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Power Company Kills Nuclear Plant, Plans $6 Billion In Solar, Battery Investment (arstechnica.com)
Socguy writes: After being unable to complete the Levy County Nuclear Plant a few years ago, Duke energy abandoned it, leaving rate payers on the hook. Duke is now in the process of settling legal action as a result. As part of the settlement Duke will construct or acquire 700MW of solar capacity over four years in the western Florida area, construct 50MW of battery storage, undertake grid modernizations and install 530 electric car charging stations. "The Levy nuclear plant was proposed in 2008 and ran into hurdles early on," reports Ars Technica. "With cheap natural gas in 2013, Duke Energy Florida became nervous that it might not recuperate costs spent on the nuclear plant, especially with regulatory delays. The company cancelled its engineering and construction agreements in 2013 but said that it was holding open the possibility of returning to Levy someday. Over nine years, about $800 million had been spent on preparatory work for the plant. With Tuesday's announcement, those costs are sunk costs now. But overall, the changes will save residential customers future nuclear-related rate increases. Those customers will see a cost reduction of $2.50 per megawatt-hour (MWh) 'through the removal of unrecovered Levy Nuclear Project costs,' the utility said. The 700MW of solar won't exactly cover the nameplate capacity of the Levy plant, which was supposed to deliver 2.2 gigawatts to the region. But the Tampa Bay Times wrote that Duke 'is effectively giving up its long-held belief that nuclear power is a key component to its Florida future and, instead, making a dramatic shift toward more solar power.'"
So, rather than offset any of that base load with a 2.2 GW nuclear facility, they'll supplement demand growth and cover peaks with solar and keep burning the coal and gas. It's cheaper and they get to wave the green flag etc.
The saying for this is "perfect is the enemy of good enough."
Is nuclear perfect? No. But then, neither is solar, wind, or any other technology? Is nuclear better than coal/natural gas? You bet. So then, why do people cheer when a nuclear project gets killed? Because they ignore the very thing that you pointed out. They look at it in absolute terms instead of "fossil fuel < nuclear < wind/solar/etc."
Sort of like getting a cancer diagnosis and being told that while it might take some time to completely eradicate it because the treatment is new and not yet widely available, they can do something to slow its growth for now. You can be all principled and turn down the interim treatment while you wait for the perfect treatment. In the meantime you die waiting for the perfect treatment instead of opting to do something now that will buy time.
In this thread /. "nuclear experts" will decry just how costly all this solar stuff is and how great and awesome and cheap nuclear power is.
/. in order to save their project.
All that on a story about how a multi billion dollar energy company couldn't get a nuclear power plant off the ground even after $800 million dollars. I'm sure all Duke needed to do was consult such expert
Until a hurricane rolls over it and sends the solar panels out to sea in many small chunks, maybe....
The irony that this is the reason that Duke cites Levy being cancelled. Westinghouse couldn't make an AP1000 that can pass NRC hurricane regulations, here is a transcript of the radio program.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.