Central New York Nuclear Plants Struggle To Avoid Financial Meltdown 270
mdsolar writes "As recently as four years ago, nuclear power companies were planning to spend billions of dollars to build a new reactor in Oswego County, alongside three existing nuclear plants. Then the bottom fell out. Natural gas-burning power plants that benefit from a glut of cheap gas produced by hydrofracking cut wholesale electricity prices in half. Now the outlook for nuclear power plants is so bleak that Wall Street analysts say one or more Upstate nuclear plants could go out of business if conditions don't change. Two Upstate nukes in particular — the James A. FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant in Oswego County and the R.E. Ginna Nuclear Power Plant in nearby Wayne County — are high on the watch list of plants that industry experts say are at risk of closing for economic reasons."
Wholesale rates have bottomed out? (Score:5, Insightful)
Am I alone in wondering why the cost to the consumer remains the same?
Scary (Score:5, Insightful)
So what happens when a nuclear plant runs into financial difficulty? You cut your reactor monitoring staff? Drop to the cheap disaster management plan? Postpone the upgrade of the creaky boilers?
Re:Economic Reasons (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't that what the Free Markets are about? The most economically efficient survive and the least economically efficient do not?
Slap quite clean but unpopular energy with MASSIVE regulations, force them to clean up every single bit of pollution, etc. On the other hand, let the dirty variant pollute all they want, literally dumping everything into the air. Because, you see, campaign donations are not bribes but wisely taking part in the political process, right?
Re:Yay for gas power! (Score:5, Insightful)
Assumed Economic Reasons (Score:5, Insightful)
No.
Corporations are pictures of inefficiency. Ask any employee of one.
You see financial success and assume (for no reason) that that success must be due to a superior product or value.
In America, gaming the system and cheating is now considered S.O.P. for a business....that's **NOT** 'just the free market working'....it's immoral and criminal and we let them get away with it b/c of people like you who look only at the superficial appearance and just assume from there.
Stop labeling all financial gain as 'just the free market' and start looking at what is really happening.
The 'free market' is a concept independent of any ONE economic theory...it's a fundamental aspect of human behavior in **all contexts**...even in Soviet Russia they had a booming black market.
Re:Economic Reasons (Score:4, Insightful)
The US nuclear industry committed suicide anyway by lobbying against development of smaller reactors and thorium. At this point nobody is going to put up the capital for the huge 1970s dinosaurs that are their preferred option.
Re:That popping sound (Score:3, Insightful)
It's someone who disagrees with the parent poster, and therefore needs to be called names.
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
Who's it going to be this time?
Gas. You're already subsidizing gas in that the government is providing a free license to trash the place with fracking and will eventually (i.e. you eventually) have to pay for the cleanup. They get to keep the profit.
The invisible hand: grabbing you by the balls since 1764.
Re:Yay for gas power! (Score:4, Insightful)
And you probably won't...the utility companies will come up with some justification for not passing the savings along to consumers.
Re:That popping sound (Score:5, Insightful)
Not at all. Of course you can produce energy cheaper by burning fossil fuels than with nuclear, because fossil fuel plants are allowed to externalize most of the costs of energy production, such as pollution. Once these externalities - such as turning every coastal city into a New Orleans - is taken into account, nuclear power is cheapest and safest.
Natural Gas Price Volatility (Score:5, Insightful)
The long run problem here is that natural gas prices are highly volatile. Prices are super cheap right now because of a big increase in supply while demand doesn't change much and storage costs are big. Prices may stay low for a few years, but nobody knows what will happen later. If we ramp up electricity production through natural gas though, that will increase demand driving up prices again. When natural gas prices go back up, that could be rough on consumers.
Here's a graph highlighting gas prices over the past 40 years [ourfiniteworld.com].
Re:That popping sound (Score:5, Insightful)
Until, of course, you have a situation like Fukushima.
Decentralized renewables are cheapest and safest, when all risks and external costs are factored in.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
So, you're saying... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:So... (Score:3, Insightful)
Because fracking fluid and methane in your drinking water is so much healthier?
Re: its not fracking or the market, its superfund. (Score:2, Insightful)
There is an old joke: The problem with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money.
Re:So... (Score:3, Insightful)
government is providing a free license to trash the place with fracking
Smith's 'invisible hand' has no relation to government shielding favored businesses from the costs of their process. If you are going to blame some for grabbing you by the balls, please take a look down and see whose hand it is.
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
mith's 'invisible hand' has no relation to government shielding favored businesses from the costs of their process.
Depends on how you define "cost". It doesn't cost you anything to dump whatever crap you want into the air and water unless government regulation imposes a cost on you. Your results may cause others to incur costs. The thing is the invisible hand of the free market doesn't actually work well in this situation because it's a situation where people can save money by making others incur costs indirectly.
Re:So... (Score:2, Insightful)
The "invisible hand" includes all of the factors which influence decisions. This includes both private profit motives as well as government regulations.
So in the case of fracking, the fact that the government has created a favorable legal environment (loose regulations, shielding from liability, tax incentives, etc.) all factor into the decision by the private sector to invest in this profitable activity. The fact that the government is doing a poor job of regulation (exemption from clean water laws, for example) helps push the decision to drill and frack.
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Economic Reasons (Score:5, Insightful)
What exactly do you suggest they do?
Stop billing themselves as "clean" until they figure out what to do with their hoarded mess.
Re:That popping sound (Score:4, Insightful)
Considering we don't yet know all the costs of clean up and impact for Chernobyl OR Fukushima, I'm not sure how you can state that nuclear is the cheapest.
Like how long until Japan can fish in the seas to the east of them?