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Dominion Announces Plans To Close Kewaunee Nuclear Power Station In 2013
An anonymous reader writes "Due to low electricity prices in the Midwest, and an inability to find a buyer for the power station, Dominion will be shutting down and decomissioning Kewaunee Nuclear Power Station. One of two operating nuclear power stations in Wisconsin, Kewaunee's license from the NRC was not due to expire until the end of 2033."
... the times of low electricity prices will then be over soon.
Now comes the fun part, explaining to the tax payers and anyone else involved, why it stops producing electricity today, but they still pay for the cleanup and stoarage of the radiated materials for the next hundred or so years. Was that cost factored in to all the 'cheap energy prices' the electricity was sold for?
I mean, why would the Dominion need nuclear power plants in the first place? Are they out of dilithium?
And even if they did need nuclear power plants, why would they be in the Alpha Quadrant?
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
an inability to find a buyer
Did they try putting it on ebay? If they keep the shipping costs down then I'm sure they could find a buyer for it.
Before the rage tides of, "blah blah nuclear is good," comes in I'll point out why this is a good thing. I agree completely that nuclear is good.
For starters the natural gas is cheaper, which is great while we transition, but it's important not to go comfortable on our cushion or cheap electricity. The reactor is, more or less, outdated technology. We need to phase out these older, more dangerous nuclear reactors in favor of thorium reactors. I hope you fellas start writing to your senators and representatives about the importance of investing in thorium cycle reactors. "Clean" coal, wind, solar, hydroelectric... They're all great to invest in, but none of them are as technology feasible right now as these new nuclear reactors. We have the ability, gentlemen, in our generation, to usher in an era of clean, safe, and cheap nuclear power.
It's this and then we look to fusion as the next innovation. And after that, penning traps and black holes. But more on that later.
To my pro-nuclear friends: This is as clear evidence as you're gonna get why nuclear power is not taking off. It's not nut-job environmentalists, it's not NIMBY, it's not some grand conspiracy. Nuclear is just too freaking expensive to operate with any semblance of reasonable safety.
http://www.solarenspace.com/
Oh wait, it's been years and that's all the website has to show? WIndmills it is, then. What a glorious sci-fi future, eh kids?
Google and Tesla Motors announce a new joint venture in the mid-west that will push the limits of green energy, data center deployment/management, electric vehicle technology that will bring economic prosperity to the local communities and political sanity to a better educated and more well-informed electorate. The POWER vacuum that resulted from an emerging shortage of ideologically FUELED self identity of the region has meant that the prevailing lifestyle that has developed over the course of the last decade is now recognized as worthless, much like this very comment and the time that has been wasted by readers who are now no doubt angry at having been tricked by a troll masquerading as a comedian.
Do we go back and ask for more from the company running this?
when Odo merged with the Founder, that ended the Dominion war.
And I like it, because we can focus on next-generation technology. In the first half of 2012, 40% of our energy requirement can from renewable resources, which means we'll have the mature technology for sale when other countries want to switch :)
in the USA real consumer prices for electricity have fallen slightly over the same period!
So much for "this is a world problem" that the governments kept telling us
...or, you'll have the rest of the world to bail you out when wind has blown you into bankruptcy.
ITYF thanks to your idiotic chancellor that german power companies are starting to build coal fired replacements for those shut down nuclear plants. So much for germany being green eh?
Renewables you say? Would those be the windfarms in the north which are 600km from where most of the energy is needed in the south? And given that the wind doesn't always blow - what other renewables did you have in mind? Solar? Yeah , right, in northern europe... suuure. Hydro? Nope, not enough locations. Tidal/wave? Same problem as wind with power transmission. So what is this great hope you germans have for renewables?
Which happened in '73 after the famous OPEC memo leak during trade negotiations
How was the plant paid for? I know that in my area that the power companies have managed to get the regulation authorities to increase the price of electricity long before the plant is ever built, letting the customers pay for the construction. And without giving the customers stock in the company, even though they are effectively forced to become investors. And this is done with the claims that the electricity is needed and it will keep rates low.
Now they want to shut down the plant? Because building it did help keep rates low? If it was financed completely with private money then they might just get away with that. But if it was financed with rate payer money. then there ought to be a hell of a lawsuit over this move that will drive down supply and drive up rates.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
if nuclear generate *one* cancer it is immediately scream right and left of fear , "nooklear will kill us". But in the mean time with all the stuff coal plant release in the atmosphere or in the ashes has definitively been linked to a lot of cancer (100K worldwide per years although admittedly disproportionally a lot more in the 3rd world, but still quite a lot in the first world) and nobody bat an eye.
In September 2010, the German government announced a new aggressive energy policy with the following targets:
Increasing the relative share of renewable energy in gross energy consumption to 18% by 2020, 30% by 2030 and 60% by 2050
Increasing the relative share of renewable energy in gross electrical consumption to 35% by 2020 and 80% by 2050
Increasing the national energy efficiency by cutting electrical consumption 50% below 2008 levels by 2050
The NY Times reports that the Kewaunee Power Station will close early next year because the owner is unable to find a buyer and the plant is no longer economically viable driven by slack demand for energy and the low price of natural gas. âoeThis was an extremely difficult decision, especially in light of how well the station is running and the dedication of the employees,â says Dominion CEO Thomas F. Farrell II. âoeThis decision was based purely on economics.â When Dominion bought the plant from local owners in 2005, it signed contracts to sell them the electricity, a common practice, but as those contracts expire, the plant faces selling electricity at the lower rates that now dominate the energy market. Other companies have also reported falling revenues, although they may not be on the verge of closing reactors because they are in regions where the market price of electricity is higher. The closing, which did not catch many in the industry by surprise, highlights the struggle of the U.S. "nuclear renaissance." A decade ago, the nuclear industry talked about a nuclear renaissance due to rising fossil fuel prices and concerns about meeting greenhouse gas emissions, but the nuclear revival did not occur in the United States as the cost of fossil fuels like natural gas fell and the federal government has been slow to put a price on carbon. "A number of nuclear units won't run their 60-year licensed lives if current gas price forecasts prove accurate," says Peter Bradford, a former member of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. "The determining factor is likely to come at the point at which they need to decide on a major capital investment."
Ponca City, We Love You
You do realize that Germany's alternative to nuclear is importing nuclear from France and coal from the Czech Republic and Poland while building new coal generators right? And that they're doing this at the cost of many billions of Euros?
If you think this is a valid energy policy and a step forward rather than kowtowing to political extremist and fear mongers you haven't been reading the news.
Instead, we should be shutting down OLDER reactors and bringing in smaller thorium reactors that can also burn up the stored waste. The time is coming when nations are going to tax for carbon emissions. When that comes, they will wish that they were on nukes.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
See, Star Trek is a fictional, ie not TRUE, account of a future where mankind is dominated by the military, ie Federation and Starfleet.
It is a common mistake to confuse it with Star Wars, which is a historical documentary of something "Long ago, in a Galaxy far far away".
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
But do you have the capital to invest enough to build a hydrogen based economy? It will take 100 years, probably. Meanwhile all that CO2 you have produced with coal and gas will be emitted to the atmosphere where it stays for 30000 years.
Don't worry - I'm from the future and I can tell you that soon some guy called Nixon will be elected and make that illegal. We also put a man on the moon!
Back to reality, "just about all the waste" is solid stuff so even in China not a lot per ton gets into the air, but they are burning a lot of it, and even though it has hardly any sulphur compared with US coal they are probably killing off a lot of people with air pollution.
The things are getting old and expensive to maintain so an economic decision is just getting an attractive coating of green paint.
The real choice to scrap nuclear was made quite a few years ago when there were no more plans to build reactors. You can't stop building reactors and then expect to be able to start again with no trouble two decades later.
Our electricity prices are terrible. I'd love to see this imaginary cheap power everyone is talking about. Perhaps the company should encourage sales of electric vehicles.. that will get the usage up.
Meanwhile the Bruce nuclear plant near Tiverton, Ontario will soon have an eighth operating reactor unit, and a total operating capacity of 6,300 megawatts and will be North America's largest nuclear plant.
material, conversion, enichment, fabrication(making into rods, whatever) is about $0.0068 to $0.0077 / kWh. Taking the amunt of fuel used per kilowatt hour plus the NRC fees, the cost for waste disposal is $0.0036 / kWh. Residental pricing of electricity is more like $0.20 / kWh.
I'm going to call it and say that when fuel plus disposal is about 5% of the price, it's still pretty trivial.
- all facts taken from The Internet.
He's not talking about running your shop on nat gas. It is becoming fairly common to build natural gas generating facilities. They generate electricity that is then transmitted and distributed by your local electrical utility. The reason your bill is 4 digits every month is that A) you use a lot of electricity, and B) the cost of that electricity is steadily increasing because of low supply, high demand, regulatory requirments, environmentalism, and political leveraging.
I formerly had electric heat (heat pump and direct electric heating elements) in a central HVAC system and my electric bills rose nearly $700/month higher in the wintertime above the average spring/fall electric bills when not much heat or air conditioner is needed, to heat a building with about 7500 square feet. After changing over to a natural gas burner style of furnace for the HVAC system, I now pay only $200/month in natural gas to heat the same building. That's a $500/month savings in energy costs during the coldest winter months, and this will pay for my new natural gas furnace heating system very quickly.
Heating a building or a home with natural gas is way more cost efficient than heating it with electricity.
I always wanted a troll of my very own. ;)
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
You still have low electricity prices in the USA. In the UK prices have doubled in under a decade [castlecover.co.uk]
Everything in the UK costs so much, as both directly and indirectly stemming from exorbitant taxes on everything which are ultimately used to keep feeding your dole.
One of the key features of a nuclear power plant is that once you've paid the huge construction costs it's not that expensive to operate.
If they think they might ever need a nuclear plant in the future, they'd be much better off to mothball it until electricity prices go up.
Alex Jones is keeping up with his reputation, I am sure.
There is statement that the radioactive materials in one of the Japanese reactors could "spread throughout the world". Utter nonsense. Things are quite well contained now and there is little possibility of any fission reaction restarting. Yes, there is quite a bit of radioactive material at the site, but exactly how would it be spread? Much less, spread beyond a small area of Japan?
Even if 100% of the high-order radioactive materials were to be crushed into powder (which would be quite a feat in of itself) and dumped into the ocean, it would not be spread worldwide. Fishing might really suck for a long time around Japan, but that would be pretty much the extent of it.
We are not talking about a "On the Beach" scenario here, and never have been. The US and much of the world is at a crossroads today and if we abandon nuclear fission powered electrical generation, we will see a lot of natural gas used with commesurate CO2 emissions. Not necessarily a good thing. We are certainly going to see electricity shortages in the US soon, primarily because we haven't built anything major in the way of a power plant in a long time. Like 30-40 years. All that has been built have been sub-1000MW "peaker" plants that have been designed to operate for short periods of time when usage peaks. Of course all of those plants are running 24x7 today.
Do you like refrigeration for your food? I suggest thinking seriously about getting some sort of alternative electric source because the plug in the wall isn't going to be on 24x7 in the coming years.
In the UK prices have doubled in under a decade
That's because their North Sea natural gas supply has been used up. Output peaked in 2000. With gas fields, production increases rapidly after drilling, much faster than with oil. At the end of a field's life, it falls off rapidly, much faster than with oil. For oil, there are "stripper wells", producing less than 10 bbl a day as crude slowly seeps through cracks in the rock. The US has about a million of those, and it adds up. Gas doesn't work that way; it can be extracted at high speed, but when it's gone, it's gone for good.
...I still think anytime a Dominion installation in the Alpha Quadrant closes, it's a good thing! ;)
I'm honest enough to admit I lie to myself.
This type of short term thinking makes one wonder about the long-term viability of our species.
Natural gas is a highly portable but extremely finite fuel that can be used RIGHT NOW in virtually unmodified vehicles, burned in home furnaces at ~95% efficiency, or used as an important chemical feedstock. Even better, if we don't use it all today we'll have some left in the future. The LAST thing we should be doing burning natural gas it in a fixed plant at (at best) ~55% efficiency to generate electricty.
In contrast, nuclear power is a carbon free energy source that requires substantial investment in plant and safety and is really only suited to generating reliable, relatively inexpensive base-load electricity over the long term. Current reactors will run for a long time on existing uranium stocks, and almost indefinitely if we stop treating spent fuel as "waste" and evolve to use reprocessing and breeder reactors in the future.
We'd be much better to use a combination of hydropower, nuclear, coal with sequestration, solar and wind for electricity generation and use much smaller quantities of natural gas for transport applications.
This appears to be a case shutting down a well-run EXISTING nuclear plant with 20 (or more) years of life remaining and replacing its output by burning huge quantities of a precious, finite portable fuel because there happens to be a TEMPORARY glut in the local gas market. As usual, the justification is economic ("not economically viable" from the movie Falling Down comes to mind).
If this continues, in ~10-15 years we will have no remaining nuclear capability and the gas will be gone. Our children will ask us why we behaved like drunken sailors, greedily squandering in a generation an unexpected one-time gas bonanza that took millions of years to accumulate. The answer is simple: we allowed ourselves to be seduced by neo conservative dogma into replacing the old utility model that worked well for essential services such as electricity with a free market experiment predicated on a perfect market (zero entry/exit barriers, infinite buyers and sellers, perfect information, etc.) that simply doesn't apply to this situation.
The company here might be acting rationally from its own (i.e. a small number of shareholders plus management) narrow economic standpoint, but in the long term this type of decision hurts the larger majority.
Barack Obama (as proxy for Harry Reid) pulled the plug on that one.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/8012171/President-Barack-Obamas-Yucca-Mountain-decision-is-a-blow-to-US-nuclear-power.html
We'll see if it ever moves again. Hopefully someone along the way will have more sense than this.