{"id":57845,"date":"2015-05-11T12:00:40","date_gmt":"2015-05-11T11:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=57845"},"modified":"2015-05-08T14:22:35","modified_gmt":"2015-05-08T13:22:35","slug":"did-tesla-just-kill-nuclear-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/05\/did-tesla-just-kill-nuclear-power\/","title":{"rendered":"Did Tesla Just Kill Nuclear Power?"},"content":{"rendered":"

1 May 2015 – <\/em>It would be almost three hours until Tesla\u2019s big announcement, but inside a Northwestern University<\/a> classroom near Chicago Thursday [30 Apr 2015] night, the famed nuclear critic Arnie Gundersen had the inside scoop:<\/p>\n

Tesla Motors<\/a> TSLA -1.03%<\/a> CEO Elon Musk<\/a> was about to announce an industrial-scale battery, Gundersen said, that would cost about 2\u00a2 per kilowatt hour to use, putting the final nail in the coffin of nuclear power.<\/p>\n

Thus Tesla\u2019s big news broke first not amongst\u00a0the throng of reporters\u00a0gathered under swirling colored lights at the carmaker\u2019s Los Angeles press conference, but in the middle of a debate on the future of nuclear power sponsored by students agitating for a \u201cFossil Free NU<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0It was\u00a0Gundersen vs.\u00a0Jordi Roglans-Ribas, the\u00a0director of the Nuclear Engineering Division of Argonne National Laboratory.<\/p>\n

Roglans-Ribas had just finished arguing that any future free of\u00a0fossil\u00a0fuels would need\u00a0nuclear power, which\u00a0provides carbon-free energy<\/a> 24 hours a day, supplying the reliability lacking in renewables\u00a0like\u00a0solar and wind.<\/p>\n

Gundersen called that claim a \u201cmarketing ploy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all know that the wind doesn\u2019t blow consistently and the sun doesn\u2019t shine every day,\u201d he said, \u201cbut the nuclear industry would have you believe that humankind is smart enough to develop techniques to store nuclear waste for a quarter of a million years, but at the same time human kind is so dumb we can\u2019t figure out a way to store solar electricity overnight. To me that doesn\u2019t make sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then Gundersen told the audience of about 80 students and visitors that it\u00a0was a momentous day in history\u2014because of something that was about to happen in California. He evoked\u00a0Elon Musk, the founder of PayPal<\/a> , chairman of SpaceX and SolarCity<\/a> SCTY +1.36%<\/a>, and the product architect for Tesla Motors:<\/p>\n

\u201cAt about ten \u2018o\u2019clock tonight he\u2019s going to hold a press conference and he\u2019s going to announce that he\u2019s going to build industrial scale storage batteries. While the announcement is still two hours away, it appears that they\u2019ll be able to produce these large\u00a0batteries for about 2\u00a2 per kilowatt hour. That\u2019s an enormous breakthrough,\u201d Gundersen said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo the nuclear argument that they\u2019re the only 24-7 source is off the table now because\u00a0Elon Musk has convinced me that industrial scale storage is in fact possible, and it\u2019s here.\u201d<\/p>\n

And a few hours later Musk announced<\/a> the launch of Tesla Energy,\u00a0\u201da suite of batteries for homes, businesses, and utilities fostering a clean energy ecosystem and helping wean the world off fossil fuels.\u201d\u00a0Many had anticipated the batteries\u2014but not the price.<\/p>\n

Tesla will sell the home battery, the Tesla Powerwall, for\u00a0$3,500, a fraction of the $13,000 price observers had expected<\/a>, and perhaps more importantly, a fraction of the cost of\u00a0the $10,000 battery<\/a>\u00a0announced earlier this week by European competitors Sungevity and Sonnenbatterie.<\/p>\n

Musk did not describe the cost of the utility-scale battery, but the prospect of a\u00a0cheap new battery powered\u00a0 Gundersen\u2019s economic argument\u00a0as\u00a0he collegially set out to demolish the nuclear claim:<\/p>\n

The UK government just signed an agreement guaranteeing a price of\u00a016 cents per kilowatt hour for power generated by a reactor proposed\u00a0for Hinkley Point, on the coast at Somerset, England. That fresh contract represents an example, Gundersen argued, of the market price of new nuclear power.<\/p>\n

Solar power costs six to seven cents, he said, and wind costs four or five cents.\u00a0 Add 2\u00a2 for the cost of a utility-scale Tesla battery, and renewables with reliable storage are\u00a0still at half the price of new nuclear power.<\/a><\/p>\n

They\u2019re\u00a0also approaching\u00a0the price of existing\u00a0nuclear power.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere in Illinois you know it\u2019s true because Exelon<\/a> EXC -1.7%<\/a> is threatening to close five nuclear plants because they can\u2019t compete with wind anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

The real cost of various sources of energy is a topic of debate. Last year the U.S. Dept of Energy said\u00a0the cost of wind power had reached a new low<\/a> of\u00a02.5 cents per kilowatt hour (pdf<\/a>). The cost of solar is typically pegged\u00a0much higher, but the UN Energy Information Agency estimates<\/a> solar is on a path to a cost of about 4 cents per kilowatt hour in coming decades. [Lazard has utility-scale solar at 6 cents<\/a> in 2017.]<\/p>\n

Gundersen is a former nuclear engineer and executive who lost his job<\/a> in 1990 after reporting safety violations to his employer. He testifies and campaigns against nuclear power for Fairewinds Energy Education, a non-profit founded by his wife, Maggie Gundersen, also a former nuclear industry employee.<\/p>\n

Gundersen\u2019s\u00a0debate opponent,\u00a0Roglans-Ribas<\/a>, did not address the Tesla battery development.\u00a0He based his argument largely on reliability before Gundersen played that card, and he\u00a0suggested that reliability alone would not sustain nuclear power\u2014that it would need regulatory help to compete.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo actually be able to incentivize reliability in the electric grid will be the key,\u201d Roglans-Ribas said. \u201cAnd that is where nuclear power can play a key role.\u201d<\/p>\n

Each kilogram of uranium burned in a reactor saves \u201cthousands or millions of tons of CO2 emissions,\u201d he said, conceding that \u201crenewables can do the same thing.\u201d But if the U.S. depends entirely on renewables, he predicted, a point will come when the supply cannot meet the demand.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe solution to moving way from fossil fuels, moving away from greenhouse gas emissions, the solution is a mix that includes nuclear and includes also renewables and also other sources, including for example gas turbines that provide peaking power,\u201d Roglans-Ribas concluded.<\/p>\n

But Gundersen dismissed the nuclear contribution as too expensive and too slow\u2014even if the U.S. could license and afford new reactors, they could not come online before 2023\u2014and he replaced the nuclear contribution\u00a0with batteries and conservation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe operative word in this discussion tonight is now. What are we going to do now to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere?\u201d<\/a> \u00a0he said. \u201cThese things can be implemented immediately. We know how to insulate a building. We know how to put double and triple-pane windows in them. We know how to build windmills and put solar cells up. These are immediate things. We don\u2019t have to invest $50 trillion and wait 15 years for that to come to fruition.<\/p>\n

\u201cProducing our way out of the problem with renewables is half the solution. Conserving our way out is the other half.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read The Followup:<\/em><\/p>\n

Why Tesla Batteries Are Cheap Enough To Prevent New Power Plants<\/a><\/p>\n

China: Electric Vehicle-To-Grid Technology Could Solve Renewable Energy Storage Problem<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Electric<\/a>

Electric car pioneer Telsa Motors unveiled a \u2018home battery\u2019 Thursday which its founder Elon Musk said would help change the \u2018entire energy infrastructure of the world.\u2019 (Photo by DAVID MCNEW\/AFP\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

_________________________________<\/p>\n

Jeff McMahon<\/em> – I have covered the energy and environment beat since 1985, when I discovered my college was discarding radioactive waste in a dumpster. That story ran in the <\/em>Arizona Republic, and I have chased electrons and pollutants ever since, for dailies in Arizona and California, for alternative weeklies including <\/em>New Times and <\/em>Newcity, for online innovators such as <\/em>True\/Slant, The Weather Channel’s Forecast Earth project, and <\/em>The New York Times Company’s LifeWire syndicate. I’ve wandered far afield\u2014to cover the counterrevolutionary war in Nicaragua, the World Series Earthquake in San Francisco, the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. For the last several years I have also been teaching journalism and argument at the University of Chicago. Email me here: jeffmcmahon.com\/contact-jeff-mcmahon\/<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 forbes.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thursday [30 Apr 2015] night, the famed nuclear critic Arnie Gundersen had the inside scoop: Tesla Motors announced an industrial-scale battery that would cost about 2\u00a2 per kilowatt hour, putting the final nail in the coffin of nuclear power. Solar power costs six to seven cents, he said, and wind costs four or five cents. Add 2\u00a2 for the cost of a utility-scale Tesla battery, and renewables with reliable storage are still at half the price of new nuclear power.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[147],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57845\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}