Nuclear Energy: The Good News and the Bad News In the EPA Clean Energy Plan 121
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."
King Frosty (Score:1)
Bow to my royalty!
Oh boy... Nuclear! (Score:5, Interesting)
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/... [wikipedia.org]
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.
Re:Oh boy... Nuclear! (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Oh boy... Nuclear! (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Oh boy... Nuclear! (Score:5, Interesting)
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?
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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 u
Re:Oh boy... Nuclear! (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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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.
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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 eve
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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?
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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/... [wikipedia.org]
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Are you sure that is how it works... where *I* live...
Maybe I should have been more specific...
Re: Oh boy... Nuclear! (Score:2)
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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.
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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.
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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 congre
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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.
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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... [google.com]
EXISTING NUCLEAR: $50/MWH
EXISTING WIND : VARIES BETWEEN 45 and 140 $/MWH
EXISTING SOLAR: VARIES BETWEEN 150 and 300 $MWH
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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
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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.
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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.
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"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
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^ 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...
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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.
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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.
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As more people understand this tradeoff, the enthusiasm for small renewables will decline.
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We would need a whole new power grid...
old idea [geni.org]...
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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)
Re:Oh boy... Nuclear! (Score:5, Interesting)
Levelized cost projections from a credible, objective source can be found here: http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/a... [eia.gov]
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.
Re: Oh boy... Nuclear! (Score:3)
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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.
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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 minin
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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 d
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You can make your rhetorical claims, but the fact that nuclear has given the US its greatest source of carbon free generati
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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.
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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 ne
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http://www.dailykos.com/story/... [dailykos.com]
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.
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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.
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The 19 cents/kWh is for a new 1600 MW (net) plant [wikipedia.org] 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 [eia.gov] in 2015 dollars, and generated 2x1075 MW = 2150 MW (net). It was decommissioned in 2012 after 29 year
Re: Oh boy... Nuclear! (Score:2)
But Nuclear! (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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The problem right now is that people don't want to see new, safer, more efficient nuclear plants being built, because they're nuclear!
Actually, I've been finding it quite the opposite: Almost everyone I talk to, liberal, conservative, green, libertarian; is okay with nuclear power. The ONLY place I see any sort of significant anti-nuclear sentiment is in the NEWS - pundits, demagogues, op-eds, "journalist" blog posts, and so forth. The few people I've spoken with who didn't like nuclear, changed their minds after I explained what radiation is, how it works, and showed them actual numbers on deaths caused by nuclear in comparison to other
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That's not the problem (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:That's not the problem (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
This is EXACTLY the problem, summed up in your own words. You don't trust "nukes" and so won't let them shut down old plants and build new plants in a timely fashion that WOULD allow them to be more profitable and much safer generators!
What you don't get is that safety IS the biggest cost driver in nuclear generation. Operators would really, really like to build and operate reliable and safe plants because that would increase their profits in addition to being the right thing to do. But they can't because people "don't trust nukes". That attitude puts the operators in an impossible position.
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You don't trust "nukes" and so won't let them shut down old plants and build new plants in a timely fashion that WOULD allow them to be more profitable and much safer generators!
They still don't have a plan to deal with their waste. If I just stack my trash up, the county will come along and haul it away, and bill me for the disposal costs. If I do it repeatedly they'll probably charge me with something, too. Show me the waste disposal plan, which would be part of any responsible nuclear plant proposal.
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New reactors won't fix the management, regulatory, legal and human problems.
Realistically, no commercial company would ever agree to the measures required. No company could afford the liability. Again, new designs won't fix this.
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Hanford is calling, they want to talk to you about you opinion on nuclear waste and its halflife
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Hanford is a weapons plant, whose troubles are of no relevance to the commercial power industry.
Re:Oh boy... Nuclear! (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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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... [theguardian.com] )
Re:Oh boy... Nuclear! (Score:4, Insightful)
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... [theguardian.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.
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Besides, the Japanese said the same before 2011.
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Obviously Fukushima wasn't fully man-made like Chernobyl, but resulted from natural disaster + security neglect (eg, backup power design).
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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).
Re:Oh boy... Nuclear! (Score:5, Informative)
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)
Re:Oh boy... Nuclear! (Score:5, Informative)
Note the above does not include Fukishima. Other sources that account for that increase nuclear to .09 (90 dead per trillion kWh)
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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?
Re:Oh boy... Nuclear! (Score:4, Informative)
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... [nytimes.com]
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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.
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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.
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"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... [world-nuclear.org]
Because the costs of nuclear are all up front, the most effective strategy fo
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http://www.iea.org/Textbase/np... [iea.org]
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.
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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.
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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
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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... [thestar.com]
Re: Oh boy... Nuclear! (Score:2)
According to article, no one will build them (Score:3)
"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.
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“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.
May 2016
(Atlanta) Thousands were horrified today as Donald Trump's newest Trump Tower, built on the outskirts of the Atlanta Metro Area, was subjected to low levels of radiation from a minor ventilation breach at a recently-completed nuclear power plant. The breach, which released levels of radiation normally considered harmless, caused Trump's hair to mutate into a separate organism during a rally at the new high-rise. Experts are baffled at how this could have happened, but on
"...sink or swim on their own..." (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: "...sink or swim on their own..." (Score:5, Interesting)
While that sounds nice, the issue there would be, "then we should build lots and lots of natural gas and coal power plants, since they cost less than solar and wind do.
I live in Texas, we make more wind power than any other state. We have the right to buy our power from any of dozens of different companies.
Wind power costs more than coal power does, when you get the bill. Maybe it shouldn't, but it does.
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While that sounds nice, the issue there would be, "then we should build lots and lots of natural gas and coal power plants, since they cost less than solar and wind do.
NG and coal only cost less if they are able to externalize the cost of the pollution they produce including the cost of anthropogenic global warming from the greenhouse gases they emit. If they're going to stand on their own that cost has to be included.
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NG and coal only cost less if they are able to externalize the cost of the pollution they produce including the cost of anthropogenic global warming from the greenhouse gases they emit. If they're going to stand on their own that cost has to be included.
Maybe, that is a debatable point...
AGW is still not settled (it really isn't, if it was, there wouldn't be debates about it). There is no doubt that the climate is getting warmer, but you can't tell me what percentage is caused by mankind.
Putting that issue aside, the question then becomes, what is that cost? Any price you put on it is simply made up.
Then you also need to do the same, add in the cost of producing the solar panels and wind turbines, which isn't very green either. Probably less than coal a
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AGW is still not settled (it really isn't, if it was, there wouldn't be debates about it). There is no doubt that the climate is getting warmer, but you can't tell me what percentage is caused by mankind.
There is practically no debate about the basics of AGW in the scientific circles that study climate. The basics include that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, that more CO2 in the atmosphere will cause warming and that humans are the primary cause of the rise in CO2 levels. All known natural forcings of climate when added together indicate that we should be in a slight cooling trend so it's likely that the percentage caused by human caused increases in greenhouse gases are responsible for more than 100% of the war
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Risk management principles say that if there's a possibility of higher risk it's worth spending more to try and avoid it.
I would agree with that...
But the question then becomes... how much more?
That becomes a political issue, not a science issue...
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Agreed, all of the debate is on the political side.
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Putting that issue aside, the question then becomes, what is that cost? Any price you put on it is simply made up.
Actually its quite simple. The cost of sequestering the carbon dioxide produced along with the energy. (Which could fluctuate with market/technology). In other words, the extra cost should be the same cost to clean up the extra pollution produced. Otherwise the polluter is being subsidized by a price paid by others.
Say you compare bio-diesel with regular diesel, bio-diesel would be expected to cost more in dollars because it involved removing CO2 from the atomosphere. To be comparable with regular
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Actually its quite simple. The cost of sequestering the carbon dioxide produced along with the energy.
That sure sounds simple, but you know that isn't going to happen...
We just don't like where these numbers lead and no one wants to penalize their country by acting responsible while everyone else just pollutes the world to their economic advantage.
At the end of the day, none of this matters unless you figure out how to apply it to the whole world, because only half of the planet doing it right doesn't really help.
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so should every power source. it works or it doesn't. on its own.
How about offshore wind in the U.S.? That was killed off by a handful of billionaires with lawyers who didn't want to see wind turbines out on the horizon from their beach front property. The technology is well established and is very cost effective in Europe, pumping out tens of gigawatts of power, but offshore wind got cock-blocked in the U.S. by a few rich children who don't really didn't give a damn about U.S. jobs, energy independence, or the environment.
The best thing a government can do is ensure pro
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Yes, it was killed by rich folks vacationing in oh-so-liberal, green Massachusetts.
FTFY
Where? (Score:2)
Where are they building new reactors? Last I heard all new development in the us was halted after fukushima.
Re:Where? (from TFA) (Score:5, Informative)
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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.
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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..
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Searched TFA (Score:1)
Maybe Not (Score:2)
NEW design types of reactors needed.... (Score:2)
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
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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.