First US Nuclear Reactor Built In Decades Enters Commercial Operation (nbcnews.com) 254
ZipNada writes: A new reactor at a nuclear power plant in Georgia has entered commercial operation, becoming the first new American reactor built from scratch in decades. Georgia Power announced Monday that Unit 3 at Plant Vogtle, southeast of Augusta, has completed testing and is now sending power to the grid reliably. At its full output of 1,100 megawatts of electricity, Unit 3 can power 500,000 homes and businesses. Utilities in Georgia, Florida and Alabama are receiving the electricity.
Nuclear power now makes up about 25% of the generation of Georgia Power, the largest unit of Atlanta-based Southern Co. A fourth reactor is also nearing completion at the site, where two earlier reactors have been generating electricity for decades. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Friday said radioactive fuel could be loaded into Unit 4, a step expected to take place before the end of September. Unit 4 is scheduled to enter commercial operation by March. The third and fourth reactors were originally supposed to cost $14 billion, but are now on track to cost their owners $31 billion. That doesn't include $3.7 billion that original contractor Westinghouse paid to the owners to walk away from the project. That brings total spending to almost $35 billion. The third reactor was supposed to start generating power in 2016 when construction began in 2009.
Nuclear power now makes up about 25% of the generation of Georgia Power, the largest unit of Atlanta-based Southern Co. A fourth reactor is also nearing completion at the site, where two earlier reactors have been generating electricity for decades. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Friday said radioactive fuel could be loaded into Unit 4, a step expected to take place before the end of September. Unit 4 is scheduled to enter commercial operation by March. The third and fourth reactors were originally supposed to cost $14 billion, but are now on track to cost their owners $31 billion. That doesn't include $3.7 billion that original contractor Westinghouse paid to the owners to walk away from the project. That brings total spending to almost $35 billion. The third reactor was supposed to start generating power in 2016 when construction began in 2009.
Sooo (Score:2, Informative)
$31B instead of $14B and 8 years late. For a technology that is supposedly mature. How pathetic.
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Don't worry, the utility will make a big profit on this. The ratepayers will be stuck paying high electricity prices for decades.
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Indeed. "Cheap energy", my ass.
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Rates in Georgia are actually pretty low, and they offer multiple plans:
Standard residential is 6.1805 cents per kWh for the first 650 kWh (1)
Alternatively, they offer demand based metering which costs 10.1909 cents per kWh for on peak, but only 1.0895 cents per kWh off-peak. Amazing pricing if you have a battery system.
(1) https://www.georgiapower.com/c... [georgiapower.com]
(2) https://www.georgiapower.com/c... [georgiapower.com]
Re:Sooo (Score:5, Informative)
Rates in Georgia are actually pretty low, and they offer multiple plans:
Looking at the AP article [apnews.com], those prices are going up to pay for the new power plant:
"In Georgia, almost every electric customer will pay for Vogtle. ... Georgia Power’s residential customers are projected to pay more than $926 apiece as part of an ongoing finance charge and elected public service commissioners have approved a rate increase. Residential customers will pay $4 more per month as soon as the third unit begins generating power. That could hit bills in August, two months after residential customers saw a $16-a-month increase to pay for higher fuel costs."
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"That could hit bills in August, two months after residential customers saw a $16-a-month increase to pay for higher fuel costs"
Does that "higher fuel costs" part translate into coal and gas costing more money?
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"That could hit bills in August, two months after residential customers saw a $16-a-month increase to pay for higher fuel costs"
Does that "higher fuel costs" part translate into coal and gas costing more money?
Yes, gas and coal in this case. In Georgia the utilities break out fuel cost recovery as a separate line item in your bill. The regulatory agency, PSC, approves the amount after Ga Power makes a rate request.
In the two years up to 2022, rising fuel costs left Ga Power 4.5 billion dollars in the hole, so the PSC approved a rate increase to cover that, but the increase is spread over the next three years so us customers don't get dinged so hard.
Sometimes we get rebates when things go well.
Also, Ga Power's pro
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Rates in Georgia are actually pretty low, and they offer multiple plans:
Residential customers will pay $4 more per month as soon as the third unit begins generating power. That could hit bills in August, two months after residential customers saw a $16-a-month increase to pay for higher fuel costs."
These are telling numbers. The $16/month increase for natural gas and other traditional fuels is 4x the cost for the new plant. In addition, as we saw in the last year or so, the price pressures on natural gas and other fuels are dependent on weather extremes, Canadian consumption, Russian military strikes, OPEC geopolitics, etc. Those are risks that should also be factored into the comparison with nuclear energy.
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Looking at the AP article, those prices are going up to pay for the new power plant:
Prices are going up all over the place. I checked the price steak at the grocery store the other day. I was wondering where the rest of the cow was. I'm going to consider a price increase of $4 money well spent since it will offset carbon emissions and other pollution.
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Those per kWh charges are within a tenth of a cent of what I pay in Minnesota where we have two old (1967, 1968) nuclear power plants.
We also have an additional $31 worth of base fees, plus state tax, county tax, city tax, transit improvement tax, and city fees.
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Meanwhile in California. rates can be as high as .51/kwh and .35 on the low end depending on time of day and whether baseline is crossed. As an electric car owner, I expect this next bill will cross $1,000 for the first time.
Next up is going to be income based pricing.
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As an electric car owner, I expect this next bill will cross $1,000 for the first time.
*choak*
Did I read tht right? Did you way your power bill was a grand?
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I wonder what percentage of the overage as well as the overall budget and timeline was due to legal and administrative challenges that ended up being big nothing burgers. In my experience, building anything anywhere nowadays is years of the jurisdiction asking for technical reports that don't don't change the outcome and that just waste a majority of the project costs and timeline, but don't improve safety.
Re:Sooo (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder what percentage of the overage as well as the overall budget and timeline was due to legal and administrative challenges that ended up being big nothing burgers. In my experience, building anything anywhere nowadays is years of the jurisdiction asking for technical reports that don't don't change the outcome and that just waste a majority of the project costs and timeline, but don't improve safety.
This is true of any big project nowadays. Try building a new hydro dam or HVDC line and the same problems will arise. Imagine trying to build a national railway today, or an interstate highway system. It could never be done. People who hate civilization will tie it up just because it makes them feel good and if they can double the cost of everything they consider that a "win". People with no redeeming value to humanity, that is.
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Yup that is one perk of authoritarianism; the trains run on time.
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Controlling CO2 emissions is more important than allowing the ignorant rabble's whims to run the asylum.
I agree that reducing our carbon emissions is important, and I'm willing to help out where I can. But I sincerely doubt you'd be as cavalier about it when it you are the one having to move because your house is slated to be turned into a footing for a HVDC power pole or something.
Re: Sooo (Score:4, Insightful)
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As long as they pay market value, costs of moving
I'm obviously not a lawyer, but I couldn't find anything that would indicate that the government would be paying your costs of moving. Anything I found is that you are entitled to "fair market value", which ironically is determined by them. Don't like their value? Tough. Hire a lawyer.
plus something for inconvenience
I'm sure leaders of an authoritarian country are concerned about your "inconvenience". Good luck with that.
just think that the offer has to actually be reasonable
That's the shitty part. YOU don't get to decide what's "reasonable" in this situation, that's the government's job.
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Gee... corrupt politicians and regulators lining their pockets in Georgia. Color me (not) surprised.
Meanwhile, the unit cost of a Virginia class submarine it $2.3-$4.8 billion, depending on the variant. Each one comes with a far more technologically advanced (albeit with lower designed power output) and more versatile reactor than this plant in Georgia. And defense procurement has no shortage of corruption and pocket-lining itself. So, don't blame nuclear power. Blame Georgia.
Re:Sooo (Score:4, Interesting)
Blame Georgia.
Now that's a weird spelling, I can't even know if you meant NRC or the environmental movements there. The government of Georgia was barely involved in this project. Also, the reason that sub reactor is so much better, well that's because the reactor there is actually designed for use on a sub. The reactors we use in civilian power are of the same sub-targeted design but scaled up and over-engineered in the extreme. So its badly designed for its purpose while the sub's reactor is purpose built. Turns out, that matters a lot in reactor design. And the reason we still use a sub design for civilian power is a desire to avoid the NRC's regulations. A really good lesson in the short-comings of regulation and paperwork to provide safety.
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Also, the reason that sub reactor is so much better, well that's because the reactor there is actually designed for use on a sub. The reactors we use in civilian power are of the same sub-targeted design but scaled up and over-engineered in the extreme. So it's badly designed for its purpose while the sub's reactor is purpose built. Turns out, that matters a lot in reactor design.
While PWRs are based on the same design as su and surface naval reactors, BWRs are different. PWRs in vessels use a pressurized system and steam generators while BWRS boil water in the core to directly drive a turbine. The both use control rods and light water but the designs are fundamentally different. The US also tried some gas cooled designs but operational issues made them inferior to light water designs.
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You may also have missed that almost all civilian reactors ever build were massively over budget and delayed.
This is only true in the west where they have to put up with an extraordinary number of assholes doing everything they can to sabotage the project. Places like China where they don't tolerate that have no such problem.
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You may also have missed that almost all civilian reactors ever build were massively over budget and delayed.
True. At least if you don't take into account all nuclear plants built in France during the 70s and their Messmer plan; But that was before the fossil fuel lobby understood the threat that nuclear was to them, and brainwashed you and your likes to fight and delay every project in every possible way.
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Yah... you might want to go back and read up on the types of reactors that are in use and their history and lineage. The first commercial nuclear power plant at Shippingport was basically a scaled-up derivative of Rickover's first generation submarine reactors. That reactor design... the pressurized water reactor that was designed by and for the navy... is the basis from which the majority of the currently operating nuclear power plants is derived. Boiling water reactors are the runner-up. But every PRW
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How many countries have deep decarbonized with just solar and wind? Oh that's right zero. Germany spent 500 billion euros and failed.
As for Vogtle 3 and 4, 2/3 of the cost is interest on loans. That's a problem that can be fixed. Say by funding new projects with public pension funds.
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As for Vogtle 3 and 4, 2/3 of the cost is interest on loans. That's a problem that can be fixed. Say by funding new projects with public pension funds.
How would that fix the problem? Unless you're talking about straight up embezzling pensions? That kind of money is supposed to be invested in something that will bear interest or otherwise get a return on investment. So, either there has to be interest on loans from the pension fund, or your just straight up stealing or at least severely mismanaging the pension fund.
Face it, whether it's principal or interest, money that you have to pay is money that you have to pay. You can't simply dismiss it.
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None of that really answers my question about how using money from pension funds for nuclear plants would mean there's not interest.
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That's basically what happened to EDF, they took on so much debt trying to build new reactors that the French government had to nationalize them. So the taxpayer ended up paying for it in the end, although with the subsequent energy price rises due to the war in Ukraine it did at least allow the French government to cap retail price rises at 4%.
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For there to be profits to keep the pension fund solvent, there has to be interest on the loans. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
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Are you trolling? The plan for them is to decarbonize by 2045. [cleanenergywire.org]
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Initial poster: "How many countries have deep decarbonized with just solar and wind? Oh that's right zero."
Ichijo: "The plan for them is to decarbonize by 2045."
So the initial poster was right: zero country have managed to deep decarbonize their electricity grid with wind and solar so far. Even Germany after 30 years and 500 billion of investment, is still emitting 10 times more CO2eq per kWh than its french neighbor, which built its nuclear plants in the 70s. That also means the french have been deep decar
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That was true in 2016 [environmen...ogress.org]. In the following 6 years, they closed the gap to 4.5x (in 2022, Germany=385g CO2 per kWh [statista.com], France=85g CO2/kWh [statista.com]).
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Let's not talk about that because they aren't planning to use it to generate electricity. From your article:
So that argument is just a big nothingburger.
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Lignite plants we have. Lignite we have.
This is with this kind of assertion that we can see you are a fossil fuels puppet, and that you don't care about the environment or climate change (and the impact it has on people's lives). Proud to burn lignite, one of the worst coal there is with 850g CO2eq/kWh, plus the actual pollution that directly affects people's health across Europe.
This is one of the reason why we can't have a serious conversation with you. You are pro fossil fuels, and as such anti-nuclear, first and foremost. Whereas the rest of
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"Renewable energy is expected to account for around 46% of German power consumption this year, up from 41% a year earlier"
https://www.reuters.com/busine... [reuters.com]
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I gave power consumption numbers, not capacity.
As for CO2 emissions;
"Germany's carbon dioxide (CO) emissions fell 1.8 percent in 2022 to 655.5 million metric tons (MtCO). This was the second lowest level of CO reported by Germany since before 1990."
https://www.statista.com/stati... [statista.com]
And here you can see that CO2 emissions and emissions per capita have both declined since 1990;
https://www.macrotrends.net/co... [macrotrends.net]
Meanwhile I am seeing zero cites from you, just a lot of empty claims.
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The French also had decades of nukophobia. Nearly all their left is still against. They have stopped making reactosr for a long time and have lost many key competences. They are working on rebuilding them and are planning new reactors but they have budgetary problems.
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A lot of the anti-nuclear hysteria generated back in the 60s and 70s was apparently directly orchestrated and funded by the Seven Sisters: Exxon, Gulf, Texaco, Mobil, Socal, British Petroleum, and Royal Dutch Shell.
We have just SO much to thank the fossil fuel industry for....
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Seriously, I was taught a nuclear reactor was basically a nuclear bomb that was a controlled reaction to produce energy slower so it didn't blow up the reactor. Sorry, public education in the US, MASSIVE FUCKING FAIL. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if fossil fuels was behind it, but even nuclear got presidents behind it, Nixon killed Alvin Weinberg's molten salt reactors to preserve building something like 106 conventional reactors in California. Economy uber alles?
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They are working on rebuilding them and are planning new reactors but they have budgetary problems.
Huh? Which budgetary problems are you talking about?
The sites for the 6 new reactors have been chosen, and they are working on rebuilding their nuclear industry.
Build big or go home (Score:4, Insightful)
$31B instead of $14B and 8 years late. For a technology that is supposedly mature. How pathetic.
The thing is the tech for the previous generation of reactors is mature, this generation is all new designs, thus you pay the prototype penalty. it's engineering, and on a mega scale so sometimes the only way to test things out is to build it. Unfortunately because folks decided not to build reactors for a few decades a certain amount of expertise retired or left the industry. These are people who made all the mistakes and learnt not to do them again so we again have to pay a learning cost.
The best choices are thus: either build lots of reactors of the same design over and over again or don't build them at all. Build just a few and you get this, and really what else did you expect?
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That's why I have hope for SMRs. Build one design and iterate on it, increasing economies of scale at the same time.
Re:Sooo (Score:4, Interesting)
This is an improvement! My (relatively) local Watts Bar Reactor 2 started construction in 1973 and was completed in, I shit you not, 2016 .
For perspective, the Voyager 1 spacecraft was launched four years after the start of this reactor's construction and and left our solar system four years before it came online.
(To be fair, the primary delays were political, not technical. Still...)
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From wikipedia:
"Unit 2 was 60% complete when construction on both units was stopped in 1985 due in part to a projected decrease in power demand.[4][5] In 2007, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Board approved completion of Unit 2 "
If you stop building something when it is 60% done, and want to restart construction again 22 years later, that's hardly the fault of the nuclear industry if it took so long to be completed...
But nice way to cherry pick information.
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1.1 gigawatts, 31 gigadollars, about $31 per watt, lifespan 80 years. My phone spends about 1/5 its time plugged in to charger at 5 watts, I could say it runs on about 1 watt average. I would indeed pay $31 for the battery pack that charges my phone in perpetuity, without ever needing charging itself, and which I can pass on to future generations before it needs replacement in 2103 AD.
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The technology is mature, the politicians who interfere at every step, not so much.
Re: Sooo (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Sooo (Score:4, Insightful)
The regulators rewrote the requirements for this plant 3 times. There isn't a project ever completed by humans that could be delivered on time and on budget if you make the requirements unnecessarily harder 3 times during the project.
Only three times? That's seven times less than my last project at work.
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Re: Sooo (Score:4, Informative)
In order to be licensed by the NRC, there is three acceptable forms of decommissioning trust [nrc.gov]:
Prepayment: a deposit by the licensee at the start of operation in a separate account such as a trust fund.
Surety, insurance, or parent company guarantee method: assurance that the cost of decommissioning will be paid by another party should the licensee default.
External sinking fund: a separate account outside the licensee's control to accumulate decommissioning funds over time, if the reactor licensee recovers the cost of decommissioning through ratemaking regulation or non-bypassable charges.
So the short answer is: the licensee, any parent company or insurance underwriter, and ratepayers over the lifetime of the reactor. In that order. And you don't get a license to operate unless that shit is already taken care of.
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You say unnecessarily harder, but they were all in response to failures seen in the wild.
Nuclear fans want it all ways. Expensive new reactor designs that "can't" melt down, and lower safety standards for older reactor designs because safety costs too much. If nuclear power had a better track record, and if the consequences of a severe failure were not so dire, you would not have this problem.
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If nuclear power had a better track record
It already has one of the best track record for any heavy industry. Flying a plane is riskier than living near a nuclear plant. Deaths related to solar panels and wind turbines are higher than those of nuclear...
if the consequences of a severe failure were not so dire
Apart from Tchernobyl, which used a design that was known to be problematic (and had been reported as such by actual engineers), and was ran by incompetent people, what are the consequences you are talking about?
Three miles island was contained, Fukushima resulted in 1 death (compared to the 15000 f
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See this is the problem. Nuclear is fine... If it is designed, built, and run by competent people who aren't being cheap.
The only way to ensure that is a strong regulator, although even that failed in Japan.
So developed nations can't even operate it safely, and it's being pitched as the solution for developing nations too.
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I would qualify the second part of the statement, "who aren't being cheap." The U.S. is (mostly) built on the free market principle, so getting things done while making a profit is at the core of who we are. The laws surrounding power markets have been skewed so that wind and solar generators can bid their power for free, as they make money f
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So developed nations can't even operate it safely, and it's being pitched as the solution for developing nations too.
Fukushima resulted in 1 death by radiation, compared to the 15000 deaths from the Tsunami itself. This is because even through 2 reactors went through meltdown, the safety measures for that scenario worked.
By comparison, Banqiao dam failure [wikipedia.org] resulted in 171000 deaths. If we were to follow your logic, you would say that this is because dams can't be operated safely, so we must stop using hydropower... That is the level of stupidity you are showcasing.
Hint: every power source is responsible for some deaths. Be
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Ignoring all the deaths and other health effects that were not directly caused by radiation is silly. So is comparing it to the worst dam failure in history, when nobody is suggesting building giant dams that would flood places people live if they failed.
In fact, one of the reasons we don't build more dams is because of the scale of the disaster if they fail. Just like nuclear.
Your problem is that the alternatives are cheap, clean, and safe. They can't cause huge, expensive disasters like nuclear can. And i
Re: Sooo (Score:5, Insightful)
In my opinion, the U.S. is losing its ability/desire to bring hard projects to life. We're not the only first world country to have this problem, but it is distressing to me to see we have lost our will.
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The reason they have to do insulation testing on fibre optic cable is because the contractors will try to wriggle out of any test that they can plausibly argue against. The only solution to avoid expensive delays and litigation is to have blanket rules like "all wiring must be insulated tested to X standard", no ifs and no buts.
Construction on these projects is adversarial, with the contractor constantly looking for ways to avoid cost, and the regulator constantly looking for safety problems that add cost.
Re: Sooo (Score:2, Funny)
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To state this briefly, you don't know what you're talking about. If you were a competent engineer who had worked on extremely large first-of-a-kind projects, you would know that. In fact there are all sorts of reasons for the overruns, not the least of which was that Westinghouse went bankrupt in 2017.
While I agree with you, some of the issues were self inflected by not adhering to the design spec that was licensed for the COL. Yes, big first of kind projects are hard to manage, but building to design is part of the requirement.
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Competant planning can account for competant changes to regulations. Politically driven monkey-wrenching is another matter.
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built from scratch (Score:5, Funny)
Is there another way to build a new reactor?
I searched Amazon for kits, but didn't find anything. Should I try Newegg or CDW? Maybe Walmart?
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Revell [scalemates.com] has a kit.
About Vogtle. (Score:2)
The man that plant Vogtle was named after was more interesting than the plant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
This explains a lot. (Score:3, Interesting)
It's now clear why Georgia Power has been so hostile to rooftop solar over the past 2 - 3 years. They can't have the peons become energy independent when there are two nuclear reactors to pay for.
In the civilized world such an arrangement would be called a "conflict on interest". In the South it's "good business".
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It's now clear why Georgia Power has been so hostile to rooftop solar over the past 2 - 3 years. They can't have the peons become energy independent when there are two nuclear reactors to pay for.
Don't worry. Going forward, Georgia Power will sell lighting kits consumers can use to power those solar panels at night and those kits will get their power from the Georgia grid. It'll be a win-win. :-)
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And the econuts will buy those kits, and brag about how high they get sniffing their own morally superior farts.
And thats american (Score:2)
Back of the envelope (Score:2)
Rooftop solar costs about $20k. For 500,000 homes, that's 10 billion right there. They'll have to be replaced in about 20 years. So that's 26 billion factoring in inflation. Then there's the cost of disposal which I can't find any numbers on but it's a pretty good bet that it won't be cheap or easy. But that's just residential. Commercial and industrial are going to have much higher power requirements as well as higher voltages and polyphase. This is all assuming that overall power demand stays flat
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Rooftop solar panels are routinely warranted for 25 years and there's no reason they can't last longer. There are no fuel costs and little maintenance expense. The power is mostly used where it is generated and if a battery is installed the home can be grid-independent. Installation takes a few days. Recycling is in fact cheap and easy, the panels are mostly glass and aluminum.
Contrast that with nuclear plants which also have a lifetime, apparently require 14 years to build, and $billions to decommission. T
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Need to catch up with the technology. All that has been debunked.
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Just because you say so? You've got nothing.
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Because the facts say so. Do research and educate yourself. Stop looking like a fool. Discussion over.
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Fact: You are wrong. Educate yourself or live in ignorance. I have no more time for you.
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There are so many errors in this analysis. Utility scale solar is about 1/3 the cost [nrel.gov] of residential solar. If you're going to compare to utility scale nuclear, you need to use utility scale solar, which means dividing your estimate by 3. Or if you really want to compare to residential solar, you need to use residential nuclear, which of course doesn't exist. Solar panels have a lifespan much longer than 20 years [thisoldhouse.com]. They require no fuel and next to no maintenance, unlike nuclear. Decommissioning nuclear
Yay! (Score:2)
110MW short (Score:2)
Cost of reliable power (Score:2)
Things work at the flick of switch because the power is always there.
Nuclear generation provides this type of reliable power. Solar, wind and batteries don’t, so their power isn’t suitable most use cases.
If you can accept the environmental impact of hydroelectric it provides reliable power except when there’s a drought. It has a large footprint.
Nuclear is expensive to build if your project management skills are weak, however there no reason to believe that the plants won’t run for a
Uh, Who REALLY paid for it (Score:2)
There's no Such Thing as a Nuclear Accident (Score:2)
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Indeed. Wind turbines have a design life of 20 years (but can sometimes be extended somewhat). After that, the cost to remove one - only one - can be $200,000, and it's only recently that the farmers who lease land for it have gotten wise to the contract provisions that say they, not the energy company, are responsible for it.
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Some of us like myself don't look at it as a pure ROI type situation though.
Nuclear absolutely has very high upfrant capital costs, almost too much for any free market scenario to make it practical but the advantages of nuclear are too much to overlook.
I think the French have the right idea, having it be under a (mostly) state owned energy operator. Even if the nuclear program loses money on expenditures-out-payments-in metric the nationwide economic knock-on effects of cheap, reliable and clean power more
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And another small faction will jump in to denounce anything that improves the standard of living for Americans (or anyone else, really) as evil that must be destroyed.
What's your point?
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