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US Nuclear Comeback Stalls As Two Reactors Are Abandoned (theaustralian.com.au)
Brad Plumer reports via The New York Times (Warning: may be paywalled; alternate source): In a major blow to the future of nuclear power in the United States, two South Carolina utilities said on Monday that they would abandon two unfinished nuclear reactors in the state, putting an end to a project that was once expected to showcase advanced nuclear technology but has since been plagued by delays and cost overruns. The two reactors, which have cost the utilities roughly $9 billion, remain less than 40 percent built. The cancellation means there are just two new nuclear units being built in the country -- both in Georgia -- while more than a dozen older nuclear plants are being retired in the face of low natural gas prices. Originally scheduled to come online by 2018, the V.C. Summer nuclear project in South Carolina had been plagued by disputes with regulators and numerous construction problems. This year, utility officials estimated that the reactors would not begin generating electricity before 2021 and could cost as much as $25 billion -- more than twice the initial $11.5 billion estimate. The utilities also struggled with an energy landscape that had changed dramatically since the large reactors were proposed in 2007. Demand for electricity has plateaued nationwide as a result of major improvements in energy efficiency, weakening the case for massive new power plants. And a glut of cheap natural gas from the hydraulic fracturing boom has given states a low-cost energy alternative. Facing those pressures, the two owners of the project, South Carolina Electric & Gas and Santee Cooper, announced they would halt construction rather than saddle customers with additional costs.
This is by design. The left has seized this approach above all others to kill nuclear power plants.
They have networks of friendly lawyers who file bogus suits before amenable judges. They have friendly regulators that change the rules midstream. The effect is delay, delay, delay. And that means cost, cost, cost. While tthe construction site sits idle, the utility often has to pay a squadron of union electricians and/or plumbers to sit around while it is resolved in court or while engineering updates the plans to take into account the newest retarded rule change.
A few years delay can double the cost.
See also: http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~bl... (old, but good)
See that "Preview" button?
I'm so glad that we abandoned air travel after early deadly crashes showed how unsafe the technology was (really? people flying in heavier than air vehicles - absurd and obviously stupid).
I'm sure some people who continued to dream of air transport claimed that the technology would only get better and safer. Perhaps some even made absurd claims such as "In less than one hundred years, we may see more than a five year span where no one died in a crash of a United States-certificated scheduled airline operating anywhere in the world" which, of course, would have been an absurd prediction. Fortunately, we largely ignored such idiots.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
If you're waiting for these people touting nuclear as solution to everything admitting they were wrong both on environmental, monetary and energy concerns, you'll probably have to wait longer than half life of Cesium.