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Sorry for being grumpy.

It is a polarized issue so your manners are appreciated.

Here you go.

http://nuclearinfo.net/Nuclear...

Thank you, so often people make statements and can't back up their claim. I will read and analyze this information as I have only gisted it for now.

The site is way out of date but the critique of Storm and Smith is valid.

They reference the Vattenfall work that the IPCC used in its estimates however the Vattenfall worked wasn't peer reviewed and is out of date the last time I found it. In this work it is also out of date and the link to the VattenFall work in this paper is broken. I've read the Vattenfall work, which was originally produced as a critique to Storm and Smith work and read like a product safety advisory. I have been looking for a copy of it so if you come across it please send it on. Many who cite the Vattenfall work aren't aware of this.

The energy used to mine and mill this Uranium was about 3% of a GigaWatt-year. Thus the energy produced is about 500 times more than the energy required to operate the mine.

The energy expenditure looks the same as In Situ Leach Mining, that explained some time ago. It is illegal in the US and Russia - for good reason.

Thanks again for the link - I'll go through it completely over the next week or so.

Here you go.

http://nuclearinfo.net/Nuclear...

The site is way out of date but the critique of Storm and Smith is valid. Sorry for being grumpy.

My guess is that thorium reactors are the closest to made commercially possible. Safe in terms of the nuclear reaction since they cannot melt down or have their pressure-vessel explode... Would produce less waste. Can be used to consume the existing spent fuel-rods reducing the amount of waste we have. Will produce things that are highly radioactive, but so radioactive that we only have to store it for a few hundred years. (The more radioactive something is the faster it decays) Does have some technical issues, but not unsolvable, before it could be widely deployed.

Fore other types of reactors have a look at http://nuclearinfo.net/Nuclear... under the section "The Fourth Generation Reactors".

From the above link above:

The Fourth Generation Reactors
In 2002 the Gen iV Internation Forum (GIF) nations (Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, Japan, Korea, South Africa, Switzerland, Russia, United Kingdom and the United States of America) proposed a long term research and developement program to investigate 6 promising new reactor designs.
The six design concepts are:
The Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor (GFR)
Very-High-Temperature Reactor (VHTR)
Supercritical-Water-Cooled Reactor (SCWR)
Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactor (SFR)
Lead-Cooled Fast Reactor (LFR)
Molten Salt Reactor (MSR)

These reactor concepts are designed to address the energy needs of the World into the far future (post 21st century).
They efficiently utilize Uranium (many can employ depleted Uranium or "spent" fuel from current reactors).
Destroy a large fraction of nuclear waste from current reactors via transmutation.
Generate Hydrogen for transportation and other non-electric energy needs.
Be inherently safe and easy to operate.
Provide inherent resistance to Nuclear Weapons proliferation.
Provide a clear cost advantage over other forms of energy generation.
Carry a financial risk no greater than other forms of energy generation.

As for the cost, the average US nuclear power plant puts out very close to one gigawatt, and costs on the order of 6-9 billion dollars to build and another 30 billion in expenses over its lifetime. This tower has an estimated construction cost of 750 million dollars, and although I can't find any estimates of the maintenance cost, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say "a hell of a lot less than completely rebuilding it every 3 years of its spec'd lifetime".

Average nuclear reactor output in the U.S. is around 950 MW. Nuclear plants have a capacity factor of a bit more than 90%. So your 950 MW reactor will put out an average 855 MW.

As I calculated in a post above, capacity factor for this tower should be about 28%, for an average 56 MW generation. You'd need a bit more than 15 of these towers to equal the power output of one 950 MW nuclear reactor. If this tower costs $750 million, and you need to build 15.3 of them to equal a nuclear plant, you're at $11.5 billion construction costs vs the $6-$9 billion you cited for nuclear.

Actually a 1 GW nuclear reactor should only cost $1-$5 billion. The $6-$9 billion cost figure is after you include financing - that is, interest on the loans. If you included financing on $11.5 billion for your 15.3 solar towers, you'd be up around $15-$21 billion. So MWh for MWh, these towers are considerably more expensive to construct than a nuclear reactor.

Also, your $30 billion operating costs is wildly off. A nuclear reactor generating 855 MW puts out about 7.5 million MWh in a year. Wholesale electricity prices are around $40-$100 per MWh. So the reactor generates about $300-$750 million worth of electricity in a year. If its expenses over 40 years are $30 billion, that's $750 million per year in expenses. The power companies would be losing money operating the reactors, and they would be falling over themselves trying to shut them down.

Cost to generate nuclear power in the U.S is about $48-$73 per MWh depending on whether you use a 5% or 10% discount rate. So the nuclear plant's operational costs are about $360-$550 million per year. Amortized over the 15.3 towers, that would be equivalent to each tower having an operational budget of $24-$36 million per year.

Of course, wind power is not exactly environmentally neutral if you consider constructional, maintenance, and impact on bats, birds and weather patterns.

In terms of maintenance, wind is already more dangerous than nuclear per TWh generated. Maintenance deaths from wind just aren't on the radar yet because wind generates so little electricity. But if you normalize for the amount of electricity generated (scale up wind's output numbers to match that of nuclear, or scale down nuclear's to match that of wind), you find it kills about 3 to 4 times as many people as nuclear.

As for construction costs, a 2 MW turbine costs about $3.5 million. Multiply it by a 20% capacity factor, and you end up at a cost of $7.9 billion for enough turbines to yield an average 900 MW generating capacity throughout the year. An AP1000 reactor at 90% capacity factor generates 900 MW, and costs about $3.5 billion. So wind is about 2x as expensive to construct as nuclear, kWh for kWh. (I should note however that offshore wind frequently has capacity factors exceeding 30%, which is beginning to become competitive with the more expensive tail of nuclear and fossil fuels. Despite being pro-nuclear, I am not anti-wind. I just come across that way because so many wind proponents seem to have little grasp of the numbers.)

I also calculated the waste produced by each technology. Lemme dig it up...

Any definition of "cleaner" must be normalized to the same amount of energy generated. Since most people have little concept of what a MW or kWh is, let's put it in terms they can relate to. How much electricity does a typical U.S. home use in 30 years? The average U.S. home in 2009 consumed about 11,040 kWh/yr. So in 30 years it would use 330 MWh.

According to the EIA, a ton of coal yields about 2000 kWh of electricity. To power a typical U.S. home for 30 years with coal will take about 165 tons of coal. You'll see this is so high I'm not even gonna bother calculating the steel and concrete needed for the coal plant itself.

Commercial solar panels generate about 125 W/m^2 peak. Factor in night, weather, angle to the sun, and they have a capacity factor of about 15% (ranging from about 12% at northern latitudes, to about 19% in the desert Southwest). So on average you're getting about 20 W/m^2 throughout the year. I'm feeling generous so let's say this house is in the Southwest and you're getting a 20% capacity factor. 25 W/m^2. One year is 8766 hours, so to generate 11,040 kWh in the year would require 50 m^2 of solar panels. They typically have a 20-25 year rated life, but let's give them 30. And ignore any battery requirements - pretend there's another power source (like nuclear) providing base load. The stats I'm finding online say with support structure, solar panels are about 16 kg/m^2, so 50 m^2 would 800 kg of trash after 30 years.

How about wind? A 1 MW wind turbine needs about 150 tons of steel and concrete. It operates at a 20%-25% capacity factor, but let's go with the higher 25%. So the average generation from the turbine will be 250 kW. Over a year, that's 2192 MWh/yr. A typical home uses 11 MWh/yr, so the single turbine will provide for about 200 homes. They have a rated life of 30 years (U.S. accounting uses 40 years, but the rest of the world uses 30 years before they're expected to need to be replaced). So after 30 years of wind electricity generation for your home, you're talking about 150/200 = 3/4 ton of trash = 750 kg. I'll make the same assumption about batteries as with solar.

How about nuclear? The U.S. generated about 800 TWh of electricity using nuclear in 2008, producing about 2000 tons of nuclear waste in the process. That's about 2.5 tons per TWh. So the 11 MWh of our typical home in 30 years results in the production of 0.0000275 tons, or 27.5 grams of nuclear waste.

Indeed, other countries have been able to build quickly.

Really? If that's what you really think you haven't seen many reports about construction delays. Try this one: Hooked on Subsidies:
"Investors are also wary of nuclear plants because of the construction delays and cost over-runs that have historically plagued the industry. For instance, the Areva/Siemens nuclear power plant being built for TVO in Finland-the first nuclear power plant to be built in a relatively free energy market in decades-once scheduled to be operational within 54 months, is now two years behind schedule and 60% over budget. Nor have these construction delays had anything to do with regulatory obstruction or organized public opposition."

"The General Electric ABWR was the first third generation power plant approved. The first two ABWR's were commissioned in Japan in 1996 and 1997. These took just over 3 years to construct and were completed on budget. Their construction costs were around $2000 per KW. Two additional ABWR's are being constructed in Taiwan. However these have faced unexpected delays and are now at least 2 years behind schedule."

"CEZ Declines for Second Day as Czech Utility Delays Nuclear Investment
"The company postponed the selection of suppliers for two additional reactors at Temelin until 2011, supervisory board member Eduard Janota said today. Construction may be delayed by as much as several years, Hospodarske Noviny newspaper reported, citing a CEZ employee it did not name. CEZ will also reduce investments in Bulgaria, Romania and Poland, the newspaper said."

Those were in the Czech Republic, Finland, and Taiwan not the US, so US environmental regulations can't be blamed. People say how France gets a lot of energy from nuclear power, yet it was the French company Areva which is majority owned by the French government, that was building Finland's Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant.

Falcon

Nuclear (centrifuge): 18.1, 18.4, 14.5, 13.6 and 14.8

Vattenfall has demonstrated an EROEI of 93 on the Forsmark nuclear plant, by actually measuring their energy inputs, rather than inventing formulas.
http://nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/WebHomeEnergyLifecycleOfNuclear_Power

Building a nuclear power plant is indeed an energy intensive process. So isn't building a steel mill, sports stadium, coal power plant. Making solar panels is energy intensive. This page says that a nuclear power plant repays it's energy costs for construction, deconstruction, and waste disposal in 3 months.

On to cost: First, remember I was making an EO comment. As an EO I have the power to pay cash, conscript labor, cut through red tape(or people if necessary), etc... Also, while I hate coal with a passion, I view nuclear, wind, and solar more equally.

Let's approach it from the supply side. A 1GW power plant of the nuclear variety will produce, on average, 8.5 Billion kw/hours of electricity a year with the US average load factor* for nuclear power plants of 97%. At about 8 cents per kw/h, that's $680 million in electricity. A $2 billion 1GW nuclear reactor would take about four years to pay itself off(discounting other expenses).

Costs to contruct:

Nuclear Power: $2000/kw capacity (97% load factor, fuel costs relativly insignificant) effective: $2062
Solar Power: $2000/kw best new tech, grid connected(50% in optimal climate) effective: $4000
Wind: $2000/kw (sites don't want to post the cost, maintenance of turbines still required LF:35%), effective: $5714
Coal: $1400/kw (75-85% load factor, but significant health and emissions, as well as fuel costs)
NG/Oil/Diesel/etc: fuel costs more significant than generator costs.

And I'd want the government to stop subsidizing the nuclear power industry along with the petroleum industry, at least help alternative energy to the same degree

Ok, we'll subsidize 'alternative energy' to the same degree as we subsidize the nuclear power industry. Here's how we do it: We cut all subsidies for building alternative power installations, such as the 1.8 cents/kwh wind credit, to zero and charge a mandatory 'disposal' fee per kw/hour of energy produced with the agreement to take care of the waste. I know alternative power normally doesn't generate any, but then, neither has the government actually taken any waste away in the nuclear power industry. Oh, and the government will agree to only hold the wind power industry responsable for the first 10 billion dollars or so of damages, before which will be self covered, covered by private insurance, then a common pool for which all wind producers will have to have money in escrow before. Oh wait, was that not the subsidization you were thinking of?

Then there's a significant problem with 'renewable' energy sources like wind and solar in that they're not demand based. Basically, they produce power when they want to, not when people need power. You don't store electricity if you don't have to, because the storage systems are expensive. Therefore you need backup power capability, which substantially increases the costs of the 'green' power, because you essentially have to build double the capacity. Oh, and most standbys are either expensive NG or dirty coal.

*Load Factor, also known as the capacity factor, is the ratio between a power plant's actual production and theoretical maximum production. Nuclear power plants are generally the highest at 97%, as they shut down rarely and usually operate at 100%. Solar will never break 50%. Wind in england averages 25-35%.

Saying that nuclear power isn't "safe" is ignoring the facts:

A nuclear reactor under normal operating conditions releases less radiation to the environment than a comparably-sized coal power plant. http://www.ornl.gov/info/reports/1977/344560511508 7.pdf

Containment-breaching accidents in the entire history of nuclear power amount to exactly 1 in approximately 10,000 reactor-years of total operation, and the RBMK (Chernobyl) is a dog of a design that under any rational oversight system would never even have been built. This is in line with probabilistic risk assessments which indicate a CMF (core melt frequency) of 1 in 10^4 reactor-years, and a LRF (large release frequency) of 1 in 10^5 reactor-years. Current designs (specifically the AP1000) reduce these to 4x10^-7 and 4x10^-8 respectively. http://www.nuclearinfo.net/twiki/pub/Nuclearpower/ WebHomeCostOfNuclearPower/AP1000Reactor.pdf

Nuclear power isn't without its problems: high capital costs, mostly as a result of legal fees associated with brain-dead NIMBY protesters, and the waste management issue, although even that is only a problem for at most 10,000 years under a competent, well-thought out fuel cycle (e.g. NOT in the US).

Compared to the global economic and environmental consequences of our current fossil fuel addiction, whether or not to transition to nuclear power, and quickly, is no choice at all. But rational inquiry doesn't play as well on the news as "OMG IT'S NUCULAR THINK OF TEH CHILDRENZ!!!!1`one"

Ok, here goes (sigh):

1. building costs that westinghouse is billing out to china for its new 3rd gen reactors is $1000-1200/KW, and is expected to be completed at 2-3 years for a 1.1 GW plant. This is actually cheaper than the equivalent for coal.

2. demolishing is a cost, true, but is basically the same as a given coal plant. But nuke plants are turning out to be more durable than first anticipated, with most plants expected to last 60 years or so. This mitigates both cost of building and destruction.

3. storing the leftovers *is* actually built into the electricity cost itself, unlike any other generation source (solar, coal, gas, wind, whatever). It comes out to about .1 cent/kWh.)

4. insurance (Price-Anderson) has cost taxpayers a total of zero dollars since its inception.

Short answer - if you have any objections to nuclear power, please get over it. Its one of two proven tactics to overcome greenhouse emissions - the other being energy efficiency. And we are going to need a hell of a lot more of it in the coming years. http://www.nuclearinfo.net/ is a good site for more information and is useful for answering these basic questions (put together by some physicists in australia)

There have been improvements in safety systems. The Westinghouse AP1000 recently approved by the NRC and proposed for deployment at 5 locations in the States within the next 8 years is projected to be 100 times safer than current reactors (and less than half the price to build).

See:

http://www.nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/WebHomeAcc identsAtNuclearPowerPlants

and

http://www.nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/WebHomeCos tOfNuclearPower

Regarding waste storage, Yucca is undergoing final review. In the longer term the US proposes to build next generation "burner" reactors to transmute the trans Uranics to shorter-lived waste. Current plans are for prototypes in 2014, commercial deployment in the 2020's.

It remains to be seen if the US can maintain the funding required to see these projects to frution. Long term development projects in the States have to have their funding reviewed every year and there is always some senator with an axe to grind...

Anyway, see:

http://www.gnep.energy.gov/

There have been improvements in safety systems. The Westinghouse AP1000 recently approved by the NRC and proposed for deployment at 5 locations in the States within the next 8 years is projected to be 100 times safer than current reactors (and less than half the price to build).

See:

http://www.nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/WebHomeAcc identsAtNuclearPowerPlants

and

http://www.nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/WebHomeCos tOfNuclearPower

Regarding waste storage, Yucca is undergoing final review. In the longer term the US proposes to build next generation "burner" reactors to transmute the trans Uranics to shorter-lived waste. Current plans are for prototypes in 2014, commercial deployment in the 2020's.

It remains to be seen if the US can maintain the funding required to see these projects to frution. Long term development projects in the States have to have their funding reviewed every year and there is always some senator with an axe to grind...

Anyway, see:

http://www.gnep.energy.gov/

The Earth's crust is estimated to contain over 30 trillion tonnes of Uranium. To date we've mined 2 million tonnes of this. That's less than one ten millionth of what we've got (compared to about half of all the conventional Oil).

We've published a study on the web that estimates how much of the remaining Uranium we can effectively extract using current mining and milling technology and current light water reactors by looking at the energy cost of mining vs the energy gain in a reactor.

The answer? Very conservatively, 300 times more than our current 50 year supply of proven reserves.

It all here: http://www.nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/WebHomeEne rgyLifecycleOfNuclear_Power

The Earth's crust is estimated to contain over 30 trillion tonnes of Uranium. To date we've mined 2 million tonnes of this. That's less than one ten millionth of what we've got (compared to about half of all the conventional Oil).

We've published a study on the web that estimates how much of the remaining Uranium we can effectively extract using current mining and milling technology and current light water reactors by looking at the energy cost of mining vs the energy gain in a reactor.

The answer? Very conservatively, 300 times more than our current 50 year supply of proven reserves.

It all here: http://www.nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/WebHomeEne rgyLifecycleOfNuclear_Power

Who said it would be too cheap to meter? The point ia that Nuclear technology, like every other technology, has improved over the last 20 years. The abundance of Uranium and Thorium in the Earth's crust is a simple fact. Nuclear Energy in the USA has the second lowest operating cost of any eneergy generation technology. The Capital cost of modern Nuclear Plant is purported to be half that of plants built in the 1980's. Don't be deluded yourself. Check out: http://www.nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/WebHomeCos tOfNuclearPower Why do think Tony Blair is risking widespread voter dis-satisfaction and revolt in his own party by re-considering Nuclear Power? Especially in Britain which has about the worst track-record of deploying Nuclear Power of anywhere outside of the old USSR.

Who said it would be too cheap to meter? The point ia that Nuclear technology, like every other technology, has improved over the last 20 years. The abundance of Uranium and Thorium in the Earth's crust is a simple fact. Nuclear Energy in the USA has the second lowest operating cost of any eneergy generation technology. The Capital cost of modern Nuclear Plant is purported to be half that of plants built in the 1980's. Don't be deluded yourself. Check out: http://www.nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/WebHomeCos tOfNuclearPower Why do think Tony Blair is risking widespread voter dis-satisfaction and revolt in his own party by re-considering Nuclear Power? Especially in Britain which has about the worst track-record of deploying Nuclear Power of anywhere outside of the old USSR.

I suspect that the depletion of fossil fuels will spur the development of Nuclear Fission technology so that energy will be perpetually cheap, at least for the next million or so years on Earth.

I'm not sure what the implications of this will be but I'm betting that the vast differences in Human existence in different nations today will be gone by the end of the 21st century.

We've mined less than one ten millionth of the Uranium on earth. See here and here for the implications.

I suspect that the depletion of fossil fuels will spur the development of Nuclear Fission technology so that energy will be perpetually cheap, at least for the next million or so years on Earth.

I'm not sure what the implications of this will be but I'm betting that the vast differences in Human existence in different nations today will be gone by the end of the 21st century.

We've mined less than one ten millionth of the Uranium on earth. See here and here for the implications.

> The real problem with nuclear power is that it's cheaper, faster and easier to
> build coal power plants. Sure coal pollutes more and generates CO2 but the only
> people that have to pay for that are your grandchildren. Pollution and CO2 are
> officially somebody elses problem.

That used to be correct, but isn't any more..

New nuclear power plants are about as expensive (if not a little cheaper) and take as long to build as coal plants (3 years construction.)

Source here .

There is no reason to still be building coal plants. We could replace coal with nuclear with an investment of $500-600 billion dollars, or about 30 billion a year. That by the way, is far less costly than certain wars .

Ed

(ps - oh, and btw, in the process we would be saving $100 billion/year in coal externalities, cleaning the air, saving 15000-50000 lives yearly, and greatly reducing global warming (if all were replaced, *global* emissions would go back to where they were in 1975). The effort would pay itself back in approximately 7 years, and be sheer profit from then on.)

Just a quick note, but "nuclear won't come even close to wind" is a bit misleading.

Right now, wind costs about $4000/kwH when startup costs, etc. are taken into account, wheras new nukes are approx $1000/kwH, which is getting in line with coal. New nuke designs are edging under 3 cents/kwH. Source here. Note that this is theory right now, in a couple of years we'll find out for sure; the chinese are building a couple of AP1000s as we speak.

I like wind as much as the next guy, but the fact that it's ill-suited to base power and is more expensive to boot doesn't make it a nuke killer. The only things that could kill nukes are natural gas (unlikely due to prices of gas), or coal.

Ed

Geeze...

It's far easier and cheaper just to build new Nuclear Reactors. The technology works. It's available now. We should just do it.

See:

http://nuclearinfo.net/

Grrr I can't stand it any longer.

We're still constructing the site but here it is anyway...

http://nuclearinfo.net/

That German Green person is way out to lunch. We prove it on the site. Scroll down to:

(There is some bug in our twiki that prevents direct links..)

http://www.nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower#Greenhouse _Emissions_of_Nuclear_Power

Nuclear Power emits less Greenhouse Gases than any other form Energy generation including Hydro and Wind. There are far less invisible costs in Nuclear Energy than anything else precisely because it has been so thoroughly studied.

Grrr I can't stand it any longer.

We're still constructing the site but here it is anyway...

http://nuclearinfo.net/

That German Green person is way out to lunch. We prove it on the site. Scroll down to:

(There is some bug in our twiki that prevents direct links..)

http://www.nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower#Greenhouse _Emissions_of_Nuclear_Power

Nuclear Power emits less Greenhouse Gases than any other form Energy generation including Hydro and Wind. There are far less invisible costs in Nuclear Energy than anything else precisely because it has been so thoroughly studied.