Obama Budget To Triple Nuclear Power Loan Guarantees 373
Hugh Pickens writes "When President Obama said in his State of the Union address on Wednesday that the country should build 'a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants,' it was one of the few times he got bipartisan applause. Now the NY Times reports that administration officials have confirmed their 2011 federal budget request next week will raise potential loan guarantees for nuclear projects to more than $54 billion, from $18.5 billion, and a new Energy Department panel will examine a vastly expanded list of options for nuclear waste, including a new kind of nuclear reactor that would use some of it. The Energy Department appears to be getting close to offering its first nuclear loan guarantee. Earlier this week, Southern Co. Chief Executive David Ratcliffe said the company expects to finalize an application for a loan guarantee 'within the next couple months,' while Scana Corp., which has also applied, is 'a couple months behind Southern' and is hopeful of receiving a conditional award 'sometime in the next months.'"
what about (Score:5, Insightful)
research funding for nuclear research such as thorium reactors or pebble bed reactors?
to increase safety and/or move onto other nuclear fuels
And yet the public... (Score:5, Insightful)
The public's support for that particular snippet of the state of the union was rather low, as CNN reported--so kindly point out to your non-tech friends that nuclear is the best alternative right now and we can't go entirely renewable for a long time.
Loan guarantees? (Score:2, Insightful)
Why do nuclear energy corporations get loan guarantees? Is the energy not as cheap as proponents say? Is it not profitable enough for private ventures to fund it?
The nuclear power industries worldwide already get very preferential treatment by not having to insure powerplants or paying for their waste disposal, but that apparently isn't enough.
Subsidies? (Score:1, Insightful)
Why is big oil being subsidized, when it's already massively profitable? And if nuclear is supposed to provide a cheaper source of electricity, why does it *need* subsidies? Every nuclear project seems to take twice as long as planned and cost an order of magnitude more than orginally estimated.
If we really want to reduce energy use and carbon emissions, why not focus on conservation? It's much cheaper than nuclear, and can even save the government money. With conservation, you also don't have to worry about accidents or nuclear waste.
Re:Loan guarantees? (Score:5, Insightful)
It is apparently not cheaper than coal, which is the fuel we fall back to every time a nuclear, or renewable project doesn't happen (which are also apparently not cheaper than coal.) If you're ok with coal then you should oppose all subsidies including "loan guarantee" subsidies.
If you're not ok with coal, though, and your goal is to move US energy infrastructure away from an economic minimax position to another position with non-economic benefits, then you have to pay for the move somehow.
Re:Subsidies? (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, naval vessels are something different, but I wasn't ruling nuclear out. But if we massively reduce our consumption and energy use, not only will this help the environment and climate change, it could reduce the need for nuclear in the first place. The US still produces a third of the oil it uses, after all, that should be more than enough if we scale back, improve efficiency and put in place a better transportation system such as rail.
Re:Loan guarantees? (Score:4, Insightful)
--Greg
Re:Loan guarantees? (Score:5, Insightful)
It is easy to determine whether nuclear power on a watt for watt basis is cheaper to produce than a similar coal plant, but the total cost must take into account factors such as total pollution, cost and risk of mining unrenewable resources, as well as the geopolitical problems in relaying on such resources.
If you take only the CO2 output as a single factor, the cost of nuclear energy is far lower than any coal plant could ever be. So yes, it is more expensive to produce the energy, but it is far lower in total cost overall when all factors are taken into account.
Oil power plants are even worse. They rely on importation of resources from the Middle East, a region far from stable due to the influence of extremist religions and backwards cultures of nomadic races. Nuclear power will break us free of that (to some extent, we still have longstanding obligations to Israel which ought to be rethought, IMO) and will make us instead beholden to Australia and its uranium mines. But I feel much more comfortable dealing with the Aussies as a culture which is similar to our own and a people much like us.
Re:And yet the public... (Score:3, Insightful)
I like the prospect of nuclear energy being clean and everything, but at least we in Germany have, in the 35 years we have been running nuclear power plants, not figured out a place where to put the waste. So how can we put this burden on future generations? There is no plan on how to go on with this. Although there are a few projects and ideas, like old salt mines, none have proven viable so far.
Nuclear waste just radiates for way too long. I personally hope for transmutation, but as it looks now, nuclear will lose it's attractiveness with the energy that is needed for that.
Re:And yet the public... (Score:5, Insightful)
We don't have more of a nuclear program for two reasons right now:
#1 - Every time someone starts trying to get the permits together to build a new reactor, the environmental wack-job crowd start staging protests and throwing lawyers at the situation.
#2 - Ever since Jimmy Carter's dunderheaded executive order (in which he said the US will not reprocess spent nuclear fuel back into usable fuel, because it would set an "example" to other nations not to reprocess anything that could be weapons grade... nincompoop), we haven't refined our spent fuel. As a result, we have a "nuclear waste problem", despite the fact that with proper recycling methods, greater than 95% of our stock of "nuclear waste" could be turned back into usable fuel.
Probably the only thing I agree with Obama on is that we need a serious conversion of our energy supply to use as much Nuclear as possible (solar/wind/geothermal too but they have severe limitations and can't meet our needs by themselves... solar, for instance, produces immense amounts of toxic waste and currently requires polysilicon substrates as a base for the panels, plus the most common silica sources are currently strip-mined). That being said, his bit about loans is only a half measure, if he was really serious he'd rescind Carter's dumbass executive order and get us down the path of recycling to deal with the "nuclear waste" issue.
Re:Better Off (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a more environmentally friendly solution than ... wind power
What are your sources for this ?
Re:Loan guarantees? (Score:4, Insightful)
While that is true, a nuclear power plant provides an energy density many orders of magnitude higher. I for one would prefer to see a single nuclear plant on the horizon than 8000 turbines in every direction.
Re:Loan guarantees? (Score:1, Insightful)
This is incorrect. Nuclear is actually cheaper than coal. The problem is that NO ONE will loan billions upon billions to build said nuclear power plant and mortgage that power plant on a *Fixed* 4% amortization for 50 years.
Secondly, banks cannot really foreclose on a nuclear power plant. Where do they sell it? Flea-market?
Most customised business assets may be quite difficult to sell, this is not entirely unique. If the plant is not profitable enough to meet the original business plan the bank wipes out the equity stake of the current operator and sells the plant to a new operator at a reduced price (possibly below cost), taking a loss of some degree. The new operator made less investment so it is more likely to be able to afford the restructured payment. Note that a lot of the costs of a plant are up-front construction costs so if you can buy an existing plant cheap enough (once some other sucker has paid those costs) it is probable you can make a profit.
This is exactly the point of the loan guarantees. And I'm certain you all realize "loan guarantee" is not the same as a "subsidy"?
A "loan guarantee" is a subsidy. It is frequently the favored method for politicians to dispense patronage to favored business. The business gets the cash in the form of lower interest payments, and the politician gets to claim that because there is no up-front cash cost, they haven't "really" spent any taxpayer money. Well, I'm sorry, but just because my house is not currently on fire does not mean that my house insurance policy is worthless, and if I had been given the insurance free I would consider it a "gift".
Re:Loan guarantees? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you're not ok with coal, though, and your goal is to move US energy infrastructure away from an economic minimax position to another position with non-economic benefits, then you have to pay for the move somehow.
Subsidies are the opposite of the answer. Force decommissioning of past-date coal plants, and while you're at it, force them to control their emissions and fix their carbon output. Let the consumers pay for the fix in their energy costs. Why should anyone with their own personal-use alt-power plant have to pay for anyone ele's power problems? Subsidies are how we get into these messes in the first place.
Re:And yet the public... (Score:2, Insightful)
The point is, to me, that your storage is not really that secure, and that it is very likely to spread (although probably not in my lifetime). We need to store it over 100.000 years. Humans are just not equipped to handle that kind of time frame, and the repercussions might be very grave.
Yes (Score:1, Insightful)
There are huge improvement gains to be garnered with more efficient use of the electricity we generate today, greatly reducing the need for more power plants of any kind. But energy conservation and efficiency isn't "business sexy" or "politically sexy", look what happened to Carter when he tried to emphasize just being more efficient with what we have, with either electricity or transportation fuels. And he is a big nuke guy himself, he just groks being more efficient as both a longer range cost savings and also from a national security viewpoint. He had a lot of faults, but as to energy he is still the top prez we ever had.
Conservation is a boring sell for the big players (outside of some niche markets now like Data Centers are taking it seriously), wall street investors don't like it that much, there are no huge short term profits to get there because of the nature of improving systems that use electricity, it is too widely diversified there, they can't monopolize it as much. In a lot of cases, there are zero new studies, patents, or anything like that required to accomplish big gains in efficiency, no "investment" potential to rake in the short term profits.
Politicians don't like it that much, no big buzzwords and it's been seriously demonized as an idea over the years, they are afraid of coming across like quality of life deniers, that you have to sacrifice comfort for efficiency. Now that isn't true, but that is what happens with these arguments "Oh noes, I don't want to sit in some cold cave with dim light".
Of course that's silly, but the anti efficiency people, the pro "just generate more power!" folks, just push that meme and mindset, and have been very successful at it.
The "generate more power"! folks, as their top (and a lot of times only) emphasis, nuke or otherwise, make as much (non)sense as the "drill, baby drill"! folks do when it comes to transportation fuels. Want to save oil? Pretty easy, here's just one way, push three or four cylinder cars over sixes and eights. Heck, I bet single person light commuter cars could be run with just two cylinder engines today. Most people and uses for basic transportation have absolutely no need whatsoever for larger six or eight cylinder engines, and vehicles that can easily do two or three times the maximum posted speed limits. Just wasting fuel, because they can.
Back to electricity, look at most homes today, thoroughly dismal levels of insulation or planned air in or out, not even built tight, wasting huge amounts of electricity to keep ACs running near non stop in the summer, or if electric heat of some kind, wasting huge amounts of electricity in the winter. How about all that massive outside huge commercial advertising that burns all night long in big cities, or all those lit up and unoccupied offices? I am always gobsmacked whenever I visit a larger city at night to see this huge lit up disneyland/vegas blinking whooshing cascading panorama of excessive ostentatious consumption. It's like every big city is in this race to see how many light photons they can transmit to the space aliens or something, when actually zero of that advertising nonsense is really needed to illuminate the streets for people. They *could* get by with non electric commercial signage, and just have to deal with people only reading their signs in the daylight.
Can't do that though, got to be massive electricity energy hogs.
There's just tons of examples there. A huge amount of this commuting that goes on to go sit in front of a computer screen, moving meatbags twice a day by the tens of millions, by any means, personal or mass transit, instead of moving electrons and having a lot more people just stay home and work with better broadband deployment. And that would, in turn, reduce this artificial "need" for so many huge office towers for those commuters to go sit in all day in front of a computer screen, that require tremendous energy to build and maintain. Big office towers came a
Re:Sodium Cooled Fast Breeder Reactors (Score:1, Insightful)
environmentalists hate nuclear power, and conservatives don't think there is any need to switch from fossil fuels. So who's left to support nuclear power? only the few people who consider global warming a real problem, and have taken a rational look at nuclear power as a possible solution. And that is very few people.
This my big problem with environmentalists. Global warming is a big problem. All solutions need to be considered. But instead environmentalists are using it to promote the things they've been promoting all along. This is why people doubt the global warming theories, because it seems really convenient that all of a sudden there's this big global problem and the only solution is to do the things they've been telling us to do for decades. If environmentalists started saying stuff like "I still don't like nuclear power, but global warming is bigger than my dislike for nuclear". Then they'd have a lot more credibility.
Re:Loan guarantees? (Score:2, Insightful)
Wind mills need a bunch of maintenance after they are built, they still use a good deal of oil for lubrication, etc. Exactly like your car's engine, it needs to be replaced. Parts of wind mills break off and go flying (Yes, they really do. Ask people who live near a wind farm). Not to mention the sheer amount of land space they occupy for relatively little power is pathetic. There is no way wind power can supply enough power for a big city area.
Nuclear is just another step on the way to finding a truly good source of energy. Oil and Coal are toxic and are reaching their limit soon.
Re:And yet the public... (Score:5, Insightful)
That is where breeder reactors come into play. If you burn the nasty stuff as fuel again you: 1) get a lot more energy from the material you already have at your disposal. 2) reduce the radioactivity of the byproducts. The more you burn your waste as full, the longer the average halflife of the waste becomes.
Longer halflife == safer to handle, contray to popular belief.
Re:What does France do with their waste? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a great argument that clearly has a lot of value for getting things done, lets apply it to everything we do as a country:
I don't know what type of backyard you have that you're worried about someone building an entire nuclear waste storage facility in it but you must be one rich motherfucker. Unless of course by backyard you mean some sort of arbitrary distance and if that's the case what exactly is this arbitrary distance and does everyone who has a learned opinion on the storage and handling of nuclear materials have to move within this distance?
Re:And yet the public... (Score:3, Insightful)
And none of them lifted it, and they all made a mistake in not doing so.
That doesn't let Obama off the hook now. He's the one in the Oval Office, it's now his responsibility.
Ever consider that for some of us it's not about partisanship, but about what's best for the US?
Re:And yet the public... (Score:5, Insightful)
yes, I understand the deep desire of Germans to kill off the planet with CO2 rather than accepting that a) you need too much energy for renewables in the short and medium term to get rid of coal (new plants are coming on-line, which should be considered anathema to anyone wishing to minimise actual damage to humans) and that b) you will never get enough energy through renewables unless solar platforms in orbit start working -- they will, but I would not count on them this century.
The future is solar/wind/hydro and nuclear. Invent/create/perfect breeders to process the waste. Eventually fusion will be there (about when solar platforms will be).
That is, if we survive the consequences of the anti-nuclear movement.
And you know, this notion that nuclear is only a small percentage of humanity's energy usage? It doesn't make sense. Because the future is electric cars, which will increase massively the need for electricity. And the future is also much better insulation, which accounts for 40% of energy used for heating.
Re:Loan guarantees? (Score:3, Insightful)
...the Middle East, a region far from stable due to the influence of extremist religions and backwards cultures of nomadic races.
Don't forget the destabalising influence of self-interested foreigners...
Fusion? (Score:4, Insightful)
FRICKING AWESOME!!!! (Score:2, Insightful)
Anything any administration does to further nuclear power and alternative energy, I am 100% in favor of.
Re:And yet the public... (Score:1, Insightful)
the environmental wack-job crowd start staging protests and throwing lawyers at the situation.
A lawyer-powered reactor? Sounds like the whack-jobs are finally on to something.
If it's so safe... (Score:3, Insightful)
...then he should propose:
1. to store the waste in Chicago
2. to have the owners of the plant fully pay for waste storage costs
3. to have the owners of the plant assume full liability for damages from accidents
While #1 is a bit sarcastic, #2 and #3 are not.
We would at times like to believe that there are surmountable technological solutions to every problem. Sometimes there aren't.
Re:And yet the public... (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, scientists are not yet sure that leukemia clusters are caused by radiation exposure:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/raw-sewage-may-be-to-blame-for-sellafield-leukaemia-cases-1344410.html [independent.co.uk] And we can build safer reprocessing plants now.
And frankly, a slight increase in leukemia cases near some reprocessing plants is a smaller price to pay than leukemia increases from coal ash. We don't have 'perfect' technologies which can solve energy problems.
Re:And yet the public... (Score:2, Insightful)
As I posted elsewhere: As far as I know, there is only one breeder reactor in production at the moment with 600 MW electrical output (in Russia). That is after the concept was developed 40+ years ago.
Most others have been shutdown, with the minority being due to an anti-nuclear government.
So to me the are more vapor ware than anything, until there are actually a few plants. Some have even been in construction for 20 years up to this point. That does not make it look like a realistically available technology either.
So you would rather gamble on it working sometime in the future?
Re:And yet the public... (Score:3, Insightful)
First you say that background radiation is 3 times higher at coal plants than nuclear and then you say that nuclear has a harder time containing the radioactivity. Personally i would rather see nuclear where there is a slim chance of leakage than coal where it is guaranteed to be pumped into the atmosphere. That combined with the fact that half life is related to radioactivity, so that the materials that are radioactive for 100,000 are much less dangerous than the materials that are radioactive for 100 years, which kind of takes some of the wind out of the sails of the people who scare-monger with worse case storage scenarios. Its still dangerous but with proper precautions is safer than the dangers most other sources of power based on burning fossils, with easier storage of the waste product (rather than literally going up in smoke, dumping the radiation on a wide area). The short half life materials are quickly spent in the reactor, leaving less radioactive material on earth overall, although concentrating the radioactivity into a few pockets of spent refined material.
Re:And yet the public... (Score:3, Insightful)
And none of them lifted it, and they all made a mistake in not doing so.
That doesn't let Obama off the hook now. He's the one in the Oval Office, it's now his responsibility.
Ever consider that for some of us it's not about partisanship, but about what's best for the US?
Right. The Republican's don't do it even though their base supports it, and even though they had years and years of time with more than sufficient majorities in Congress to do so, yet the President whose base is most opposed to it is somehow supposed to do it? Think you might be underestimating the difficulty of doing this?
Besides, the Democrats in Congress right now can't find their ass with both hands, and have basically crumbled since the Mass. election. I don't expect them to be able to accomplish anything anytime soon. The Republicans move in lockstep save one or two. Maybe they just have to wait and see how the election this year turns out for them. If it goes as well as they seem to expect, then overturn the ban and dare Obama to veto it.
Smacks of easy money (Score:3, Insightful)
NEVER, EVER, in the US, forego oversight when it comes to things infratructural. It just doesn't work. There are too many people around that will see money and nothing else and who don't care who dies so long as it isn't them. It's a fine country, and an enormous economic catalyst, but some things can't be left to the market alone. This is one of them.
Re:And yet the public... (Score:3, Insightful)
There is similar public funding combined with private profit in the fossil fuel industries. For decades, the only energy segment that missed out on massive publicly funded private windfalls has been development of clean, renewable alternative energies sources.
If there has been any "dunderheadedness" in our national energy policy, it has been the near universal bipartisan sacrifice of the public good and public resources to support private profits. IMO the one thing our current econo-political system is best at doing is creating small concentrations of vast ill-gotten gains.
Re:And yet the public... (Score:3, Insightful)
So needless to say, neither of these things will ever happen.
You can't compare the two. Government run healthcare is almost unanimously opposed by conservatives. Nuclear energy is generally supported by conservatives and has a fair level of support among liberals. It's much more likely that nuclear energy will happen because there's plenty of room for negotiation and agreement among supporters at both ends of the spectrum.
Re:And yet the public... (Score:4, Insightful)
I can understand this comment, but there are many of us who consider ourselves environmentalists who are very pro-Nuclear. And we are pro-Nuclear because we care about the environment. Believe me, Greenpeace loudly shouting on behalf of "environmentalists" irritates people like me far more than it irritates the Nuclear industry (probably). If they want to protect whales from being hunted, I'm fine with that - I'll even support them. But they should shut the fuck up about things they know nothing about. Even their founder has long since disowned them.
Re:And yet the public... (Score:3, Insightful)
First, you don't get to claim that the entire environmental movement is anti-nuclear. We are sitting here making arguments that nuclear power is the environmentally friendly option (with the usual proviso that REALLY we could just stop using all electricity and starve ourselves to death and that wouldn't harm the environment much).
Second, your point doesn't eliminate the need for nuclear power, it just shows that, unless you make giant adjustable heat-sinks, it isn't a 100% solution. Neither is solar or wind though, which you yourself tacitly admit by showing you have to use a broad array of different sources to achieve 24/7 supply. This is the perfect place for water power, where available, or bio-gas to pick up the slack during peak hours. Turns out though that there's basically a minimum demand that always has to be met and using a non-variable source to meet that is not only effective, but it makes it easier for the somewhat regulable but also flaky (because they respond to the environment) renewable sources to pick up the slack.
Nobody is ever arguing "NO RENEWABLES. EVER.", so it really doesn't help your case to show that 100% nuclear doesn't solve the problem, particularly when 100% wind, 100% solar, etc. etc. clearly can't work either. You need a blended approach.
Re:And yet the public... (Score:3, Insightful)
you know,you can give the link, I can read German, albeit no very well.
The needs in electricity are going to increase dramatically. Although the efficiency of everything will increase, when all cars are plugged-in for the night's charge, a very important baseline will be required.
Production of CO2 is a problem for now, nuclear waste is a problem for later, and will be solved by breeders, which reduce dramatically the volume of waste. It is easy and safe to burrow the final products from these reactors, the only problem being NIMBY and anti-nuclear activists. Because if the uranium was fine in the mine when it was dug up, the bismuth-lead-plutonium-uranium will be just as fine there. We know from natural occurrences that it is safe and harmless to have the waste buried deep for a couple million years.
Yes this is not a satisfactory solution in the long term (because there is only so much waste you can bury), you need other solutions. But the problem is we face global warming now, and waste issues in 1000 years... In fact, if the climate really goes awry, I hope the activists will be first against the wall.
As for the "real" price of nuclear, it is a bit like the US medical system, a larger part of the price comes from terrible legislation and political opposition, not from the intrinsic cost. No other industry is held to the same standards. Basically on nuclear standards, each time some poor chap died by falling from a wind turbine, the whole park would shut down six months for investigations...
Re:what about (Score:2, Insightful)
research funding for nuclear research such as thorium reactors or pebble bed reactors?
to increase safety and/or move onto other nuclear fuels
How about funding geothermal, solar, tidal, wind and other energy sources just as much? Give each one $54 Billion? Doesn't sound so good does it? How about not picking winners and losers at all? Instead let the market pick them.
Because as CATO, Forbes, and others say nuclear power is Hooked on Subsidies [cato.org]. The market would not support nuclear power without them.
Falcon
Re:And yet the public... (Score:3, Insightful)
you will never get enough energy through renewables unless solar platforms in orbit start working -- they will, but I would not count on them this century.
This is way out of date. The government's National Renewable Energy Lab concluded in 2004 that solar panels produce the energy needed to manufacture them in 2 years [nrel.gov]. Those panels can last 30 years so for 28 years they contribute more energy than it took to make them. Wind turbines [oilcrisis.com] can produce as much energy in a few months as it took to make them.
Of course nuclear power supporters disagree with anything that shows nuclear power is not needed.
Falcon
Re:what about (Score:5, Insightful)
research funding for nuclear research such as thorium reactors or pebble bed reactors?
to increase safety and/or move onto other nuclear fuels
How about funding geothermal, solar, tidal, wind and other energy sources just as much? Give each one $54 Billion? Doesn't sound so good does it? How about not picking winners and losers at all? Instead let the market pick them.
Because as CATO, Forbes, and others say nuclear power is Hooked on Subsidies [cato.org]. The market would not support nuclear power without them.
Falcon
The problem is that none of those things can right now, today be used to replace Coal-fired Power Plants.
Coal-fired plants are principally where we get our power from because they can function economically for base load, 24 hour a day, 7 days a week continuous operation. None of the things you listed in your comment can replace Coal for that type of operation. With more R&D, that may not always be the case, but we can't continue pumping garbage into the air waiting for the magic bullet "someday" (I'm thinking of Geothermal, I'm not convinced Wind or ground based Solar will ever be reliable enough for baseload with all the research and money in the World). Nuclear can replace coal right now.
At the end of the day, who gets what subsidy doesn't matter. At some point, everything we currently depend upon for our way of life is subsidized to some degree or another.
People are making fun of the Administrations (not saying you personally, but some of the public in general) push for high-speed rail. They point out that AMTRAK couldn't exist without tax-payer dollars to fill in its funding gaps. What none of them realize is that the exact same thing can be said of the roads they drive on. People think that gasoline taxes pay for road maintenance, in reality those taxes barely make a dent in the total cost of maintaining our highway system (and even at that, it is in terrible shape for many parts of the Nation).
The problem I have with studies that proclaim "Nuclear couldn't exist without subsidies" is that they never make clear exactly what they are counting as a subsidy.
Loan Guarantees, for example, are NOT a subsidy as far as I'm concerned, not unless the utility actually defaults on the loan and the Government has to make it up. We've (speaking of the Government) been giving loan subsidies for dozens of years for Nuclear Power Plant construction and not once has the Government ever had to make good on the promise (meaning actually spend any money because a utility defaulted).
People try to make hay with the eventual cost of disposing of ever how much waste ultimately will need disposing of (I'm allowing for the fact that no matter how efficient secondary recovery efforts become for spent fuel, there will always be some small part that we do indeed have to worry about disposing of). The problem with that is that it ignores that fact that since the very first Nuclear Plant came online, utilities have been paying a tax per unit of electricity generated that specifically goes into a fund to pay for the ultimate disposal of nuclear waste.
With these facts in mind, I think the positives (no Coal pollution -- Heavy metals being spewed into the air, people dieing to mine the coal, pollution from the coal mining itself, etc.) far outweigh the negatives.
I for one would like to welcome our new Nuclear Power overlords. :)
Re:what about (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem is that none of those things can right now, today be used to replace Coal-fired Power Plants.
...Nuclear can replace coal right now.
Nuclear power can not replace coal right now. It takes many years to build a nuclear power plant. And that's not just true in the US either. The French government owned Areva has been building the Olkiluoto [nytimes.com] nuclear power plant in Finland for years. Construction started in 2006 and was originally planned to be finished in 2009. Now it's not scheduled for completion until 2012 at the earliest. With cost overruns it is overbudget by more than 3 Billion euros and has suffered thousands of defects and deficiencies.
If however 20 5 megawatt wind turbines [metaefficient.com], and there are bigger ones, are erected a month in 1 year more than 1 gigawatt of capacity is added in that year. Need more, erect more. Quite simply more generation capacity can be added by erecting wind turbines than by building nuclear power plants.
People are making fun of the Administrations (not saying you personally, but some of the public in general) push for high-speed rail.
I love trains but I don't want government paying for them. However if other forms of transportation had to pay their full costs as well then people may think of using trains more.
People think that gasoline taxes pay for road maintenance, in reality those taxes barely make a dent in the total cost of maintaining our highway system
I agree and have repeatedly posted here that I thought drivers should pay the full cost of the roads. So I started supporting the Net Zero Gas Tax [weeklystandard.com]. Net zero, because it doesn't raise the average person's tax. Fuel taxes are raised but everyone gets a cut on their income tax. At first I advocated raising fuel taxes like this, but with more and more fuel efficient vehicles on the road it won't work. So instead I now support a mileage tax. When a person goes in to renew their license plate tags the odometer is read. By subtracting the last reading from the current one the number of miles driven is calculated then the person pays for those miles. Some have complained people have no idea how much their bill will be at the end of the year, well people can pay monthly or quarterly. They have a better idea of how much they drive and how much they owe.
The problem with that is that it ignores that fact that since the very first Nuclear Plant came online, utilities have been paying a tax per unit of electricity generated that specifically goes into a fund to pay for the ultimate disposal of nuclear waste.
So you don't think businesses haven't looked at them either? Fact is is without subsidies businesses will not pay to build nuclear power plants. That is why they are asking for loan guaranties. And yes, I consider loan guaranties subsidies. Let then ask those banks that were bailed out for loans, without guaranties they will not get loans. Banks are giving loans for solar and wind without government guaranties though.
I think the positives (no Coal pollution -- Heavy metals being spewed into the air, people dieing to mine the coal, pollution from the coal mining itself, etc.) far outweigh the negatives.
And uranium mining is so pristine, NOT!!! Nuclear power is dirty from cradle to grave just as coal is.
Falcon
Re:And yet the public... (Score:3, Insightful)
No one has ever even contemplated replacing a Coal-fired plant with a renewable source of energy because renewable in no way, shape, or form have the dependability to be counted on to produce 24 hour a day, 7 day a week, 365 days a year Electricity. I'm not making this stuff up, it's simply a fact of life right now.
One, when did I say anything about closing down all coal-fired, Natural Gas-fired, or nuclear power plants right now? Two, it is a fact of life geothermal can provide a baseload of energy now, today. It is happening as I type this in Iceland [sciencedirect.com], Hawaii [articlesnatch.com], and in the Philippines [jcmiras.net]. California gets 5% of it's baseload from geothermal [pdf] [clrlight.org] energy.
You can't try and solve every problem at once because all you'll end up doing in NOTHING AT ALL. We can solve a big chunk of our pollution problem right now by switching to Nuclear. We'll tackle the well understood problems with Nuclear when we get to that bridge.
Three, when have I said anything about the 1 big solution, other than discounting it? I haven't, I have repeatedly stated I believe that each place should use the source of energy that is available locally. Solar where it's available, wind where it is, tidal where it is and so on. And as I state above geothermal can be used as a baseload. On the other hand Nuclear power is part of the problem. It is dirty from cradle to grave. Mining it is dirty, processing it is dirty, reprocessing it is dirty, and storing it is dirty. Plus no market or business will pay for it without government subsidies. Nuclear power is Hooked on Subsidies [cato.org].
"How do France (and India, China and Russia) build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don't. Governmental officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors."
Falcon
Re:And yet the public... (Score:3, Insightful)
We enjoy some of the lowest food prices in the World thanks to massive corn subsidies. No one is looking to remove them because everyone likes it that way.
I and others have railed on about all subsidies including farm subsidies. I and others would most definitely eliminate them.
So let's just leave the "subsidies are bad" arguments out of it right now.
I will not ignore the truth. You can sweep it under the rug but I will not.
As for geothermal, you can't show me a single example of a geothermal plant that isn't located near or directly over a natural source of geothermal heat.
And you have not pointed out one place that is not directly over a source of geothermal heat.
If you'd bothered to try and understand what I was saying (rather than doing your best to lump me in with all renewable bashers) you would have understood that when I said it needed continued research
So where did you also say nuclear needs more research? Leaving it out shows a bias if nothing else.
And, again, you keep using the fact of supposed subsidies as a catch-all excuse as too why Nuclear is bad. If you leave that out, I'm afraid your argument doesn't have much else.
You must be trolling. I have repeatedly pointed out uranium mining is bad as well and there is no safe storage place for nuclear waste. Those are real big issues.
Falcon
Re:If it's so safe... (Score:3, Insightful)
According to the nuclear energy institute, 0.1 cent per kwh goes into a waste disposal fund.
Since 1983 that fund has collected about $33 billion, and spent about $11 billion, with several tens of thousands of years left in managing that waste. For the vast majority of the waste's toxic life, there is no income to pay for its management. The US Goverment owns it here in the USA. Includes old cores and facilities that will be decommissioned.
Also, from Wikipedia and the Price-Anderson act:
The Act establishes a no fault insurance-type system in which the first $10 billion is industry-funded as described in the Act (any claims above the $10 billion would be covered by the federal government).
So when the core goes supercritical, all the downwind mess after the first $10 Billion is picked up by you and me.
It doesn't take much to get to $10 Billion. That was going through my and many other minds back when 3 Mile Island was going soft and many in southern New England were considering a long vacation.
Regarding the sarcasm, if it's so safe, let's put it anywhere!
Re:If it's so safe... (Score:3, Insightful)
One more point:
Having a $1M/day charge for not operating a highly toxic machine is actually an incentive to operate it when it might be hazardous to do so.
Not a good thing.