Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
July 2013 admission by TEPCO that the equivalent of at least one Olympic
sized swimming pool worth of polluted water has been leaking every eight
days from the crippled reactors.
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his new adverse development is putting
pressure on the government to at least demonstrate eforts to diversify the
energy mix and, for this reason, it is likely that the LDP will continue to sup-
port the FIT despite the added costs passed along to the consumer.
Economically, the government's staunch support for nuclear power con-
tinues to perpetuate the dissemination of distorted economic cost estimates
that bear little resemblance to the economic cost estimates in other nations.
he government has consistently promoted statistics that suggest nuclear
power is the cheapest form of utility-scale electricity generation (see Table
9.2). However, an investigation into the capacity factors that the govern-
ment uses for estimating generation costs suggests a bias in favor of nuclear
power. As Table 9.2 indicates, the Japanese government estimates the cost
of nuclear power based on a capacity factor of 70 to 85%. his is a dubious
claim in itself given the amount of time that Japanese nuclear power plants
are shut down just for safety inspections. Moreover, these estimates do not
include the billions of dollars that the government funneled into R&D for
nuclear power. Nor does it include the processing and storage of nuclear
waste.
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To put these latter costs in perspective, Benjamin Sovacool, in a
study based on the US nuclear reactor industry, estimated that waste and
decommissioning costs alone add US$0.22 to US$0.49 / kWh to the cost
of generating power through nuclear plants. In total, Sovacool estimated
the cost of generating nuclear power from a new 1000 MWe nuclear plant
to range between US$0.41 and US$0.80/kWh.
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his is a far cry from the
Japanese government's estimate of US$0.048-0.062/kWh.
Table 9.2
COMPARATIVE ELECTRICITY GENERATION COSTS IN JAPAN
Generation Cost
(¥ per KWh)
Generation Cost
(US¢ per KWh)
Capacity
Factor (%)
Power source
Hydroelectric
¥8.2-13.3
US¢8.2-13.3
45
Oil-ired
¥10.0-17.3
US¢10.0-17.3
30-80
LNG-ired
¥5.8-7.1
US¢5.8-7.1
60-80
Coal-ired
¥5.0-6.5
US¢5.0-6.5
70-80
Nuclear
¥4.8-6.2
US¢4.8-6.2
70-85
Photovoltaic
¥46.0
US¢46.0
12
Wind
¥10.0-14.0
US¢10.0-14.0
20
Source
: ANRE. 2008.
FY2007 Annual Energy Report
. Japan: Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
