Things have been hot after NHO, Fornybar Norge and Norsk Industri got Rystad Energy to produce a report on how nuclear power could fit into Norway.
The report concluded that Norway should not make any assessment of or preparations for nuclear power until 2035. They believe Norway should wait to see if the new type of smaller reactors (SMR) becomes a commercial success.
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Intense debate
The debate has subsequently been intense, among other things NTNU’s rector has resigned. She went out in public, partly in consultation with NHOand criticized the language used by two NTNU researchers who referred to the report as a commissioned work.
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On Monday, NHH head of department Finn Kinserdal went out in DN and said that Rystad committed “an ugly professional error» in its calculations that provide nuclear power for high costs.
On Tuesday morning, NTNU researcher Jonas Kristiansen Nøland is out with an article claiming that Rystad has used “wrong construction costs, wrong capital costs, wrong operating costs and not least, wrong calculation method» when they have looked at the newest nuclear power plant in Finland.
Although the power plant has become the crowning example of how expensive nuclear power can be, it is still likely to deliver electricity at a competitive price.
Sender motrapport
Now Norwegian Nuclear Power has itself made a «counter report»which was sent to Energy Minister Terje Aasland (Ap) on Tuesday.
Chairman of the board Jonny Hesthammer of Norsk Kjernekraft tells Nettavisen that they have found it necessary to address the report from Rystad in more detail:
– The Rystad report has already been used as a basis for influencing political processes. In the “Kraftløftet” of NHO and LO, they rely exclusively on the Rystad report, even with the debate about the weaknesses and NTNU’s report which concludes the opposite, says Hesthammer.
In a letter to the government and the head of the energy committee at the Storting, Hesthammer writes the following:
– A report whose conclusions lack an objective academic basis, and where critical voices are tried to be censored, should not be used as a basis for the energy policy debate in Norway.
He admits that the report they have sent to the ministry was made by an actor with vested interests:
– In the same way that Rystad Energy’s report was commissioned by actors with financial vested interests, it could be objected that our report is not independent either. That is partly correct, but there is an important difference: Norsk Kjernekraft works at the expense and risk of our shareholders. These see great commercial opportunities for nuclear power in Norway, writes Hesthammer.
In the end, the disagreement is really about something very concrete: Should Norway sit on the fence and watch the development, and start on bare ground if it succeeds – or should you get ready to get started quickly.
Points out fundamental weakness
The biggest criticism that Norsk Kjernekraft directs at Rystad Energy’s report is that it has not really done exactly what it claims to do:
– RE’s report claims to assess the “usefulness” of nuclear power in the Norwegian context. However, the report does not reflect on the scale of energy infrastructure that is necessary to meet Norway’s obligations regarding emission cuts. It will be necessary to double or almost triple Norway’s energy production up to 2050, while Norway’s obligations for nature conservation must also be taken care of.
– The report lacks reflections regarding nuclear power’s opportunities for decarbonisation of sectors with challenging emission cuts, use of nuclear power’s process heat for the production of hydrogen, CO₂ handling, food production etc., reduced pressure on grid development needs and reserve power solutions, jobs and use of Norway’s petroleum industry in the nuclear supply chain, says Norwegian nuclear power.
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– Consistently pessimistic assumptions
Similar to the new objections from actors from NHH and NTNU, Norwegian Nuclear Power is particularly skeptical about the way Rystad Energy has calculated costs for nuclear power. It is particularly bad when compared to sea wind, they believe.
The most common way to calculate costs for electricity is called LCOE (Levelized Cost of Electricity). It is then calculated how high the electricity price must be for a power plant to be profitable.
But this model is less suitable for to compare different technologies – especially when it comes to utility. This is partly because wind and solar power generate large indirect costs, and achieve a lower price when the electricity is sold. At the same time, projects with a short lifespan have a big advantage in the calculations.
– RE’s assumptions for LCOE (estimated necessary price level) consistently use pessimistic assumptions, with a lack of basis. RE’s report estimates an LCOE for nuclear power in the range of NOK 1 – 2/kWh. Pessimistic estimates are used for construction time, investment cost, yield requirements relative to other energy sources in the analysis. In addition, they assume a fuel cost that is three times higher than what it was in 2021. All this means that the calculated LCOE will be higher than if neutral and realistic assumptions are used as a basis, writes Norsk kærnkraft.
They believe that Rystad Energy’s estimates lead to costs being ten times as high as the most optimistic estimates in the industry.
– Norsk Kjernekraft assumes a price level between this optimistic and RE’s pessimistic estimate, writes Hesthammer.
Refers to other types of calculations
They point out that other ways of calculating costs, which include the whole picture, give a completely different picture. Bank of America recently posted analysis which has received a good deal of attention. It shows that wind and solar power are hugely expensive when you take the whole picture into account:
They also believe that there is a complete miss about sea wind:
– Outdated estimates are used for LCOE for offshore wind, which is also stated by the source basis for the estimates themselves. Recent experiences demonstrate LCOE in the range of NOK 2–3/kWh for floating offshore wind, which current national policy assumes will be built mostly in Norway in the future.
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Highlights several other weaknesses and flaws
In the report to Norsk kærnkraft, they also highlight several other weaknesses and errors in Rystad’s report.
- They believe that Norway must build waste management anyway, and that the costs Rystad operates with are far too high. They also point out that Norway has to build such a facility in any case because we have a lot of radioactive waste, and that commercial nuclear power will mean that private parties take part of the bill that the state would otherwise have to pay.
- They reject that the state must foot the bill: “The starting point here is that the introduction of nuclear power must essentially be a state matter and financial risk must be absorbed by the Norwegian state. In reality, Norsk Kjernekraft’s project development is initiated by Norwegian companies, with the allocation of private capital.”
- They believe that the long lifetime of nuclear power plants is not taken into account. Wind power plants have an assumed lifetime of 15 years, nuclear power plants can last for 80–100 years
Rystad Energy has been given the opportunity to comment on the criticism from Norwegian Nuclear Power. The company wrote an article in DN just after the New Year where they defended their conclusions. There they wrote, among other things, that the argument that the heat could be utilized will come at the expense of electricity production, and repeated the message:
– All in all, the SMR technology appears to be immature, and it is not possible to point out that Norway has any advantages that indicate that it will be able to mature these technologies faster than in nuclear power countries such as the USA, Canada, France or Great Britain.
2024-01-09 20:48:06
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