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Nuclear Energy Now More Expensive Than Solar
js_sebastian writes "According to an article on the New York Times, a historical cross-over has occurred because of the declining costs of solar vs. the increasing costs of nuclear energy: solar, hardly the cheapest of renewable technologies, is now cheaper than nuclear, at around 16 cents per kilowatt hour. Furthermore, the NY Times reports that financial markets will not finance the construction of nuclear power plants unless the risk of default (which is historically as high as 50 percent for the nuclear industry) is externalized to someone else through federal loan guarantees or ratepayer funding. The bottom line seems to be that nuclear is simply not competitive, and the push from the US government to subsidize it seems to be forcing the wrong choice on the market."
But in cold and rainy climates, especially when electricity is used when it's cold outside (as opposed to when it's hot outside), nuclear can be much better than solar.
I'm as pro-green energy as anyone, but the chart here looks completely absurd. Nuclear has quadrupled in price in a few years? Even ignoring the trend lines, how on earth does nuclear go from 8c/kWh to 22 from 2005 to 2010? A jump like that can't be assumed to be a trend, surely.
The good news, assuming the data points can be trusted to be somewhat realistic, is that solar _is_ getting competitive and has changed significantly in a very short time.
It's dead easy to kill fusion:
Explain to the Luddites about neutrinos. A fusion plant produces massive quantities of them that are free to radiate into the environment and no attempt is made to shield them. Not only that but there have been studies that show that neutrinos can transmute matter and therefore are a possible cause of cancer. No studies have been conducted about the effects of neutrinos on young children's development and so far all subjects exposed to neutrinos have later died or showed effects of cell degradation.
"The weirdest thing about a mind, is that every answer that you find, is the basis of a brand new cliche" -
The spot price for uranium peaked at just under US$140/lb in 2007 and since then has dropped well below US$100/lb. Fuel is chump change compared to capital costs, insurance, decommissioning, waste disposal, etc.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
"Like the U.S., France does not have a permanent solution for disposal. The cost of temporary waste storage -- hundreds of billions of euros -- is being passed along to French taxpayers and ratepayers by the state and its subsidized plant operators."
"The only other hope for nuclear would be to subsidize it, and subsidies must increase taxes, deepen the budget deficit, or both. That's not new in America: The fossil fuels industry receives more subsidies than all other forms of energy combined."
Nope I meant neutrinos, I know full well the sun produces trillions of them, I know that they are harmless.
I also know that CERN is harmless because cosmic radiation produces far higher energy collisions in the atmosphere every second, but some people still fear it.
I know that my local nuke plant produces gamma radiation that you cannot 100% shield against, yet people object to them because they "emit deadly radiation".
I carry a tritium keyring that has a half life and lights up my pocket with it's radioactive decay.
I use a mobile phone and don't worry about the fact that you can't prove that it doesn't do me harm.
So what I was trying to do was parody those who would pray on the fact that you can't prove a negative and other bits of lack of joined up thinking to sell their particular political cause. Still you can't please everyone...
"The weirdest thing about a mind, is that every answer that you find, is the basis of a brand new cliche" -
I was very surprised to find out how much water seems to be lost in nuclear power plants, on paper you are right, one would think that it would almost all get recycled. Either economics or changing environmental regulations seems to cause evaporative cooling to be used. (this is for rivers that you cannot put over heated water back into them due to environmental regulations.)
If you read the commentary about super critical coal powered plants at http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/cooling_power_plants_inf121.html you will see something odd about the water usage projections for super critical coal plants.
Super critical coal plants and Nuclear plants on the Mississippi use about 30% more water than one would expect and it seems that this is being lost to evaporation in some manner that is not clearly explained and is just a best guess. Is this a secondary cooling system to comply with environmental regulations? I don't know but it seems like coal and nuclear power plants on the Mississippi are losing a lot of water to evaporation. I like you am not really sure why, because as you say, you basically run a closed system with a cooling system that should make the water loss just that of the evaporative effects of the water being a few degrees warmer.
Work bio at MMWD
So, you've never heard of pumped storage, or any other forms of grid energy storage, eh?
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
To be fair, France benefits from a much more centralized population. The U.S. can't just build enormous nuke plants and send power by wire across the country without serious losses on the line. France is small enough that it can send power to a larger number of people with shorter lines, and moreover, they benefit from economies of scale, because they aren't just powering France, they're selling the power to neighboring countries (presumably at a profit).
They also engage in fuel reprocessing, which the U.S. does not, and that makes a huge difference in the economic factors. The U.S. policy is due to a fear of plutonium being stolen from reprocessing facilities for use by terrorists or rogue states, combined with a need to "set an example" to other countries; if we reprocess fuel, then they'll claim they should be allowed to as well, but reprocessing fuel is an easy way to produce bomb grade fissionable material. I don't know if I agree with the U.S. policy (wasting tons upon tons of usable reactor fuel to set an example seems pointless when no one follows the example, and you end up with political quagmires like what to do with all the waste), but the costs in the U.S. are definitely higher.
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