in Japan this region of low cost, 00:15:25.880 --> 00:15:28.880 align:middle line:84% and in Korea, this is partly from reactors 00:15:28.880 --> 00:15:31.480 align:middle line:84% getting bigger early on in their program. 00:15:31.480 --> 00:15:34.580 align:middle line:84% And then we see this region of low-cost stability 00:15:34.580 --> 00:15:37.140 align:middle line:84% that then turns around, and the newest reactors 00:15:37.140 --> 00:15:38.460 align:middle line:90% are more expensive. 00:15:38.460 --> 00:15:43.580 align:middle line:84% And it appears that these are correlated with poor safety 00:15:43.580 --> 00:15:46.380 align:middle line:90% enforcement during construction. 00:15:46.380 --> 00:15:48.520 align:middle line:84% In Korea, we had falsified safety certificates. 00:15:48.520 --> 00:15:51.300 align:middle line:84% In Japan, we had this report by the Japanese Diet 00:15:51.300 --> 00:15:55.260 align:middle line:84% after Fukushima that basically said, 00:15:55.260 --> 00:15:59.620 align:middle line:84% we weren't enforcing the regulations during construction. 00:15:59.620 --> 00:16:03.520 align:middle line:84% You can say, well, is that true or not true? 00:16:03.520 --> 00:16:05.260 align:middle line:90% How important was that? 00:16:05.260 --> 00:16:08.300 align:middle line:84% The evidence is in the capacity factors. 00:16:08.300 --> 00:16:12.020 align:middle line:84% If you look at the capacity factors in these countries, 00:16:12.020 --> 00:16:14.820 align:middle line:84% they are miserably bad because they 00:16:14.820 --> 00:16:20.540 align:middle line:84% have had to go back and retrofit safety onto these plants 00:16:20.540 --> 00:16:23.140 align:middle line:84% and fix the problems with the original construction. 00:16:23.140 --> 00:16:26.680 align:middle line:84% The result is because capacity factor is low, 00:16:26.680 --> 00:16:28.620 align:middle line:84% the actual cost of the electricity, 00:16:28.620 --> 00:16:31.560 align:middle line:84% rather than the cost of the reactor, 00:16:31.560 --> 00:16:35.160 align:middle line:84% is very expensive now, even more expensive 00:16:35.160 --> 00:16:37.000 align:middle line:90% than in the United States. 00:16:37.000 --> 00:16:41.320 align:middle line:84% If they had just done it safely from the beginning, 00:16:41.320 --> 00:16:45.960 align:middle line:84% they would actually have a better economic situation. 00:16:45.960 --> 00:16:51.520 align:middle line:84% So we don't see any kind of lesson 00:16:51.520 --> 00:16:54.060 align:middle line:84% that we can learn from these reactors. 00:16:54.060 --> 00:16:58.280 align:middle line:84% We did a regression of 341 reactors 00:16:58.280 --> 00:17:01.320 align:middle line:84% in the world to figure out what the cost parameters were, 00:17:01.320 --> 00:17:08.480 align:middle line:84% and the key thing was that reactor cost decreases 00:17:08.480 --> 00:17:12.880 align:middle line:84% by 20% for every doubling in reactor size, which 00:17:12.880 --> 00:17:15.079 align:middle line:90% is why reactors got big. 00:17:15.079 --> 00:17:19.000 align:middle line:84% And we see also that if you add these two, licenses completed 00:17:19.000 --> 00:17:21.400 align:middle line:84% versus reactors built, this adds up 00:17:21.400 --> 00:17:28.319 align:middle line:84% to 1, which means on average, you get a 1% cost 00:17:28.319 --> 00:17:32.340 align:middle line:84% reduction for every doubling of the number of reactors 00:17:32.340 --> 00:17:34.540 align:middle line:90% you build in a country. 00:17:34.540 --> 00:17:37.900 align:middle line:84% Now the error bars are highly uncertain on this kind 00:17:37.900 --> 00:17:39.540 align:middle line:90% of calculation. 00:17:39.540 --> 00:17:42.120 align:middle line:84% It will depend on a lot of factors, 00:17:42.120 --> 00:17:46.300 align:middle line:84% but the point is that we don't have 00:17:46.300 --> 00:17:49.500 align:middle line:90% a clear path on how to do this. 00:17:49.500 --> 00:17:53.100 align:middle line:84% So there are many hypothesized paths. 00:17:53.100 --> 00:17:56.180 align:middle line:84% One thing that the DOE has said in a recent report 00:17:56.180 --> 00:18:00.980 align:middle line:84% is that we might be able to attain an on average 15% cost 00:18:00.980 --> 00:18:05.700 align:middle line:84% reduction if we bought 10 reactors at once. 00:18:05.700 --> 00:18:08.700 align:middle line:90% That's $100 billion of spending. 00:18:08.700 --> 00:18:12.420 align:middle line:90% That's not a likely strategy. 00:18:12.420 --> 00:18:17.580 align:middle line:84% The other idea that has been all the rage for the last 15 years 00:18:17.580 --> 00:18:20.980 align:middle line:84% are small reactors and now very more recently, microreactors. 00:18:20.980 --> 00:18:23.200 align:middle line:84% And so we looked a little bit at this. 00:18:23.200 --> 00:18:26.340 align:middle line:84% And one of the things that we learned 00:18:26.340 --> 00:18:29.720 align:middle line:84% is that most of these startups are actually 00:18:29.720 --> 00:18:31.980 align:middle line:90% just recycling old ideas. 00:18:31.980 --> 00:18:32.480 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:18:32.480 --> 00:18:33.140 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: Yeah. 00:18:33.140 --> 00:18:34.540 align:middle line:90% I have a question [INAUDIBLE]. 00:18:34.540 --> 00:18:35.860 align:middle line:90% SCOTT KEMP: Yes. 00:18:35.860 --> 00:18:39.200 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: In the case of France, I heard you criticizing 00:18:39.200 --> 00:18:43.480 align:middle line:84% France's way of handling nuclear back in the '70s quite often 00:18:43.480 --> 00:18:45.520 align:middle line:90% during class. 00:18:45.520 --> 00:18:48.720 align:middle line:84% It's something I never really understood because France, yeah, 00:18:48.720 --> 00:18:49.980 align:middle line:90% they built many reactors. 00:18:49.980 --> 00:18:52.080 align:middle line:84% Maybe that was supported by the state. 00:18:52.080 --> 00:18:54.200 align:middle line:84% And maybe they overspend because it was fully 00:18:54.200 --> 00:18:55.180 align:middle line:90% supported by the state. 00:18:55.180 --> 00:18:56.480 align:middle line:90% And so nobody cared. 00:18:56.480 --> 00:18:59.680 align:middle line:84% But since the '70s, they have almost a fully decarbonized 00:18:59.680 --> 00:19:01.040 align:middle line:90% electricity mix. 00:19:01.040 --> 00:19:04.240 align:middle line:84% And right now they have very low cost of electricity 00:19:04.240 --> 00:19:05.860 align:middle line:84% compared to many European countries. 00:19:05.860 --> 00:19:08.400 align:middle line:84% They are net exporters even though they have lower capacity 00:19:08.400 --> 00:19:10.320 align:middle line:90% factors than the USA. 00:19:10.320 --> 00:19:12.120 align:middle line:84% So I don't fully understand your-- 00:19:12.120 --> 00:19:13.200 align:middle line:90% SCOTT KEMP: Right. 00:19:13.200 --> 00:19:15.100 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: Compared to the US. 00:19:15.100 --> 00:19:17.960 align:middle line:84% SCOTT KEMP: Yes, so the cost of electricity 00:19:17.960 --> 00:19:21.920 align:middle line:84% will be driven principally by the marginal cost of production. 00:19:21.920 --> 00:19:25.160 align:middle line:84% And so those reactors are old enough 00:19:25.160 --> 00:19:27.470 align:middle line:90% that they're largely paid off. 00:19:27.470 --> 00:19:32.490 align:middle line:84% They've been paid for in large part through taxation. 00:19:32.490 --> 00:19:34.490 align:middle line:84% So the price of electricity is not just 00:19:34.490 --> 00:19:36.490 align:middle line:90% the actual price on the bill. 00:19:36.490 --> 00:19:39.970 align:middle line:84% It's also the price of your tax bill 00:19:39.970 --> 00:19:42.050 align:middle line:84% to the French government, which has 00:19:42.050 --> 00:19:44.150 align:middle line:84% paid for a large portion of those reactors. 00:19:44.150 --> 00:19:46.850 align:middle line:84% So it's not an apples-to-apples comparison. 00:19:46.850 --> 00:19:52.530 align:middle line:84% And as far as exporting, I don't think that tells you anything. 00:19:52.530 --> 00:19:59.090 align:middle line:84% What is interesting is that this cost was low and stable. 00:19:59.090 --> 00:20:03.270 align:middle line:90% And why is this number so high? 00:20:03.270 --> 00:20:07.370 align:middle line:84% Is this really [INAUDIBLE] effects with [INAUDIBLE] or not? 00:20:07.370 --> 00:20:12.730 align:middle line:84% It's hard to imagine that this next one would be down here. 00:20:12.730 --> 00:20:18.450 align:middle line:84% So it seems like part of it is driven by increased 00:20:18.450 --> 00:20:20.490 align:middle line:90% concern for safety. 00:20:20.490 --> 00:20:26.190 align:middle line:84% There are issues with the reliability 00:20:26.190 --> 00:20:28.230 align:middle line:84% of some of the elements in the French fleet 00:20:28.230 --> 00:20:30.710 align:middle line:90% that they're working on. 00:20:30.710 --> 00:20:32.590 align:middle line:84% All of these make it very difficult 00:20:32.590 --> 00:20:34.450 align:middle line:90% to do the cost comparison. 00:20:34.450 --> 00:20:36.990 align:middle line:84% I'd say, of all of these things, the cost of electricity 00:20:36.990 --> 00:20:40.170 align:middle line:84% is the most motivating factor-- the things that you raised. 00:20:40.170 --> 00:20:44.470 align:middle line:84% But you have to remember, if the costs are not fully recovered 00:20:44.470 --> 00:20:47.790 align:middle line:84% through electricity prices, then it 00:20:47.790 --> 00:20:49.608 align:middle line:90% wouldn't be a good comparison. 00:20:49.608 --> 00:20:51.150 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: Look at European landscape. 00:20:51.150 --> 00:20:53.510 align:middle line:84% Let's say maybe they pay via taxes, 00:20:53.510 --> 00:20:56.570 align:middle line:84% and maybe French has a higher taxes than other countries. 00:20:56.570 --> 00:20:59.210 align:middle line:84% But still, the standard of living in France is still good. 00:20:59.210 --> 00:21:01.910 align:middle line:84% They have a fully decarbonized, almost fully decarbonized 00:21:01.910 --> 00:21:02.890 align:middle line:90% electricity mix. 00:21:02.890 --> 00:21:06.010 align:middle line:84% And France is a big country in Europe, very big industrial one. 00:21:06.010 --> 00:21:09.050 align:middle line:84% So it seems like they did a very good choice back then. 00:21:09.050 --> 00:21:11.690 align:middle line:90% 00:21:11.690 --> 00:21:14.690 align:middle line:84% SCOTT KEMP: Yeah, it winds up in a good place. 00:21:14.690 --> 00:21:17.202 align:middle line:84% But what have they paid for it along the way? 00:21:17.202 --> 00:21:18.410 align:middle line:90% It's an interesting question. 00:21:18.410 --> 00:21:21.230 align:middle line:90% 00:21:21.230 --> 00:21:24.130 align:middle line:84% We should maybe do a better study on it. 00:21:24.130 --> 00:21:26.290 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: We have actually here a classmate 00:21:26.290 --> 00:21:27.930 align:middle line:84% of ours that is investigating that. 00:21:27.930 --> 00:21:29.090 align:middle line:90% SCOTT KEMP: Good. 00:21:29.090 --> 00:21:29.690 align:middle line:90% Good. 00:21:29.690 --> 00:21:30.190 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:21:30.190 --> 00:21:31.810 align:middle line:90% Well, what is the answer? 00:21:31.810 --> 00:21:34.070 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: I'm working on it. 00:21:34.070 --> 00:21:35.087 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:21:35.087 --> 00:21:36.670 align:middle line:84% SCOTT KEMP: All right, let's find out. 00:21:36.670 --> 00:21:39.210 align:middle line:90% 00:21:39.210 --> 00:21:41.190 align:middle line:84% Yeah, I mean, it's very difficult. 00:21:41.190 --> 00:21:43.850 align:middle line:84% So when we do the regression analysis, 00:21:43.850 --> 00:21:46.930 align:middle line:84% we do not use this cost data and this cost data 00:21:46.930 --> 00:21:49.770 align:middle line:90% as being treated as equal. 00:21:49.770 --> 00:21:52.650 align:middle line:84% Every time we change country, there's a floating parameter 00:21:52.650 --> 00:21:57.850 align:middle line:84% that renormalizes the cost for that country because you just 00:21:57.850 --> 00:22:01.770 align:middle line:84% you cannot take the accounting methods used in one country 00:22:01.770 --> 00:22:04.730 align:middle line:84% and apply them on a dollar-for-dollar basis with 00:22:04.730 --> 00:22:06.890 align:middle line:84% accounting methods used in another country. 00:22:06.890 --> 00:22:08.810 align:middle line:90% They're just incomparables. 00:22:08.810 --> 00:22:11.370 align:middle line:84% So to fix that, we have what are called fixed effects 00:22:11.370 --> 00:22:17.210 align:middle line:84% in the regression to do all of that. 00:22:17.210 --> 00:22:24.130 align:middle line:84% Yeah, so it's a very tricky area to analyze. 00:22:24.130 --> 00:22:26.950 align:middle line:84% The bottom line of this was that we didn't really 00:22:26.950 --> 00:22:28.850 align:middle line:90% have an obvious lesson. 00:22:28.850 --> 00:22:31.630 align:middle line:90% 00:22:31.630 --> 00:22:35.430 align:middle line:90% OK, so we looked at SMRs. 00:22:35.430 --> 00:22:42.430 align:middle line:84% Ultra Safe is X-energy, and they're making certain claims. 00:22:42.430 --> 00:22:45.030 align:middle line:84% Many of these ideas have been built before, 00:22:45.030 --> 00:22:48.170 align:middle line:84% not exactly the same, but largely the same. 00:22:48.170 --> 00:22:50.870 align:middle line:84% And they had issues associated usually 00:22:50.870 --> 00:22:57.210 align:middle line:84% with availability and capacity factor and capital costs, 00:22:57.210 --> 00:23:02.070 align:middle line:84% which is basically a function of energy density. 00:23:02.070 --> 00:23:03.630 align:middle line:84% One of the principal considerations 00:23:03.630 --> 00:23:04.870 align:middle line:90% is energy density. 00:23:04.870 --> 00:23:07.990 align:middle line:84% And many of these technologies have really low energy density. 00:23:07.990 --> 00:23:12.530 align:middle line:84% So it's hard for them to compete with water. 00:23:12.530 --> 00:23:13.030 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:23:13.030 --> 00:23:14.290 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: When you say energy density, 00:23:14.290 --> 00:23:16.070 align:middle line:84% do you mean density per volume density? 00:23:16.070 --> 00:23:16.790 align:middle line:90% SCOTT KEMP: Yeah. 00:23:16.790 --> 00:23:17.550 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:23:17.550 --> 00:23:19.690 align:middle line:90% Electricity density per unit. 00:23:19.690 --> 00:23:25.670 align:middle line:84% It should really be per unit hardware cost, but as a proxy, 00:23:25.670 --> 00:23:28.868 align:middle line:84% I'm really saying per unit volume. 00:23:28.868 --> 00:23:29.410 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: OK. 00:23:29.410 --> 00:23:30.490 align:middle line:90% SCOTT KEMP: Yeah. 00:23:30.490 --> 00:23:37.050 align:middle line:84% So it's a trade-off between having 00:23:37.050 --> 00:23:41.930 align:middle line:84% more passively safe-ish stuff versus more active safety 00:23:41.930 --> 00:23:42.890 align:middle line:90% systems. 00:23:42.890 --> 00:23:47.450 align:middle line:84% And that is something that you have to see how it shakes out. 00:23:47.450 --> 00:23:49.890 align:middle line:84% But historically, it hasn't shaked out 00:23:49.890 --> 00:23:53.970 align:middle line:84% well in favor of things other than water. 00:23:53.970 --> 00:23:56.650 align:middle line:84% The other thing that we learned is 00:23:56.650 --> 00:24:00.770 align:middle line:84% that there are these historical cost escalation trends. 00:24:00.770 --> 00:24:03.050 align:middle line:90% People have an idea. 00:24:03.050 --> 00:24:04.510 align:middle line:90% They put out a cost estimate. 00:24:04.510 --> 00:24:08.230 align:middle line:84% Here's new scale saying it's going to cost $5,800 in 2007. 00:24:08.230 --> 00:24:09.150 align:middle line:90% Then it's $11,000. 00:24:09.150 --> 00:24:09.990 align:middle line:90% Then it's $13,000. 00:24:09.990 --> 00:24:11.490 align:middle line:90% Then it's $21,000. 00:24:11.490 --> 00:24:13.670 align:middle line:84% And it's just the cost keeps going up. 00:24:13.670 --> 00:24:16.450 align:middle line:84% And the reason is they do more engineering, 00:24:16.450 --> 00:24:19.030 align:middle line:84% and they realize, oh, we need stuff. 00:24:19.030 --> 00:24:21.470 align:middle line:90% And it cost. 00:24:21.470 --> 00:24:23.710 align:middle line:84% So this has been true for everything-- 00:24:23.710 --> 00:24:27.990 align:middle line:84% AP1000, for X-energy, for GE Hitachi's BWRs. 00:24:27.990 --> 00:24:31.770 align:middle line:84% And nothing has really been built except for the AP1000. 00:24:31.770 --> 00:24:33.790 align:middle line:84% That's the only one we have really to go on. 00:24:33.790 --> 00:24:36.710 align:middle line:84% But the historical escalation was like a factor of 6 00:24:36.710 --> 00:24:41.710 align:middle line:84% between the early cost estimates and the finished reactor. 00:24:41.710 --> 00:24:48.470 align:middle line:84% So even if it's not a factor of a 6, even it's a factor of 4, 00:24:48.470 --> 00:24:55.870 align:middle line:84% that forecast cost escalation will completely 00:24:55.870 --> 00:25:02.270 align:middle line:84% swamp the hoped-for savings between a FOAK unit and a NOAK, 00:25:02.270 --> 00:25:04.870 align:middle line:84% first of a kind and an n-th of a kind. 00:25:04.870 --> 00:25:09.950 align:middle line:90% So this is a reason for pause. 00:25:09.950 --> 00:25:11.950 align:middle line:84% Yes, we hope that we can bring the cost down 00:25:11.950 --> 00:25:13.790 align:middle line:90% from building multiple units. 00:25:13.790 --> 00:25:18.490 align:middle line:84% But if we continue to see this kind of escalation, 00:25:18.490 --> 00:25:21.830 align:middle line:84% it's unlikely that we'll be able to bring it down enough. 00:25:21.830 --> 00:25:24.930 align:middle line:90% 00:25:24.930 --> 00:25:29.370 align:middle line:84% So the final idea was, well, maybe factory fabrication. 00:25:29.370 --> 00:25:33.170 align:middle line:84% And the kind of takeaway lesson from class that I tried to argue 00:25:33.170 --> 00:25:35.350 align:middle line:84% was factory fabrication might work. 00:25:35.350 --> 00:25:37.530 align:middle line:84% But it's not about just factories. 00:25:37.530 --> 00:25:39.690 align:middle line:90% It's about volume. 00:25:39.690 --> 00:25:44.090 align:middle line:84% You get discounts when you make thousands or tens of thousands 00:25:44.090 --> 00:25:46.050 align:middle line:90% of units a year. 00:25:46.050 --> 00:25:48.050 align:middle line:84% And so you're only going to see that 00:25:48.050 --> 00:25:52.850 align:middle line:84% for very, very small reactors that have a big market. 00:25:52.850 --> 00:25:56.743 align:middle line:84% If you're building 200-megawatt reactors, it's unlikely. 00:25:56.743 --> 00:25:58.410 align:middle line:84% If you're building 10-megawatt reactors, 00:25:58.410 --> 00:26:00.890 align:middle line:84% now you can talk about tens of thousands. 00:26:00.890 --> 00:26:06.330 align:middle line:84% But you're fighting this problem that every time 00:26:06.330 --> 00:26:11.170 align:middle line:84% you shrink your reactor, your cost is going up. 00:26:11.170 --> 00:26:13.970 align:middle line:90% So how does that shake out? 00:26:13.970 --> 00:26:20.110 align:middle line:84% We saw Enil gave us a study about how much factory 00:26:20.110 --> 00:26:21.670 align:middle line:90% fabrication could save us. 00:26:21.670 --> 00:26:25.670 align:middle line:84% And when we applied that in conjunction 00:26:25.670 --> 00:26:30.710 align:middle line:84% with this cost escalation, the answer was not favorable. 00:26:30.710 --> 00:26:33.470 align:middle line:84% So the only hope is that this cost escalation somehow 00:26:33.470 --> 00:26:36.670 align:middle line:90% stops happening. 00:26:36.670 --> 00:26:39.510 align:middle line:84% The other issue with having tens of thousands 00:26:39.510 --> 00:26:43.270 align:middle line:84% of reactors in the world that we didn't really talk about much 00:26:43.270 --> 00:26:47.070 align:middle line:90% is that human capital. 00:26:47.070 --> 00:26:50.710 align:middle line:84% Unless these things are computer-controlled, 00:26:50.710 --> 00:26:53.950 align:middle line:84% we will need a lot of nuclear engineers-- 00:26:53.950 --> 00:26:58.510 align:middle line:84% so something like 400,000 engineers, 00:26:58.510 --> 00:27:05.550 align:middle line:84% if we're going to have 40,000 reactors out there. 00:27:05.550 --> 00:27:12.870 align:middle line:84% And that's going to be a difficult lift. 00:27:12.870 --> 00:27:20.560 align:middle line:84% So we did find a ray of sunlight in heat markets. 00:27:20.560 --> 00:27:24.600 align:middle line:84% The basic idea here was that nuclear is inherently 00:27:24.600 --> 00:27:25.720 align:middle line:90% a heat producer. 00:27:25.720 --> 00:27:31.720 align:middle line:84% And so it will be roughly a third the cost 00:27:31.720 --> 00:27:35.920 align:middle line:84% per kilowatt-thermal versus kilowatt electric. 00:27:35.920 --> 00:27:39.660 align:middle line:84% And that makes it very competitive with renewables, 00:27:39.660 --> 00:27:41.880 align:middle line:84% which are the same cost per kilowatt-thermal and 00:27:41.880 --> 00:27:44.200 align:middle line:90% kilowatt-electric. 00:27:44.200 --> 00:27:49.700 align:middle line:84% And so it appears if we can meet the projected-- 00:27:49.700 --> 00:27:55.160 align:middle line:84% if you look in the EIA tables for the projected nuclear cost, 00:27:55.160 --> 00:28:01.960 align:middle line:84% so they assume like $7,000 per kilowatt capital cost. 00:28:01.960 --> 00:28:04.560 align:middle line:84% Nuclear would already be competitive with renewables 00:28:04.560 --> 00:28:06.640 align:middle line:90% for heat today. 00:28:06.640 --> 00:28:08.940 align:middle line:90% Now that's AP1000-size nuclear. 00:28:08.940 --> 00:28:12.200 align:middle line:84% And that's kind of too big for most renewable applications, 00:28:12.200 --> 00:28:15.340 align:middle line:84% because one of the things that we looked at was the average 00:28:15.340 --> 00:28:20.180 align:middle line:84% heat per site is like 60mw on the high down to 1 megawatt. 00:28:20.180 --> 00:28:24.980 align:middle line:84% And so my guess is the optimal reactor size is just like throw 00:28:24.980 --> 00:28:29.440 align:middle line:84% away these, too small, and then be like 10-megawatt units, 00:28:29.440 --> 00:28:31.340 align:middle line:90% something like that. 00:28:31.340 --> 00:28:36.900 align:middle line:84% And that would potentially have a market in the United States 00:28:36.900 --> 00:28:42.420 align:middle line:84% of like 4,000 units and globally a market of 40,000 units. 00:28:42.420 --> 00:28:45.660 align:middle line:90% And that is a real thing. 00:28:45.660 --> 00:28:47.100 align:middle line:90% That's a real market. 00:28:47.100 --> 00:28:50.640 align:middle line:84% And factory fabrication certainly begins to make sense. 00:28:50.640 --> 00:28:57.300 align:middle line:84% So actually, I think this is a real future for nuclear. 00:28:57.300 --> 00:29:00.580 align:middle line:84% The challenge with this market is 00:29:00.580 --> 00:29:06.220 align:middle line:84% that it's the policy levers driving decarbonization 00:29:06.220 --> 00:29:12.680 align:middle line:84% and industrial heat are very weak because in electricity, we 00:29:12.680 --> 00:29:16.320 align:middle line:84% have these incentive structures and so on that 00:29:16.320 --> 00:29:18.020 align:middle line:90% are all well established. 00:29:18.020 --> 00:29:20.720 align:middle line:84% We don't have these things for industrial heat. 00:29:20.720 --> 00:29:24.520 align:middle line:84% They just use natural gas, and natural gas is very cheap. 00:29:24.520 --> 00:29:29.040 align:middle line:84% So we have to build that policy framework to incentivize 00:29:29.040 --> 00:29:31.480 align:middle line:90% this transition to occur. 00:29:31.480 --> 00:29:36.000 align:middle line:84% So that's where cost left is off, that the future for nuclear 00:29:36.000 --> 00:29:40.160 align:middle line:84% was in doing this non-electricity market. 00:29:40.160 --> 00:29:44.000 align:middle line:84% But then there was this question of externalities. 00:29:44.000 --> 00:29:47.320 align:middle line:84% And so we talked in detail about the externalities 00:29:47.320 --> 00:29:49.920 align:middle line:90% associated with nuclear. 00:29:49.920 --> 00:29:51.760 align:middle line:90% And there were some. 00:29:51.760 --> 00:29:53.540 align:middle line:90% Well, I'll go through them. 00:29:53.540 --> 00:29:55.580 align:middle line:84% But we never talked about the externalities. 00:29:55.580 --> 00:29:57.100 align:middle line:90% So let's just review them. 00:29:57.100 --> 00:30:00.000 align:middle line:84% The first thing we talked about was nuclear waste. 00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:01.680 align:middle line:84% One of the things that we learned about 00:30:01.680 --> 00:30:05.880 align:middle line:84% was that they have these incredibly stringent performance 00:30:05.880 --> 00:30:08.040 align:middle line:84% standards for these nuclear waste sites. 00:30:08.040 --> 00:30:13.780 align:middle line:84% You're talking about very improbable exposures happening 00:30:13.780 --> 00:30:17.140 align:middle line:84% at 10,001 million years after the waste is in place. 00:30:17.140 --> 00:30:20.420 align:middle line:84% So I think there's a basis for arguing 00:30:20.420 --> 00:30:23.960 align:middle line:84% that some of these standards are a bit on the extreme side. 00:30:23.960 --> 00:30:27.720 align:middle line:90% 00:30:27.720 --> 00:30:29.220 align:middle line:84% It didn't seem like that was really 00:30:29.220 --> 00:30:32.700 align:middle line:84% what was really driving the emplacement problems. 00:30:32.700 --> 00:30:37.460 align:middle line:84% The problems are really being driven more by politics. 00:30:37.460 --> 00:30:41.940 align:middle line:84% We heard the story of the original waste repository 00:30:41.940 --> 00:30:46.340 align:middle line:84% in Kansas and then the problems with Yucca Mountain, 00:30:46.340 --> 00:30:48.940 align:middle line:84% the senators doing late-night deals 00:30:48.940 --> 00:30:53.300 align:middle line:84% to ensure that their state wouldn't get the repository. 00:30:53.300 --> 00:30:56.580 align:middle line:90% That seems to be the issue. 00:30:56.580 --> 00:30:59.940 align:middle line:84% One of the problems with having chosen Yucca Mountain 00:30:59.940 --> 00:31:03.060 align:middle line:84% through political reasons, this is actually a really terrible 00:31:03.060 --> 00:31:05.500 align:middle line:90% site to put nuclear waste. 00:31:05.500 --> 00:31:07.920 align:middle line:84% And that has driven the Department of Energy 00:31:07.920 --> 00:31:13.200 align:middle line:84% to stop thinking about the disposal site as providing 00:31:13.200 --> 00:31:15.640 align:middle line:84% protection against radioactive release, 00:31:15.640 --> 00:31:19.560 align:middle line:84% instead focusing only on engineered systems, a task 00:31:19.560 --> 00:31:21.760 align:middle line:90% that we will design. 00:31:21.760 --> 00:31:26.320 align:middle line:84% The problem is that we don't really understand materials, 00:31:26.320 --> 00:31:30.600 align:middle line:84% and to be frank, geology's at these million-year time scales. 00:31:30.600 --> 00:31:37.000 align:middle line:84% And so it would be imprudent, in my estimation, 00:31:37.000 --> 00:31:40.200 align:middle line:84% to give up the defense-in-depth concepts that 00:31:40.200 --> 00:31:43.620 align:middle line:84% was driving geologic disposition in the first place. 00:31:43.620 --> 00:31:46.760 align:middle line:84% The idea that we'll put the fuel in a container that we hope 00:31:46.760 --> 00:31:49.640 align:middle line:84% will stay intact, but then we'll also put it in a geology 00:31:49.640 --> 00:31:51.280 align:middle line:90% that we hope will stay intact. 00:31:51.280 --> 00:31:53.395 align:middle line:84% And we'll put it somewhere far away from humans, 00:31:53.395 --> 00:31:55.020 align:middle line:84% and we'll put it below the water table. 00:31:55.020 --> 00:31:57.540 align:middle line:84% And so other countries continue to do that, 00:31:57.540 --> 00:32:00.220 align:middle line:84% but the United States has been slowly abandoning it. 00:32:00.220 --> 00:32:04.780 align:middle line:84% And I hope that trend will be reversed. 00:32:04.780 --> 00:32:07.500 align:middle line:84% A small number of countries, France and Japan, 00:32:07.500 --> 00:32:10.900 align:middle line:84% maybe Korea is heading in this direction. 00:32:10.900 --> 00:32:13.620 align:middle line:84% I don't know how to get to this point. 00:32:13.620 --> 00:32:14.960 align:middle line:90% They don't have a lot of land. 00:32:14.960 --> 00:32:17.220 align:middle line:84% They don't have good politics for this. 00:32:17.220 --> 00:32:19.580 align:middle line:84% So they have convinced themselves 00:32:19.580 --> 00:32:21.220 align:middle line:90% of doing reprocessing. 00:32:21.220 --> 00:32:23.360 align:middle line:84% We talked about the economics of reprocessing. 00:32:23.360 --> 00:32:26.020 align:middle line:84% It was an idea that made sense when 00:32:26.020 --> 00:32:29.660 align:middle line:84% we thought that the world did not have very much uranium. 00:32:29.660 --> 00:32:32.500 align:middle line:84% Turns out the world has a lot of uranium, and it's cheap. 00:32:32.500 --> 00:32:35.620 align:middle line:84% And recycling the fuel is only economic 00:32:35.620 --> 00:32:41.460 align:middle line:84% when the uranium is like over five times, sometimes 10 00:32:41.460 --> 00:32:43.780 align:middle line:90% times its current price. 00:32:43.780 --> 00:32:46.900 align:middle line:84% So we looked at projections done by MIT, 00:32:46.900 --> 00:32:48.780 align:middle line:90% at when would that occur. 00:32:48.780 --> 00:32:52.500 align:middle line:84% And the answer was not in the foreseeable future. 00:32:52.500 --> 00:32:59.460 align:middle line:84% So this is not a sensible idea from an economic point of view. 00:32:59.460 --> 00:33:03.200 align:middle line:84% It's an essential part of some fuel cycles 00:33:03.200 --> 00:33:05.800 align:middle line:84% that people talk about, like fast reactors. 00:33:05.800 --> 00:33:09.720 align:middle line:84% But remember, it may be the case, 00:33:09.720 --> 00:33:15.320 align:middle line:84% but the lesson of this class is that climate policy 00:33:15.320 --> 00:33:19.360 align:middle line:84% is going to be driven by cost, not cool tech. 00:33:19.360 --> 00:33:22.200 align:middle line:84% So what's the point of doing cool fast reactor 00:33:22.200 --> 00:33:26.920 align:middle line:84% concepts that won't help fix the climate problem? 00:33:26.920 --> 00:33:32.880 align:middle line:84% So if you can't do this, then the recommendation 00:33:32.880 --> 00:33:34.320 align:middle line:90% is to do this. 00:33:34.320 --> 00:33:37.120 align:middle line:84% Stick this stuff in these dry cask storage 00:33:37.120 --> 00:33:39.480 align:middle line:84% until you can finally fix your politics. 00:33:39.480 --> 00:33:43.800 align:middle line:84% And this is a cheap and basically robust 00:33:43.800 --> 00:33:45.600 align:middle line:90% way of dealing with the waste. 00:33:45.600 --> 00:33:49.320 align:middle line:84% The bottom line is that all of this, 00:33:49.320 --> 00:33:51.780 align:middle line:84% the money that we have set aside to do this, 00:33:51.780 --> 00:33:55.080 align:middle line:90% seems to be adequate. 00:33:55.080 --> 00:33:57.160 align:middle line:84% We've used up about half the Nuclear Waste Fund 00:33:57.160 --> 00:33:58.720 align:middle line:90% on Yucca Mountain. 00:33:58.720 --> 00:34:00.480 align:middle line:90% We need to find a new site. 00:34:00.480 --> 00:34:03.270 align:middle line:84% But if Yucca Mountain had been a good site, 00:34:03.270 --> 00:34:06.850 align:middle line:84% there's no evidence yet that was not enough money. 00:34:06.850 --> 00:34:09.330 align:middle line:84% And that is a tenth of a cent per kilowatt, which converts 00:34:09.330 --> 00:34:11.489 align:middle line:90% to about $1 per megawatt-hour. 00:34:11.489 --> 00:34:14.570 align:middle line:84% So I call this the waste externality. 00:34:14.570 --> 00:34:16.810 align:middle line:90% It's small. 00:34:16.810 --> 00:34:20.370 align:middle line:84% It's not something that we really need to worry about. 00:34:20.370 --> 00:34:24.290 align:middle line:90% Safety was a bigger issue. 00:34:24.290 --> 00:34:30.230 align:middle line:84% So it's already a major driver for the cost of reactors, 00:34:30.230 --> 00:34:35.090 align:middle line:84% because enforcing safety standards during construction 00:34:35.090 --> 00:34:40.370 align:middle line:84% is one of the most expensive drivers of cost escalation. 00:34:40.370 --> 00:34:42.050 align:middle line:84% So we decided to do a calculation 00:34:42.050 --> 00:34:44.489 align:middle line:84% to see if reactors were safe enough. 00:34:44.489 --> 00:34:50.050 align:middle line:84% And what we found was that a major accident of the Fukushima 00:34:50.050 --> 00:34:56.889 align:middle line:84% Chernobyl style, which to be clear, is an INES 7 event-- 00:34:56.889 --> 00:34:59.610 align:middle line:90% 00:34:59.610 --> 00:35:02.190 align:middle line:84% we tried to figure out what an average reactor 00:35:02.190 --> 00:35:06.310 align:middle line:84% accident was-- kills about a quarter million people. 00:35:06.310 --> 00:35:08.250 align:middle line:90% And that was a big number. 00:35:08.250 --> 00:35:10.510 align:middle line:84% And a lot of you were like, oh my God. 00:35:10.510 --> 00:35:13.830 align:middle line:84% But when you actually then divide 00:35:13.830 --> 00:35:15.450 align:middle line:84% by the total amount of electricity, 00:35:15.450 --> 00:35:18.990 align:middle line:84% it turns out to be like something like two deaths 00:35:18.990 --> 00:35:20.590 align:middle line:90% per terawatt-hour. 00:35:20.590 --> 00:35:22.910 align:middle line:90% And that's actually pretty good. 00:35:22.910 --> 00:35:28.390 align:middle line:84% It's much less than most of these fossil fuel technologies. 00:35:28.390 --> 00:35:31.470 align:middle line:90% So it is relatively safe. 00:35:31.470 --> 00:35:40.270 align:middle line:84% Now some people will say that, well, reactors will get safer. 00:35:40.270 --> 00:35:45.630 align:middle line:84% So maybe we can actually reduce the safety so that we can also-- 00:35:45.630 --> 00:35:47.990 align:middle line:90% this is not a bad number. 00:35:47.990 --> 00:35:52.510 align:middle line:84% And maybe we can reduce the safety enforcement 00:35:52.510 --> 00:35:54.310 align:middle line:90% during construction-- 00:35:54.310 --> 00:35:57.530 align:middle line:84% what is going on now here in the United States. 00:35:57.530 --> 00:36:03.210 align:middle line:84% And my retort to that is you don't really 00:36:03.210 --> 00:36:07.410 align:middle line:84% know how safe these reactors are until events happen. 00:36:07.410 --> 00:36:11.290 align:middle line:84% Most of the accidents that have happened, 00:36:11.290 --> 00:36:12.710 align:middle line:84% big accidents that have happened, 00:36:12.710 --> 00:36:16.610 align:middle line:84% were not in the PRA models at the time 00:36:16.610 --> 00:36:18.250 align:middle line:90% that the accident happened. 00:36:18.250 --> 00:36:22.570 align:middle line:84% And we should remember that even though Chernobyl was bad, 00:36:22.570 --> 00:36:25.930 align:middle line:84% that if the spent fuel pool at Fukushima 00:36:25.930 --> 00:36:28.210 align:middle line:84% had did not have the leak that allowed water 00:36:28.210 --> 00:36:31.010 align:middle line:84% to leak into the pool and keep the fuel submerged, 00:36:31.010 --> 00:36:34.130 align:middle line:84% there was a risk of a spent fuel fire, which 00:36:34.130 --> 00:36:37.450 align:middle line:84% if that had happened, would have been much worse than Chernobyl. 00:36:37.450 --> 00:36:40.390 align:middle line:84% So despite the fact that these reactors are more modern, 00:36:40.390 --> 00:36:43.110 align:middle line:84% they're not necessarily more safe. 00:36:43.110 --> 00:36:47.410 align:middle line:84% So we should be careful about this. 00:36:47.410 --> 00:36:50.810 align:middle line:84% So we did the we did the calculation. 00:36:50.810 --> 00:36:54.050 align:middle line:84% If we assume $11 million per life, 00:36:54.050 --> 00:36:56.750 align:middle line:84% then 2 fatalities per terawatt-hour 00:36:56.750 --> 00:37:02.470 align:middle line:84% turns into $22 per megawatt-hour for externalities. 00:37:02.470 --> 00:37:04.670 align:middle line:84% We also saw that after Fukushima, there's 00:37:04.670 --> 00:37:08.030 align:middle line:84% all these cleanup costs, and it costs about $5 00:37:08.030 --> 00:37:09.050 align:middle line:90% per megawatt-hour. 00:37:09.050 --> 00:37:11.230 align:middle line:84% So the externality adds up to something 00:37:11.230 --> 00:37:16.110 align:middle line:84% like $27 per megawatt-hour and much more significant 00:37:16.110 --> 00:37:19.230 align:middle line:84% nuclear waste and also, significant 00:37:19.230 --> 00:37:21.670 align:middle line:84% relative to the cost of the energy 00:37:21.670 --> 00:37:24.810 align:middle line:84% in the first place-- a fifth, maybe. 00:37:24.810 --> 00:37:33.310 align:middle line:90% 00:37:33.310 --> 00:37:34.576 align:middle line:90% Yep. 00:37:34.576 --> 00:37:37.670 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: I was going to ask-- so we started with things, 00:37:37.670 --> 00:37:40.190 align:middle line:84% I guess the carbon question is kind of murky. 00:37:40.190 --> 00:37:43.030 align:middle line:84% So fossil carbon, it's a bit murky. 00:37:43.030 --> 00:37:46.290 align:middle line:84% Then it seems like just based on health externalities, 00:37:46.290 --> 00:37:49.150 align:middle line:84% that would be the reason to decarbonize, especially 00:37:49.150 --> 00:37:51.070 align:middle line:84% for qualitative if you think like-- 00:37:51.070 --> 00:37:53.230 align:middle line:84% SCOTT KEMP: Completely on board with that. 00:37:53.230 --> 00:37:56.690 align:middle line:84% Yeah, completely on board with that idea 00:37:56.690 --> 00:37:59.690 align:middle line:84% about reducing small particulate emissions, 00:37:59.690 --> 00:38:04.112 align:middle line:84% as well as actually dealing with-- this 00:38:04.112 --> 00:38:05.570 align:middle line:84% is something that people don't talk 00:38:05.570 --> 00:38:11.210 align:middle line:84% about-- dealing with CO2 for non-climate change reasons. 00:38:11.210 --> 00:38:14.850 align:middle line:84% It's good for plants, but if your reservoir of-- 00:38:14.850 --> 00:38:18.130 align:middle line:84% OK, now I'm really on the fringe of what 00:38:18.130 --> 00:38:19.550 align:middle line:90% is widely acceptable here. 00:38:19.550 --> 00:38:24.290 align:middle line:84% But if your ultimate reservoir for air exchanges outside 00:38:24.290 --> 00:38:28.570 align:middle line:84% and the CO2 level there doubles, then ipso facto. 00:38:28.570 --> 00:38:30.790 align:middle line:84% For given ventilation rate in a room, 00:38:30.790 --> 00:38:34.010 align:middle line:84% the CO2 level inside also doubles. 00:38:34.010 --> 00:38:38.130 align:middle line:84% And what we find is that indoor CO2 levels can easily reach 00:38:38.130 --> 00:38:41.610 align:middle line:90% something like 1,000 PPM. 00:38:41.610 --> 00:38:43.410 align:middle line:84% Now, in a well-ventilated site, it 00:38:43.410 --> 00:38:44.910 align:middle line:90% should be much less than that. 00:38:44.910 --> 00:38:50.530 align:middle line:84% But in people's houses and in rooms that are like typically 00:38:50.530 --> 00:38:55.750 align:middle line:84% poorly ventilated, especially energy-efficient places, 00:38:55.750 --> 00:38:59.750 align:middle line:84% 1,000 PPM indoor CO2 level is not uncommon. 00:38:59.750 --> 00:39:02.070 align:middle line:84% What's interesting about that is there are measurable 00:39:02.070 --> 00:39:06.070 align:middle line:84% intellectual deficits at 1,000 PPM. 00:39:06.070 --> 00:39:10.870 align:middle line:84% People are dumber because of CO2 emissions. 00:39:10.870 --> 00:39:15.570 align:middle line:84% And some people also actually have physiologic responses-- 00:39:15.570 --> 00:39:18.990 align:middle line:84% inappropriate response to hypercapnia, as it's called-- 00:39:18.990 --> 00:39:23.430 align:middle line:84% at those levels where their bodies are literally 00:39:23.430 --> 00:39:24.930 align:middle line:84% being degraded, and their lives are 00:39:24.930 --> 00:39:26.430 align:middle line:84% being shortened because their bodies 00:39:26.430 --> 00:39:30.310 align:middle line:84% are struggling with the excess CO2. 00:39:30.310 --> 00:39:34.270 align:middle line:84% So I'm completely on board for getting rid of CO2 00:39:34.270 --> 00:39:35.590 align:middle line:90% for those reasons. 00:39:35.590 --> 00:39:41.150 align:middle line:84% It's just really hard to justify based on climate science. 00:39:41.150 --> 00:39:43.390 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:39:43.390 --> 00:39:43.890 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:39:43.890 --> 00:39:48.750 align:middle line:84% So the point you raise is actually this. 00:39:48.750 --> 00:39:50.890 align:middle line:84% What we really should be doing is not 00:39:50.890 --> 00:39:54.690 align:middle line:84% focusing on CO2 or climate, but focusing 00:39:54.690 --> 00:39:57.650 align:middle line:84% on the totality of externalities, 00:39:57.650 --> 00:40:00.530 align:middle line:84% all of the harms done to society, 00:40:00.530 --> 00:40:06.290 align:middle line:84% and then choosing the best energy technology for that. 00:40:06.290 --> 00:40:10.930 align:middle line:84% And we're going to do that calculation today, or attempt 00:40:10.930 --> 00:40:11.430 align:middle line:90% it. 00:40:11.430 --> 00:40:16.690 align:middle line:90% 00:40:16.690 --> 00:40:22.610 align:middle line:84% So just to finish up with the safety story, 00:40:22.610 --> 00:40:24.490 align:middle line:84% one of the issues that is happening 00:40:24.490 --> 00:40:26.730 align:middle line:84% right now in the United States is this trend move 00:40:26.730 --> 00:40:28.850 align:middle line:90% to something called-- 00:40:28.850 --> 00:40:30.350 align:middle line:90% is this about-- yeah. 00:40:30.350 --> 00:40:31.730 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: It's about the slide. 00:40:31.730 --> 00:40:33.330 align:middle line:84% Real quick, before, you mentioned 00:40:33.330 --> 00:40:38.310 align:middle line:84% how we revise what the nuclear number was on that chart. 00:40:38.310 --> 00:40:41.512 align:middle line:84% Do you ever go back and check if the other numbers-- 00:40:41.512 --> 00:40:42.970 align:middle line:84% SCOTT KEMP: We're doing that today. 00:40:42.970 --> 00:40:43.512 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: OK. 00:40:43.512 --> 00:40:44.610 align:middle line:90% SCOTT KEMP: Yep. 00:40:44.610 --> 00:40:47.710 align:middle line:90% So OK. 00:40:47.710 --> 00:40:49.870 align:middle line:84% Yeah, so one of the things that is happening 00:40:49.870 --> 00:40:52.230 align:middle line:84% in the nuclear world, because people 00:40:52.230 --> 00:40:55.710 align:middle line:84% don't like the cost of safety enforcement, 00:40:55.710 --> 00:41:01.030 align:middle line:84% is that they are pushing for something 00:41:01.030 --> 00:41:03.630 align:middle line:90% called risk-informed licensing. 00:41:03.630 --> 00:41:07.870 align:middle line:84% And what that is is basically to move away a little bit 00:41:07.870 --> 00:41:11.990 align:middle line:84% from the traditional methods of defense in depth. 00:41:11.990 --> 00:41:15.390 align:middle line:84% And one of the challenges with that 00:41:15.390 --> 00:41:21.630 align:middle line:84% is that the major nuclear accidents, Chernobyl, Fukushima, 00:41:21.630 --> 00:41:24.950 align:middle line:90% even TMI, were-- 00:41:24.950 --> 00:41:27.870 align:middle line:84% well, I guess not TMI, Chernobyl and Fukushima, 00:41:27.870 --> 00:41:31.430 align:middle line:84% were beyond design basis accidents. 00:41:31.430 --> 00:41:35.550 align:middle line:84% So it's just to say that they were events 00:41:35.550 --> 00:41:37.878 align:middle line:84% that we intentionally chose, said, well, this 00:41:37.878 --> 00:41:39.670 align:middle line:84% is going to happen so rarely that we're not 00:41:39.670 --> 00:41:43.470 align:middle line:84% going to put this in the safety design. 00:41:43.470 --> 00:41:47.800 align:middle line:84% But the reason those reactor accidents weren't worse 00:41:47.800 --> 00:41:51.720 align:middle line:84% is because those reactors were equipped with passive defense 00:41:51.720 --> 00:41:55.600 align:middle line:84% in depth, like containments that helped 00:41:55.600 --> 00:42:00.040 align:middle line:84% attenuate some of the release from those accidents. 00:42:00.040 --> 00:42:04.800 align:middle line:84% If we give that up in the name of smaller, cheaper reactors, 00:42:04.800 --> 00:42:09.360 align:middle line:84% then the beyond design basis accidents are apt to be worse. 00:42:09.360 --> 00:42:12.060 align:middle line:84% And that's something that we ought to think carefully about. 00:42:12.060 --> 00:42:14.640 align:middle line:90% 00:42:14.640 --> 00:42:19.080 align:middle line:84% So what is the worst case that we can tolerate 00:42:19.080 --> 00:42:20.700 align:middle line:90% or the worst-case accident? 00:42:20.700 --> 00:42:22.360 align:middle line:84% The worst-case accident is the accident 00:42:22.360 --> 00:42:24.440 align:middle line:84% that causes the public to completely lose 00:42:24.440 --> 00:42:27.080 align:middle line:90% faith in nuclear altogether. 00:42:27.080 --> 00:42:30.560 align:middle line:84% And we are courting danger when we 00:42:30.560 --> 00:42:36.720 align:middle line:84% start to cut back the safety standards, which is happening 00:42:36.720 --> 00:42:39.320 align:middle line:90% in the United States right now. 00:42:39.320 --> 00:42:41.720 align:middle line:90% So I think, yeah. 00:42:41.720 --> 00:42:45.800 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: Maybe my faith in incentives 00:42:45.800 --> 00:42:47.560 align:middle line:84% of the nuclear industry is too high, 00:42:47.560 --> 00:42:48.980 align:middle line:84% but isn't a part of the motivation 00:42:48.980 --> 00:42:53.820 align:middle line:84% for risk-informed licensing that if you 00:42:53.820 --> 00:42:56.260 align:middle line:84% want to do deterministic licensing, 00:42:56.260 --> 00:43:00.480 align:middle line:84% you have to create these design basis accidents? 00:43:00.480 --> 00:43:02.580 align:middle line:84% And historically, for example, there 00:43:02.580 --> 00:43:06.937 align:middle line:84% is a lot of focus on large [INAUDIBLE] to deal with that. 00:43:06.937 --> 00:43:08.020 align:middle line:90% It can deal with anything. 00:43:08.020 --> 00:43:09.420 align:middle line:90% SCOTT KEMP: Which is not true. 00:43:09.420 --> 00:43:10.587 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: Well, if it works. 00:43:10.587 --> 00:43:13.200 align:middle line:84% Whereas if you would have just started with what can happen, 00:43:13.200 --> 00:43:14.960 align:middle line:84% you would have caught at the small break. 00:43:14.960 --> 00:43:16.740 align:middle line:90% Local is actually worse. 00:43:16.740 --> 00:43:18.700 align:middle line:84% SCOTT KEMP: In expectation value. 00:43:18.700 --> 00:43:21.700 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: Yeah, so wouldn't it also be-- 00:43:21.700 --> 00:43:22.660 align:middle line:90% I don't know. 00:43:22.660 --> 00:43:26.980 align:middle line:84% SCOTT KEMP: So I think there's a role for both. 00:43:26.980 --> 00:43:29.500 align:middle line:84% The warning is just don't give up defense in depth 00:43:29.500 --> 00:43:32.260 align:middle line:90% as a principal. 00:43:32.260 --> 00:43:35.320 align:middle line:84% What we're doing now, which is to say we have defense in depth, 00:43:35.320 --> 00:43:39.080 align:middle line:84% but we use PRA models to inform our design choices. 00:43:39.080 --> 00:43:41.180 align:middle line:84% I think it's a perfectly valid choice. 00:43:41.180 --> 00:43:44.300 align:middle line:84% The problem comes when you take the outcome of the PRA model, 00:43:44.300 --> 00:43:47.360 align:middle line:84% and you say this is the true safety risk. 00:43:47.360 --> 00:43:50.320 align:middle line:84% And we can then therefore throw away all these other backup 00:43:50.320 --> 00:43:55.760 align:middle line:84% systems because you can twiddle those numbers to give you 00:43:55.760 --> 00:43:57.280 align:middle line:90% whatever you want. 00:43:57.280 --> 00:43:59.520 align:middle line:90% And that's the problem. 00:43:59.520 --> 00:44:04.520 align:middle line:84% We should maintain some humility in our engineering design 00:44:04.520 --> 00:44:06.800 align:middle line:84% to say, what if these numbers are wrong? 00:44:06.800 --> 00:44:09.480 align:middle line:84% And we'll have a second layer of backup. 00:44:09.480 --> 00:44:11.100 align:middle line:90% And that's all I'm suggesting. 00:44:11.100 --> 00:44:14.560 align:middle line:90% 00:44:14.560 --> 00:44:19.680 align:middle line:84% So I think in terms of safety, the US operating experience 00:44:19.680 --> 00:44:23.480 align:middle line:90% is the best. 00:44:23.480 --> 00:44:29.360 align:middle line:84% We run a fleet that is very well-built, very safely run. 00:44:29.360 --> 00:44:32.640 align:middle line:84% And as a result, is economically optimal 00:44:32.640 --> 00:44:36.000 align:middle line:84% compared to most countries because we get 00:44:36.000 --> 00:44:37.920 align:middle line:90% really good capacity factors. 00:44:37.920 --> 00:44:38.968 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:44:38.968 --> 00:44:41.260 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: Back to the thing you said just a minute ago, 00:44:41.260 --> 00:44:43.300 align:middle line:84% where you said like the worst-case scenario is 00:44:43.300 --> 00:44:47.220 align:middle line:84% essentially an accident that would make the public lose faith 00:44:47.220 --> 00:44:48.500 align:middle line:90% in nuclear. 00:44:48.500 --> 00:44:52.860 align:middle line:84% I don't believe that because I feel like we've already 00:44:52.860 --> 00:44:55.660 align:middle line:84% hit that point, like with Chernobyl historically 00:44:55.660 --> 00:44:57.320 align:middle line:90% and Fukushima in some places. 00:44:57.320 --> 00:45:00.420 align:middle line:84% But we have sprung back in public opinion. 00:45:00.420 --> 00:45:04.077 align:middle line:84% Obviously, it hasn't been a linear pathway. 00:45:04.077 --> 00:45:05.660 align:middle line:84% But I do feel like there's generations 00:45:05.660 --> 00:45:10.100 align:middle line:84% that dislike nuclear, and more recent generations 00:45:10.100 --> 00:45:11.560 align:middle line:90% are more pro-nuclear. 00:45:11.560 --> 00:45:13.200 align:middle line:84% And it just kind of cycles around. 00:45:13.200 --> 00:45:17.740 align:middle line:84% So I think that there's humans love forgetting things 00:45:17.740 --> 00:45:19.120 align:middle line:90% on generational cycles. 00:45:19.120 --> 00:45:23.460 align:middle line:84% So I feel like that's not borne out in the actual experience. 00:45:23.460 --> 00:45:26.660 align:middle line:84% I would argue that the accident that we're trying to avoid 00:45:26.660 --> 00:45:32.580 align:middle line:84% is something that kills so many people, that sticks a bit more. 00:45:32.580 --> 00:45:39.000 align:middle line:84% SCOTT KEMP: So first of all, I agree that human memory 00:45:39.000 --> 00:45:42.640 align:middle line:90% definitely has a half-life. 00:45:42.640 --> 00:45:46.600 align:middle line:84% But I would say, from an energy policy 00:45:46.600 --> 00:45:50.920 align:middle line:84% perspective, what happened at Fukushima 00:45:50.920 --> 00:45:53.560 align:middle line:90% was disastrous for Japan. 00:45:53.560 --> 00:45:59.640 align:middle line:84% And that's kind of what I mean, that basically a whole bunch 00:45:59.640 --> 00:46:03.380 align:middle line:84% of the fleet goes offline, and it stays offline for a decade. 00:46:03.380 --> 00:46:06.083 align:middle line:84% And we're paying premium, basically paid. 00:46:06.083 --> 00:46:07.500 align:middle line:84% We could have done wind and solar. 00:46:07.500 --> 00:46:11.020 align:middle line:84% Instead, we chose to pay four times more for nuclear, 00:46:11.020 --> 00:46:14.380 align:middle line:84% and then we have to also buy natural gas to back that up. 00:46:14.380 --> 00:46:17.340 align:middle line:84% And it just becomes this enormous disaster. 00:46:17.340 --> 00:46:19.120 align:middle line:84% That's kind of what I meant by that. 00:46:19.120 --> 00:46:26.520 align:middle line:84% Yeah, whether the public will ever permanently lose faith 00:46:26.520 --> 00:46:30.120 align:middle line:84% in nuclear and say, never again-- yeah, I'm doubtful. 00:46:30.120 --> 00:46:33.320 align:middle line:84% Marketing forces will always be sufficient to overcome that. 00:46:33.320 --> 00:46:36.000 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: I think we should have lost faith in coal by now. 00:46:36.000 --> 00:46:37.720 align:middle line:84% SCOTT KEMP: We absolutely should have. 00:46:37.720 --> 00:46:39.545 align:middle line:90% Absolutely. 00:46:39.545 --> 00:46:41.420 align:middle line:84% Yeah, we'll look at the externalities on coal 00:46:41.420 --> 00:46:43.940 align:middle line:90% in a minute. 00:46:43.940 --> 00:46:44.560 align:middle line:90% All right. 00:46:44.560 --> 00:46:49.620 align:middle line:90% So not a small consideration. 00:46:49.620 --> 00:46:52.600 align:middle line:84% Not a lot of room for making the reactors less safe. 00:46:52.600 --> 00:46:54.140 align:middle line:90% I think that's my bottom line. 00:46:54.140 --> 00:46:59.140 align:middle line:84% The externality at $27 a megawatt-hour, 00:46:59.140 --> 00:47:02.980 align:middle line:84% unless the other externalities turn out to be way higher safety 00:47:02.980 --> 00:47:06.740 align:middle line:84% externalities, which they might be for coal, 00:47:06.740 --> 00:47:09.260 align:middle line:84% there's not a lot of room for motion here. 00:47:09.260 --> 00:47:11.420 align:middle line:84% The last one we talked about is something 00:47:11.420 --> 00:47:14.140 align:middle line:90% that you never see calculated. 00:47:14.140 --> 00:47:17.380 align:middle line:84% This is the only place you'll ever find it calculated. 00:47:17.380 --> 00:47:20.780 align:middle line:90% And that is nuclear weapons. 00:47:20.780 --> 00:47:24.160 align:middle line:84% And this is a very controversial calculation. 00:47:24.160 --> 00:47:25.660 align:middle line:90% I acknowledge that. 00:47:25.660 --> 00:47:29.620 align:middle line:84% We use Bayes' to estimate the probability 00:47:29.620 --> 00:47:32.140 align:middle line:84% that a civil nuclear power program helps give rise 00:47:32.140 --> 00:47:33.440 align:middle line:90% to a nuclear weapons program. 00:47:33.440 --> 00:47:37.260 align:middle line:84% We estimated that to be about 63%. 00:47:37.260 --> 00:47:41.240 align:middle line:84% It's very hard to predict who the good guys are. 00:47:41.240 --> 00:47:43.600 align:middle line:84% You want to say, well, this is only fundamentally 00:47:43.600 --> 00:47:46.205 align:middle line:84% an issue with exporting nuclear power. 00:47:46.205 --> 00:47:47.580 align:middle line:84% It's fine if you don't export it. 00:47:47.580 --> 00:47:50.120 align:middle line:90% This externality goes away. 00:47:50.120 --> 00:47:52.000 align:middle line:84% But if we're exporting it, then we 00:47:52.000 --> 00:47:53.960 align:middle line:84% have to deal with this externality. 00:47:53.960 --> 00:48:00.720 align:middle line:84% And so it's a very on again, on or off type of thing. 00:48:00.720 --> 00:48:05.880 align:middle line:84% We had lessons from Iran and Iraq, 00:48:05.880 --> 00:48:08.680 align:middle line:84% both of whom were our friends, both of whom 00:48:08.680 --> 00:48:11.520 align:middle line:84% later turned and used their civil nuclear technology 00:48:11.520 --> 00:48:13.240 align:middle line:90% to build weapons programs. 00:48:13.240 --> 00:48:17.200 align:middle line:84% Iraq, we actually were selling them enrichment technology 00:48:17.200 --> 00:48:19.280 align:middle line:90% at the time. 00:48:19.280 --> 00:48:21.280 align:middle line:84% Iran, we were selling them enrichment technology 00:48:21.280 --> 00:48:22.360 align:middle line:90% at the time. 00:48:22.360 --> 00:48:28.360 align:middle line:84% So it's very hard to know where the politics will take us. 00:48:28.360 --> 00:48:31.280 align:middle line:84% And one of the ways I tried to drive that home 00:48:31.280 --> 00:48:35.560 align:middle line:84% is to point out that the average age of a constitution 00:48:35.560 --> 00:48:40.260 align:middle line:84% in the world is about 43 years before there 00:48:40.260 --> 00:48:42.160 align:middle line:84% was a major government reorganization. 00:48:42.160 --> 00:48:44.192 align:middle line:84% Not all of these turn out to completely change 00:48:44.192 --> 00:48:45.400 align:middle line:90% the character of the country. 00:48:45.400 --> 00:48:47.300 align:middle line:90% Many of them don't, actually. 00:48:47.300 --> 00:48:49.860 align:middle line:90% But it just goes to show you. 00:48:49.860 --> 00:48:52.740 align:middle line:84% You don't know who you're really negotiating with. 00:48:52.740 --> 00:48:54.600 align:middle line:90% Reactors are lasting 60 years. 00:48:54.600 --> 00:48:57.580 align:middle line:84% Plutonium is lasting tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands 00:48:57.580 --> 00:48:58.300 align:middle line:90% of years. 00:48:58.300 --> 00:49:02.220 align:middle line:84% So you're creating a risk that you can't necessarily 00:49:02.220 --> 00:49:03.480 align:middle line:90% manage into the future. 00:49:03.480 --> 00:49:06.820 align:middle line:84% So this is something that has to-- oh, 00:49:06.820 --> 00:49:08.680 align:middle line:84% there's a little friend's picture. 00:49:08.680 --> 00:49:12.368 align:middle line:90% 00:49:12.368 --> 00:49:14.160 align:middle line:84% It's something that we have to think about, 00:49:14.160 --> 00:49:16.220 align:middle line:90% and we tend not to think about. 00:49:16.220 --> 00:49:18.820 align:middle line:84% The externality range is all over the place-- 00:49:18.820 --> 00:49:22.020 align:middle line:90% 20 to 300. 00:49:22.020 --> 00:49:23.740 align:middle line:84% The number that I like, which was 00:49:23.740 --> 00:49:27.700 align:middle line:84% sanctions policy, debited only against US power production 00:49:27.700 --> 00:49:28.400 align:middle line:90% is 60. 00:49:28.400 --> 00:49:31.020 align:middle line:84% So that's the number I'm going to use going forward-- 00:49:31.020 --> 00:49:32.600 align:middle line:90% $60 per megawatt hour. 00:49:32.600 --> 00:49:35.670 align:middle line:90% So this is very large. 00:49:35.670 --> 00:49:42.670 align:middle line:84% So getting back to this, we want to verify what the situation is 00:49:42.670 --> 00:49:44.870 align:middle line:84% with all of these other things so that we know how 00:49:44.870 --> 00:49:47.670 align:middle line:90% to read the number on nuclear-- 00:49:47.670 --> 00:49:50.350 align:middle line:90% this plot, actually. 00:49:50.350 --> 00:49:52.830 align:middle line:84% I want this plot-- yeah, that's better-- 00:49:52.830 --> 00:49:55.470 align:middle line:90% with the adjusted externality. 00:49:55.470 --> 00:49:55.970 align:middle line:90% All right. 00:49:55.970 --> 00:49:57.290 align:middle line:90% So let's just talk. 00:49:57.290 --> 00:50:00.810 align:middle line:84% So any questions about this historical stuff? 00:50:00.810 --> 00:50:01.310 align:middle line:90% No? 00:50:01.310 --> 00:50:01.810 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:50:01.810 --> 00:50:03.870 align:middle line:84% People have been asking, so that's good. 00:50:03.870 --> 00:50:06.910 align:middle line:84% So what other what other externalities 00:50:06.910 --> 00:50:10.230 align:middle line:84% have we not discussed that might apply to some 00:50:10.230 --> 00:50:12.070 align:middle line:90% of these other technologies? 00:50:12.070 --> 00:50:15.310 align:middle line:90% Well, there's a lot. 00:50:15.310 --> 00:50:18.910 align:middle line:84% So we really, really need to go beyond just deaths. 00:50:18.910 --> 00:50:25.710 align:middle line:84% You talk about things like the effect of SO2 00:50:25.710 --> 00:50:30.190 align:middle line:84% on galvanized steel, decomposition 00:50:30.190 --> 00:50:36.890 align:middle line:84% of buildings, acidification that affects crop yields, ozone 00:50:36.890 --> 00:50:39.390 align:middle line:84% that affects wheat, barley, rye, oat, and potato yields. 00:50:39.390 --> 00:50:46.290 align:middle line:84% You have PM10 that produces congestive heart failure, which 00:50:46.290 --> 00:50:51.650 align:middle line:90% is a big thing for coal plants. 00:50:51.650 --> 00:50:54.530 align:middle line:84% Accident risks from transportation transporting 00:50:54.530 --> 00:51:00.110 align:middle line:84% fuels, noise risks, eutrophication, 00:51:00.110 --> 00:51:05.170 align:middle line:84% which is deposits of phosphates into lakes and streams 00:51:05.170 --> 00:51:09.170 align:middle line:84% that causes algae blooms, all kinds 00:51:09.170 --> 00:51:13.890 align:middle line:84% of phenomena, mercury from coal causing IQ changes in children. 00:51:13.890 --> 00:51:18.210 align:middle line:90% This is not an easy thing to do. 00:51:18.210 --> 00:51:21.250 align:middle line:84% One of the problems with attempting 00:51:21.250 --> 00:51:24.050 align:middle line:84% to find all of these externalities 00:51:24.050 --> 00:51:29.250 align:middle line:84% is that they turn out to be very specific to the region 00:51:29.250 --> 00:51:31.290 align:middle line:84% or country in which you are operating. 00:51:31.290 --> 00:51:31.790 align:middle line:90% Yes. 00:51:31.790 --> 00:51:33.710 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: PDF. 00:51:33.710 --> 00:51:34.910 align:middle line:90% SCOTT KEMP: PDF? 00:51:34.910 --> 00:51:38.730 align:middle line:90% Oh, PDF of species. 00:51:38.730 --> 00:51:40.650 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: Probability distribution function. 00:51:40.650 --> 00:51:41.233 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: Yes. 00:51:41.233 --> 00:51:45.550 align:middle line:90% 00:51:45.550 --> 00:51:48.070 align:middle line:90% SCOTT KEMP: I have no idea. 00:51:48.070 --> 00:51:50.110 align:middle line:84% It also has a little apostrophe, which 00:51:50.110 --> 00:51:55.390 align:middle line:84% suggests to me that this might have been an accidental paste 00:51:55.390 --> 00:51:56.650 align:middle line:90% where you delete a word. 00:51:56.650 --> 00:52:00.140 align:middle line:90% 00:52:00.140 --> 00:52:01.890 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: That's what you said-- land use. 00:52:01.890 --> 00:52:03.330 align:middle line:90% I imagine it's like you had-- 00:52:03.330 --> 00:52:05.290 align:middle line:90% SCOTT KEMP: Oh, PDF of species. 00:52:05.290 --> 00:52:06.323 align:middle line:90% I see. 00:52:06.323 --> 00:52:08.490 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: Yeah, it's got to be probability, correct? 00:52:08.490 --> 00:52:09.948 align:middle line:90% SCOTT KEMP: No. 00:52:09.948 --> 00:52:10.490 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: No. 00:52:10.490 --> 00:52:13.150 align:middle line:90% 00:52:13.150 --> 00:52:15.070 align:middle line:84% SCOTT KEMP: I'm not sure what it stands for. 00:52:15.070 --> 00:52:16.477 align:middle line:90% I have forgot. 00:52:16.477 --> 00:52:18.810 align:middle line:84% It's a problem when you make slides years and years ago. 00:52:18.810 --> 00:52:24.110 align:middle line:90% 00:52:24.110 --> 00:52:28.270 align:middle line:84% So it turns out that these calculations vary dramatically 00:52:28.270 --> 00:52:30.490 align:middle line:90% by region. 00:52:30.490 --> 00:52:38.450 align:middle line:84% Is that coal plant next to a field of barley or not? 00:52:38.450 --> 00:52:40.470 align:middle line:84% Is an extra city full of children? 00:52:40.470 --> 00:52:47.050 align:middle line:90% 00:52:47.050 --> 00:52:49.790 align:middle line:84% We talked about transportation risks. 00:52:49.790 --> 00:52:50.890 align:middle line:90% Well, that matters. 00:52:50.890 --> 00:52:52.450 align:middle line:84% There's different risk if that oil 00:52:52.450 --> 00:52:56.090 align:middle line:84% comes in a pipeline versus being shipped in a container ship 00:52:56.090 --> 00:52:58.730 align:middle line:90% or in an oil tanker ship. 00:52:58.730 --> 00:53:03.437 align:middle line:84% So it turns out that these are all very difficult things to do. 00:53:03.437 --> 00:53:05.270 align:middle line:84% Health risks, which are some of the biggest, 00:53:05.270 --> 00:53:06.970 align:middle line:84% are also some of the most difficult. 00:53:06.970 --> 00:53:11.170 align:middle line:84% So it turns out you calculate it in days of labor lost. 00:53:11.170 --> 00:53:14.290 align:middle line:84% Well, that depends entirely on what the value of that labor 00:53:14.290 --> 00:53:22.450 align:middle line:84% is, which depends on who's being affected and in what country, 00:53:22.450 --> 00:53:26.770 align:middle line:84% and what economic scales-- so not easy. 00:53:26.770 --> 00:53:30.590 align:middle line:90% So how do we do all this. 00:53:30.590 --> 00:53:35.058 align:middle line:90% So one idea-- yes, it's blank-- 00:53:35.058 --> 00:53:37.350 align:middle line:84% is that we could try to get a whole bunch of scientists 00:53:37.350 --> 00:53:43.870 align:middle line:84% together and say, let's look at all the negative effects. 00:53:43.870 --> 00:53:45.210 align:middle line:90% We'll get some ecologists. 00:53:45.210 --> 00:53:46.570 align:middle line:90% We'll get health experts. 00:53:46.570 --> 00:53:50.710 align:middle line:84% We'll get economists, and we'll look at every single plant 00:53:50.710 --> 00:53:54.710 align:middle line:84% and where they're located and who's affected by the emissions 00:53:54.710 --> 00:53:55.990 align:middle line:90% from that plant. 00:53:55.990 --> 00:53:57.910 align:middle line:84% And we'll do this for every country, 00:53:57.910 --> 00:54:00.150 align:middle line:90% and we'll add it all up. 00:54:00.150 --> 00:54:02.470 align:middle line:90% And that sounds crazy. 00:54:02.470 --> 00:54:06.750 align:middle line:90% But in fact, this was tried. 00:54:06.750 --> 00:54:10.310 align:middle line:84% So there was something called the ExternE Project that 00:54:10.310 --> 00:54:15.150 align:middle line:84% was founded in 1991 jointly by the US Department of Energy 00:54:15.150 --> 00:54:16.870 align:middle line:90% and the European Commission. 00:54:16.870 --> 00:54:20.550 align:middle line:84% They employed 100 scientists for 15 years, 00:54:20.550 --> 00:54:23.750 align:middle line:90% and this was their job. 00:54:23.750 --> 00:54:28.530 align:middle line:84% And they tried to come up with externality measurements. 00:54:28.530 --> 00:54:30.890 align:middle line:84% It's still one of the most significant studies 00:54:30.890 --> 00:54:33.570 align:middle line:84% of externalities has ever been done. 00:54:33.570 --> 00:54:38.010 align:middle line:84% But the problem is that now that the data are 20 years old. 00:54:38.010 --> 00:54:40.890 align:middle line:84% And we've learned a lot about health effects 00:54:40.890 --> 00:54:43.970 align:middle line:90% that we didn't 20 years ago. 00:54:43.970 --> 00:54:48.550 align:middle line:84% So this is also woefully outdated, 00:54:48.550 --> 00:54:54.370 align:middle line:84% despite the magnificence of the effort. 00:54:54.370 --> 00:54:56.010 align:middle line:84% Another way we could do this is we 00:54:56.010 --> 00:54:57.550 align:middle line:84% could look at individual studies. 00:54:57.550 --> 00:54:59.210 align:middle line:84% But the problem with individual studies 00:54:59.210 --> 00:55:04.770 align:middle line:84% is that the study author brings a lot of bias 00:55:04.770 --> 00:55:06.570 align:middle line:90% into their calculation. 00:55:06.570 --> 00:55:14.850 align:middle line:84% Is the study being funded by the gas lobby? 00:55:14.850 --> 00:55:19.370 align:middle line:84% Did they really do a good job of counting up everything? 00:55:19.370 --> 00:55:22.130 align:middle line:84% So the only fair way to look at individual studies 00:55:22.130 --> 00:55:26.670 align:middle line:84% is to look at a meta-study that basically looks 00:55:26.670 --> 00:55:33.690 align:middle line:84% at all of the individual studies and does summary statistics. 00:55:33.690 --> 00:55:36.750 align:middle line:84% I think this is a more modern way of trying 00:55:36.750 --> 00:55:38.310 align:middle line:90% to measure the externalities. 00:55:38.310 --> 00:55:40.410 align:middle line:90% So here's the answer. 00:55:40.410 --> 00:55:43.750 align:middle line:90% 00:55:43.750 --> 00:55:46.990 align:middle line:84% All this has been inflated to be on a constant dollar basis 00:55:46.990 --> 00:55:49.570 align:middle line:90% of $2,025 per megawatt-hour. 00:55:49.570 --> 00:55:52.630 align:middle line:84% We've been talking about the nuclear ones in megawatt-hours-- 00:55:52.630 --> 00:55:55.510 align:middle line:84% coal, oil, gas, nuclear, hydro, et cetera. 00:55:55.510 --> 00:56:01.410 align:middle line:84% The boxes are the 25% to 75% quartile, 00:56:01.410 --> 00:56:03.670 align:middle line:90% quartile 1 to quartile 3. 00:56:03.670 --> 00:56:08.690 align:middle line:84% The dot is the median, not the mean. 00:56:08.690 --> 00:56:12.750 align:middle line:84% We choose the median because these have large outliers, 00:56:12.750 --> 00:56:14.370 align:middle line:84% and we don't want to overrate them. 00:56:14.370 --> 00:56:17.150 align:middle line:84% They're also kind of like a lognormal distribution 00:56:17.150 --> 00:56:19.230 align:middle line:90% because they're bounded at 0. 00:56:19.230 --> 00:56:21.050 align:middle line:84% And then they go as high as they want. 00:56:21.050 --> 00:56:25.160 align:middle line:84% And you see coal goes all the way up to $1,448 per 00:56:25.160 --> 00:56:29.120 align:middle line:84% megawatt-hour, completely blasting away anything to do 00:56:29.120 --> 00:56:31.920 align:middle line:84% with the actual cost of the coal plant. 00:56:31.920 --> 00:56:37.080 align:middle line:84% So if that highest number were true, yeah, that's crazy. 00:56:37.080 --> 00:56:39.220 align:middle line:90% Here's the same data shown. 00:56:39.220 --> 00:56:42.680 align:middle line:84% And then I put the ExternE where they have data here. 00:56:42.680 --> 00:56:44.320 align:middle line:84% And one of the things that you see 00:56:44.320 --> 00:56:46.320 align:middle line:84% is that the ExternE numbers are all much 00:56:46.320 --> 00:56:49.880 align:middle line:90% smaller than the other ones. 00:56:49.880 --> 00:56:52.940 align:middle line:84% And that's for a number of reasons. 00:56:52.940 --> 00:56:56.240 align:middle line:90% So one is the early nature. 00:56:56.240 --> 00:56:59.120 align:middle line:84% There's a lot of effects they weren't aware of. 00:56:59.120 --> 00:57:01.100 align:middle line:84% Two, they used a bottom-up approach. 00:57:01.100 --> 00:57:04.940 align:middle line:84% They were going to each plant and trying to add them up. 00:57:04.940 --> 00:57:09.320 align:middle line:84% And there are two consequences of that. 00:57:09.320 --> 00:57:12.560 align:middle line:90% One is that. 00:57:12.560 --> 00:57:15.160 align:middle line:84% They may be missing things as they're trying to add it up 00:57:15.160 --> 00:57:19.040 align:middle line:84% because they're literally counting from scratch. 00:57:19.040 --> 00:57:21.395 align:middle line:84% So they don't really know what the PM10 was 00:57:21.395 --> 00:57:23.020 align:middle line:84% from that particular plant because they 00:57:23.020 --> 00:57:24.062 align:middle line:90% don't have a measurement. 00:57:24.062 --> 00:57:26.140 align:middle line:90% They might just omit it. 00:57:26.140 --> 00:57:29.300 align:middle line:84% The other thing is that they might actually do better 00:57:29.300 --> 00:57:32.460 align:middle line:84% in incorporating selection effects that 00:57:32.460 --> 00:57:35.100 align:middle line:84% are associated with that's a dirty coal plant 00:57:35.100 --> 00:57:37.360 align:middle line:90% and people who live near it. 00:57:37.360 --> 00:57:40.300 align:middle line:84% If a larger number of people, they don't want that coal plant 00:57:40.300 --> 00:57:41.420 align:middle line:90% nearby. 00:57:41.420 --> 00:57:45.160 align:middle line:84% So it turns out only the dirty plants are in rural regions, 00:57:45.160 --> 00:57:48.500 align:middle line:84% and that means that actually the impact of those emissions 00:57:48.500 --> 00:57:49.900 align:middle line:90% might be smaller. 00:57:49.900 --> 00:57:52.940 align:middle line:84% That kind of NIMBY effect would actually drive down 00:57:52.940 --> 00:57:55.700 align:middle line:90% the externality value. 00:57:55.700 --> 00:58:01.372 align:middle line:84% And finally, this is all just public health. 00:58:01.372 --> 00:58:03.080 align:middle line:84% There are no climate change effects here. 00:58:03.080 --> 00:58:10.620 align:middle line:84% Whereas these numbers from the meta-analysis do sometimes 00:58:10.620 --> 00:58:13.100 align:middle line:84% include climate effects-- whatever the author thought 00:58:13.100 --> 00:58:14.320 align:middle line:90% the climate effect should be. 00:58:14.320 --> 00:58:14.780 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:58:14.780 --> 00:58:16.380 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: Where is geothermal in this? 00:58:16.380 --> 00:58:20.880 align:middle line:84% SCOTT KEMP: Geothermal is not reported in either study, 00:58:20.880 --> 00:58:22.700 align:middle line:90% so can't tell you. 00:58:22.700 --> 00:58:25.520 align:middle line:90% 00:58:25.520 --> 00:58:33.520 align:middle line:84% So I would guess around here, six, but it's not reported. 00:58:33.520 --> 00:58:36.800 align:middle line:84% So we did our own calculation of externalities 00:58:36.800 --> 00:58:40.640 align:middle line:84% for nuclear, which I just reviewed with you. 00:58:40.640 --> 00:58:44.920 align:middle line:90% And that is the yellow diamond. 00:58:44.920 --> 00:58:48.720 align:middle line:84% And the big difference between the yellow diamond and this 00:58:48.720 --> 00:58:52.320 align:middle line:84% is almost entirely nuclear proliferation. 00:58:52.320 --> 00:58:55.480 align:middle line:84% So my externality calculation, which we 00:58:55.480 --> 00:58:57.600 align:middle line:84% did in class with deaths and all that. 00:58:57.600 --> 00:59:01.480 align:middle line:84% For nuclear, just doing deaths and waste, 00:59:01.480 --> 00:59:10.240 align:middle line:84% came out to $28 per megawatt, and this is, I think, $21 per 00:59:10.240 --> 00:59:12.600 align:middle line:90% megawatt for the median value. 00:59:12.600 --> 00:59:19.420 align:middle line:84% So they're basically in agreement, which is good to see. 00:59:19.420 --> 00:59:23.540 align:middle line:84% So overall, actually, nuclear does very well 00:59:23.540 --> 00:59:28.100 align:middle line:84% compared to all the fossil fuels, which is not a surprise. 00:59:28.100 --> 00:59:30.000 align:middle line:84% When the world didn't have renewables, 00:59:30.000 --> 00:59:33.420 align:middle line:84% we should have been doing nuclear unquestionably. 00:59:33.420 --> 00:59:34.020 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:59:34.020 --> 00:59:36.860 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: Are these numbers representative of the total cost 00:59:36.860 --> 00:59:39.240 align:middle line:84% externalities and the cost of electricity and everything? 00:59:39.240 --> 00:59:41.300 align:middle line:84% SCOTT KEMP: No, this is just the externality. 00:59:41.300 --> 00:59:43.717 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: Yeah, because it seems to me that a lot of these 00:59:43.717 --> 00:59:45.160 align:middle line:90% are just 0 on the minimum. 00:59:45.160 --> 00:59:48.070 align:middle line:84% What kind of studies are they doing? 00:59:48.070 --> 00:59:49.320 align:middle line:90% SCOTT KEMP: No, it's not LCOE. 00:59:49.320 --> 00:59:51.100 align:middle line:90% It's just the externality. 00:59:51.100 --> 00:59:53.660 align:middle line:84% So there are people who say, oh, wind 00:59:53.660 --> 00:59:55.467 align:middle line:90% doesn't have any externalities. 00:59:55.467 --> 00:59:57.300 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: And people will say something that 00:59:57.300 --> 00:59:59.120 align:middle line:90% is close to the externality. 00:59:59.120 --> 01:00:00.000 align:middle line:90% SCOTT KEMP: Yep. 01:00:00.000 --> 01:00:02.180 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: What about birds? 01:00:02.180 --> 01:00:04.780 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: What about birds? 01:00:04.780 --> 01:00:06.780 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: What about this? 01:00:06.780 --> 01:00:10.500 align:middle line:84% SCOTT KEMP: This is why you don't choose one study. 01:00:10.500 --> 01:00:13.620 align:middle line:90% And this is the problem. 01:00:13.620 --> 01:00:15.480 align:middle line:84% The nuclear people are fond of doing this 01:00:15.480 --> 01:00:17.000 align:middle line:90% with learning studies. 01:00:17.000 --> 01:00:19.140 align:middle line:84% They're like, oh, according to such and such study, 01:00:19.140 --> 01:00:20.980 align:middle line:90% nuclear can come down in cost. 01:00:20.980 --> 01:00:24.880 align:middle line:90% That was one study. 01:00:24.880 --> 01:00:27.080 align:middle line:90% What do all the studies say? 01:00:27.080 --> 01:00:30.260 align:middle line:84% So this is why I don't present you a single study. 01:00:30.260 --> 01:00:33.920 align:middle line:84% I want you to look at all the published studies. 01:00:33.920 --> 01:00:37.520 align:middle line:90% And this is where we wind up. 01:00:37.520 --> 01:00:44.120 align:middle line:84% So the only problem is that wind and solar 01:00:44.120 --> 01:00:50.160 align:middle line:84% are so small that we wind up in the same place 01:00:50.160 --> 01:00:53.200 align:middle line:84% as we were when we were just looking at cost. 01:00:53.200 --> 01:00:53.720 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 01:00:53.720 --> 01:00:54.920 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: So this is a little bit 01:00:54.920 --> 01:00:56.587 align:middle line:84% outside of the scope of this discussion. 01:00:56.587 --> 01:00:59.680 align:middle line:84% But knowing that different parts of the US government 01:00:59.680 --> 01:01:02.740 align:middle line:84% put a different literal dollar value on human life. 01:01:02.740 --> 01:01:07.180 align:middle line:84% Would any organization do that for different like animal life? 01:01:07.180 --> 01:01:08.880 align:middle line:84% Because there's a lot of creatures 01:01:08.880 --> 01:01:10.520 align:middle line:84% that we would not be able to live with, 01:01:10.520 --> 01:01:15.580 align:middle line:84% like pollinators for food to actually grow, et cetera. 01:01:15.580 --> 01:01:17.380 align:middle line:84% There's a lot of animals that we eat or use 01:01:17.380 --> 01:01:20.300 align:middle line:84% for different purposes, but shouldn't we 01:01:20.300 --> 01:01:23.660 align:middle line:84% be actually worried if, for example, we did just 01:01:23.660 --> 01:01:26.580 align:middle line:90% kill off one of a certain bird. 01:01:26.580 --> 01:01:30.220 align:middle line:84% If they all love running into wind turbines and then suddenly, 01:01:30.220 --> 01:01:35.080 align:middle line:84% a certain ecosystem collapsed around that bird going extinct-- 01:01:35.080 --> 01:01:37.880 align:middle line:84% SCOTT KEMP: Yeah, we should be worried about things like that. 01:01:37.880 --> 01:01:40.620 align:middle line:84% So I mean, that's much more something 01:01:40.620 --> 01:01:44.500 align:middle line:84% you see people thinking about in the context of climate change, 01:01:44.500 --> 01:01:45.907 align:middle line:90% where, for example-- 01:01:45.907 --> 01:01:47.240 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: And not externalities. 01:01:47.240 --> 01:01:53.497 align:middle line:84% SCOTT KEMP: Well, I mean, you never really 01:01:53.497 --> 01:01:55.580 align:middle line:84% see it like in the calculation because the climate 01:01:55.580 --> 01:01:59.780 align:middle line:84% change externality is calculated traditionally, 01:01:59.780 --> 01:02:10.660 align:middle line:84% using this totally bullshit equation, which is not serious. 01:02:10.660 --> 01:02:12.298 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: An issue fundamentally, 01:02:12.298 --> 01:02:13.840 align:middle line:84% but if we were going to be like, what 01:02:13.840 --> 01:02:16.200 align:middle line:84% is the cost per life of one be that we 01:02:16.200 --> 01:02:18.240 align:middle line:84% would end up with just such bullshit numbers 01:02:18.240 --> 01:02:19.200 align:middle line:90% that they would-- 01:02:19.200 --> 01:02:21.440 align:middle line:84% SCOTT KEMP: Well, I mean, there are always 01:02:21.440 --> 01:02:24.280 align:middle line:90% these cliff-edge effects. 01:02:24.280 --> 01:02:29.800 align:middle line:84% So the example I was about to give is beetles. 01:02:29.800 --> 01:02:32.680 align:middle line:84% When winters were colder, beetles 01:02:32.680 --> 01:02:35.560 align:middle line:84% would die off in the winter, and forests would 01:02:35.560 --> 01:02:38.360 align:middle line:90% flourish, like bark beetles. 01:02:38.360 --> 01:02:41.840 align:middle line:84% But now that the winters aren't as cold, 01:02:41.840 --> 01:02:45.360 align:middle line:84% they are ravaging enormous forests, 01:02:45.360 --> 01:02:48.160 align:middle line:84% which not only reduces the availability of timber 01:02:48.160 --> 01:02:50.120 align:middle line:84% but just destroys whole ecosystems 01:02:50.120 --> 01:02:52.800 align:middle line:90% full of all kinds of things. 01:02:52.800 --> 01:02:56.320 align:middle line:84% And so what are the downstream consequences of that? 01:02:56.320 --> 01:03:01.360 align:middle line:84% So yeah, it's very hard to know what those connections are. 01:03:01.360 --> 01:03:03.520 align:middle line:84% I'm not aware of any agency that attempts 01:03:03.520 --> 01:03:08.160 align:middle line:84% to monetize the value of every flora and fauna out there. 01:03:08.160 --> 01:03:09.980 align:middle line:84% But it would be an interesting idea. 01:03:09.980 --> 01:03:12.300 align:middle line:84% It would be a very hard calculation to do. 01:03:12.300 --> 01:03:13.670 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 01:03:13.670 --> 01:03:18.380 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: Have you done any estimate independently 01:03:18.380 --> 01:03:20.860 align:middle line:90% for wind and solar? 01:03:20.860 --> 01:03:23.580 align:middle line:84% I guess it's the point of the study is you look at everyone 01:03:23.580 --> 01:03:26.380 align:middle line:84% or all the studies try to avoid bias. 01:03:26.380 --> 01:03:29.500 align:middle line:84% But I feel like societally, there 01:03:29.500 --> 01:03:32.020 align:middle line:84% is just so much bias to renewables are good. 01:03:32.020 --> 01:03:34.200 align:middle line:84% If you look at regulation, identity, 01:03:34.200 --> 01:03:36.460 align:middle line:84% everything is set to 0 for renewables. 01:03:36.460 --> 01:03:39.180 align:middle line:84% And then we take into account scope 3 01:03:39.180 --> 01:03:41.980 align:middle line:84% for nuclear, but only for fuels, so that renewables and wind 01:03:41.980 --> 01:03:44.520 align:middle line:84% is 0, even though they would be higher than nuclear. 01:03:44.520 --> 01:03:47.640 align:middle line:90% So I don't know if you-- 01:03:47.640 --> 01:03:50.800 align:middle line:84% SCOTT KEMP: I haven't attempted to do a study. 01:03:50.800 --> 01:03:53.620 align:middle line:90% 01:03:53.620 --> 01:03:57.860 align:middle line:84% But I agree with you that the academic community 01:03:57.860 --> 01:04:01.700 align:middle line:90% has these systemic biases. 01:04:01.700 --> 01:04:05.660 align:middle line:84% So for example, on climate change, 01:04:05.660 --> 01:04:07.580 align:middle line:84% if you were to publish a paper that 01:04:07.580 --> 01:04:09.890 align:middle line:84% says, oh, climate change might not be so bad, 01:04:09.890 --> 01:04:13.310 align:middle line:84% you probably wouldn't get tenure. 01:04:13.310 --> 01:04:18.630 align:middle line:84% So yeah, there are these problems in the literature. 01:04:18.630 --> 01:04:20.130 align:middle line:90% There's no doubt about it. 01:04:20.130 --> 01:04:22.510 align:middle line:84% I just don't know how to do better than that. 01:04:22.510 --> 01:04:23.510 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 01:04:23.510 --> 01:04:25.427 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: This kind of goes back a little bit. 01:04:25.427 --> 01:04:31.350 align:middle line:84% But so a huge part of the nuclear disaster or accident 01:04:31.350 --> 01:04:35.130 align:middle line:84% externality are the deaths from cancers. 01:04:35.130 --> 01:04:36.110 align:middle line:90% SCOTT KEMP: Yeah. 01:04:36.110 --> 01:04:40.422 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: How would that change if we cured cancer? 01:04:40.422 --> 01:04:41.130 align:middle line:90% SCOTT KEMP: Yeah. 01:04:41.130 --> 01:04:42.350 align:middle line:90% It would go away. 01:04:42.350 --> 01:04:44.270 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: Would that be the only externality? 01:04:44.270 --> 01:04:45.550 align:middle line:90% Could we think about other-- 01:04:45.550 --> 01:04:46.175 align:middle line:90% SCOTT KEMP: No. 01:04:46.175 --> 01:04:50.110 align:middle line:84% There are other health externalities. 01:04:50.110 --> 01:04:51.970 align:middle line:84% I didn't compute them explicitly. 01:04:51.970 --> 01:04:53.950 align:middle line:84% And my suspicion is that they're small 01:04:53.950 --> 01:04:56.297 align:middle line:90% relative to the fatalities. 01:04:56.297 --> 01:04:58.130 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: You just got to cure cancer first. 01:04:58.130 --> 01:04:59.110 align:middle line:90% SCOTT KEMP: Yeah. 01:04:59.110 --> 01:05:02.870 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: Maybe on that note, as a little bit 01:05:02.870 --> 01:05:05.310 align:middle line:84% of a tangent to my research, which 01:05:05.310 --> 01:05:07.070 align:middle line:90% is the introduction of health. 01:05:07.070 --> 01:05:11.420 align:middle line:84% What if you take into account all health effects like cancer, 01:05:11.420 --> 01:05:14.050 align:middle line:84% et cetera, also discounting morbidity? 01:05:14.050 --> 01:05:17.730 align:middle line:84% And it ends up being predominant like the DALYs, which 01:05:17.730 --> 01:05:21.370 align:middle line:84% is essentially a metric used for discounting mortality 01:05:21.370 --> 01:05:24.050 align:middle line:84% and different types of other health effects. 01:05:24.050 --> 01:05:27.585 align:middle line:84% It ends up being like 90% cancer [INAUDIBLE]. 01:05:27.585 --> 01:05:29.710 align:middle line:84% So I was like, oh, what if we look at all the rest, 01:05:29.710 --> 01:05:33.810 align:middle line:90% but all the rest is [INAUDIBLE]. 01:05:33.810 --> 01:05:36.050 align:middle line:84% SCOTT KEMP: This is why we do it the way we do it. 01:05:36.050 --> 01:05:37.330 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 01:05:37.330 --> 01:05:45.570 align:middle line:84% OK, so let's add this to LCLE and find out where we land. 01:05:45.570 --> 01:05:50.670 align:middle line:84% So here I have included on this chart wind and solar. 01:05:50.670 --> 01:05:55.530 align:middle line:84% And in order to do that, I have assumed 1.7 times over-build, 01:05:55.530 --> 01:05:58.910 align:middle line:84% and 12 hours of battery have to be added to both of these. 01:05:58.910 --> 01:06:01.610 align:middle line:90% So that bumps the cost way up. 01:06:01.610 --> 01:06:04.410 align:middle line:84% And that's because otherwise you can't call it dispatchable, 01:06:04.410 --> 01:06:06.190 align:middle line:84% and you can't put it on this chart. 01:06:06.190 --> 01:06:08.890 align:middle line:90% So here's where we wind up. 01:06:08.890 --> 01:06:13.830 align:middle line:84% These numbers are the current cost data from the 2024 Sergeant 01:06:13.830 --> 01:06:17.190 align:middle line:84% and Lundy Report that was done for the US Department of Energy. 01:06:17.190 --> 01:06:20.150 align:middle line:84% And then I've just used the median externalities 01:06:20.150 --> 01:06:21.550 align:middle line:90% from the meta-study. 01:06:21.550 --> 01:06:27.670 align:middle line:84% And then for the nuclear, I used our calculated externality. 01:06:27.670 --> 01:06:30.030 align:middle line:90% And there it is. 01:06:30.030 --> 01:06:31.710 align:middle line:90% It's like nothing changed. 01:06:31.710 --> 01:06:37.050 align:middle line:84% Geothermal is still very attractive, natural gas 01:06:37.050 --> 01:06:37.970 align:middle line:90% if you're a peaker. 01:06:37.970 --> 01:06:39.590 align:middle line:84% You remember how to read this chart? 01:06:39.590 --> 01:06:43.630 align:middle line:84% If you're operating the plant for this many hours per year 01:06:43.630 --> 01:06:46.690 align:middle line:84% or more, then you prefer this purple technology. 01:06:46.690 --> 01:06:47.970 align:middle line:90% Otherwise, you prefer this. 01:06:47.970 --> 01:06:51.390 align:middle line:84% You always prefer the lowest line for whatever duty cycle 01:06:51.390 --> 01:06:52.550 align:middle line:90% you need-- 01:06:52.550 --> 01:06:54.543 align:middle line:90% so otherwise natural gas. 01:06:54.543 --> 01:06:56.710 align:middle line:84% Wind and solar actually are interesting in that they 01:06:56.710 --> 01:07:05.010 align:middle line:84% are actually, according to this, not yet quite justifiable-- 01:07:05.010 --> 01:07:06.673 align:middle line:90% still a little too expensive. 01:07:06.673 --> 01:07:08.090 align:middle line:84% The reason why they're justifiable 01:07:08.090 --> 01:07:11.890 align:middle line:84% is that this is on the scenario with the overbuild, which 01:07:11.890 --> 01:07:12.930 align:middle line:90% we're not doing. 01:07:12.930 --> 01:07:18.450 align:middle line:84% This is to say a full overbuild case is not yet justified. 01:07:18.450 --> 01:07:20.310 align:middle line:84% This includes a climate externality, 01:07:20.310 --> 01:07:22.890 align:middle line:84% but it's whatever the median estimate is. 01:07:22.890 --> 01:07:25.887 align:middle line:84% And who knows what the reality of that is. 01:07:25.887 --> 01:07:27.470 align:middle line:84% And then there's the promised nuclear. 01:07:27.470 --> 01:07:28.928 align:middle line:84% This is what they say it will cost. 01:07:28.928 --> 01:07:34.490 align:middle line:84% And then this is what it'll cost in case you're wondering. 01:07:34.490 --> 01:07:40.210 align:middle line:84% So we don't really know what the climate externality 01:07:40.210 --> 01:07:42.890 align:middle line:84% is, but the effect of a climate externality 01:07:42.890 --> 01:07:49.010 align:middle line:84% is to take the fossil fuel lines and pin them at the left axis 01:07:49.010 --> 01:07:51.010 align:middle line:90% and just make it more steep. 01:07:51.010 --> 01:07:55.530 align:middle line:84% And so the takeaway from this is no matter 01:07:55.530 --> 01:07:58.810 align:middle line:84% how steep you make this natural gas line, 01:07:58.810 --> 01:08:01.530 align:middle line:84% even if it goes up like this, because you 01:08:01.530 --> 01:08:04.910 align:middle line:84% put an enormous climate externality, 01:08:04.910 --> 01:08:06.390 align:middle line:84% it will always have a point where 01:08:06.390 --> 01:08:09.510 align:middle line:90% it was below the rest of these. 01:08:09.510 --> 01:08:13.750 align:middle line:84% So it will never make sense to get rid of natural gas, which 01:08:13.750 --> 01:08:17.270 align:middle line:90% is the incarnation of this. 01:08:17.270 --> 01:08:19.990 align:middle line:84% Zero-carbon systems never make sense. 01:08:19.990 --> 01:08:20.630 align:middle line:90% Question. 01:08:20.630 --> 01:08:22.748 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: Explain how you get to 1.75. 01:08:22.748 --> 01:08:24.290 align:middle line:84% SCOTT KEMP: Oh, we did that in class. 01:08:24.290 --> 01:08:27.890 align:middle line:90% 01:08:27.890 --> 01:08:31.069 align:middle line:84% That number comes out of the study. 01:08:31.069 --> 01:08:33.042 align:middle line:90% What is the name of the author? 01:08:33.042 --> 01:08:33.750 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: Shaner. 01:08:33.750 --> 01:08:35.229 align:middle line:90% SCOTT KEMP: Shaner. 01:08:35.229 --> 01:08:37.670 align:middle line:84% That found that 12 hours plus 1.7 times 01:08:37.670 --> 01:08:42.670 align:middle line:84% overbuild plus national transmission 01:08:42.670 --> 01:08:48.157 align:middle line:84% could meet the reliability standard in the United States. 01:08:48.157 --> 01:08:49.490 align:middle line:90% So that's where that comes from. 01:08:49.490 --> 01:08:50.330 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 01:08:50.330 --> 01:08:53.250 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: A question on the slope of nuclear versus gas. 01:08:53.250 --> 01:08:57.689 align:middle line:84% The slope should be the cost of ONM and variable costs of fuel? 01:08:57.689 --> 01:09:01.460 align:middle line:84% SCOTT KEMP: It's actually just the variable cost. 01:09:01.460 --> 01:09:02.210 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: So fuel. 01:09:02.210 --> 01:09:04.930 align:middle line:84% SCOTT KEMP: Fuel and maintenance. 01:09:04.930 --> 01:09:08.729 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: So here it seems like the slope of nuclear and gas 01:09:08.729 --> 01:09:09.950 align:middle line:90% is kind of the same. 01:09:09.950 --> 01:09:12.107 align:middle line:90% Shouldn't it be much smaller? 01:09:12.107 --> 01:09:13.149 align:middle line:90% SCOTT KEMP: It should be. 01:09:13.149 --> 01:09:16.810 align:middle line:84% But this is what Sergeant and Lunday reports. 01:09:16.810 --> 01:09:18.770 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: But what's the basis for that? 01:09:18.770 --> 01:09:21.970 align:middle line:90% SCOTT KEMP: I don't know. 01:09:21.970 --> 01:09:26.689 align:middle line:84% Yeah, I feel like it used to be more flat, 01:09:26.689 --> 01:09:28.930 align:middle line:84% and then it has been getting steeper. 01:09:28.930 --> 01:09:33.930 align:middle line:84% And I don't know if it's because they actually survey reactors, 01:09:33.930 --> 01:09:38.970 align:middle line:84% and they find that maintenance costs are going up 01:09:38.970 --> 01:09:41.569 align:middle line:84% because the reactors are getting older. 01:09:41.569 --> 01:09:42.729 align:middle line:90% I don't know what it is. 01:09:42.729 --> 01:09:45.390 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: With a 95% capacity factor, 01:09:45.390 --> 01:09:48.689 align:middle line:84% seems like there's not much maintenance to do, 01:09:48.689 --> 01:09:50.210 align:middle line:90% at least in the US. 01:09:50.210 --> 01:09:52.609 align:middle line:90% SCOTT KEMP: You would think. 01:09:52.609 --> 01:09:53.410 align:middle line:90% You would think. 01:09:53.410 --> 01:09:57.045 align:middle line:84% I'm going to pull up the report and see. 01:09:57.045 --> 01:09:58.170 align:middle line:90% Can I do this in real time? 01:09:58.170 --> 01:09:59.950 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: It would not change, of course, the argument 01:09:59.950 --> 01:10:00.550 align:middle line:90% for which-- 01:10:00.550 --> 01:10:01.530 align:middle line:90% SCOTT KEMP: Yeah. 01:10:01.530 --> 01:10:02.890 align:middle line:90% Yeah, it doesn't change that. 01:10:02.890 --> 01:10:07.083 align:middle line:90% 01:10:07.083 --> 01:10:08.750 align:middle line:84% Maybe I'll do this after class because I 01:10:08.750 --> 01:10:11.208 align:middle line:84% think it's going to take me too long to do it in real time. 01:10:11.208 --> 01:10:15.030 align:middle line:90% But we can look at the numbers. 01:10:15.030 --> 01:10:19.270 align:middle line:84% Yeah, I am surprised it is as steep as it is. 01:10:19.270 --> 01:10:20.410 align:middle line:90% There's another question. 01:10:20.410 --> 01:10:20.935 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 01:10:20.935 --> 01:10:22.310 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: So a while ago, I think 01:10:22.310 --> 01:10:26.510 align:middle line:84% you were saying that geothermal isn't entirely clean energy. 01:10:26.510 --> 01:10:28.270 align:middle line:84% SCOTT KEMP: Isn't entirely carbon-free. 01:10:28.270 --> 01:10:29.310 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 01:10:29.310 --> 01:10:29.830 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: You're not worried on that? 01:10:29.830 --> 01:10:31.290 align:middle line:84% SCOTT KEMP: I don't know too much of the details, 01:10:31.290 --> 01:10:31.850 align:middle line:90% to be honest. 01:10:31.850 --> 01:10:33.350 align:middle line:84% I have a feeling it has something 01:10:33.350 --> 01:10:39.950 align:middle line:84% to do with either fossil fuels being used for pumps 01:10:39.950 --> 01:10:42.870 align:middle line:84% or something, or it has something 01:10:42.870 --> 01:10:49.950 align:middle line:84% to do with some kind of methaganic leakage 01:10:49.950 --> 01:10:51.090 align:middle line:90% from the wells. 01:10:51.090 --> 01:10:52.730 align:middle line:84% I don't know where it comes from. 01:10:52.730 --> 01:10:56.650 align:middle line:84% It's just there's published data, and it's not zero. 01:10:56.650 --> 01:10:59.450 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: And on that note, are there 01:10:59.450 --> 01:11:04.023 align:middle line:84% arguments against wind and solar as being carbon neutral? 01:11:04.023 --> 01:11:04.690 align:middle line:90% SCOTT KEMP: Yes. 01:11:04.690 --> 01:11:11.050 align:middle line:84% So there is an endogeneity in any computation of the carbon 01:11:11.050 --> 01:11:12.850 align:middle line:90% intensity of a technology. 01:11:12.850 --> 01:11:14.570 align:middle line:84% So if you have a bunch of coal plants 01:11:14.570 --> 01:11:18.050 align:middle line:84% in China powering a plant that makes fossil fuels-- 01:11:18.050 --> 01:11:20.490 align:middle line:90% sorry, that makes solar panels-- 01:11:20.490 --> 01:11:23.130 align:middle line:84% then that is not a carbon-free solar panel. 01:11:23.130 --> 01:11:27.730 align:middle line:84% But it comes down to what is the energy that 01:11:27.730 --> 01:11:30.910 align:middle line:84% goes into making it versus the energy that you get out of it. 01:11:30.910 --> 01:11:33.970 align:middle line:84% So is there some kind of efficiency factor? 01:11:33.970 --> 01:11:40.690 align:middle line:84% So I don't think that the geothermal 01:11:40.690 --> 01:11:43.890 align:middle line:84% is the cost of the carbon footprint associated 01:11:43.890 --> 01:11:46.150 align:middle line:84% with building the geothermal plant. 01:11:46.150 --> 01:11:47.930 align:middle line:84% I think it has to be something more 01:11:47.930 --> 01:11:50.070 align:middle line:84% to do with its continuous operation. 01:11:50.070 --> 01:11:52.170 align:middle line:84% Otherwise, it doesn't make sense. 01:11:52.170 --> 01:11:53.930 align:middle line:84% But it may also be one of those situations 01:11:53.930 --> 01:11:56.660 align:middle line:84% where geothermal plus some renewables 01:11:56.660 --> 01:11:57.960 align:middle line:90% could actually bring this down. 01:11:57.960 --> 01:12:01.900 align:middle line:84% And that they're assuming that there's 01:12:01.900 --> 01:12:08.420 align:middle line:84% some kind of other fossil fuel being used at the plant. 01:12:08.420 --> 01:12:09.560 align:middle line:90% It's a good question. 01:12:09.560 --> 01:12:10.800 align:middle line:90% I've never looked into it. 01:12:10.800 --> 01:12:13.700 align:middle line:90% 01:12:13.700 --> 01:12:15.147 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 01:12:15.147 --> 01:12:16.980 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: So just to make sure I understand. 01:12:16.980 --> 01:12:18.660 align:middle line:84% What this is saying effectively is 01:12:18.660 --> 01:12:22.660 align:middle line:84% that based off of this dispatchable solar wind 01:12:22.660 --> 01:12:25.800 align:middle line:84% assumption, even if nuclear were cheaper, 01:12:25.800 --> 01:12:30.100 align:middle line:84% it could never be a baseload because the slope is higher. 01:12:30.100 --> 01:12:32.960 align:middle line:84% SCOTT KEMP: Well, it could be a baseload if-- 01:12:32.960 --> 01:12:36.940 align:middle line:90% 01:12:36.940 --> 01:12:37.520 align:middle line:90% oh, yeah. 01:12:37.520 --> 01:12:38.200 align:middle line:90% Let's see. 01:12:38.200 --> 01:12:40.760 align:middle line:90% 01:12:40.760 --> 01:12:41.900 align:middle line:90% Yeah, that's right. 01:12:41.900 --> 01:12:43.340 align:middle line:90% It would be like a peaker. 01:12:43.340 --> 01:12:47.100 align:middle line:84% Yeah, and in fact, when we see that when we run the GenX model, 01:12:47.100 --> 01:12:49.980 align:middle line:84% nuclear becomes a peaker technology. 01:12:49.980 --> 01:12:51.900 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 01:12:51.900 --> 01:12:56.840 align:middle line:84% It just turns on when the renewables are bad and deals 01:12:56.840 --> 01:13:01.000 align:middle line:84% with the variability, or becomes like an intermediate peaker. 01:13:01.000 --> 01:13:03.240 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: Would it in reality just stay on and then 01:13:03.240 --> 01:13:05.707 align:middle line:90% charge zero during times? 01:13:05.707 --> 01:13:06.540 align:middle line:90% How would that work? 01:13:06.540 --> 01:13:08.560 align:middle line:84% Would they actually shut down the plant? 01:13:08.560 --> 01:13:12.160 align:middle line:84% SCOTT KEMP: So I think if the model is correct that they 01:13:12.160 --> 01:13:13.500 align:middle line:90% actually shut down the plant. 01:13:13.500 --> 01:13:16.720 align:middle line:90% 01:13:16.720 --> 01:13:19.600 align:middle line:84% I mean, the model has in it assumptions 01:13:19.600 --> 01:13:23.680 align:middle line:84% about the temperature, ramp rate, and cycle, 01:13:23.680 --> 01:13:25.120 align:middle line:90% things like that. 01:13:25.120 --> 01:13:28.400 align:middle line:84% So I mean, the French do load-following 01:13:28.400 --> 01:13:29.260 align:middle line:90% with their plants. 01:13:29.260 --> 01:13:32.520 align:middle line:84% It increases the O&M because you have 01:13:32.520 --> 01:13:37.960 align:middle line:84% more pellet-cladding interaction, more leakers, more 01:13:37.960 --> 01:13:40.600 align:middle line:84% cleaning up the primary coolant and dealing 01:13:40.600 --> 01:13:42.000 align:middle line:90% with that kind of stuff. 01:13:42.000 --> 01:13:45.800 align:middle line:84% But beyond that, it can be done, just changes the cost structure 01:13:45.800 --> 01:13:46.380 align:middle line:90% a little. 01:13:46.380 --> 01:13:49.600 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: I thought that France had basically like one or two 01:13:49.600 --> 01:13:51.980 align:middle line:84% reactors that were load-followers so 01:13:51.980 --> 01:13:54.840 align:middle line:84% that the rest could function more steadily. 01:13:54.840 --> 01:13:58.560 align:middle line:90% 01:13:58.560 --> 01:14:02.612 align:middle line:84% SCOTT KEMP: Yeah, my understanding is that they-- 01:14:02.612 --> 01:14:04.320 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: I don't think like all of them. 01:14:04.320 --> 01:14:05.740 align:middle line:84% SCOTT KEMP: Yeah, I don't think, but I also 01:14:05.740 --> 01:14:07.260 align:middle line:84% think that they do something where 01:14:07.260 --> 01:14:13.800 align:middle line:84% they use multiple plants to change the effective ramp rate 01:14:13.800 --> 01:14:17.460 align:middle line:90% so that they can something. 01:14:17.460 --> 01:14:21.087 align:middle line:84% They do something fancy, but I'm not 100% sure how it works. 01:14:21.087 --> 01:14:23.420 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: So does [INAUDIBLE] making all of your nuclear 01:14:23.420 --> 01:14:25.901 align:middle line:84% reactors be peakers with from a materials perspective, 01:14:25.901 --> 01:14:27.984 align:middle line:84% would put a lot of stress and strain on the system 01:14:27.984 --> 01:14:28.609 align:middle line:90% so it's a bad-- 01:14:28.609 --> 01:14:31.312 align:middle line:84% SCOTT KEMP: Yeah, economic choice. 01:14:31.312 --> 01:14:33.020 align:middle line:84% Yeah, I would definitely agree with that. 01:14:33.020 --> 01:14:35.735 align:middle line:90% 01:14:35.735 --> 01:14:37.360 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: Actually, two more questions. 01:14:37.360 --> 01:14:39.680 align:middle line:84% So first one for geothermal-- in the previous slide, 01:14:39.680 --> 01:14:42.100 align:middle line:84% you mentioned that these externalities are not 01:14:42.100 --> 01:14:45.100 align:middle line:90% calculated by the meta-study. 01:14:45.100 --> 01:14:48.540 align:middle line:84% So in here are you assuming basically-- 01:14:48.540 --> 01:14:52.375 align:middle line:84% SCOTT KEMP: Oh, I mentioned I added six. 01:14:52.375 --> 01:14:53.500 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: You just assumed. 01:14:53.500 --> 01:14:55.283 align:middle line:84% SCOTT KEMP: Yeah, I just assumed six. 01:14:55.283 --> 01:14:56.700 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: And my second question-- 01:14:56.700 --> 01:15:00.820 align:middle line:84% I was wondering if the studies talk about, for example, 01:15:00.820 --> 01:15:04.520 align:middle line:84% the health effects of battery or solar panel recycling 01:15:04.520 --> 01:15:08.360 align:middle line:90% as externalities to solar. 01:15:08.360 --> 01:15:11.000 align:middle line:84% SCOTT KEMP: I have never seen a study on that. 01:15:11.000 --> 01:15:15.880 align:middle line:84% And so I'm almost certain that none of these studies include. 01:15:15.880 --> 01:15:18.400 align:middle line:84% I haven't looked at every one, but I would be surprised 01:15:18.400 --> 01:15:21.880 align:middle line:84% if some of these solar studies actually included battery health 01:15:21.880 --> 01:15:23.120 align:middle line:90% effects. 01:15:23.120 --> 01:15:25.200 align:middle line:84% That would be an interesting issue. 01:15:25.200 --> 01:15:27.800 align:middle line:90% 01:15:27.800 --> 01:15:29.540 align:middle line:84% Whenever questions like that come up, 01:15:29.540 --> 01:15:32.360 align:middle line:84% usually the answer is it turns out not to be a big deal, 01:15:32.360 --> 01:15:35.600 align:middle line:84% but this is a perfect student paper topic 01:15:35.600 --> 01:15:37.860 align:middle line:90% if you weren't already done. 01:15:37.860 --> 01:15:38.360 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 01:15:38.360 --> 01:15:39.820 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: And so, just for clarity, 01:15:39.820 --> 01:15:41.960 align:middle line:84% are we including any land use externalities 01:15:41.960 --> 01:15:44.138 align:middle line:90% for solar, wind, or no? 01:15:44.138 --> 01:15:45.680 align:middle line:84% I know those are obviously incredibly 01:15:45.680 --> 01:15:46.500 align:middle line:90% difficult to quantify. 01:15:46.500 --> 01:15:47.720 align:middle line:84% SCOTT KEMP: They're incredibly difficult to quantify. 01:15:47.720 --> 01:15:49.553 align:middle line:84% If they're in the studies, they're in there. 01:15:49.553 --> 01:15:50.900 align:middle line:90% And if they're not, they're not. 01:15:50.900 --> 01:15:51.943 align:middle line:90% It's a challenge. 01:15:51.943 --> 01:15:53.860 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: I feel that the sensitivity, like we 01:15:53.860 --> 01:15:56.140 align:middle line:84% were talking about the collapse of the ecosystem. 01:15:56.140 --> 01:15:59.200 align:middle line:84% It's kind of like if you start nuclear war, 01:15:59.200 --> 01:16:01.685 align:middle line:84% then the externality becomes just almost-- 01:16:01.685 --> 01:16:02.560 align:middle line:90% SCOTT KEMP: Infinity, 01:16:02.560 --> 01:16:03.700 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: Infinity. 01:16:03.700 --> 01:16:05.480 align:middle line:84% It can almost be like a similar thing. 01:16:05.480 --> 01:16:08.340 align:middle line:84% We don't know what it looks like to use up that much land. 01:16:08.340 --> 01:16:09.280 align:middle line:90% So I don't know. 01:16:09.280 --> 01:16:10.320 align:middle line:90% It feels a little bit. 01:16:10.320 --> 01:16:10.820 align:middle line:90% Obviously-- 01:16:10.820 --> 01:16:13.900 align:middle line:84% SCOTT KEMP: It's not all that much land. 01:16:13.900 --> 01:16:15.300 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: Locally, though? 01:16:15.300 --> 01:16:17.880 align:middle line:84% Because we've industrialized so much of this country. 01:16:17.880 --> 01:16:21.320 align:middle line:84% We kind do know what it's like to just pave over. 01:16:21.320 --> 01:16:22.900 align:middle line:84% SCOTT KEMP: Yeah, I mean, it's small 01:16:22.900 --> 01:16:25.500 align:middle line:84% compared to the amount of land that is paved over. 01:16:25.500 --> 01:16:29.300 align:middle line:90% Yeah, yeah. 01:16:29.300 --> 01:16:31.620 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: So it seemed like the only hope for a second 01:16:31.620 --> 01:16:32.720 align:middle line:90% was deep markets. 01:16:32.720 --> 01:16:37.100 align:middle line:84% But then if you take a factor of 3 off of nuclear here, 01:16:37.100 --> 01:16:38.460 align:middle line:90% it's still more expensive. 01:16:38.460 --> 01:16:43.970 align:middle line:84% So is it then also not market or-- 01:16:43.970 --> 01:16:46.423 align:middle line:84% SCOTT KEMP: Relative to natural gas? 01:16:46.423 --> 01:16:48.340 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: Yeah, I mean pretty much everything. 01:16:48.340 --> 01:16:52.200 align:middle line:84% SCOTT KEMP: So you would be talking out here. 01:16:52.200 --> 01:16:59.280 align:middle line:84% And a factor of 3 would put you here. 01:16:59.280 --> 01:17:01.675 align:middle line:90% 01:17:01.675 --> 01:17:02.300 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: Yeah. 01:17:02.300 --> 01:17:03.920 align:middle line:84% So for nuclear, if you bring it down 01:17:03.920 --> 01:17:08.880 align:middle line:84% by a factor of 3 per megawatt-hour of heat. 01:17:08.880 --> 01:17:12.320 align:middle line:84% So is it in conclusion also heat markets now, or is there 01:17:12.320 --> 01:17:13.160 align:middle line:90% something-- 01:17:13.160 --> 01:17:13.320 align:middle line:90% SCOTT KEMP: Wait. 01:17:13.320 --> 01:17:13.840 align:middle line:90% I don't see. 01:17:13.840 --> 01:17:16.800 align:middle line:90% Why it isn't the conclusion yes? 01:17:16.800 --> 01:17:20.240 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: I mean, conclusion as in no nuclear. 01:17:20.240 --> 01:17:23.520 align:middle line:84% SCOTT KEMP: No, because natural gas stays here. 01:17:23.520 --> 01:17:24.900 align:middle line:90% You're talking in heat market. 01:17:24.900 --> 01:17:27.280 align:middle line:90% You're talking basically 100%. 01:17:27.280 --> 01:17:29.880 align:middle line:84% So you're on the right side of the scale. 01:17:29.880 --> 01:17:33.720 align:middle line:84% And if I take nuclear and I divide this into three, 01:17:33.720 --> 01:17:36.680 align:middle line:84% I would say that one-third of the height 01:17:36.680 --> 01:17:41.906 align:middle line:84% is somewhere around here, slightly under natural gas. 01:17:41.906 --> 01:17:44.388 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: The nuclear products occur though. 01:17:44.388 --> 01:17:45.680 align:middle line:90% SCOTT KEMP: That's what I said. 01:17:45.680 --> 01:17:49.860 align:middle line:84% If you could build nuclear at current projected AP1000 prices. 01:17:49.860 --> 01:17:51.230 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 01:17:51.230 --> 01:17:52.792 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: How about natural gas bill? 01:17:52.792 --> 01:17:54.500 align:middle line:84% Wouldn't that also come down [INAUDIBLE]? 01:17:54.500 --> 01:17:57.140 align:middle line:84% Because this is accounting for converting the natural gas 01:17:57.140 --> 01:17:58.003 align:middle line:90% heat to electricity. 01:17:58.003 --> 01:17:59.920 align:middle line:84% SCOTT KEMP: You don't do that in process heat. 01:17:59.920 --> 01:18:00.420 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: You don't? 01:18:00.420 --> 01:18:00.720 align:middle line:90% OK. 01:18:00.720 --> 01:18:01.760 align:middle line:90% SCOTT KEMP: Oh, you're saying. 01:18:01.760 --> 01:18:02.440 align:middle line:90% Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. 01:18:02.440 --> 01:18:03.080 align:middle line:90% No, no, no, no. 01:18:03.080 --> 01:18:03.840 align:middle line:90% Yeah, right. 01:18:03.840 --> 01:18:07.220 align:middle line:84% You're saying that this is the electrical cost. 01:18:07.220 --> 01:18:09.300 align:middle line:90% Yeah, you're right. 01:18:09.300 --> 01:18:12.840 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: But it does become the lowest-cost carbon. 01:18:12.840 --> 01:18:13.340 align:middle line:90% Oh wait. 01:18:13.340 --> 01:18:15.500 align:middle line:90% This is accounting for that. 01:18:15.500 --> 01:18:19.420 align:middle line:84% SCOTT KEMP: It does become the lowest carbon-free source 01:18:19.420 --> 01:18:20.712 align:middle line:90% of heat. 01:18:20.712 --> 01:18:22.920 align:middle line:84% It does become the lowest carbon-free source of heat. 01:18:22.920 --> 01:18:26.500 align:middle line:84% But you're right that the cost of the natural gas 01:18:26.500 --> 01:18:28.200 align:middle line:84% also comes down by a factor of 3. 01:18:28.200 --> 01:18:29.940 align:middle line:90% So it goes down here. 01:18:29.940 --> 01:18:33.620 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] If you just get the combined cycle, 01:18:33.620 --> 01:18:35.480 align:middle line:90% that's maybe 70% efficiency. 01:18:35.480 --> 01:18:39.060 align:middle line:84% So it goes down by a lower amount. 01:18:39.060 --> 01:18:41.460 align:middle line:90% SCOTT KEMP: Is it 70% efficient? 01:18:41.460 --> 01:18:46.320 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] 01:18:46.320 --> 01:18:48.800 align:middle line:84% SCOTT KEMP: OK, let's say, a factor of 2. 01:18:48.800 --> 01:18:50.900 align:middle line:84% Yeah, factor of two or something like that. 01:18:50.900 --> 01:18:56.600 align:middle line:84% Yeah, so it'd be like where the geothermal number is. 01:18:56.600 --> 01:18:59.480 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: These externalities include climate externality. 01:18:59.480 --> 01:19:01.200 align:middle line:84% SCOTT KEMP: Whatever the meta-studies say 01:19:01.200 --> 01:19:02.840 align:middle line:90% were the climate externalities. 01:19:02.840 --> 01:19:06.120 align:middle line:84% So yes, you could imagine that if the climate externality 01:19:06.120 --> 01:19:09.400 align:middle line:84% were a lot larger, this would be a lot steeper. 01:19:09.400 --> 01:19:11.280 align:middle line:90% In fact, we looked at that. 01:19:11.280 --> 01:19:12.960 align:middle line:90% Do you remember that variable? 01:19:12.960 --> 01:19:16.100 align:middle line:90% I could find that one just to. 01:19:16.100 --> 01:19:19.160 align:middle line:90% 01:19:19.160 --> 01:19:19.660 align:middle line:90% All right. 01:19:19.660 --> 01:19:24.760 align:middle line:84% Well, I can't find that variable plot. 01:19:24.760 --> 01:19:27.780 align:middle line:90% Anyway, that is not the end. 01:19:27.780 --> 01:19:31.120 align:middle line:90% 01:19:31.120 --> 01:19:36.780 align:middle line:84% So the question-- we go back to the original question. 01:19:36.780 --> 01:19:38.640 align:middle line:84% How do we deal with climate change? 01:19:38.640 --> 01:19:39.860 align:middle line:90% Oh, are we out of time? 01:19:39.860 --> 01:19:42.410 align:middle line:90% 01:19:42.410 --> 01:19:45.370 align:middle line:90% Let me just leave you with this. 01:19:45.370 --> 01:19:47.690 align:middle line:90% There are these ideas of these. 01:19:47.690 --> 01:19:50.090 align:middle line:84% Have you seen these marginal abatement curves? 01:19:50.090 --> 01:19:57.210 align:middle line:84% How these things are generated is very kind of inaccurate. 01:19:57.210 --> 01:19:59.850 align:middle line:84% But the point is that there are lots of places where you 01:19:59.850 --> 01:20:04.450 align:middle line:90% can deal with CO2 abatement. 01:20:04.450 --> 01:20:07.970 align:middle line:84% Some of them are, have very high intensity, but not very much, 01:20:07.970 --> 01:20:09.730 align:middle line:90% not a lot of opportunity. 01:20:09.730 --> 01:20:13.170 align:middle line:84% Some of them have low intensity, but there's quite a lot of stuff 01:20:13.170 --> 01:20:14.130 align:middle line:90% to deal with. 01:20:14.130 --> 01:20:16.530 align:middle line:84% And this is the cost of dealing with it. 01:20:16.530 --> 01:20:19.850 align:middle line:84% And the point is that there are lots 01:20:19.850 --> 01:20:24.610 align:middle line:84% of things that you can deal with CO2 emissions for free. 01:20:24.610 --> 01:20:27.290 align:middle line:84% You actually will save money if you 01:20:27.290 --> 01:20:29.210 align:middle line:90% deal with those CO2 emissions. 01:20:29.210 --> 01:20:30.970 align:middle line:90% So this is where you start. 01:20:30.970 --> 01:20:33.610 align:middle line:84% And then you walk down this until you 01:20:33.610 --> 01:20:37.690 align:middle line:84% get to more and more and more and more expensive options. 01:20:37.690 --> 01:20:41.750 align:middle line:84% And this is how it ought to be done. 01:20:41.750 --> 01:20:43.590 align:middle line:84% There are lots of people who have attempted 01:20:43.590 --> 01:20:45.510 align:middle line:90% to come up with these numbers. 01:20:45.510 --> 01:20:48.310 align:middle line:84% This one, the data actually closely matched 01:20:48.310 --> 01:20:52.090 align:middle line:90% what is in the DOE reports. 01:20:52.090 --> 01:20:56.410 align:middle line:84% But LED lighting, smart grids, crop rotations, 01:20:56.410 --> 01:21:02.310 align:middle line:84% forest management, a lot of forest management, 01:21:02.310 --> 01:21:05.210 align:middle line:84% electric vehicles-- you get more and more expensive. 01:21:05.210 --> 01:21:08.430 align:middle line:84% And we seem to do a lot of these really expensive things, 01:21:08.430 --> 01:21:10.130 align:middle line:90% electric vehicles and stuff. 01:21:10.130 --> 01:21:12.590 align:middle line:84% And we don't do a lot of this stuff, which 01:21:12.590 --> 01:21:15.710 align:middle line:84% isn't sexy but actually has potential 01:21:15.710 --> 01:21:18.210 align:middle line:90% for significant decarbonization. 01:21:18.210 --> 01:21:20.770 align:middle line:90% 01:21:20.770 --> 01:21:29.310 align:middle line:84% Co-generation, we do do livestock feeding, 01:21:29.310 --> 01:21:31.550 align:middle line:90% residential energy efficiency. 01:21:31.550 --> 01:21:33.430 align:middle line:90% So there are programs. 01:21:33.430 --> 01:21:36.830 align:middle line:84% These things are difficult to have big policy levers. 01:21:36.830 --> 01:21:39.450 align:middle line:90% So they get somewhat neglected. 01:21:39.450 --> 01:21:41.570 align:middle line:84% Anyway, this is just an idea of a way 01:21:41.570 --> 01:21:47.290 align:middle line:84% to think about these options before you start going out here 01:21:47.290 --> 01:21:51.270 align:middle line:84% to your super-expensive electricity options. 01:21:51.270 --> 01:21:53.330 align:middle line:84% So you want to deal with climate change. 01:21:53.330 --> 01:21:56.130 align:middle line:84% You need to look at the system in the totality. 01:21:56.130 --> 01:21:57.530 align:middle line:90% And that's it. 01:21:57.530 --> 01:22:01.370 align:middle line:84% Happy Thanksgiving from Turkey Point. 01:22:01.370 --> 01:22:02.850 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: Is that real? 01:22:02.850 --> 01:22:03.810 align:middle line:90% Is that a real plant? 01:22:03.810 --> 01:22:05.143 align:middle line:90% SCOTT KEMP: That's a real plant. 01:22:05.143 --> 01:22:07.080 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: Oh, I didn't know that. 01:22:07.080 --> 01:22:37.000 align:middle line:90%