Nuclear power screwed by new rules? EPA Public comment deadline Dec 1

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Nuclear power screwed by new rules? EPA Public comment deadline Dec 1

Elotana: Dec 12, 2003; and i'm putting it all on the goddamn expense account

Trabisnikof posted:

The EPA adds megawatt hours reflecting 5.8% of a state�s nuclear fleet, along with any megawatt hours for under construction nuclear plants, to the denominator of the formula, resulting in the following version of the formula, where the subscript AR means nuclear generation at risk and UC means nuclear generation under construction.

This makes no sense. If you're predicting 5.8% of the nuclear fleet to be "at risk" of retirement, then surely the correct coefficient for the denominator is 94.2%. MWh not at risk it should be treated the same as the under-construction plants.

# ¿ Dec 2, 2014 19:18

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Elotana: Dec 12, 2003; and i'm putting it all on the goddamn expense account

Trabisnikof posted:

The goal is reducing emissions so getting credit for existing nuclear plants is a bonus to keep them online. How do existing nuclear plants help reduce emissions from the status quo in the same way as a new plant would?

Either I'm missing something here or you are. The Brookings Institute says that the purpose of the coefficient is to give them extra credit, but that's not what I see when I do the math. The goals are calculated using current emissions mixes as a baseline. Coal and natgas are in the denominator of the goal mix at 100% (+/- the redispatch coefficient, but that will skew things even farther towards natgas). Nuclear is the only technology given special treatment in the denominator.

Let's take the state of Freedonia as an example. Freedonia produces 20 TWh of power, 9 TWh from coal, 9 TWh from installed nuclear, 1 TWh from natgas, and 1 TWh from renewables. To make a further simplifying assumption, we'll say that Freedonia's natgas plants are already running at 70% capacity to avoid calculating redispatch, and that Freedonia is in the North Central US, so their renewables growth potential is 6% compounded 13 years.

According to page 4, their emissions goal is going to be something like this

code:

      (2,120 * 9,000,000) + (810 * 1,000,000)
-------------------------------------------------------
9,000,000 + 1,000,000 + 522,000 + 2,133,000 + 2,000,000

Where the 522 GWh is 5.8% of nuclear, the 2.133 TWh is their compounded renewable growth goal, and the last 2 TWh is the energy efficiency denomination of 10% of capacity. This yields a goal of 1,357 lbs/MWh.

Now let's say Freedonia's energy consumption grows to 22TWh of power. They do absolutely nothing except rip up their existing nuclear and replace it with natgas, and meet all new demand with natgas. Freedonia now has 9TWh from coal, 12 TWh from natgas, and 1 TWh from renewables.

code:

(2,120 * 9,000,000) + (810 * 12,000,000)
----------------------------------------
  9,000,000 + 12,000,000 + 1,000,000

1,309 lbs/MWh! Congratulations, Freedonia!

If you put nuclear in the goal denominator at only 5.8%, it means any state with large amounts of coal and nuclear but not a lot of natgas can get massive emissions reductions on paper because natgas, while still emitting, has a lower emissions profile than coal and gets full credit in the denominator. While I grossly simplified for the purposes of the example, Freedonia is basically Illinois (one of the states cited by the nuke bloggers as victims of this calculation).

Elotana fucked around with this message at 21:03 on Dec 2, 2014

# ¿ Dec 2, 2014 20:58

Elotana: Dec 12, 2003; and i'm putting it all on the goddamn expense account

Trabisnikof posted:

I think you're missing the point of this whole formula, which is to calculate the emissions level not to evaluate it. This forumula is how the EPA decides what emissions reductions are possible, not how they evaluate future emissions.

That's why I used the emissions rate formula from page 1 of the Brookings report to calculate the actual future mix, not the goal formula.

Trabisnikof posted:

If a state offlined nukes and onlined fossil fuel plants to replace them, they'd still have to meet the baseline of current fossil fuel emissions not a baseline based on future emissions.

And since the baseline is lbs/MWh rather than just lbs, a state with a currently high mix of coal can do just that by replacing the nuclear with natgas.

Elotana fucked around with this message at 21:32 on Dec 2, 2014

# ¿ Dec 2, 2014 21:26

Elotana: Dec 12, 2003; and i'm putting it all on the goddamn expense account

Trabisnikof posted:

Replacing nuclear with natgas would increase lbs/MWh of fossil fuel emissions

No, it would increase lbs/MWh of overall emissions. The fossil fuel emissions would go down in terms of lbs/MWh. And neither are being calculated by this goal formula, per your own second source:

quote:

The 2030 emissions standard formula in Figure 2 differs from typical measures of emissions rates; it represents neither the fossil fleet emissions rate (emissions divided by generation from the fossil fleet) nor the emissions rate of the entire generation fleet (emissions divided by all power generation regardless of source fuel). Instead, the EGU CO2 emissions standard is calculated as the ratio of expected future emissions after implementing the assumed building blocks, divided by the sum of fossil, renewables, and new or �at-risk� nuclear generation (excluding existing hydro and the majority of nuclear) plus generation avoided through energy efficiency.

Why is only nuclear reduced by "new or at-risk?" The denominator only counts MWh from new nuke plants or plants unexpectedly kept online. That is, if a nuke plant already exists, and we expect it to still exist in 2030, it doesn't get counted. But it counts every MWh for fossils, and for non-hydro renewables. If a wind farm exists, and we expect it to still exist in 2030, why does it get credit in the denominator but a nuke plant doesn't?

Elotana fucked around with this message at 21:58 on Dec 2, 2014

# ¿ Dec 2, 2014 21:56

Elotana: Dec 12, 2003; and i'm putting it all on the goddamn expense account

Trabisnikof posted:

Ah I think I've determined the disconnect. The calculation is for [lbs of emissions from fossil fuels]/[total MWh]. It is a wonky measure to be sure but is why you can't just replace nuclear plants with natgas plants and have the formula work.

No, that's not the calculation. If [total MWh] were the denominator then existing nuclear and hydro wouldn't be excluded from the denominator.

Here's the EPA's own explanation: http://www2.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2014-06/documents/20140602tsd-goal-computation.pdf

Look at Appendix 5. There is a column for total fossil, and there is a column for total fossil + renewables + new/at-risk nuclear. There is no column that includes installed nuclear or hydro in the denominator. And they are the only technologies treated this way in the goal formula. Renewables are not discounted in the denominator. Coal and natgas are not discounted in the denominator. What is the rationale for this? If you are claiming goals shouldn't "credit" nuclear that's already installed then why are they crediting non-hydro renewables already installed? Why are they not crediting hydro at all? Why treat any of these three things differently, from an emissions standpoint?

quote:

Check out that Brattle chart it helps explain the difference in the way fossil fuels and everything else is being calculated. Fossil fuels are in the denominator as a positive while at-risk current nuclear, current non-hydro renewables, etc are negatives.

They aren't treated this way in either the Brookings or the EPA sample calculations (done for MI and OH, respectively).

EDIT: Also it would make no sense to have them as negative in the denominator, because then any state with a majority of nuclear + renewables would have a negative emissions target. :v:

If your argument is going to come down to repeatedly gesturing at the Brattle chart and insisting that it must work the way they graphed it because surely they did the math and didn't take the EPA at their word, then just go ahead and say so.

Elotana fucked around with this message at 00:33 on Dec 3, 2014

# ¿ Dec 3, 2014 00:22

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Nuclear power screwed by new rules? EPA Public comment deadline Dec 1