Suchergebnisse

This work seeks to evaluate overnight construction costs (OCC) and lead-time escalation of nuclear power construction projects from 1955 to 2016. To this end, a comprehensive database of commercial Light Water Reactors (LWR) was developed and a statistical analysis was conducted. Findings reveal a significant delay in lead-time, especially for the last generation reactors constructed from 2010s, with 3/4 of the sample showing significant construction delays. This results in an escalation of capital costs rather than in a decline. Average OCC of newer reactors is 60% higher than the ones implemented in the earlier stages of the nuclear era. This suggests a discontinuity of the learning curve for both OCC and lead-time, which threats the market and financial sustainability of current and future nuclear energy projects. Although this is a general trend, this discontinuity is country specific and, thus, induced by national policies and regulatory frameworks. Therefore, the role of nuclear technology as an alternative to cope with the need for a decarbonisation of the power sector must be better evaluated, taking into account the real cost impacts of nuclear technology implementation. ; - This work was funded by the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development agency (CNPq) (166074/2015-2) and the Marie Curie International Research Staff Exchange Scheme Fellowship within the 7th European Union Framework Programme, under the project NETEP- European Brazilian Network on Energy Planning (PIRSES-GA-2013-612263). Authors would like to acknowledge Rafael Garaffa for his helpful advices about processing data with R statistical software and data analysis. Authors are also thankful to the comments of anonymous reviewers. Special thanks to the Grantham Institute and Imperial College London media office for assisting in publicising the findings of the ...

Carbon capture and geological storage (CCS) is a key technology for the World deep decarbonization. However, several challenges remain, such as the optimization of the carbon transportation infrastructures. This study proposes a methodology that applies the Kernel Density function in a geographic information system software and uses as input, CO2 emission sources data to identify emission clusters and emission high-density hotspots. The main goal of the proposed methodology is to perform a preliminary screening to identify areas of interest to install hubs when designing an optimized CO2 pipeline network. The methodology includes an estimation of capturable CO2 emissions and a density analysis that was based on Kernel Density function from the ArcGIS Desktop 10. The methodology was applied to the Iberian Peninsula CO2 industrial emission sources such as refineries, coal and natural gas power plants and cement factories (case study) and the results showed that in Portugal, CO2 industrial emissions reduction can reach up to 68% and, in Spain, up to 74% of CO2 industrial emissions, could be avoided. These are called capturable CO2 emissions which means that they are the portion of the total emissions that can be captured from industrial processes before they reach the atmosphere. Moreover, hubs were shown to be more viable when Portugal and Spain are considered together, therefore, carbon routes (pipeline network) in the future may consider an integrated route for the Iberian Peninsula. ; - Thanks to Professor Fernando Gomes Martins from the University of Porto. He supported and encouraged this work under the project NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000005 - LEPABE-2-ECO-INNOVATION, supported by North Portugal Regional Operational Programme (NORTE 2020), under the Portugal 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).This research was supported, also, by a Marie Curie International Research Staff Exchange Scheme Fellowship within the 7th European Union Framework Programme, under project ...

The Brazilian power generation sector faces a paradigm change driven by, on one hand, a shift from a hydropower dominated mix and, on the other hand, international goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The objective of this work is to evaluate five scenarios for the Brazilian power sector until 2050 using a multi-criteria decision analysis tool. These scenarios include a baseline trend and low carbon policy scenarios based on carbon taxes and carbon emission limits. To support the applied methodology, a questionnaire was elaborated to integrate the perceptions of experts on the scenario evaluation process. Considering the results from multi-criteria analysis, scenario preference followed the order of increasing share of renewables in the power sector. The preferable option for the future Brazilian power sector is a scenario where wind and biomass have a major contribution. The robustness of the multi-criteria tool applied in this study was tested by a sensitivity analysis. This analysis demonstrated that, regardless of the respondents' preferences and backgrounds, scenarios with higher shares of fossil fuel sources are the least preferable option, while scenarios with major contributions from wind and biomass are the preferable option to supply electricity in Brazil through 2050. ; The research that allowed the publication of this paper has been produced with the financial assistance of the European Union in the context of the CLIMACAP project (EuropeAid/131944/C/SER/Multi) and of the U.S. Agency for International Development and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in the context of the LAMP project (under Interagency Agreements DW89923040 and DW89923951US). The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of the authors and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Union or the U.S. government. The authors would like to thank the feedback and efforts from all CLIMACAP and LAMP project partners for enabling the research results reported in this article. This research was ...