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Nation's Biggest Nuclear Firm Makes a Play For Carbon Credit Cash
tomhath writes with this story that may shake up the nuclear industry. "The biggest player in the beleaguered nuclear power industry wants a place alongside solar, wind and hydroelectric power collecting extra money for producing carbon-free electricity. Exelon Corp., operator of the largest fleet of U.S. nuclear plants, says it could have to close three of them if Illinois rejects the company's pitch to let it recoup more from consumers since the plants do not produce greenhouse gases. Exelon and other around-the-clock plants sometimes take losses when wind turbines produce too much electricity for the system. Under the system, electric suppliers would have to buy credits from carbon-free energy producers. Exelon says the plan would benefit nuclear plants, hydroelectric dams, and other solar and wind projects."
Considering that nuclear power is the safest form of power the world has ever known, I'd say it's worthy of recognition for offsetting carbon more than anything else. To borrow a phrase, "It's the energy density, stupid."
There's a reason why China has 30 nuclear plants under construction, while the US just approved its first new plant in 30 years.
Of course they are also volunteering to take total and full responsibility for the fuel they use from the mining to the ultimate disposal and storage for the next ten million years. Payment in advance please.
Eliminate the carbon credits.
when first we practice to enceive.
Seems perfectly reasonable to me.
...what is very little recognized worldwide, is that nuclear energy gets a free lunch at the expense of the taxpayers, as regards risk insurance.
It is the most damned uninsured thing in developed countries and when one of these plants goes bust, you know what happens, ref. Fukusima.
If nuclear industry wishes to operate on-par terms with other forms of green technologies, please, bring the actuarial scientists in, to do all the math!
For the record, I am not against nuclear energy as a source of energy per se, however its use is not entirely rationalized on the basis of risk and cost to handle it.
Try to imagine what's the insurance cost of Catenom plant in north east France and add it in the operational costs and you will get the idea.
And this is before discussing about the overall lifetime (gasp) risks with spent nuclear fuel etc.
Are akin to Monopoly money. Absolutely nonsensical and worthless.
it's easy to spot since he calls one of the political party's out by name. There's still some weight to the NIMBY folks though. The trouble with nuclear, at least in America, is that it's damn near impossible to keep it safe. Sooner or later some venture capital firm notices how much money's being spent on safety and moves in with promises of "efficiency", takes over the plant operation and starts cutting back. That's really what the NIMBY crowd worries about, they're just not allowed to talk about it because those same venture capitalists are our ruling class. It's pretty much the same thing that happened in Japan. They knew the plants weren't safe but didn't want to spend the money. Big disaster, lots will die of cancers and the like, but nobody important go in trouble.
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for the billions needed to decommissionn nuclear plants "Japan's Tokai 1 reactor, a 160 MWe UK Magnox design, is being decommissioned after 32 years service to 1998. After 10 years storage, in Phase 2 (to 2011) the steam generators and turbines were removed, and in Phase 3 (to 2018) the reactor will be dismantled, the buildings demolished and the site left ready for re-use. The total cost will be JPY 93 billion (USD 1.04 billion) – 35 billion for dismantling and 58 billion for waste treatment which will include the graphite moderator" + "San Onofre 1, which closed in 1992, was put into Safestor until licences for Units 2 and 3 expired in 2022-23. However, after NRC changes, dismantling was brought forward to 1999, so it became an active Decon project which was largely completed in 2008. A small amount of work remains to be completed with eventual dismantling of units 2 & 3 on the site, which were shut down in May 2013. The cost of fully decommissioning them is estimated at $4 billion." source: http://www.world-nuclear.org/i...
I got to the chocolate box before you, that's why the hard ones have teeth marks.
Political nonsense can always sometimes be used as a tool to push down competitors or elevate yourself with subsidies. If one energy source gets cheap, all other energy sources will stop getting as much profits. So there is always some at least light effort gamesmanship to trip up your competitors, and sometimes it is fierce. Think: If everyone had solar installments and hybrid electric plugin cars, not as many people would need gasoline(demand goes down, gas prices go down). Is the president shutting down coal power plants? Well the gas driven power plants are applauding his action.
God spoke to me
Once we pump the rest of those dinosaurs and algae into the atmosphere I'm sure we'll figure it out. One step at a time, please.
You are more lucid than usual. Still an idiot though.
It's ludicrous for the Nuclear Industry to call itself carbon neutral when tens of thousands of tons of ore has to be crushed and refined with carbon based energy sources. The enrichment of the fuel at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant uses two brown coal power plants to run it. Then there is the massive cabon sink from the concrete to build the thing in the first place.
Even after that you have the CFC114 from the enrichment process which the EPA reports as the single largest contributor of greenhouse gasses. In all they are bogus claims suggesting the Nuclear industry is "carbon-free" because clearly it is not.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
In Japan, they found at one point that there was a possibility of it *seriously* going to hell in a hand basket.
If the wind had been really wrong, it would have put serious fallout over Tokyo; which would have been really, really, really bad. While few people would have died, the economic disruption would have been (without any hyperbole) unbelievably stupendous.
http://world.time.com/2012/02/...
You can tell me all you want that this kind of accident can never happen, but I just don't believe it. We have no reason to think that Chernobyl or Fukushima were the worse cases, nor that these kinds of failures cannot happen again worse.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"Eliminate the carbon credits.
THIS! If you eliminated carbon credits in favor of a universal carbon tax (or a traded emissions quota scheme), the nuclear industry would not need to apply like this. Those forms of power generation most able efficiently and inexpensively to replace coal-fired generation would prosper. No need to argue in theory about the cost-ineffectiveness of nuclear or solar, the only true arbiter of cost-effectiveness would sort it out.
Safe except for the byproducts, which are most definitely not safe
Why not? The byproducts are very small in volume, and quite well protected/contained.
It's better than coal which spreads low does of radiation, not to mention other pollution, all over the place. Both in burning and in transport.
It's better than solar or wind, byproducts of manufacture of those systems end up in the environment.
Nuclear has the safest byproducts. because you will never come in contact with them.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Greenhouse gases and temperature appear to be capable of a feedback loop
No, they really don't. At least not in Earth's atmosphere.
CO2 emissions have gone up and up over the last two decades with almost no increase in heat over that period of time.
Apparently CO2 does not actually lead to a feedback loop. Which only makes sense when you realize the whole Earth is a system designed to process CO2 in vast quantities.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Are you sick of 'climate change' bullshit on Slashdot every single day? There is no such thing as 'catastrophic man-made global warming', and we are in fact at the beginning of yet another mini ice age.
http://business.financialpost.com/2015/03/27/lawrence-solomon-global-warming-doomsayers-take-note-earths-19th-little-ice-age-has-begun/
But don't let the scientific facts get in the way of your new religion - 'global warming alarmism'.
Nuclear: you were born from a mass-murder industry and lavishly financed by the military-industrial complex, basically from our tax money.
Now whining for more tax money? Your time's up, shrivel up and die. Already.
They are a way to give money to FAILING ideas.
If you want to stop the pollution, put a tax on the actual polluters at the step where they are polluting.
Sulfuric Acid, large particles, unburned fuel; yes worry about these and the USA has cleaned up them.
CO2 is a BS think to worry about. Getting rid of it, will be way TOO expensive.
And lastly ABC - Anywhere But China. If you are worried about Global Air Quality, stop buying things made in China. They pollute more for each thing made than anywhere else.
Nuclear can not compete going forwards. The writing is on the wall.
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We have old gen II reactors that are being extended, but really should not be. However, there is NO replacement for them.
In addition, there is loads of spent fuel not only at these sites, but others that have been retired.
With transatomic and other companies molten salt approach, we can not only create a reactor that is INCAPABLE OF FAILURE (unless a number of physical LAWS are not true), but, these can burn up the majority of the 'spent fuel'. What will remain will be only 5-10% of the original volume, and will be safe in under 200 years.
Even once we build these (and we will), at some future point, AE combined with FUSION power, will likely become very viable. BUT, it is still better to run these fission reactors to process the 'waste' and turn it safer.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.