Vermont Nuclear Plant Seeks Decommission But Lacks Funds

mdsolar (1045926) writes with this bit of news about the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Plant shutdown. From the article: "On Friday, the Vermont Public Service Board voted to authorize Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc., the operators of the Vermont Yankee electricity generating station ..., to close down their nuclear power plant by the end of this year. Because Entergy planned to shut the Vermont nuclear plant down prior to its licensed end-term, the board was required to approve the shutdown....

Entergy has reserved just over $600 million to date for decommissioning the Vermont nuclear plant, according to the Department of Public Service. This amount will not be adequate to meet the costs of full deconstruction, estimated at more than $1 billion according to the company's 2012 Decommissioning Cost Analysis report."

Comments

and yet even more

[polar red]

and yet even more subsidies for the nuclear industry will follow.

Re:and yet even more

[imikem]

Of course. It's so silly that no other industries ever get subsidized by tax dollars.

Re:and yet even more

[jythie]

Well, that is how they stay competitive with all the other subsidized industries.

Re:and yet even more

[ShanghaiBill]

Of course. It's so silly that no other industries ever get subsidized by tax dollars.

It is silly to justify something stupid by pointing out that we also do other stupid things. That is just circular logic that results in a lot of stupidity.

Re:and yet even more

[Anonymous Coward]

"It is silly to justify something stupid by pointing out that we also do other stupid things. That is just circular logic that results in a lot of stupidity."

Thank you!

It just burns me up to listen to some moron (for example) who carries on about how Bush (or Clinton,etc) did it before Obama did! As if it makes it right or acceptable.

Obamatrons HOOOOOOOOOO!

Re:and yet even more

[KiloByte]

Then what about massive subsidies for coal and oil industries?

Let me know when every single power plant, every car is required to collect its waste and deposit it for storage. Only then you can call it equal.

Re:and yet even more

[operagost]

OK, Captain Logical Fallacy-- perhaps we subsidize nuclear power generation for the same reasons we subsidize other forms of power generation. That is the implication.

Re:and yet even more

[Medievalist]

Well, let me know when automobile waste has a half-life equivalent to that of nuclear waste, then.

It's a false equivalency. Yes, coal and oil subsidies are bad, but that doesn't mean the Bush/Cheney nuclear subsidies aren't substantially worse.

Nuclear was on the way out until Cheney stepped in and threw regulated capitalism out the window in favor of Soviet-style centralized economic decisionmaking.

Re:and yet even more

[PopeRatzo]

for the same reasons

Those reasons having everything to do with redistributing wealth upwards.

Re:and yet even more

[ShanghaiBill]

... the same reasons we subsidize other forms of power generation.

The reason is to channel money to politically connected special interests. It is stupid for that to be tolerated in a democracy, but the beneficiaries are concentrated, while the victims are diffuse, so it happens. Voters can often be conned into believing that these subsidies are in their own interests (hey, cheaper power!) without realizing that the taxes they pay to finance the subsidies far exceed the savings on their utility bills.

Re:and yet even more

[Anonymous Coward]

Because energy costing way more than it does today (by way of subsidy elimination) wouldn't have any adverse affects on the middle class, would it?

Are you cracked?

Re:and yet even more

[MachineShedFred]

Automobile waste has a half-life longer than nuclear waste.

Oh noes!

Re:and yet even more

[Anonymous Coward]

So...and let me get this straight, you are basically supporting moving to coal and natural gas, with an even WORSE record for environmental concerns....over nuclear?

This is fucking stupid. We need to be moving towards MORE nuclear plants and less fossil fuels, not the other way around.

Re:and yet even more

[Medievalist]

Automobile waste has a half-life longer than nuclear waste.

And the sun is radioactive! Oh double noes!

Re:and yet even more

[PopeRatzo]

Who do you think is paying for the subsidies?

The price of energy has shot up despite record profits for the energy companies. Subsidies for the energy industry do not keep prices down. Those subsidies just pad the bottom line.

But I thought nuclear power was cheap

[Anonymous Coward]

This issue demonstrates that arguments about the low lifetime cost and impacts of nuclear power tend to externalize significant costs. Decommissioning can be added to waste handling/storage and subsidized insurance.

Re:But I thought nuclear power was cheap

[bobbied]

This issue demonstrates that arguments about the low lifetime cost and impacts of nuclear power tend to externalize significant costs. Decommissioning can be added to waste handling/storage and subsidized insurance.

Partly true, but the real problem is that though out the lifetime of this plant, the expected costs for decommissioning have gone though the roof by a mass of changing rules, laws and policies which have conspired to not only raise the costs but shorten the useful lifespan of the plant. As such, this is not really the operator's fault, but the cold economic facts of changing political climate are really to blame. IMHO...

Re:But I thought nuclear power was cheap

[Mr D from 63]

Not to mention being shut down earlier than planned due to a vitriolic political environment coupled with the price pressure of shale gas and excessive subsidization of renewables.

For those that speak of nuclear subsidies...on a $ per KWh generated basis, nuclear subsidies are nowhere close to other energy technologies.

Re:But I thought nuclear power was cheap

[timeOday]

the real problem is that though out the lifetime of this plant, the expected costs for decommissioning have gone though the roof by a mass of changing rules, laws and policies which have conspired to not only raise the costs but shorten the useful lifespan of the plant.

What you call the "real" problem is actually re-stating the GP's point - that is, during the lifetime of the plant, some of the externalizations mentioned by the GP have been internalized through the rules you mentioned. Is that unfair? Perhaps, only in the sense that the gaping externalities of fossil fuels, by comparison, have not been internalized whatsoever.

Re:But I thought nuclear power was cheap

[Anonymous Coward]

The plant's original operating license expired in March 2012. So a 2014 Q4 closure is a increase rather than a shortening of the original scope of the project.

Re:But I thought nuclear power was cheap

[khallow]

But it is a shortening of the new scope of the project.

Re:But I thought nuclear power was cheap

[khallow]

You make the broad assumption that they were externalities in the first place. It's trivially easy to add costs to someone else's project which don't have any benefits to them. That happens a lot to nuclear power.

Re:But I thought nuclear power was cheap

[bobbied]

OK, but you understand that all the financial arrangements for the decommissioning of this plant where made starting nearly 50 years ago based on the assumptions of the day. Plus they managed to come up with 1/2 to 2/3 of what they need despite the regulatory changes and wholesale electricity. Finally, owner's of Vermont Yankee can afford to cough up the costs if they get amortized over a few years. They had a billion dollars in just profit in 2013. They won't like coming up with the money, but they can without taking too much of a stock price hit.

Re:But I thought nuclear power was cheap

[mellon]

Um. The plant was originally licensed to operate for 40 years. It is falling apart. Literally: a few years back one of the cooling towers collapsed. Buried pipes are leaking, and nobody knows where the pipes are or where the leaks are. Sources for backup power have dried up because the providers don't want to be held liable in the event of an accident. The idea of extending its operating permit for another 20 years was incredibly irresponsible. The State of Vermont refused to certify its continued operation, but the courts overrode the state.

It is bloody unfortunate that the low cost of shale oil is what finally did the plant in, but closing it is the right move. The only decent alternative would be an extremely costly remodel, which would not likely be cheaper than closing it and building a new one with better technology. The alternative Entergy wanted was to keep running it, and damn the safety concerns, because they wouldn't have to pay if it failed catastrophically anyway.

Re:But I thought nuclear power was cheap

[Anonymous Coward]

...and no one ever told the utility about the changing rules. How could the utility be responsible for saving more money to meet the increased costs?

Re:But I thought nuclear power was cheap

[KonoWatakushi]

What a waste – Vermont Yankee is in beautiful condition

The NRC recently extended the operating license for 20 more years, so apparently any issues were minor or have been addressed. It sounds like your claims are significantly exaggerated, and that there is no safety concern.

Most of Vermont's electricity came from that plant, and closing it is only going to result in burning more fossil fuels and increased prices.

Re:But I thought nuclear power was cheap

[gweihir]

Oh, you mean they cannot just throw the highly poisonous nuclear waste into the sea anymore?

Re:But I thought nuclear power was cheap

[CMYKjunkie]

Oh, you mean they cannot just throw the highly poisonous nuclear waste into the sea anymore?

To be fair, it IS still legal to have a man in blue and red underwear gather nuclear waste into a gigantic net, fly it into space, and hurtle it into the Sun.

It's not a method that is popular with the public nor critically acclaimed, but it is still legal.

Re:But I thought nuclear power was cheap

[mellon]

Right, because the NRC is noted as a really strict regulator that never gives nuclear plants the pass on safety issues. Oh wait, no it's not.

It's not accurate to say that most of Vermont's energy came from Vermont Yankee, although certainly quite a bit did. We import a lot of energy from Hydro Quebec, and we are adding renewables at a rapid pace. So yeah, Vermont Yankee going offline will change things, but we'll manage. Indeed, losing a source of subsidized power will create more opportunities for expansion of renewables.

Re:But I thought nuclear power was cheap

[Solandri]

The Vermont Yankee plant has been in operation since 1972, and generates about 4700 GWh each year. So over its lifetime it has probably generated about 190,000 GWh of electricity. $1 billion in decommissioning costs works out to about 0.5 cents per kWh (vs an industrial/commercial/residential cost of about 10/14/16 cents per kWh in Vermont). It does not substantially change the lifetime cost of the electricity generated.

All the states I know of require nuclear plant operators to collect these decommissioning costs in a fund. That is, part of their revenue from electricity sales must be placed into a trust fund specifically for decommissioning the plant in the future. That the Yankee plant has insufficient funds despite 41 years of operation suggests accounting fraud, regulatory incompetence, or inflated decommissioning costs more than it does non-viability of nuclear power. The San Onofre nuclear plant operated a similar amount of time, had about 3.6x the generating capacity when it was shut down, and was also shut down prematurely. It has a $2.7 billion decommissioning fund which is expected to exceed the costs, so they are planning to refund the excess to customers.

Re:But I thought nuclear power was cheap

[Anonymous Coward]

The San Onofre nuclear plant operated a similar amount of time, had about 3.6x the generating capacity when it was shut down, and was also shut down prematurely. It has a $2.7 billion decommissioning fund which is expected to exceed the costs, so they are planning to refund the excess to customers.

FALSE. From http://newsroom.edison.com/stories/update:-decommissioning-of-the-san-onofre-nuclear-plant ....The owners of San Onofre have already collected more than $3.6 billion of the estimated $4.1 billion needed to decommission San Onofre.

So if Edison suffers any serious financial hiccups, California is on the hook for the $600 million bill.

Re:But I thought nuclear power was cheap

[Anonymous Coward]

The plant is being forced to close by the governor of Vermont despite being in excellent working order and having an operating license that expires in 2032. So yea, the reason they haven't amassed the decommisioning costs is because they are being forced to close early.

My intuition here is that connected people in the state of Vermont stand to profit a whole bunch from increased shale oil and gas consumption.

Re:But I thought nuclear power was cheap

[Anonymous Coward]

The Vermont government forced them to shut down early.

If you take the profits

[Pop69]

Then you pay the costs associated with them.

If they've failed to properly provide for shutdown and decomissioning costs then it's their problem, they should be forced to pay them rather than pleading poverty and being allowed to walk away from their responsibilities

Re:If you take the profits

[peon_a-z,A-Z,0-9$_ !]

Except in this case the plant was approved for twenty additional years of operation in 2011 and is now being shut down.

Therefore, contrary to your assertion, they were properly planning for the costs but that planning did not encompass irrational public opinion shutting down the plant ahead of schedule.

The people therefore who demanded it be shut down will also be the people who pay the extra costs associated with shutting it down.

Re:If you take the profits

[n1ywb]

Entergy is shutting it down because it's unprofitable. It's purely by choice. The state's efforts to shut it down were thrown out in court.

Re:If you take the profits

[Anonymous Coward]

They do have to pay the costs. They are required to pay into the fund until there is enough money. I don't understand what the point of this story is.

http://psb.vermont.gov/sites/psb/files/docket/7862Relicensing6/Docket_7862_MOU.pdf

Re:If you take the profits

[ShanghaiBill]

If they've failed to properly provide for shutdown and decomissioning costs then it's their problem, they should be forced to pay

Who are "they"? The decommissioning charge tacked onto utility bills is set by the public utility commission, which is a government entity. So if the people responsible are held accountable, then "they" are the taxpayers of Vermont who voted in the past to push costs off into the future ... which has now arrived.

Re:If you take the profits

[Pop69]

From TFA

"Entergy announced last August that it intended to shut down the reactor late this year for economic reasons."

Try to keep up at the back there please ?

Re:If you take the profits

[sunking2]

Perhaps is said company wasn't running an operation that leaked tritium into the ground water on site the public may not have turned against them.

Re:If you take the profits

[Bengie]

If it's not one of the newer designs, like thorium, I would also like it shutdown. All nuclear power plants should be using modern negative-feedback self-limiting designs that consume most of their fuel, resulting in relatively short lived radioactive waste.

Re:If you take the profits

[peon_a-z,A-Z,0-9$_ !]

We need to start having "radiation leaks" in terms of units that people can understand, like "bananas."

Would you really care if you were instead told that it was leaking tritium equivalent of "3 bananas per day" into the ground water?

Radiation is a part of life on Earth.

Re:If you take the profits

[TubeSteak]

Therefore, contrary to your assertion, they were properly planning for the costs but that planning did not encompass irrational public opinion shutting down the plant ahead of schedule.

Uhh... no.
Their plan is to idle the plant and let the decommissioning fund appreciate.

What it really sounds like is the State of Vermont & the NRC made some poor assumptions about decommissioning costs and didn't require the operator to set aside enough money over the last 42 years.
Irrational public opinion has nothing to do with this, even if Entergy wasn't shutting the plant down because of profitability concerns.

Re:If you take the profits

[bill_mcgonigle]

All nuclear power plants should be using modern negative-feedback self-limiting designs that consume most of their fuel, resulting in relatively short lived radioactive waste.

Can you please explain how this helps the interests of the fossil fuel corporations? I fail to see the relevance to this conversation when we're talking about government regulators.

Re:If you take the profits

[bobbied]

But the legal effort to resist the state's efforts cost the utility money as did the public relation campaign.

The real reason here is that electricity rates have dropped do to Natural Gas production and operating/decommissioning costs have risen since the plant was commissioned due to changing regulations. All this as conspired to give us the problem we now have and like it or not, pretty much everybody will be paying for this in some way.

Re:If you take the profits

[erroneus]

Yes, you would think that was the case. Problem is, these "people" are corporations and the humans behind the corporations rotate in and out of seats regularly. So it's just not as simple as all that is it?

To that end, one thing that is most definitely true: When commissioning a nuclear plant, the cost of decommissioning should be paid for in advance or at the very least, paid for over the first years of its operation to an account set aside specifically for decommissioning. (I'm not a brilliant person so I'm quite sure someone else has thought of this idea too.) Such a plan, which is clearly not in place, would enable the decom of a plant to be funded already and wouldn't be such a concern.

Perhaps it's beyond time for these matters become addressed by the NRC when licensing new plants and also added to the licensing requirements of current plants.

Re:If you take the profits

[erroneus]

(P.S. Yes, I know they already do that. I guess what I'm rhetorically getting at is that either someone has been raiding that honey pot or they didn't estimate decom costs well enough... you know, accounting for the devaluation of the US dollar and all that?)

Re:If you take the profits

[Anonymous Coward]

We need to start having "radiation leaks" in terms of units that people can understand, like "bananas."

There is a metric for that, and a handy diagram, but the news never uses it because it could lead to people actually having a clue what is going on.

Conveniently, that graph even has a banana-equivalence: one tenth of a microsievert. If you consumed 50,000 bananas in a year, you would reach the standard dosage limit for workers in irradiated (as in, the time they're told to go home and stay out of the glow). 100,000 bananas in a year and you may see an increased risk of cancer. However, the concept of eating 23 1/3 tons of bananas in a year is rather absurd when the average human food consumption in a year is less than half a ton.

Re:If you take the profits

[CrimsonAvenger]

you know, accounting for the devaluation of the US dollar and all that?)

Alas, Fed policy changes with the winds, so anticpating the devaluation of the dollar is really hard to do.

Face it, ten years ago, would anyone have been believed if they'd said that the Fed would start printing a trillion dollars a year in (what was then) the near future?

Re:If you take the profits

[mdsolar]

Vermont Yankee could not outbid Seabrook and HydroQuebec, in fact. Natural gas is playing a role though. http://vtdigger.org/2013/08/28...

Re:If you take the profits

[Minwee]

Or perhaps you could express the amount of radiation leaked by a nuclear plant by comparing it to the normal operation of a coal power plant.

On average, a nuclear plant leaks about 10 milli-coal-plants worth of radioactive material. Which is why you see the coal industry being hit with billions of dollars in cleanup costs every time they dump radioactive uranium and thorium in the form of coal ash.

Oh, wait. You don't, really. Because coal power plants aren't regulated the same way nuclear plants are they can just blow it into the air and forget about it. And if that coal ash just happens to contain enough radioactive Uranium 238 to power every nuclear power plant in the country with a few hundred tons left over, then so be it. At least they're not nuclear so that's okay, right?

Re:If you take the profits

[mellon]

The tritium leaks aren't likely a problem at all, except that they indicate that the infrastructure is decaying. It's unfortunate that people go "oh noes! tritium" when really they should be going "oh noes! plant is falling apart!"

Re:If you take the profits

[mellon]

Incorrect. VY sells power to utilities. They are supposed to factor the cost of decommissioning into the cost of the power. The utilities then charge what they have to to pay for the power they buy. The PUC just makes sure that they get a fair return, but no more, based on actual costs.

Re:If you take the profits

[tlhIngan]

What it really sounds like is the State of Vermont & the NRC made some poor assumptions about decommissioning costs and didn't require the operator to set aside enough money over the last 42 years.
Irrational public opinion has nothing to do with this, even if Entergy wasn't shutting the plant down because of profitability concerns.

No, it's not the NRC or Vermont's fault. The plant was life-extended another 20 years. Entergy however sees it as uneconomic, so they applied to Vermont and the NRC to approve an early shutdown.

The decommissioning fund was expected to grow another 20 years to be sufficient, but since the plant was closed early, it doesn't have enough money.

Entergy is 100% at fault here because they want to close it early.

It's really along the lines of you saving for retirement until you're 65, then at 45 declaring you want to retire early. Well, your retirement fund (decommissioning fund) was planned out for you retiring at 65, not 45, so now there's going to be a shortfall, obviously.

Should the taxpayer be forced to fund your retirement because you decided to retire early and your savings are short?

No, because it's purely a choice to do it early - you could very well continue to work until 65 and realize your retirement plans, just like you could operate the power plant until it's time to close it down, contributing to the decommissioning fund the extra few years.

Especially since circumstances like cheap natural gas aren't sudden overnight events - natural gas prices have been falling for over a decade or so after peaking.

Re:If you take the profits

[Minwee]

Suppose that you just started University. Tuition and expenses run about $20,000 a year and you have $75,000 in a trust fund to pay for it all, so you should be able to make it through your four year program without having to go into debt. Yay!

After your first year you have around $57,000 left but your on-campus housing is shut down without warning. This raises your costs for the next year to $25,000 because you have to move into a more expensive place, but you can manage that.

By the start of the third year you are left with $33,000 and the school announces that they need to raise tuition because of a change in the education act so it's going to cost you $35,000 for your third year. By the end of the year you are $2,000 in debt and still don't have your degree.

Tuitions continue to rise and for your fourth year you end up paying $40,000. By the time you graduate you are over $42,000 in debt and wondering what went wrong. At what point did you "make some poor assumptions about [education] costs" and fail to set aside enough money to last four years?

Re:If you take the profits

[gtall]

That and when the coal industries get in bed with local government, then you get the coal ash slurry dumps like what happened in North Carolina. And those coal slurry accidents are not all that rare. And as usual, the locals take it in the neck when it happens.

Re:If you take the profits

[khallow]

What if all companies released 3 bananas worth of radiation into the ground water per day, because there is no penalty?

Nothing would happen. That's the outcome of releasing insignificant amounts of radiation into the environment.

Re:If you take the profits

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, I forgot a 0. Should be 500,000 bananas in a year to match the legislated dosage limit and 1,000,000 bananas to risk cancer, weighing in at 233 1/3 tons of bananas in a year.

Re:If you take the profits

[Anonymous Coward]

When you didn't consider that your estimate of $20,000 was based on Year 1 assumptions,
and they probably won't hold in year 4, and that costs are much more likely to go up
from your initial assumptions than go down?

What do I win?

Re:If you take the profits

[peon_a-z,A-Z,0-9$_ !]

And the economics of your energy supply are heavily affected by subsidies and regulatory costs, both of which are directly influenced by public opinion.

Some people look at economics as a science, but it seems as if the economics of anything related to energy are more of a popularity contest.

Re:If you take the profits

[operagost]

I'd say, at the point where you started $5,000 short and then assumed that tuition wouldn't go up.

Re:If you take the profits

[n1ywb]

But the legal effort to resist the state's efforts cost the utility money as did the public relation campaign.

The lawsuit cost them a trifle and they won an important precident for their industry. And the PR campain went on for decades and achieved jack squat. Entergy made it clear they couldn't care less about it. These are not the reasons they closed.

The real reason here is that electricity rates have dropped do to Natural Gas production and operating/decommissioning costs have risen since the plant was commissioned due to changing regulations. All this as conspired to give us the problem we now have and like it or not, pretty much everybody will be paying for this in some way.

Like I said. The real reason it closed is economics. Nothing else really mattered. If they thought the plant would turn a profit they would surely continue to operate it.

Re:If you take the profits

[Minwee]

I'd say, at the point where you started $5,000 short

Before that could be a problem you would have to have "forgotten to invest the money so that it appreciates by 4% per annum". If you made that mistake then perhaps financial planning really isn't for you.

and then assumed that tuition wouldn't go up.

...by 100% by the time you finish.

Re:If you take the profits

[gweihir]

Not if you do nuclear power. Nuclear power is associated with "might" and gives you the bomb as side-product. Without that, it would never have made it past any halfway competent economic modeling.

Re:If you take the profits

[khallow]

Those other things are economics too. But I have to agree that it's probably low natural gas prices.

Also, they still had a choice between closing the plant and merely shutting it down for a while and restarting later. That indicates they didn't think the economics on the plant would improve enough in the future to justify keeping it around. That may have been steered by the economics of anti-nuclear litigation and public opinion. Or it may be because they think electricity prices will stay depressed indefinitely.

Re:If you take the profits

[AmiMoJo]

They should have been required to put $1bn or whatever the maximum likely cost of closing the plant is away before making a single dollar of profit. If they don't spend it all decommissioning they can keep the surplus.

That should be the deal. You want to do something that can create a costly problem you need to put aside enough money (or insurance) to cover fixing it.

Re:If you take the profits

[AmiMoJo]

The problem with thorium reactors is that the reactor vessel itself becomes highly radioactive and extremely difficult to decommission. No-one has figured out how to deal with this expensive problem yet, as usual it's "we'll worry about that when the time comes."

Re:If you take the profits

[AmiMoJo]

Bananas are not good units to use because the potassium they contain is not very dangerous to humans. The body maintains a fairly constant level no matter how many you eat, passing the excess out.

Compare that to what is being released from, say, Fukushima. It bio-accumulates and ends up sitting inside your organs for decades, slowly irradiating them. Although the radiation level is low it is also constant, which is why your risk of getting cancer goes up.

People who use the banana equivalent dose don't seem to understand this rather basic and crucial fact. It's also why you don't hear experts on the subject using it.

Re:If you take the profits

[painandgreed]

People who use the banana equivalent dose don't seem to understand this rather basic and crucial fact. It's also why you don't hear experts on the subject using it.

Bring one fact into the discussion and that sort of indicates you have to bring them all in and now your discussion is way beyond anybody but an expert in understanding, if they ever finish compiling the facts. Facts are just a sure way you'll lose 99% of your audience as they fail to understand or get bored.

Re:If you take the profits

[peon_a-z,A-Z,0-9$_ !]

And the economics of energy supply are heavily affected by subsidies in competing modes of production and regulatory costs, both of which are directly influenced by public opinion.

Some people look at economics as a science, but it seems as if the economics of anything related to energy are more of a popularity contest.

Re:If you take the profits

[peon_a-z,A-Z,0-9$_ !]

Compare that to what is being released from, say, Fukushima. It bio-accumulates and ends up sitting inside your organs for decades, slowly irradiating them.

Please provide specific isotopes if you're going to make a counter argument like this. This is not true, where are you getting this opinion from?

Although the radiation level is low it is also constant, which is why your risk of getting cancer goes up.

If it is so low and constant then it is similar to background radiation, where background radiation is defined below.

Your statement linking any amount of radiation to an increase in cancer follows well with the early experiments in the pre-1960's evidence where there was not a lot of data for chronic low-dose cases (called the Linear Non-Threshold Model: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L... ) but you cannot truthfully make that statement when in reality the affects of low-doses of radiation has experimentally been shown to be actually helpful in preventing cancer, where the Radiation Hormesis model more accurately describes what actually happens http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R... .

Background Radiation: Radiation is present at all locations where people live and comes from various sources (solar radiation, terrestrial radiation from the ground), and this level of background radiation changes with people’s everyday activities (eating certain foods, flying on a plane, getting an x-ray, where they live on the Earth). However, human bodies are designed to live in an environment with ever-constant radiation at the levels we experience here on Earth. The tiny amount of radiation that comes from a nuclear reactor is the same type of radiation that can be found through these natural sources, and because the radiation from nuclear energy is far below natural levels, there is no threat to a person who comes into contact with it.

Re:If you take the profits

[MachineShedFred]

Portland General Electric did this with the Trojan Nuclear Generating Station back in the early 90s. There was a state referendum on closing the thing, which failed. Then, PGE decided to decommission it due to a new mechanical failure that Westinghouse was blaming on the contractor that did the install, and the contractor was blaming on Westinghouse.

PGE decided they were both assholes, and they wanted the PR win. So they decommissioned it, sailed the entombed reactor core up the Columbia, and buried it at Hanford. Then, they called in CDI to demolish the cooling tower.

I guess I'm wondering why PGE was able to get this done, but Entergy is claiming poverty, when Entergy is WAY bigger than PGE.

Re:If you take the profits

[Anonymous Coward]

Who is this 'they' who should be forced to pay? Entergy? Its management? Its stockholders? Current stockholders only, or go find every stockholder who ever made a buck off plant and hit them up for piece of the cost? Maybe get a contribution from any government (federal, state, local) that taxed the profits and/or property?

Re:If you take the profits

[Anonymous Coward]

Source?

Re:If you take the profits

[HiThere]

I thought the answer was "We fill it up with cement, and them bury it in cement.". It may not be government approved, but I think I've heard of it being done elsewhere, and it actually doesn't sound like that bad an approach, once you get the fuel out. Any leaks should be quite slow.

Re:If you take the profits

[yacc143]

No problem. 40K debt. No problem, but notice that these cannot be discharged in a bankruptcy. So as long as these guys pay up, there is no issue.

Re:If you take the profits

[HornWumpus]

And didn't get his lazy trust fund ass out and get a job. At least in summer.

Re:If you take the profits

[HornWumpus]

New England Power Pool. Your information is decades obsolete.

Re:If you take the profits

[Anonymous Coward]

There are no thorium reactions currently producing commercial power that I know of. The idea was pretty thoroughly discredited more than a decade ago in experimental reactors (see wikipedia) but people are still trying to make it work because there's lots of thorium laying around in Asia.

If the USA had spent all the money we wasted in Afghanistan and Iraq on developing agriculture based sustainable fuels, we'd be self-sufficient and carbon-neutral already.

Re:If you take the profits

[hairykrishna]

Most of the activity being released from Fukushima is tritium and the leaks in Vermont have also primarily been of tritium. Tritium doesn't bio-accumulate either.

Re:If you take the profits

[chihowa]

So "low and constant" radiation from potassium is ok (because it's "natural", right, like botulism and being eaten by a bear?), but vague and unspecified Fukushima radiation is bad because it bioaccumulates (which is actually not the case for most of the released isotopes: Cs, for example is treated the same as your well-regarded potassium by animal tissue)? Many of the elements that bioaccumulate are more chemically toxic by virtue of being heavy metals than by being radioactive.

You don't understand your basic and crucial facts very well, either. There are enough real dangers in dealing with radioisotopes; you don't need to keep adding your own hysteria-based ones to the mix.

Re:If you take the profits

[AmiMoJo]

So "low and constant" radiation from potassium is ok (because it's "natural", right, like botulism and being eaten by a bear?)

No, because the body has evolved to process it safely. It doesn't accumulate in places where it can do harm, no matter how much you consume.

Re:If you take the profits

[chihowa]

Are you saying that in cases of radioactive potassium, the body has a way of just shutting it down?

Which radioactive isotopes from Fukushima are you talking about that bioaccumulate?

that's ok

[jsepeta]

the government (us citizens) always foot the bill for building and decommissioning nuclear plants. why should the actual businesses have to pay their own expenses?

Re:that's ok

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

You regulate the electricity costs, so your fingerprints are all over it already, "The People".

Re:that's ok

[plopez]

What's needed is a full accounting and transparency. Then and only then will people be able to make good decisions. And the private sector is guilty of cooking books and "selling" things as well, unless fear of regulators or lawsuits causes them to come clean. And that means personal responsibility from the managers who make the decisions.

Re:that's ok

[Anonymous Coward]

A loan guarantee is not paying for construction (and lowers the cost to the ratepayers), and nuclear companies are required both to fund long term waste disposal and the decomissioning costs of the plants. See: Maine Yankee.

Executives interested in quarterly profits above everything else (like natural gas is going to be cheap a few years from now) and concerned citizens manipulated into supporting what is worst for them caused the short fall. The plant was just approved for a 20 year operating extension not that long ago.

Re:that's ok

[the eric conspiracy]

There is something fairly wrong with this article, as it's generally believed that the costs of decommissioning a nuclear power plant are on the order of 300-400 million. 600 million should be adequate.

Re:that's ok

[bobbied]

You do realize that the "managers who make the decisions" are likely all retired and many are dead by now right? This plant was commissioned in 1972, 44 years ago which means that the decision to build was made over 50 years ago now. If the average age of this management team was 40 years old, that puts the average age now at 90 years, which means a good portion of that group are likely dead. I don't know how you suggest we "hold them responsible" for this.

What needs to happen is what will likely happen. The owners of this plant will likely go though bankruptcy and get liquidated (worst case). Their creditors (including the decommissioning fund) will get what they can and the stockholders will loose their investment. The government will make up the difference and all of us will pay, at least in some way.

Re:that's ok

[Giant Electronic Bra]

Yes, except those are the fantasy numbers that the nuclear industry and its dog, the NRC, publish. We're talking about REAL costs, what you actually pay, not the bogus ones.

Re:that's ok

[interkin3tic]

To be fair, most successful businesses of all types find ways of getting the citizens to foot the bills. I mean, businesses can't really give back 100% of what they get from a community and still be profitable, that would probably violate the laws of thermodynamics. Furthermore, a business which leeches off the community is going to have a huge advantage over a competitor that doesn't.

Re:that's ok

[Anonymous Coward]

You are free to start your own Nuclear power plant in America because of Free Market!

Re:that's ok

[mdsolar]

Main Yankee cost $500 million and did not have so much contaminated soil as Vermont Yankee. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M... Entergy's cost analysis may have some basis.

Re:that's ok

[gweihir]

Some people just want to believe the crap they are getting fed.

Re:that's ok

[Anonymous Coward]

the government (us citizens) always foot the bill for building and decommissioning nuclear plants. why should the actual businesses have to pay their own expenses?

always?
You are just plain wrong. The power companies are actual businesses that pay for the plants out of their operating revenues and loans from the banks.
They do not get tax money to build these things.

wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think a single aspect of the summary was accurate. They didn't need approval from Vermont to shutdown, they needed approval to run the plant until the end of the year. And of course they don't have enough money to decommission the plant today - they only made the decision to close the plant about a year ago. The plant needs to continue saving up money in their fund until they have enough to decommission the plant - no surprises there. So what is the point of this story?

Re:wait, what?

[DerekLyons]

So what is the point of this story?

One of Slashdot's most beloved features - the hourly Two Minute Hate.

Re:wait, what?

[Giant Electronic Bra]

The plant was originally licensed for 20 years and had an expected design lifetime of 40 years, that is 2012. The fund was set up in 1972 and should have been managed such that it would be adequate in 2012 to shut the plant down. Thus the point is quite valid since said funds clearly are short by 40% or so. Entergy tried to extend the lifetime of the plant by another 20 years (and succeeded, they can legal go ahead and run it until 2032 and I believe even do so at a higher power output). They didn't need 'approval to run to the end of the year' except in the sense that there were certain regulatory questions that they needed answers for. If they HAD continued to operate then its possible the State would have continued various legal actions to get them shut down, but they weren't required to do so as of a year ago.

Nuclear energy, so much cheaper than other forms

[Anonymous Coward]

... because they fail to count half the costs when they do their calculations.

Taxman

[Anonymous Coward]

By - The Beatles

John, Paul, Jones
and Ringo

Increased rates

[plopez]

Looks like all the customers will be paying more for their power.

Re:subsidy

[Anonymous Coward]

Neither to the extent, nor in the manner of nuclear. Other industries get tax breaks, free use of government research, etc.

Nuclear gets to walk away and leave the mess for someone else.

Captcha: remorse

Wait, I thought it was the future?

[Anonymous Coward]

Won't 3D printing totally revolutionize everything and dramatically reduce costs for everything and allow anything at all to happen?

Re:Nuclear energy, so much cheaper than other form

[Joce640k]

Fail.

The real reason the economics don't work for private companies is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Short version: Private investors who make 20-odd year investments want guaranteed returns of 1000%. This multiplies the cost of the plant by an order of magnitude just to pay back the initial investors.

Solution: Let governments build them.

Hm.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hm. Sounds like it's time for the Entergy management and shareholders to pony up some of the money they've made of this thing.

Re:Hm.

[MachineShedFred]

Nah, they'll just continue running it a bit longer to power their bitcoin mining grid, and make up the difference that way.

Most appropriate tag line ever

[wayne_t]

The Slashdot quote at the bottom of the page when I scrolled down was:

"Consequences, Schmonsequences, as long as I'm rich." -- "Ali Baba Bunny" [1957, Chuck Jones]

That may be the most relevant one I've ever seen.

No

[mdsolar]

This is permission to close down, part of a deal on economic development funds. http://www.masslive.com/news/i...

A lot of nuclear plants are uneconomic

[mdsolar]

It turns out that natural gas and renewable energy are making a lot of nuclear plants uneconomic. http://will.illinois.edu/nfs/R... This situation is bound to accelerate as renewable energy gets even cheaper as projected. (see appendix B) http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy10o... So, it is time to fully fund decommissioning before that happens over the next seven to twelve years.

Re:A lot of nuclear plants are uneconomic

[khallow]

Eh, looking at the most pessimistic EIA cost columns in that list, I don't see the cost benefit increasing fast enough to justify your claim. We'll have to see how it works out. I would like it if the cost decline is more aggressive than forecast.

Well, at least the cost will be better for bargain hunters. They already can put together small economical systems with decent ROI.

Re:A lot of nuclear plants are uneconomic

[mdsolar]

I think learning curve models are the most realistic in this situation because there are still so many new materials to try. It is worth noting too that the EIA model is already well off the real world data which has seen much stronger cost reductions. So, if you like the EIA curve, you have to reset it to today's prices, which probably covers your objection.

Re:A lot of nuclear plants are uneconomic

[rahvin112]

Utility scale solar and wind is almost as cheap as coal on a per kw basis and prices continue to fall. With all the cheap gas for the night time energy use (and how ridiculously cheap NG generators are) it's no wonder utilities are running away from nuclear.

Re:A lot of nuclear plants are uneconomic

[khallow]

I should have taken a closer look at that time axis. I hope you're right about the long term!

Re:A lot of nuclear plants are uneconomic

[mdsolar]

Correct. But if the model for decommissioning nuclear power plants assumes they won't run away, the model has to change and decommissioning costs need to be settled before all the plants close as unprofitable.

Your only source for safe, cheap, nuclear energy:

[Rambo Tribble]

It's still the Sun, providing reliable, local service for over 4 billion years.

Nuclear gets the biggest subsidy

[mdsolar]

You might think that oil gets the biggest subsidy, with all the military hardware we keep in the Mideast, but that stuff is multi-use and optional use (aside from attacks on Israel) while the Price Anderson subsidy for nuclear power could bring down the Federal Government if a large accident occurred at Indian Point. The cost to cover the homeowners insurance nuclear accident exclusions could make it impossible for the US to service its public debt. And clean up costs are estimated to be over $1 trillion. http://archive.lohud.com/artic... No other subsidy puts our entire way of life on the line like that.

Re:Nuclear gets the biggest subsidy

[mellon]

What would actually happen in this situation is that homeowners would get shafted, just like they always are when government-sponsored corporate welfare goes wrong (e.g., the crash of 2008). So no worries about the government running out of money. As a neighbor to Vermont Yankee, I am keenly aware that if it were to have a serious radiation-releasing accident, I would simply have to walk away from my rather substantial real estate investment. This is why it always pisses me off when people rant about how cheap nuclear is. Of course it's cheap: when you can get local property owners to indemnify you against accidents, you are getting a subsidy, and subsidies are great for the bottom line.

Re:Nuclear gets the biggest subsidy

[gtall]

And the cost to the atmosphere from burning all that fossil fuel is also a subsidy...I note you conveniently have forgotten it. So a nuclear accident can take out a region, global warming or acidifying the oceans can take down the entire planet.

Re:Nuclear gets the biggest subsidy

[mdsolar]

Price Anderson say one thing, debt obligation says another. Which way it breaks is not that important to the fact that it would break. With Indian Point, a big chunk of economic activity would be gone too so an economic depression might further wreck things. For an Vermont Yankee accident, since less is at risk, Price Anderson might come through for you.

Re:Nuclear gets the biggest subsidy

[imikem]

Your cite mentions $1T in some unspecified "worst case scenario", e.g., simultaneous earthquake/tsunami/terrorist-attack/landslide/zombie-apocalypse. Sorry, not very credible, and certainly not to be conflated with "estimated clean-up costs".

Re:Nuclear gets the biggest subsidy

[Anonymous Coward]

What a pile of bullshit!

WTF do you think would happen if a major tsunami hit the east coast of US? There would be lots money coming down to help rebuild. That $1T would be nothing.

What IF an asteroid hit a major city? What IF an earthquake flattens San Francisco and surrounding area? Who's paying for the recent landslide in Washington that killed so many?

Re:Nuclear gets the biggest subsidy

[mdsolar]

I don't think the clean up cost includes the need to cover property loss though it probably reduces that somewhat. The property loss is the larger cost.

Re:Nuclear gets the biggest subsidy

[mdsolar]

Actually, we've only just started with dangerous climate change, and simply cutting emissions takes us back down to a safe climate without any disposal effort, so your supposition that there is an existing subsidy is incorrect. For future emissions above the 270 Gt of carbon included in the IPCC's RCP2.6 one might suppose a hidden subsidy, but not until then. We still have a choice not to make too much carbon dioxide waste. That choice is past with nuclear waste, we've already made too much not to have a need to dispose of it. If fact we are backed up and should probably stop producing nuclear waste until we've got the problem solved.

Re:Nuclear gets the biggest subsidy

[davester666]

So, you purchased the property prior to the nuclear plant being planned, back in the 60's [it opened in '72]?

Or you were unaware of the plant's presence when you purchased the property?

Or you are still living in your parent's basement?

Re:Nuclear gets the biggest subsidy

[Anonymous Coward]

Because we just shut off every carbon source at that arbitrary number? Oh, I'm sorry, but we've hit our allotment for the year. No power for you northern hemisphere countries in December, because of arbitrary numbers and dates on a calendar!

Re:Nuclear gets the biggest subsidy

[mellon]

Excuuse me? You think some Johnny-come-lately power plant, by virtue of having been here for a mere 42 years, has some kind of special right to continue operating outside its safe lifetime at the risk of all the homeowners in the area, just because some of them arrived after the plant was built? As it happens, I grew up about five miles downstream of the VY site, and was 7 when it started operations. But even if that weren't the case, your logic is offensive. A brief incumbency in the neighborhood does not give a corporation special privileges with respect to imposing its externalities on its neighbors. The natural heritage that exists in the general area of the VY power plant has tremendous value, and should not be placed at risk in the service of short-term expediency.

Re:Nuclear gets the biggest subsidy

[yacc143]

The problem is, that climate change is something that up to a certain point is natural (research it, climate change has happened over the centuries, with sometime grave side effects for humans), the nuclear waste is highly toxic (the radiation is not noticable without technical kit, you'll just notice that all kinds of life forms start to die, seen it in person, but any numbers of elements present in the waste output is also chemically toxic to humans), and it will need safe storage for a multiple of the time span that modern humans have existed (the convinient time unit for measuring half-life is MILLIONS of years, and that's only the half-life => after millions of years (for some elements it's only 0.1 millions years) half the stuff has decayed, so half of the original bad stuff is still there, PLUS some of the decay products might be still radiating/toxic)

Now, consider how much we know about the Egyptian pyramids (e.g. we are still figuring almost everything about them out), and these are less than 5K years old).

So exactly how these far planning corporation that cannot budget correctly for the demantling of the plants (which funnily is a very common thing) plan to safe keep the stuff for 1 million years? It's not as if they have budgeted for lifting the stuff from Earth to drop it into the Sun.

So basically it's yet again an example of "private profit" + "community risks/costs". And while Communism sucks, this half-version of Communism (good private, bad shared by all) sucks even more.

Re:Nuclear gets the biggest subsidy

[david_thornley]

Sigh. If it's got a half-life of millions of years, it's really not that dangerous. Modern humans have existed for maybe 30K years, enough to get any dangerous isotope way down.

Re:Your only source for safe, cheap, nuclear energ

[Overzeetop]

Agreed. It's a shame we can't harness it properly. (note: it takes almost as much energy - 95% as fossil fuel - to produce a working solar collection system as that system will provide over its entire life)

Re:Nuclear energy, so much cheaper than other form

[bobbied]

... because they fail to count half the costs when they do their calculations.

And changing government regulations over the last 40 years of operation hasn't *ever* been a cost driver.

You can only calculate costs into the future 50 years when you know all the variables that drive cost. In this case, they didn't do too bad considering that most of the initial calculations would have been done in the 60's, there has been significant regulatory changes since then and they have nearly 2/3rds of what they need. 600 Million is chump change when we are dropping $1 Trillion/year onto our debt at the federal level.

Negative subsidy [Re:subsidy]

[Geoffrey.landis]

Neither to the extent, nor in the manner of nuclear. Other industries get tax breaks, free use of government research, etc.

It's worth pointing out that nuclear power actually gets a negative subsidy. They have been charged a fee for nuclear waste disposal... but the nuclear waste disposal program was cancelled, and there is no replacement plan.

The fee was suspended by court order last November... but the money collected has not been refunded.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11...

Re:Negative subsidy [Re:subsidy]

[Prien715]

It's also worth point out that coal power plants generates MORE radioactive waste than nuclear plants by a factor of ~100.

It's just spread over a wide area, causes cancer, and no one collects or taxes it.

Re:Negative subsidy [Re:subsidy]

[macpacheco]

Invest that money on DMSR reseach. It's a simplified version of the Thorium LFTR reactor. Burning SNF on a DMSR will use up 99% of the fissionable and fertile material, resulting in real nuclear waste (99% fission products), instead of the current nuclear waste which is still 99% nuclear fuel.

The critical step to make the DMSR extremely efficient is the pyro nuclear reprocessing (to remove only fission products and leave all heavy elements in). Even though this is far from the typical nuclear reprocessing (used to separate plutonium from the rest, pyro reprocessing will keep uranium, plutonium, thorium, americium, curium, californium, inside the reactor), it's considered a nuclear proliferation issue. So instead of designing the reactor with an integral pyro reprocessing facility, it's being designed without one, so it could be brought say every 5 years along with nuclear inspectors.
Doing reprocessing more often would make the reactor a valuable and reliable source of Molybdenum 99 and Bismuth 213 and other radioisotopes used for radiotherapy cancer treatments.
The reactor is continuously making those and many other extremely valuable isotopes.

Real work is being done on this in Canada. Too much NRC red tape to do it in the USA.
Terrestrial Energy Inc. Lead nuclear engineer Dr. David LeBlanc.
He has a few hours of lectures and being interviewed in youtube about this.
He's promising this will happen in less than 10 years, but I'm sure a few hundred million could speed it up a little.
Uranium is more valuable than gold (a ton of uranium can produce much more electricity than it's weight in gold).
When will we stop blaming nuclear technology for the century old energy political game player in the USA.
Everybody gets tax breaks, subsidies, ... That's nothing specific to nuclear.
There was a single nuclear related death in the last 10 years in the USA, a Uranium mining accident. Nuclear is much safer even than Solar and Wind (kills a few people due to installation and maintenance accidents every year) !
Stop the BS !

Different power sources have differences

[Geoffrey.landis]

It turns out that natural gas and renewable energy are making a lot of nuclear plants uneconomic.

Not really. Nuclear and renewable cover different portions of the demand curve. Nuclear is good for baseline power-- 24 hours a day. Renewable (other than hydro) tends to be a variable power source. Solar, in particular, is a good source for daytime peaking power, particularly in summer. Valuable-- but a different portion of the demand curve

Natural gas is indeed changing the structure of the electrical power market. One significant reason it's changing it is because gas turbines can vary output rapidly. They're good for load variations, where nuclear is best for baseline.

Different power sources have different characteristics, and serve different segments of the market.

Re:Different power sources have differences

[mdsolar]

Nuclear power plants are shutting down for economic reasons. Analysis (linked above) shows that it is the economics of natural gas and renewables that is doing this. So far, wind has played a big role, forcing zero pricing at night. A number of Midwestern nuclear plants may close this year. http://articles.chicagotribune... Obviously, if low cost gas can backstop supply of even cheaper wind, the concept of baseline power is useless. And it only made sense if nuclear could be the lowest cost supplier, which it can't. No cost savings from being inflexible and brittle save nuclear if everything else is cheaper.

Re:Different power sources have differences

[HornWumpus]

Ignoring how power pools work.

Very quick summary: Everybody bids their incremental costs (not average costs). Hour by hour (or whatever time-period the pool runs in) the pools computers sort the bids and select the lowest ones up to the load. They are then all paid the bid of the highest price producer for the hour. This is a gross oversimplification...

Net effect for base-load units: They are price takers. Their bids are never marginal. It is very possible for the average clearing price to be lower then the units average cost of generation. Nukes have high fixed operational costs.

Of course not all power goes through the pool. Long term deals etc.

Use the 600 million for new reactor

[WindBourne]

Seriously, it is far better to use the 600 million to get new mPower reactors, and continue this with CHEAPER energy. In addition, ideally, some money from these plants will be used to get thorium reactors going that can burn up the old nuke waste.
Regardless, while having new cheap reactors running on-site, you can then slowly dismantle the old reactors, while using the rest of the equipment.

Re:Use the 600 million for new reactor

[Giant Electronic Bra]

Gosh yes, and we should just leave this nuclear plant to rust in the middle of a flood plain, you know full of all kinds of fuel. You realize this is a GE MK1, the same as the reactors at Fukushima, with all the same design flaws, the nice spent fuel pool on the top floor, etc. Sorry, cleanup isn't an OPTION, its a necessity.

Re:Use the 600 million for new reactor

[WindBourne]

You miss the point. By putting in small reactors there and getting cheap energy flowing, they can:
1) make profits that are used to shut down the old reactors.
2) later on, with thorium reactor, the site can burn up about 95% of the old waste, leaving just a fraction to be shipped out or stored deep. And it will be safe within 200 years.
3) Far better to have the utility pay for this with on-going operations, than the customers, who then still have to buy electricity from other sources.

Re:Use the 600 million for new reactor

[Giant Electronic Bra]

Reactors aren't actually economical when you use acceptable accounting practices, so that wouldn't be a money-making policy. At best you'd still have to clean up these small reactors, which would be basically the same problem.

Secondly, even assuming you made a profit, there's nothing saying that small reactors and thorium reactors will ever actually be produced. The net effect is you'd leave the site idle and hazardous in a floodplain for at least 3-4 decades while said reactors were designed, tested, built, and deployed. You'd also be betting on thorium, which has no commercial track record and in the form you're talking about has only had a sum total of a few 100 hours of operation in one test reactor that itself is now a very nasty pile of waste.

I don't feel comfortable having my decommissioning plan being based on highly speculative factors. As it is we have to put up with on-site dry-cask storage for FSM-knows-how-long until a high level waste repository is built. If someone DOES manage to build a thorium/breeder/traveling-wave/hybrid fusion/etc reactor to burn it all up in in the meantime, great, but I'm not wanting to hold my breathe for this. Reprocessing was supposed to be the solution to all our problems too and we can see how THAT turned out.

Bogus

[mdsolar]

Energy payback times are about 5% of the system lifetimes for solar. http://cleantechnica.com/2013/... That comes to an energy returned on energy invested of about 20, not counting the effect of recycling which can bring that up over 80 over a century or so. Nothing, aside from early shallow oil deposits, now long since depleted, is as good as solar PV on this score.

Re:Bogus

[interkin3tic]

Carbon still needs to be disposed of too, we're just allowing coal plants to pretend it doesn't. Simply because it floats away and negatively impacts everyone across the globe a slight bit, most of whom are in other countries.

In other words, yes, you're right, fossil fuels externalize the costs of waste disposal while nuclear does not. To me, that's an argument in favor of subsidizing nuclear rather than coal: it's a lot easier to deal with nuclear waste that's in one place rather than deal with the effects of carbon in the atmosphere.

Re:Bogus

[mdsolar]

Actually not. The RPC2.6 scenario used by the IPCC has an additional 270 GT of carbon emissions without much environmental damage. The carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere falls somewhat naturally, no need to pay for disposal. Above a threshold we have not yet crossed, a disposal effort would be needed, but we are not there yet and won't get there if we start cutting emissions globally. If we don't, China will have to bear the cost of disposal. And, that is easily arranged through the environmental clause in the GATT.

Re:Bogus

[mdsolar]

RCP not RPC. oops. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...

Re:Bogus

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if you ignore the 50%+ installation cost subsidy and the cost of lost wasted baseload generation due to regulations forcing producers to purchase all renewable power production regardless of reliability and demand. When you take those into account, solar costs around 4 times more than coal/gas/nuclear.

If we relied on wind and solar for 50% of our energy needs, electricity costs would at least double. Since the availability and price of energy is tied to the cost of every good and service you consume, effectively you are halving the income and standard of living of everyone.

Progressivism - forcing horribly regressive policies to ensure the people become and stay poor so they are easier to control since 1900.

Re:Bogus

[AmiMoJo]

How about we just stop subsidising them both? Spend the money transitioning to something better.

Re:Bogus

[yacc143]

Exactly, they produce stuff that is dangerous to life for time spans that are expressed in millions of years.

Put bluntly, this stuff will need safe keeping for way longer than the modern human has existed.

This is not comparable to CO2, which might have side effects on climate, but CO2 is a biologically safe gas, actually humans produce it themselves all the time breathing.

Re:Bogus

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, you're showing your true colors here. Not so much pro-solar as you are anti-nuclear, eh? You're actually defending coal burning. Coal, ffs.

Re:Bogus

[mdsolar]

RCP2.6 can't be accomplished with nuclear power: http://www.rmi.org/Knowledge-C... The question, which you have misunderstood, was about subsidies. Coal is heavily subsidized in terms health costs of sulfur, mercury and particulate pollution. Natural gas is not. Is there a carbon subsidy? In the sense that we are suffering dangerous climate change now, there is. We are making extra payouts for crop insurance and flood insurance for example. But, when it comes to disposal, there is no need since cutting emissions also cuts the concentration below the dangerous threshold. So, there is no disposal subsidy.

Bogus

[mdsolar]

The waste still needs to be disposed of. It looks like it is going to cost more, not less, so the industry has been undercharged.

Wrong

[WindBourne]

The issue with economics is NOT the fact that it is nuclear. The issue is that companies such as GE and others want to build massive on-site reactors where they get 5-10 B for it, rather than only .5B for a small reactor.
In addition, much of the issues is the initial starting price which is typically doubled due to opposition.

What is needed is to require that once a license is approved, then it is over for protests.
In addition, building a massive nuke reactor in place is the WRONG way to do it. By going with smaller ones that are pretty much shipped via rail and then dropped into the ground, makes it dirt cheap.

Re:Wrong

[yacc143]

Small reactors have still the unsolved "spent fuel" == "highly toxic waste that stays so for an eternity" issue

Re:Wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

In addition, building a massive nuke reactor in place is the WRONG way to do it. By going with smaller ones that are pretty much shipped via rail and then dropped into the ground, makes it dirt cheap.

It's fortunate then that a bunch of companies are doing just that, like:

Babcock & Wilcox

Hyperion

Fliber Energy

Toshiba

General Atomics

The bigger problem with older reactors is that each design was typically customised, which scaled up the complexity of certification and construction. Modern large reactors like the Westinghouse AP1000 that is being widely deployed in China are built to a standard plan, and have much lower and more predictable certification and construction costs.

I agree that SMRs are the way to go, but for an entirely different reason. Transmission costs are huge and having large coal and nuclear reactors increases average transmission distances and hence cost. Additionally if an SMR can be switched hard-off, then it's plausible that they can be relocated if energy demands change.

Re:Wrong

[WindBourne]

no, they don't. Thorium will burn up 95% of it and the remaining 5% is safe after 200 years. That is why many of use keep pushing this.

Re:Wrong

[WindBourne]

Other than mPower, none of those are going anywhere. Sux, esp for flibe.

As to the reason to go to SMR, I like it for other reasons. Far easier to put it along roads, rails, etc. In addition, with say 100 MWe system being small enough to locate in small towns, they can make use of the waste heat. Right now, everybody stays away from large reactors since they require large amounts of space.

nothing adds up here

[slashmydots]

This is really strange. It takes a billion to cleanup a not-exploded nuclear plant? Just ship out the radioactive stuff, erase the computers, destroy the classified tech, and it's a medium sized corporate demolition job. That's a millions tops. I don't see where the billion parts comes in.

And then there's why the heck are they shutting it down early? If it's safety reasons, just fix the safety issues. I bet that doesn't cost a billion.

Re:nothing adds up here

[MachineShedFred]

Well, the first problem is the first thing in your list: The radioactive stuff.

It turns out that it's rather expensive to handle, and there's a whole lot of it. We're not just talking about the fuel assemblies, though there is 42 years worth of that laying around; we're talking about the neutron-activated reactor vessel, the coolant loop, and the heat exchanger. All of them are low-level waste that needs proper disposal. Oh, and there's all the contaminated dirt from the tritium leaks that have been widely publicized.

After you deal with all of that, sure - you just do what you said. But dealing with all of that will likely cost in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Exactly

[Giant Electronic Bra]

Nothing the State of Vermont did caused the plant to be shut down. It was entirely Entergy's own stupidity on multiple levels. First they decided to run as a 'Merchant' plant, refusing to sign a contract to provide VT with power (ironic as it was us who bore the burden of the threat of some disaster, etc). They could have locked in a profitable rate but they were stupid and greedy and screwed themselves. Secondly they were INCOMPETENT, or at least in many instances managed to LOOK incompetent. Parts of the cooling tower fell down, they lied to the regulators about tritium leak issues, etc. Thirdly they failed to do basic good cost accounting, for instance not planning for the replacement of a condenser who's rebuilding was MUCH MUCH more expensive than they 'guessed' it would be.

As for the decommissioning cost thing, this is not some new thing or a bolt out of the blue. The original operators sold the plant to Entergy to get out of these liabilities and Entergy never properly funded the fund. It was a routine matter of discussion in VT TEN YEARS AGO that this day would come. What they did back then was come up with a plan to 'invest' the fund in something-or-other and then decommission in 60 years using the projected proceeds (and then of course get hammered in 2008, like they cared). After that they tried to spin the plant off so they too could escape from the burden of dealing with the twin messes of decommissioning and waste disposal.

Overall Entergy has been rather dishonest and conniving, not to mention a bit less than totally competent at some level. Mark my words, the state will end up getting boned. Everyone will be paying for decades, yet magically "Nuclear power is cheap!" continues to be the mantra. All I can do is roll my eyes.

Why is this important? Entergy has tne money...

[bobbied]

The owner of Vermont Yankee is Entergy Corp. and they are HUGE.

Looking at their most recent annual report filed in February of 2014. This company made about a billion dollars in profit last year. They might not like having to pony up another 500-600 Million dollars over the next 5 years, but it's not like they couldn't. It would barely be a blip on the radar in the grand scheme of things for them. It's obvious they will easily pay for this and the government won't have to take over.

Tell me again why this is news?

Re:Why is this important? Entergy has tne money...

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell me again why this is news?

Because the submitter (mdsolar) is a notorious anti-nuclear troll and it fits his agenda.

What I don't understand is ...

[jandersen]

why they don't just sell their spent fuel? It shouldn't be difficult to find buyers in, say, the Middle East.

Re:Your only source for safe, cheap, nuclear energ

[Giant Electronic Bra]

Agreed. It's a shame we can't harness it properly. (note: it takes almost as much energy - 95% as fossil fuel - to produce a working solar collection system as that system will provide over its entire life)

This is uttermost nonsense.

Yep, you pegged it.

[Medievalist]

Well, that is how they stay competitive with all the other subsidized industries.

In theory, the government subsidies are intended to further social goals that the free market cannot adequately address without regulation.

In practice, the government subsidies are treats that the political powers (such as congressmen) hand out to economic powers (such as favored contributors).

Since our economic powers have evolved into multinational corporations that actively oppose our social goals and purposely subvert our cultural values, this means that the government subsidies are quite often doing the exact opposite of what they are nominally intended to do.

Re:Yep, you pegged it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry cultural values can be changed. The economic powers that be are working hard to change our values with TV shows like House of Lies, House of Cards, Revenge, and countless movies glamorising the sociopath lifestyle, a continuous stream of advertising inisting that everything about your life is inadequate but can be solved by buying the next product, and TV talking heads insisting the have-nots should be ashamed of themselves for not being virtuous enough to be have-lots.

As it progresses, they will have everyone accepting that we simply need to dispose of the have-nots.

Need to consult Tepco

[ThatsDrDangerToYou]

Tepco seems to have a lot of experience in decomissioning lately. Just follow their model..

No problem

[CODiNE]

Use the allocated funds to remove the radioactive components.

Then simply dial 1-800-GOT-JUNK and they'll take care of the rest.

Re:No problem

[Sockatume]

Nah, the last time I used CASH-4-URAnium they took five billion years and I only got half the quoted value for my stuff.

Some one doesn't know

[mdsolar]

what energy is.

Re:Your only source for safe, cheap, nuclear energ

[BlackPignouf]

Fun fact : what you wrote is utter bullshit.
Another fun fact : you need to invest more energy in order to get 1kWh worth of oil than 1kWh of solar electricity.

We need to go back to the 17th Century

[gelfling]

Where everyone was a farmer and women who didn't die right away in childbirth had 10 kids 6 of whom died in childhood. Cmon Hippies! We can do it!

open-source it!

[Anonymous Coward]

'tis true that nuclear power can help stop global warming by killing people who breath out co2 and oxidize
carbon fuels ... really.
slow global radioactive death in a few generations time will bring global warming to a grinding halt!

sorry, this is nonsens

[Anonymous Coward]

Electricity prices have not gone up 2x in Germany, and that country is often going over 50% wind+solar, has much less sunlight than almost anywhere in the US, and is shutting down all its nuclear power stations at the same time. (and is still selling excess electricity to my country, so we get dropping electricity prices too.)
Making up stories does not work any more after it already happened for real.

Re:subsidy

[Anonymous Coward]

Neither to the extent, nor in the manner of nuclear. Other industries get tax breaks, free use of government research, etc.

Nuclear gets to walk away and leave the mess for someone else.

Captcha: remorse

bullshit, bullshit on the order of just a f*cking lie.
I don't know of any commercial nuclear power operator that closed a plant and walked away.
Do you know of one? If so, please name it.

Bingo, we have a winner.

[Medievalist]

So yeah, Vermont Yankee going offline will change things, but we'll manage. Indeed, losing a source of subsidized power will create more opportunities for expansion of renewables.

And that is almost certainly the whole and entire real reason for opposition to the plant closing.

Remember, Green is the New Red.

600 million ....

[niftymitch]

600 million does not seem sufficient to ship
removable fuel rods to Yucca Mtn. in the modern
world.

The good news is that there is some darn solid granite
in this area that could be tunneled into and rods stored
in one meter diameter coffins to the side and shielded
by rock. While not perfect the rods could be locked up
about as tight as Fort Knox...

Vastly larger masses of material exposed to neutron flux
and transmuted a little or a lot are a larger problem.

This is a big expensive RutRo....

Wow, Vermont anti-nuclear, shocking

[marcgvky]

If they don't want carbon-zero power, then pay the price to pull the fuel element and let them cool for 30 years. Then transport them to New Mexico. This is the price of green stupidity.

it can be

[Anonymous Coward]

LIFTER. We can potentially have thousands of times more energy available than currently, without the nuclear waste problem.

They should use the $600M to build a LFTR

[Anonymous Coward]

and use that to dispose (safely!) of all the spent (1%?!) fuel rods.