The Japan Times: Going Green With Nuclear Power

[kristopher]

This is a boilerplate view of nuclear power being justified by carbon emissions, with one exception - it is from Japan and it talks about their view of safety. I've pointed to the large discrepancy between the US and Japan in regard to the amount of time the plants are down. The last number I saw for Japan was that they ran their plants about 80% of the maximum rated time. Based on my knowledge of the Japanese dedication to achieving as close to perfection in their efforts as possible (it is a part of the national work ethic) I concluded that the reason they are not achieving the 92%+ rate of use that their US counterparts are achieving is because the US is taking risks in the area of operations and maintenance that the Japanese find unacceptable.

Several posters here, of course, violently disagreed with that assessment and made (what I considered to be absurd) claims that the reason was that the Japanese system is so affected by earthquakes that it causes nuclear to be more than 12% less productive in Japan than here.

This OpEd from the Japan Times (english language daily that is solidly conservative) speaks to that discussion:

Going green with nuclear power

The Nuclear Safety Commission and the Atomic Energy Commission have issued their annual reports for 2009, in which they call for the promotion of nuclear energy as an important means of fighting global warming. Nuclear power plants do not emit carbon dioxide while operating.

The reports came as the Hatoyama administration is pushing a policy of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent from 1990 levels by 2020. ...the NSC and the AEC call for improving the operation rate of Japan's 54 nuclear power plants, which produce about 30 percent of the nation's electricity.

In the 1990s, the plants' average operation rate was around 80 percent. But from 2007 it dropped to around 60 percent. In contrast, nuclear power plants in Europe, North America and South Korea have enjoyed an operation rate of 80 percent to 90 percent throughout the past decade. The safety commission says that a 1 percent improvement in the operation rate would be equivalent to a reduction of some 3 million tons of CO2 annually. It is estimated that if the operation rate returns to 80 percent, Japan will be able to reduce its CO2 emissions by about 5 percent.

But improving the operation rate will not be an easy job. Eighteen — or one third — of Japan's 54 reactors are more than 30 years old, and one is 40 years old. Another will turn 40 this year. Pipes and reactor components are deteriorating rapidly in nuclear power plants built in the 1960s and '70s.

The safety commission calls for lengthening the interval between regular checks of nuclear power plants, prolonging the operational life of such plants to more than 40 years and increasing their output by about 5 percent — all steps that increase safety risks. A series of mishaps at nuclear power plants has lowered people's trust. In its pursuit of an improved operation rate, the nuclear power industry must take every possible step to ensure that safety is not compromised.

[Statistical]

1. So how do you explain Finland 94% capacity factor?

Japan happens to be ...... EARTHQUAKE CENTRAL. It is relevent. Pretending otherwise is silly. Their 80% capacity factor reflects a really bad earth quake cycle. 5 major quakes in last 2 years. Also due to the small size of the country a single quake can affect most or all of their reactors. It is virtually impossible for a single natural diaster to affect a similar % of US reactor fleet.

The second factor is BWR vs PWR. Globally BWR tend to have lower capacity factor (by 4-6%) than PWR in same country. I don't have an explanation just something I have observed. Might be due to more maintenance or higher failure rate with BWR. Japan has a higher concentration of BWR than the US does. US favors PWR over BWR by about 2:1 and Japan is the exact opposite.

Refueling outages are when routine maintenance and inspections happen. At 24 month refueling cycle that only takes up about 4% of capacity. Even if Japan doubled it that would be 8% of capacity. Japan substandard capacity factor is due to many reactors being down for months (one was down 9.5 months in 2009). Just like factoring in a failing grade 12% in a class pulls down your average you can't have a substantial portion of the fleet down for months at a time and then get a good average.

Many other countries around the world have 90% capacity factors.
Finland, Switzerland, South Korea and US have achieved 90%+ capacity factors for years now. The rise of neutron poisons has dramatically increased capacity factors. With burnable neutron poisons fission can be sustained longer on same fuel and thus refueling occurs less often.

Refueling is once per 24 months is now the norm at the most advanced nuclear nations. Refueling usually lasts about a month. So that puts the theoretical limit at around 96% (23 of 24 months) capacity over 2 years. Another 2% is lost in the ramp up and down putting effective capacity at 94%.

Refueling once every 15 months puts the limit at around 90%. So roughly 4% is gained simply by extending refueling cycle. Working smarter not harder. The added bonus is the same fuel produces more power.

[kristopher]

3. .

"But improving the operation rate will not be an easy job. Eighteen — or one third — of Japan's 54 reactors are more than 30 years old, and one is 40 years old. Another will turn 40 this year. Pipes and reactor components are deteriorating rapidly in nuclear power plants built in the 1960s and '70s.

The safety commission calls for lengthening the interval between regular checks of nuclear power plants, prolonging the operational life of such plants to more than 40 years and increasing their output by about 5 percent — all steps that increase safety risks. A series of mishaps at nuclear power plants has lowered people's trust. In its pursuit of an improved operation rate, the nuclear power industry must take every possible step to ensure that safety is not compromised."

[Statistical]

7. Once again lengthening intervals doesn't account for 80% capacity factor.

This is a proposal going forward it doesn't explain Japan capacity factor of 80% for last 3 years. Japan had 86% capacity factor in 2006 right before going through a very severe earthquake cycle. How do you explain the 6% drop in capacity factor from 2006 to 2007-2009 that just happened to coincide with peak earthquake activity.

The 2007 quake shut down 14 of Japan reactors. The hardest hit was the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant which has a staggering 7 reactors. All of them remained offline for 21 months. That is 21 months of 0% capacity factor included in the national average. Today 5 of the 7 are STILL OFFLINE (almost 30 months of 0% capacity factor).

Quick stat if you remove the 7 plants at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa from the national average the capacity factor is ...... DRUMROLL ..... 89%!



Do you think Finland, South Korea, and Switzerland are cutting corners when it comes to safety? All the countries have equal or higher capacity factor relative to the United States.

If Finland can do 94% safely why is US achieving 92% safely impossible?

[kristopher]

8. .

"In the 1990s, the plants' average operation rate was around 80 percent. But from 2007 it dropped to around 60 percent."

How do the other countries do it? They listen to greedy fucking businessmen (Especially in Finland!) who are willing to risk other people's lives for profits in a similar but worse way than the banks did.

[Statistical]

9. Greedy businessmen..... Finland is more progressive than the US EVER will be.

Obama looks like a right winger tea-party member compared to the the "conservatives" in Finland. :rofl:

You are off the reservation man.

Japan has an unplanned loss rate (unexpected shutdown vs maintenance/inspection/refueling shutdown) that is 50% higher than global average and about 300% that of the best nuclear nations.

http://www.iaea.org/programmes/a2/

Of course it couldn't possibly be unplanned losses (like earth quakes) and extensive damage (years of reactors completely offline).

No possible way that:
7 reactors offline for 21 continual months
5 reactors still offline today

has any affect on Japan substandard capacity factor.

Kinda like getting an 90%+ on 50 tests and then getting a 0% on the next 5. Weird thing is your average is 82%. Really drops you to the back of the class.

[kristopher]

12. I don't doubt earthquakes are a factor, but your earlier numbers were wrong.

According to the OpEd (and the Japan Times is probably correct) the earthquakes you point to dropped the CF to the 60% range FROM 80%. Are you now saying that earthquakes explain a 32+% drop in their fleet capacity factor?

Another possible contributor could be that maybe they actually use real numbers, not shaved numbers like the US.

Wouldn't a comparable lifetime number for the US of nuclear reactors (one where we count the failures as well as the successes) yield a around a 71% CF?


Shimane offline following faulty inspections
Operation of the two-unit Shimane nuclear power plant in Japan has been suspended following the discovering that some past inspections of equipment at the plant had not been properly conducted, Chugoku Electric Power Co announced. The utility said that it would shut unit 1 of its Shimane plant today in order to conduct a voluntary inspection. Unit 2 was last week shut for a planned maintenance outage. Chugoku said that it became aware that one of the motor-driven isolation valves outside of the high-pressure steam injection sy
stem had not been replaced. Although the motor was still working, the company subsequently discovered that other valves and motors at the plant had not been inspected and replaced as scheduled. In total, the company found 74 such cases at unit 1 and 49 at unit 2.
http://weblog.greenpeace.org/nuclear-reaction/2010/04/nuclear_news_japanese_reactor.html


Another radioactive leak reported at Japanese nuclear power plant
July 11, 2002 Associated Press.
Dateline: TOKYO A minor radioactive leak occurred at a troubled Japanese nuclear power plant that has been plagued by shutdowns caused by similar leaks, an official said Thursday.
Water with minute traces of radioactivity was found dripping from a defective pipe in the No. 4 reactor of Chubu Electric Power's Hamaoka nuclear reactor plant in Shizuoka prefecture (state) southeast of Tokyo, Chubu Electric company official Toshiaki Inoue said...
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P1-54295309.html

[Statistical]

14. Annual vs lifetime.

There are no shaved numbers. Capacity factor is reported each year. It is simply ACTUAL DELIVERED POWER / theoretical maximum power. A reactor with a 92% capacity factor actually pushed 92% of theoretical energy into the grid.

The reality is reactor operators have gotten better over time.

71% lifetime capacity factor includes early years of nuclear power when 50% uptime was considered "good". Fuel cycles were 9 months and generally last 2-3 months. Reactors would spend 25%+ of the time offline. Failure rates of 10% (10% of year in unexpected outages).

However like any industry progress has come with time.






As far as Japan & Earthquakes. The 2007 quake was massive and the damage to reactors was extensive (7 reactors offline for 21 months, 5 reactors still offline years later) however that isn't the ONLY quake in Japan. Japan has a very high (one of highest in world) unplanned outage factor.

In 2008 "business as usual" in Japan resulted in a 7.7% unplanned outage rate (the highest in the world). Just to put it into perspective if the US reactor fleet had same rate of unplanned outages (7.7%) our capacity factor would be 86% instead of 92%. When you consider Japan uses 18 month fuel cycles vs 24 months in US (although they are transitioning slowly to 24 month cycles) that is another 4%.

The idea that the difference can ONLY be explained by "Greedy Americans vs. Noble Japanese" is silly.

Just that one factor alone

[kristopher]

17. "The reality is reactor operators have gotten better over time."

That is one way to look at it, another is that the plants are aging and like Davis Besse, there are problems that are going unnoticed and unaddressed as the plants are pushed harder against the safety limits in order to make more money.

[Statistical]

20. So they weren't pushed hard earlier?

High unexpected outage % is a good thing? Your telling me if the US unexpected outage % jumped from 1.2% to 7.7% (like what Japan has in 2009) you wouldn't be using that as an excuse to shutdown reactors?

The reality is if you want to be honest you will consider not all reactors cycles are the same:
Unexpected Outage - critical immediate danger which SCRAMS reactors. US 1.2% - Japan 7.7%.
http://www.iaea.org/programmes/a2/

Fuel Cycle - US is 24 months. Japan is 18 months (moving to 24 months) the difference in downtime is about 4%. The use of burnable neutron poisons has radically changed high burnup fuel economics.

PWR vs BWR - I don't know why but BWR globally have about 6% lower CF. This applies globally and within individual countries. US is biased towards PWR and Japan towards BWR.
http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/RDS2-29_web.pdf

So maybe US reactors are pushed "too hard" but you can't simply draw that conclusion from Japan vs US.
There are many other countries with high capacity factors and many "unsafe" countries with low capacity factors

Highest Capacity Factors:
FINLAND
SLOVENIA
SWITZERLAND
KOREA, REPUBLIC OF
ROMANIA
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
NETHERLANDS
MEXICO
BELGIUM
CHINA
SPAIN


Lowest Capacity Factors:
CZECH REPUBLIC
RUSSIAN FEDERATION
UKRAINE
SOUTH AFRICA
ARMENIA
PAKISTAN
JAPAN
UNITED KINGDOM
INDIA



BTW: Japan announced plans to get their capacity factor >90%.

[FBaggins]

22. If that were true... wouldn't incident numbers go UP?

Instead of down substantially?

More Bizarro world, eh?

[FBaggins]

2. Can you explain why you see that as an either/or scenario?

They ARE "taking risks" (not necessarily unreasonable ones, but risks nevertheless) by increasing utilization... but the reason these risks occur at far lower utilization rates than the vast majority of the world is that they are more earthquake prone.

I can't imagine why that's confusing for you.

[kristopher]

4. .

But improving the operation rate will not be an easy job. Eighteen — or one third — of Japan's 54 reactors are more than 30 years old, and one is 40 years old. Another will turn 40 this year. Pipes and reactor components are deteriorating rapidly in nuclear power plants built in the 1960s and '70s.

The safety commission calls for lengthening the interval between regular checks of nuclear power plants, prolonging the operational life of such plants to more than 40 years and increasing their output by about 5 percent — all steps that increase safety risks. A series of mishaps at nuclear power plants has lowered people's trust. In its pursuit of an improved operation rate, the nuclear power industry must take every possible step to ensure that safety is not compromised.

[FBaggins]

5. If you can't answer the question... why not just say so?

Reactors need more maintenance and "deteriorate" more "rapidly" when they are built on shaky foundations.

Part of the science involved in nuclear power is obviously beyond you... but surely THIS isn't?

[kristopher]

6. ROFLMAO

[FBaggins]

10. "Environmentalists have criticized Japan’s reliance on nuclear...

...energy as irresponsible in a nation with such a vulnerability to powerful quakes."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19778870/

Greenpeace and Green Action have been saying for years that earthquakes in Japan make reactors less safe and require more maintenance/upgrades/etc. Why do you disagree with the environmentalists?

[joshcryer]

21. Post count +1.

[Statistical]

11. Short explanation for those who want the quck answer.

http://www.iaea.org/programmes/a2/

5 of Japan reactors have been shutdown for almost 3 years as a result of the monster quake in 2007.

Japan has 55 reactors so 5 is roughly 9% of the fleet. 9% of the fleet is contributing a 0% capacity factor. Having a 10th of a fleet offline for 3 years tends to lower your stats fleetwide.

When 10% of people are unemployed it affects overall consumption.
If 10% of UPS trucks broke down (for 3 years) it would affect how many packages are delivered on time.

So given Japan has 10% of their fleet in semi-permanent shutdown it isn't apples to apples to compare that to US.

More comparable would be the capacity factor of the 50 reactors that actually had at least 1 minute of uptime in 2009.

In 2009 Japan total fleet (including 5 reactors offline) had a capacity factor of 82%. Of the 55 reactors which actually operated the capacity factor is 90.2%.

I am very glad that Kris considers a 90% capacity factor to be safe.

[kristopher]

13. You may have gleaned it from that site, but your link does not give your conclusions

According to the OpEd (and the Japan Times is probably correct) the earthquakes you point to dropped the CF to the 60% range FROM 80%. Are you now saying that earthquakes explain a 32+% drop in their fleet capacity factor?

Another possible contributor could be that maybe they actually use real numbers, not shaved numbers like the US.

Wouldn't a comparable lifetime number for the US of nuclear reactors (one where we count the failures as well as the successes) yield a around a 71% CF?


Shimane offline following faulty inspections
Operation of the two-unit Shimane nuclear power plant in Japan has been suspended following the discovering that some past inspections of equipment at the plant had not been properly conducted, Chugoku Electric Power Co announced. The utility said that it would shut unit 1 of its Shimane plant today in order to conduct a voluntary inspection. Unit 2 was last week shut for a planned maintenance outage. Chugoku said that it became aware that one of the motor-driven isolation valves outside of the high-pressure steam injection sy
stem had not been replaced. Although the motor was still working, the company subsequently discovered that other valves and motors at the plant had not been inspected and replaced as scheduled. In total, the company found 74 such cases at unit 1 and 49 at unit 2.
http://weblog.greenpeace.org/nuclear-reaction/2010/04/n...


Another radioactive leak reported at Japanese nuclear power plant
July 11, 2002 Associated Press.
Dateline: TOKYO A minor radioactive leak occurred at a troubled Japanese nuclear power plant that has been plagued by shutdowns caused by similar leaks, an official said Thursday.
Water with minute traces of radioactivity was found dripping from a defective pipe in the No. 4 reactor of Chubu Electric Power's Hamaoka nuclear reactor plant in Shizuoka prefecture (state) southeast of Tokyo, Chubu Electric company official Toshiaki Inoue said...
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P1-54295309.html

[Statistical]

15. So which is it annual or lifetime?

Your post was about Japan current capacity factor and US current capacity factor.

Capacity factor globally has improved over the last 3 decades. Most industries get better with time.

[kristopher]

16. Where did you get the statistics you cited?

[Statistical]

18. I stand corrected.

Looks like I used capacity factor from wrong year as baseline.

I took capacity factor multiplied by capacity to get generation and then divided again by reduced capacity (to compensate for 6.1GW in semi-permanent shutdown). Of course it helps to start with right number. I shouldn't do this when tired.

Still I would argue Japan 7.7% average unexpected shutdown % is contributing to their low capacity factor. Likely there is little they can do about that but the US has an unexpected shutdown % of 1.2%. That gives the US at least a 6% advantage in capacity factor roughly half the discrepancy that could apply to "greed".

[kristopher]

19. Where did you get the statistics you cited?

[kristopher]

23. Where did you get the statistics you cited?