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Nuclear Energy: The Good News and the Bad News In the EPA Clean Energy Plan
Lasrick writes: Peter Bradford explains what the EPA's new Clean Power Plan has in store for nuclear energy. He provides an excellent explanation of the details of the plan, and how the nuclear industry benefits (or doesn't). "The competitive position of all new low-carbon electricity sources will improve relative to fossil fuels. New reactors (including the five under construction) and expansions of existing plants will count toward state compliance with the plan's requirements as new sources of low-carbon energy. Existing reactors, however, must sink or swim on their own prospective economic performance—the final plan includes no special carbon-reduction credits to help them."
Bow to my royalty!
3 points...
1. I believe that nuclear energy must be part of our nation's power supply. Wind and solar should as well, but they alone won't do it, we need nuclear to get off coal, oil, and natural gas.
2. I believe that anyone running a nuclear plant needs to be responsible for the total end to end costs of it, from site prep to site clean when the place is shut down.
3. I believe we must repeal the restrictions and bans on various types of reactors. We need new designs, the ability to build breeder reactors, run them on plutonium, and develop newer safer designs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Nuclear waste is a concern, but keep in mind that waste that is highly radioactive generally has a short half-life and waste that is long lasting is generally not very radioactive to begin with, or isn't after a short while.
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As a side note, I'm always reluctant to say "more government anything", however it is possible that nuclear reactors are just not something that for-profit companies should run, since the temptation to shortcut safety is always present. The US Navy has used nuclear power for years with very few problems, perhaps we should simply have the Navy run our reactors and sell the power.
"Only buckets of money from taxpayers and customers can lead to new reactor construction. The Clean Power Plan contains no such buckets."
This quote from later in the the article is priceless (and a little horrifying):
“Nuclear power requires obedience. Demand what you really need. Just look at Donald Trump. What can possibly go wrong?”
Not sure what to think of it.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Citation on the number of deaths per terawatt?
The few accidents have been very localized and killed very few people.
Coal, oil, and natural gas on the other hand, have harmed everyone.
Your item two is in serious conflict with item one. How can nuclear energy be part of our nations power supply if the industry is responsible for the total end costs. The article explains that at a cost of 19 cents/kwh no one will build any nuclear power plant since solar and wind can be built for much less. So, really, if nuclear isn't subsidized, it isn't going to happen.
Nuclear power has always depended on subsidies and it can't survive without those subsidies. It is just too expensive and it seems unlikely that there will be any serious change in the economic arena.
so should every power source. it works or it doesn't. on its own.
The problem right now is that people don't want to see new, safer, more efficient nuclear plants being built, because they're nuclear!
Unfortunately, it means that they spend their time protesting right outside the gates of older, creaky, less safe and more expensive nuclear plants that the operators would actually love to shut down so they could build and operate the newer, safer, more efficient designs.
Believe it or not, the folks that actually live near and work at nuclear plants have more than a passing interest in safe nuclear power, and don't want their kids glowing after dark any more than any other parent. I know, it's crazy, but it's true!
If these people could get their heads out of their asses they might realize that, if nuclear energy must be utilized, that allowing newer, safer plant designs to be built would be the smartest path. Though I'm afraid clear and logical thinking isn't a strong point of the anti-nuclear crowd.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
The question I would ask in response is why is nuclear so expensive?
At its core, it shouldn't be. It is simply heat decay of radioactive materials heating a liquid to run steam turbines, it is simple stuff in concept, but seems to be insanely expensive in practice. One of the challenges is that we have never allowed economies of scale into nuclear, every plant is a one-off build and they are spaced too far apart to really develop. It is like hand building cars vs. Ford's assembly line. Wind and solar are made on assembly lines, so it is hard to compare them. Get nuclear up to 50% of the world's power generation and it may well get cheap.
The other issue is that if price alone determined what we build, then coal, oil, and natural gas would continue to make sense.
Finally, keep in mind that we like a dependable power grid. Wind and solar vary from place to place, and while the idea of "the wind is always blowing somewhere" sounds nice, it often isn't blowing where you need it.
We would need a whole new power grid to really make wind and solar work like people want it to, and that would change the economics of both options.
Your right, the numbers should give people pause, to ask "Why the hell aren't we using nuclear power?"
Energy Source Death Rate (deaths per TWh) CORRECTED
Coal – world average 161 (26% of world energy, 50% of electricity)
Nuclear 0.04 (5.9% of world energy)
Was going to paste the whole table but /.'s filter kept complaining about white space and junk characters
Whole thing is here
http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html
Or just google it, which you obviously didn't do before you posted.
(if you where being sarcastic just ignore my snark, my sarcasm detector isn't good at picking up subtle jabs)
The sheer amount of deaths per terawatts put out by nuclear
How does this number compare to those for the power sources we're using the most?
Where are they building new reactors? Last I heard all new development in the us was halted after fukushima.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
Government is supposed to be in charge of infrastructure. They're supposed to provide the public forum, public safety, public transportation, and public utilities. That's their entire job: to facilitate, but not meddle in, private concerns, whether for commerce or for any other reason. We pay taxes in exchange for these public services.
It boggles the mind to think why anyone would argue that any of that should be privatized. (Profit motive is not a valid reason to hand critical services over to robber barons.)
Sure, for the purposes of developing new ways of doing things, I can see that there could be a small-scale private experiment in a lab or workshop. For some things, it might even be reasonable to expand it to a campus or small town (the example of power generation being a prime candidate for a larger scale experiment). But as soon as that experiment shows actual efficiency gains over the existing public infrastructure, the government should be obligated to "upgrade" to it (or at least consider it as a possibility). The inventors should patent their upgrades, and the government should pay them a fee or stipend for its use for the duration of the patent (after which time, the holder of the expired patent can fuck completely off).
I'm not pro-big-government or pro-small-government. I'm pro-government-doing-it's-damned-job-and-leaving-everything-else-the-fuck-alone.
Found no mention of terms "thorium" or "molten salt reactor". Pity.
Pretending this is my office full of bitter coworkers..
Note the above does not include Fukishima. Other sources that account for that increase nuclear to .09 (90 dead per trillion kWh)
"The four reactors being built in Georgia and South Carolina were supposed to demonstrate that new construction techniques and a new licensing process had finally brought nuclear plant cost overruns and construction delays under control, but they have shown the reverse. Construction of the fifth new US reactor, Watts Bar Unit 2 in Tennessee, began in 1973."
Pretending this is my office full of bitter coworkers..
"The sheer amount of deaths per terawatts put out by nuclear can give anyone pause on that. "
That would be a grand world total of 51, since the beginning of nuclear as an energy source. No other source, even solar with its distributed installation accidents, has a safety record approaching this.
And the cost picture? If you get to cite a blatantly antinuclear site, I get to pick a site of my own too:
http://www.world-nuclear.org/i...
Because the costs of nuclear are all up front, the most effective strategy for preventing nukes from being built is to impose construction delays.
A whole new power grid is probably where we are headed. Tesla is cranking up its battery business precisely for this reason. If every home had a car or two with a battery that could be tapped for grid supplementation, the grid can be very dependable. And don't forget at least part of the US has huge hydro plants that can be kicked in when needed to balance the grid to demand. The barriers here are only political. The timeline to make these changes makes the timeline for nuclear power seem positively glacial.
A new nuclear power plant takes decades to plan and construct. Wind and solar can be implemented in a few years, depending on the scale of the individual project. Why would we subsidize a nuclear plant that would take decades when we can have new wind or solar up and running in a few years?
Hanford is calling, they want to talk to you about you opinion on nuclear waste and its halflife
If every home had a car or two with a battery that could be tapped for grid supplementation
That is a MASSIVE 'IF"... And you're assuming I WANT my car battery to take wear and tear to balance the grid...
The barriers here are only political.
You may have a different idea of what "only" means than I do... those are some of the biggest barriers that exist, they don't go away just because you wave your hand and say "politics be gone!".
A new nuclear power plant takes decades to plan and construct.
Then perhaps that is the problem that needs fixing. We designed, invented, built, and used nuclear power and weapons from scratch in less time than it takes to build one plant. When no one knew how to use them.
Perhaps the problem is not with nuclear power, but with the politics? :)
How the hell can Fukishima increase nuclear related deaths when nobody died from it???
And if we're counting radiation induced cancer and subsequent deaths (which, from fukishima is basically non-existent) then why do we give coal/oil/etc. a pass on pollution induced deaths?
The question I would ask in response is why is nuclear so expensive?
Because they can't increase capacity because they can't build new plants because of the anti-nuke people, and so they are forced to maintain and run old plants and verify their safety to the NRC (which costs a lot). Nuclear would be cheap generation except for this.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
How the hell can Fukishima increase nuclear related deaths when nobody died from it???
And if we're counting radiation induced cancer and subsequent deaths (which, from fukishima is basically non-existent) then why do we give coal/oil/etc. a pass on pollution induced deaths?
A good a place as any to throw in this link to a well written piece regarding undue radiation fears. Some people are wising up, but many still just can't accept that radiation risk isn't what its been made out to be all these years.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09...
How the hell can Fukishima increase nuclear related deaths when nobody died from it???
Cancer takes a while. Nuclear will still be orders of magnitude safer than most of the other options.
All power sources have gotten subsidies over the years, mainly because abundant low cost energy is seen a central to a thriving economy. Nuclear has received a lot of subsidies, but has also produce huge amounts of clean air power in return. If you calculated in on a per MWH basis, no energy source has ever been subsidized nearly as heavily as solar and wind are. Its not even close. And that includes estimating future generation from installed sources. If you would give nuclear 1/3 of what solar and wind are getting on a per MWH basis, there would be a rush to get going.
Levelized cost projections from a credible, objective source can be found here: http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/a...
Of course, there is value in being consistent and dispatchable rather than variable and non-dispatchable that is not reflected in these numbers, nor are the cost of overcapacity required if were were to be fully wind and solar based. What is included in the levelized cost for nuclear is waste disposal and decommissioning, just in case you were wondering.
So you are saying that a company shouldn't be responsible for it's actions.
Nuclear power does require specialized clean up. if the industry can't clean up after itself why should it be the government's job to do so?
That is why I don't understand republicans. you preach responsibility but when it is your turn to be responsible you run away like cowards and ask someone else to do it. If you really want to be responsible for your actions then you have to take full responsibility.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
In the dream, they found a way to store nuclear waste without it catching on fire or contaminating large areas of land forever and they found a way to reduce it. My alarm went off so I was unable to complete the dream. It was the start of a busy day, had to catch a flight to France..... Wondering what the dream meant.
The question I would ask in response is why is nuclear so expensive?
It costs a lot to build, but proved cost effective over time. Existing plants are very economical, we need to keep them going and not let market shifting policies force them out.
Cost of Exiting Generation - IEA REPORT – 2015
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t...
EXISTING NUCLEAR: $50/MWH
EXISTING WIND : VARIES BETWEEN 45 and 140 $/MWH
EXISTING SOLAR: VARIES BETWEEN 150 and 300 $MWH
And the IEA is a good objective source as they have to answer to all.
http://www.iea.org/Textbase/np...
IEA REPORT – 2015 - Projected Costs of New Generation Sources:
(USING 10% Discount rate for all sources); NUCLEAR AVG $110/MWH
ONSHORE WIND $100/MWH
OFFSHORE WIND $200
Transmission infrastructure or storage costs for renewables are not considered, however local grid connections and lines are. Nuclear waste decommissioning costs are considered.
Because the costs of nuclear are all up front, the most effective strategy for preventing nukes from being built is to impose construction delays.
This is the same strategy used by those against U.S. offshore wind. The 10-year Cape Wind project was strategically delayed at every turn by lawsuits until they lost their power purchase agreements in January 2015 - game over.
The DOE and the states are now pushing harder for offshore wind development, and projects in deeper waters off of Massachusetts and Rhode Island are proceeding, for now. The Deepwater Wind Block Island project has the base structure installed and six 5 MW turbines will be installed on them next year - the first installed offshore wind in the U.S. (note that Europe has had offshore wind for nearly 25 years and has a net offshore wind capacity passing through 11,000 MW as of 2015; while the U.S. will have 30 MW sometime next year, hopefully).
I think the government and states are much more keen on getting more renewables in their portfolio, so hopefully that means the rich idiots on Cape Cod who don't want to see wind turbines in the ocean are going to be told to go fuck themselves rectally with their yacht masts.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
Note how the largest single determinant of nuclear cost is the discount, or assumed interest rate. We're missing a huge bargain by not having started to build during this halcyon era of near-zero interest cost.
the problem is that we live in a world where businesses are not held accountable for their actions. Look at VW. Their CEO resigns and gets a 30 million golden parachute. Look at GM and Toyota. Token fines that aren't even a fraction of their annual profits for something that deaths were linked to. Christ, look at Fukushima. Just the idea that some of the people responsible might get indicted is historical and even there it's only happening because of a bizarre loophole the 1% forgot to close. It's the old "Don't spill the blood of kings" crap.
If you want to have a gov't run nuke plant then fine. Take the profit motive out of it. But I wouldn't even trust that because sooner or later a bunch of those free market yabos are gonna want to hand it of to a private contractor in the name of efficiency. Until you can tell me how to stop that or make it more profitable for the plants to be safe than dangerous in the _short_ term then I won't trust nukes.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I had to look this up, because I was wondering how the heck it would take 40+ years to finish building a nuclear reactor. Apparently, the construction was started in 1973 but halted in 1988, then restarted in 2006 again. It's very close to completion - either end of this year or early next year.
Sort of sad that we're just now opening a reactor with state-of-the-art 1970's technology here in 2015.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
The figure of "just a few thousand" as given by the WHO for Chernobyl ignores the huge uncertainties given by the nature of radiation exposure, and is not least thanks to an 56 year old agreement with the IAEA that provides the latter with "an effective veto on any actions by the WHO that relate in any way to nuclear power".
(Source: http://www.theguardian.com/com... )
So it's new but still not quite new? :(
There have been much better designs made since the 1970's I keep thinking someone will build one somewhere..
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
"We would need a whole new power grid to really make wind and solar work like people want it to"
This is a really significant factor. Utilities propose building a 'smart grid' to accommodate large amounts of renewables, while at the same time adding long-neglected protection against EMP and solar storms. The first component of Smart Grid is the 'smart meter' which continuously monitors load and reports it electronically. Right now my town is embroiled in controversy over installation of smart meters, because all the hippie moms think they emit "radiation" (a word which represents evil to the left, in the same way as "abortion" does for the right) and are paying Arizona Public Service large amounts of extra money to opt out of Smart Meter. I had mine installed about a year ago when they made their installation round, and I haven't grown an extra head yet.
The second generation of Smart Meter is going to generate an even broader controversy, because it will give the utility the German-style ability to switch each subscriber's major appliances on and off as the daily supply changes. If it's windy in South Dakota this morning, Smart Grid will feed that pulse through to Arizona subscribers, whose Smart Meters will turn down everyone's A/C a few extra degrees to absorb the surge, with a corresponding ability to turn off appliances when the supply is low.
We would need a whole new power grid...
old idea...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Hanford is a weapons plant, whose troubles are of no relevance to the commercial power industry.
The 19 cents/kWh is for a new 1600 MW (net) plant planned in Virginia, which is expected to cost $19 billion.
San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station units 2 and 3 were built for about $10.3 billion in 2015 dollars, and generated 2x1075 MW = 2150 MW (net). It was decommissioned in 2012 after 29 years in operation, 11 years shy of its license expiration, and 21-31 years shy of its expected lifetime. Its decommissioning fund sits at $4.1 billion, which is more than enough to cover the expected $4.4 billion decommissioning cost (the fund will earn interest over the ~20 years), despite the plant only being operational half as long as planned. The fund came from surcharges paid by customers (a couple cents per kWh) during the decades SONGS was operational.
So the question you really should be asking is, why after 30 years of technological progress and advancement, does it cost 2x as much in inflation-adjusted dollars to build a nuclear plant with only 3/4 the power capacity?
Chernobyl for one was certainly not "very localized" and whether it "kill[ed] very few people" is contested.
The figure of "just a few thousand" as given by the WHO for Chernobyl ignores the huge uncertainties given by the nature of radiation exposure, and is not least thanks to an 56 year old agreement with the IAEA that provides the latter with "an effective veto on any actions by the WHO that relate in any way to nuclear power".
(Source: http://www.theguardian.com/com... )
Chernobyl was communist fuck-ups that lied about what they were doing with the reactor, what went wrong with the reactor, and who died.
The US, are not communist fuck-ups. Maybe, a different kind of fuck-up, but not likely to the same degree.
I really wish they had caught on instead of the navy derived fission plants used. I think there would be a very different public opinion on fission had salt reactors actually not been killed by the nixon admin (who by his own admission in a speech given in california, had no clue and just picked based on getting jobs to his home state).
You're a lying cunt. Nuclear has a fund that's there to clean up. There's no money to clean up,after the very real environmental disaster of solar production
Not a massive "if" at all. Here is how it works. You buy an electric car and keep it plugged in. You charge it when energy costs are low, and SELL electricity back to the grid when rates are high. This is assuming you want to make some spare cash while your car is parked. Most cars will be out driving during at least part of the daylight hours when solar power is being generated. As the sun goes down the car can sell some of its leftover power while demand is still high but solar power is unavailable. The battery will be recharged later in the night when demand for power is down but power is still being generated by fixed output sources like coal, nuclear, and geothermal plants.
No one is forced to participate. If you want to make some cash you sign up for this. If you imagine even half of the electric cars participating in this program, you have a massive power storage grid. And there are more electric cars being built every day.
Second, the political barriers in the power grid involve power companies cooperating to maintain power availability. This isn't an insurmountable problem. This is really different from the political issues that surround the construction of nuclear plants.
Well I'm not antinuclear but Ontario wanted to build a couple of new reactors and they had budgeted $10B for it but the only compliant bid came in at $26B. This was in 2009.
https://www.thestar.com/busine...
Besides, the Japanese said the same before 2011.
Obviously Fukushima wasn't fully man-made like Chernobyl, but resulted from natural disaster + security neglect (eg, backup power design).
Here is how it works. You buy an electric car and keep it plugged in. You charge it when energy costs are low, and SELL electricity back to the grid when rates are high.
My power rates are the same, 24/7.
And there are more electric cars being built every day.
Yes, but the number is a rounding error and will remain so for a long time. Longer than we'd want to wait for such a system.
^ That of course requires that South Dakota is connected to Arizona...
The whole nation isn't one power grid. Texas is the simple example, being almost, but not quite totally cut off from the rest of the nation...
OK, this is the politics thing I mentioned earlier. Your power rates shouldn't be the same 24/7 since the electric utility pays a vastly different rate for power depending on supply and demand. If they passed these changes on to you, there would be incentives for you to make choices that would be beneficial to the operation of the power grid so that it would require less peak generating capacity, i.e. fewer power plants. If you had variable power rates you could save money by doing laundry in the late evening. You could program your hot water heater to heat the water during the night when it could. You could charge your car in the pre-dawn hours. If you insisted on doing these things during the peak load period you would pay extra to help defray the cost of the extra generating capacity.
The question I would ask in response is why is nuclear so expensive?
At its core, it shouldn't be. ...
The situation you have with power plants is that turbine costs are pretty much the same per watt -- whether you run steam, burn natural gas, run water (e.g. hydro), or have the wind turn it. Yes, there are quite a bit of engineering differences in the details, but everything in modern power production is pretty optimized so you end up with costs in the same general range. Now you can't run uranium (or coal) through a turbine, so you need a separate stage to heat the water (or working fluid of your choice). That right there adds enough cost and complexity to make fission (and coal, for that matter) uncompetitive. Unless you can make the nuclear part free you aren't going to get very far.
Given the direction costs are going on wind and solar, you'd be better off building three times the capacity and buying a bunch of batteries over building a nuclear plant.
For all of the talk about fission plants being dispatchable, very few people point out that current plant designs don't really let you throttle the power output very well, so in their own way fission plants are about as annoying as renewables in terms of balancing the grid.
The other problem with a fission plant over a renewable plant is that a fission plant is a bigger investment risk. If you are deploying solar panels out in the Mojave Desert you can start selling power pretty quickly, and if you decide to scale back your project you won't lose everything. A similar argument applies to wind power projects. With a fission plant you are looking at 5 years to build one on an existing site if everything goes perfectly. And if something goes wrong you can't build half a plant.
That's the plan for Smart Grid. The idea is to have as many different fluctuating sources on the same grid as possible, so that power can be wheeled over short periods o time from one place to the other as demand and supply both fluctuate. The big dream of renewable enthusiasts is that at any moment there will always be enough power coming from somewhere to meet the demand. Control of your major appliances through smart meters is a way of adjusting the demand when necessary.
Chernobyl is not why I get a big helping of mercury with my tuna -- that was normal operations for non-nuclear plants. Chemical plants have more, and deadlier, disasters than nuclear plants (Bhopal disaster, 16,000 dead, 550,000 injured). Hydroelectric also has more, and deadlier, disasters than nuclear (eg Banqiao Dam, 250,000 dead).
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Your power rates shouldn't be the same 24/7 since the electric utility pays a vastly different rate for power depending on supply and demand.
Are you so sure about that?
Change the reactor design. It is time to go to multiple small reactors, than a single large one.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Control of your major appliances through smart meters is a way of adjusting the demand when necessary.
And this is where that dream goes sideways...
I have no interest in the grid, or someone else, deciding when my washer and dryer run, when my hot water is on or off, etc.
The cost to power them today is trivial, I'm not interested in giving up what I have, which is reliable 24/7 power that allows me to turn on anything I want, any time I want.
Ask any mother with kids who has 5 loads of laundry to do on Monday during the day while the kids are at school, and she'll tell you the same thing.
Large nuclear does take time. If using small reactors that are the same size as the majority of our coal plants (100 mw), these would fast and safe to install.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
That is wrong. Nuke, coal, fossil fuels have been subsidized since they started. And when each was started, they were much larger subsidies than wind or solar.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Because, they are built wrong. We need new gen IV designs which would lower the price a great deal.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Fortunately, not a single person died due to Fukushima either.
No, the EPA was there trying to do some work when the spill happened but if they had just been ignoring the problem sooner or later the spill would have happened anyway or at least the mine would have been leaking the toxic soup into the Animas River system for the next 500 years or more.
That oil, gas and coal still get subsidies is almost unbelievable to me! All the talk of alternative energy, and instead of taking away those subsidies they just give higher ones to renewable energy. It would save governments a lot more money if they reduced those subsidies and cut off the polluting ones.
The bigger problem with Nuclear though, is that they are the only industry that is being held accountable for long term waste. In Canada we have lots and lots of tailings ponds from all sorts of mining, not just fossil fuels, and many of them have NO END LIFE. Last year there was a major break in one of them in BC because the company had been warned for 10 years to upgrade the barriers and they did nothing, the company was content to just leave it there as is until the end of time (or whatever end life that one may have had). Tailings ponds also leak through ground water, albeit very slowly cause of the type of ground they are built over and linings, but they DO leak. Not to mention what natural disaster could effect them and the cost to animals, birds sometimes will swim in them and get poisoned, there are precautions taken for that but it still happens. Why is nuclear waste the only one that has plans for long term storage? "Radioactive" vrs "Chemical" I think the public has been far too desensitized of the word chemical waste that they forget that it can be much more dangerous.
Nuclear power is only high cost because they are playing with a major handicap in that other businesses are not held to the same accountability as them, and maybe not all of them should be but this is the reason it is so expensive.
I had the opportunity to go and see a talk by Dr. Charles Till, he was the director of the Argonne National Laboratory West, and developed the Integral Fast Reactor. A great speaker and very passionate about his work there. I could hear the frustration in his voice still when he talked about their work being shut down during the Clinton Administration, and this talk was in 2013, many years after. I was extremely impressed with how far he pushed everyone to go to actually BREAK their reactor, he wanted near unrealistic safety, and he got it! Every aspect of the reactor had safety as the foremost concern and so much of it became completely hands off, robotic hands to handle nuclear products and stuff. He talked about how every single problem government wanted them to solve, they solved, nuclear waste, proliferation of weapons, etc. All except the cost, but it was shut down in the 90s, the cost would have dropped a lot since then, either with cheaper technology or cheaper engineering.
It really makes me sad--and I can understand his frustration--that this got closed, with those extra years of research who knows how viable nuclear power would be now.
Interview with Dr. Till
Nonsense. There is great opposition to wind farms, solar farms, solar thermal collectors, coal plants, gas plants and frakking. Yet they all get done.
If NIMBYs and a few protesters really could stop all this stuff we would have no energy at all. The lawsuits and protests are a tiny, tiny fraction of the cost of a plant costing many billions of dollars to build, and even more to operate over its lifetime.
Maybe you should go and protest against the anti-nuke people, see how much difference it makes.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Problem is the levelized cost tells you nothing about the future cost of building new capacity. As you point out, nuclear is only cheap because of the massive subsidy, but governments have realized that it isn't worth it. France went all out with nuclear and it became a welfare programme for EDF and its shareholders. Same in the US, the promises of cheap energy when the technology matured in return for the free money didn't pan out, the subsidies dried up and were shifted to other technologies that needed development.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
1a) it already IS a part of it. The plan isn't including scrapping nuclear power plants right now.
1b) why should your belief on the subject be relevant?
2) Never will happen. Politicians, business executives and large shareholders all benefit form it and won't EVER be placed in danger or have to face cleanup. If nothing else, the company will fold and the public have to pay again whilst the executives go scot free. If you made an exception for liability in nuclear, then all companies will refuse to operate in the country so you have none again.
3a) Repeal the ban on Iran's nuclear power plans. And everyone else's. If it's not safe for Somalia, it's not safe for you.
3b) The restrictions are due to the fact that operators WILL cut costs swapping safety for profit, EVERY TIME. Dropping them will have the same effect as dropping the regulations did for the banks.
Moreover your point #3 is just insisting that Nuclear be rolled out BY FORCE when it's entirely possible to roll out renewables to cover all needs and carries much much lower risk. It is ENTIRELY possible for renewables to manage all power needs if you drop restrictions and bylaws against them and roll them out regardless.
At least one lead engineer died. Many are very sick, and thousands have higher than normal rates of cancer, not dead yet.
Per megaton, the Hiroshima bomb killed FAR fewer people than Dresden did. If you count the direct deaths at the time of the explosion.
Yeah, you're capitalist fuckups. Instead of being unmotivated to work hard, you're motivated to value short term profit over long term costs and safety.
The US "increased" nuclear's capacity factor by reducing the stated load by a figure appropriate to their maintenance outage. It is why they get over 90% capacity whilst the rest of the world (including them in the 80's and earlier) got 60-75%.
Transmission infrastructure and storage and backup for NUCLEAR is not considered either. The Diwnorig station was built SOLELY to allow the Windscale production. We need another for the new Hinkley reactors. The HVDC link was built likewise to allow nuclear power to increase, and we need another one. ALL those costs were not figured as part of Nuclear rollout costs.
Why whine about it not being costed for renewables?
Oh, and no, costs for nuclear cleanup are NOT figured in there. Nor are the subsidies (such as subsidised and government backed insurance for nuclear accidents).
Figure in the subsidies in the 60's when nuclear was at the development stage renewables are now. You then notice that nuclear is VASTLY over-subsidised compared to renewables. When you start subsidies, you have spent money for no or little power back because they haven't been running for one lifecycle of the generators. Picking renewables at that point when you pick matured nuclear that has amortized the early massive subsidy over time is just making shit up.
You don't understand the 'discount'. It is just a case based on capital cost.
Coal and nuclear have generated much more power as well. Like I said, calculate on a per MWH basis and it is not even close. Solar and Wind get much more.
Coal and nuclear have generated much more power as well. Like I said, calculate on a per MWH basis and it is not even close.
Be sure to calculate in the costs of cleanup of coal, which would be basically infinite because we know of no way to get all those radioactives released back into the coal plants. And we can find plants out of compliance with emissions as fast as we can pay people to check them.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
No, I did not point out nuclear is only cheap because of subsidy. In fact, I point out that on a per MWH basis, solar and wind get much greater subsidies than nuclear ever has or will get. But if you look at the IEA levelized cost projections report issued in 2015, which do not include subsidies and therefore are good numbers, you'll see nuclear fares quite well even for new designs.
You can make your rhetorical claims, but the fact that nuclear has given the US its greatest source of carbon free generation by far is indisputable.
At least 1600 people have died from Fukushima. The evacuation was a direct result of the accident, so those deaths count.
The table wants to include deaths from dam failure for hydro, and there isn't even a causal link there.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Nuclear gets far, far more subsidy than renewables. Unlimited liability instead l insurance for free is pretty much unmatched, except perhaps for the externalised cost of coal paid for by taxes.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Have you ever tried calculating on a per MWH basis. You will be surprised. No energy source has ever seen subsidies like solar and wind are getting on that basis.
Also, as for as taxpayer funded, nuclear returns and has returned more tax revenue per subsidy dollar. From local property taxes, to wages, to procurement sales taxes, more money comes back to the US taxpayer than is spent. For solar, a large chuck goes straight to Asia to pay for the panels. Wind isn't as bad in that regard, but is still tax negative and doesn't approach the returns nuclear has provided.
If that is a coal mine leaving things like that, then you guys needs to get something like we have in the states (state environmental). All the mines in my area (open pit) have always reclaimed the land after they were through. We even got to decide what we wanted planted back in the ground (trees, wheat etc). Some guys were also able to get them to build them ponds, but only if the local topology supported it. I know that there are some bad coal mines out there, but without the one in my area we would have to bring power in from a long, long way. Our bills would be crazy.
Let me help you get past your misconceptions and introduce some hard reality regarding subsidies;
http://www.dailykos.com/story/...
2013 Subsidies per MWh
Nuclear: $2.10 per Mwh
Solar: $580.64 per Mwh
Wind: $35.37 per Mwh
And on top of that, Nuclear is returning more back via taxes than it is taking in.
As more people understand this tradeoff, the enthusiasm for small renewables will decline.
That's because every change to a nuclear plant requires an act of congress. I'm serious.
In 2011-2012, ASME re-defined SA105 rolled steel. Arbitrarily, and the change was nonsensical. Millions of dollars worth of steel being used in in construction of Vogtle was suddenly no longer useable, and the design requirements for aspects of the plant required SA105 steel that was no longer possible to forge.
Vendors requested deviation to a superior steel to meet the delivery requirements, but WEC had to get congressional approval, since it deviated from the design plan.
Every ASME change, every NRC change, every shift in political tides that changes anything in the nuclear world in turn causes massive ripples, extraordinary costs, and delays. Nuclear doesn't work because the NRC, ASME, EPA, and D.C. make sure it's too expensive, over-regulated, and shift requirements throughout construction and operation.
Ok, you plan your design to deal with a 9.0 earthquake (which they did) and the follow up 100ft Tsunami (which they didn't).
Maybe it's just impossible to have a well regulated and low cost nuclear industry. Certainly no country in the world can claim to have both of those things.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
When each of those were started, they got massive subsidies much bigger than wind/solar. And considering that 60 and multiple 100 y.O. tech is still subsidized is disgusting.
A very disingenuous post - taking the cost from the middle of the nuclear life-cycle.
$50 for nuclear does not include initial costs and quite likely also omits some waste storage costs and is hugely optimistic about decommissioning costs. The $50 is for power stations that are roughly 30 years old and so have paid off their construction costs and haven't yet hit the age where increasing maintenance costs makes them prohibitively expensive. Some nuclear power stations apply to extend their licenses and then still close done because of the escalating maintenance costs.
NEW Nuclear from $100-200 per MWh and $100 is highly optimistic rather than realistic.
NEW Wind starts at $36 per MWh ($25 + 10 years of subsidy). Price is falling, but so cheap now, not much room to fall further.
NEW Solar starts at $50 to $70 per MWh and that price is plummeting.
Going forwards there is no comparison between today's wind and solar or nuclear, renewables are far cheaper including without subsidy.
Nuclear and renewables are both inflexible, both need solutions for this. It's either one or the other, they do not complement each other.
And this is without going into waste issues or the crazy high reprocessing costs or the fact that humans are clearly not capable of working with nuclear power without making a constant stream of mistakes and corner cutting..
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
Tsunami that demolished the region and caused massive evacuation since infrastructure was simply gone and people had no way to live their normal lives in the region until some basic infrastructure was rebuilt didn't happen in your world?
Tesla's efforts are a PR stunt to sell off batteries they cannot use in cars because of collapse of oil prices to idiots with more money than sense.
If you wanted to get proper grid backup, you can get one right now for a small fraction of Tesla's suggested price with one of the wet cells solutions that have been available on the market for decades.
I live eight miles from a nuke that is at sea level with a rising sea and disappearing beaches. It makes me wonder what kind of hell closing that plant and cleaning it out will be. Meanwhile in Miami they also have a nuclear plant that rising seas will effect. So just how does Miami evacuate 2 million people permanently.
I like how you go out and find worst case numbers for nuke, best case numbers for solar and wind, and then compare them. I used one credible source, with same case numbers for all.
Waste and decommissioning costs are most certainly included in the levelized per MWH costs I presented.
Please, in the future, be consistent with your inputs and how you use them.
Yes. Electricity is bought and sold in long term contracts and short term spot markets with a full range of future markets and price hedging. The spot market for peak power on a hot summer day occasionally exceeds the retail price that fixed rate consumers pay. The prices vary yearly to hourly. Some contracts are for peak power for five minutes. Check this out for a primer in electricity markets.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
No new nuclear power station can supply energy at $50 per MW, that's pure fantasy.
The numbers I linked for renewables are based on agreed contracts.
Show the evidence for $50. You can't.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
Well then, you didn't read my post. Try again. What does the line say just before the link?
Control of your major appliances through smart meters is a way of adjusting the demand when necessary.
And this is where that dream goes sideways...
I have no interest in the grid, or someone else, deciding when my washer and dryer run, when my hot water is on or off, etc.
I don't think it should work like that. The goal should be to allow some sort of real-time energy trading market, where price varies with changing supply and demand, and your appliances (or your power sockets) have "coststats" which you dial to top price/per minute you are willing to pay for that appliance to keep running at the moment. If there is a surge in demand, or a drop in supply, price rises until demand is matched with supply, as rising price gradually switches out less essential appliances across the households. Sooner or later, everyone will see for themselves if it pays for them to install own energy storage to save, or even earn on energy trading (ironing out the price peaks), some money.
Are you sure that is how it works... where *I* live...
Maybe I should have been more specific...
Does the cost of solar and wind include the storage/transport of distributed energy necessary to provide reliable 24/7 levels (taking into account time of day) necessary to replace all base load injections from nuclear or fossil fuel facilities?
But if no one reaches into their wallet to pay for these costs, it's not a cost. No one pays an infinite amount. Like a Seinfeld episode, "They just write it off." The cost of checking exceeds the cost of not checking, and the cost of using coal is less than the cost of using something else for the only person who matters, the entity buying the coal to burn.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France
I like the fact that the 'old' reactors do not get any kind of credit. The incentive should be for newer, better designed reactors. The one that makes the most sense economically (for a lot of different reasons) are Thorium based reactors, especially LFTR designs. The problem with Uranium and Plutonium based power plants is you NEED a breeder reactor to fuel them. Th based designs can breed their own fuel and are orders of magnitude safer. Changing the rules on classification of the handling of nuclear materials would solve enormous problems, such as allowing rare earth mines to be re-opened and generate a huge revenue stream here in country as well. Doesn't hurt that we're going to need all those rare earth magnets for all the electric cars and wind farms either....
If I sound stupid, it's not me talking....
New old stock...