US Invests $6 Billion to Save 'Financially Distressed' Nuclear Reactors (apnews.com) 188
The U.S. government "is launching a $6 billion effort to rescue nuclear power plants at risk of closing," reports the Associated Press, "citing the need to continue nuclear energy as a carbon-free source of power that helps to combat climate change."
A certification and bidding process opened Tuesday for a civil nuclear credit program that is intended to bail out financially distressed owners or operators of nuclear power reactors, the U.S. Department of Energy told The Associated Press exclusively, shortly before the official announcement. It's the largest federal investment in saving financially distressed nuclear reactors... "U.S. nuclear power plants contribute more than half of our carbon-free electricity, and President Biden is committed to keeping these plants active to reach our clean energy goals," Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a statement. "We're using every tool available to get this country powered by clean energy by 2035, and that includes prioritizing our existing nuclear fleet to allow for continued emissions-free electricity generation and economic stability for the communities leading this important work...."
A dozen U.S. commercial nuclear power reactors have closed in the past decade before their licenses expired, largely due to competition from cheaper natural gas, massive operating losses due to low electricity prices and escalating costs, or the cost of major repairs. This has led to a rise in emissions in those regions, poorer air quality and the loss of thousands of high-paying jobs, dealing an economic blow to local communities, according to the Department of Energy. A quarter or more of the fleet is at risk, the Department of Energy added. The owners of seven currently operating reactors have already announced plans to retire them through 2025.... Twenty more reactors faced closure in the last decade before states stepped in to save them, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute , the industry's trade association.... Low electricity prices are the main cause of this trend, though federal and state policies to boost wind and solar have contributed as well, the NEI added.
There are 55 commercial nuclear power plants with 93 nuclear reactors in 28 U.S. states. Nuclear power already provides about 20% of electricity in the U.S., or about half the nation's carbon-free energy. If reactors do close before their licenses expire, fossil fuel plants will likely fill the void and emissions will increase, which would be a substantial setback, said Andrew Griffith, acting assistant secretary for nuclear energy at DOE. While natural gas may be cheaper, nuclear power hasn't been given credit for its carbon-free contribution to the grid and that has caused nuclear plants to struggle financially, Griffith added....
David Schlissel, at the Ohio-based Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, said he wishes the federal government, before it allocated the $6 billion, had analyzed whether that money might have been better spent on ramping up renewables, battery storage and energy efficiency projects, which can be done quickly and cheaply to displace fossil fuels.
A dozen U.S. commercial nuclear power reactors have closed in the past decade before their licenses expired, largely due to competition from cheaper natural gas, massive operating losses due to low electricity prices and escalating costs, or the cost of major repairs. This has led to a rise in emissions in those regions, poorer air quality and the loss of thousands of high-paying jobs, dealing an economic blow to local communities, according to the Department of Energy. A quarter or more of the fleet is at risk, the Department of Energy added. The owners of seven currently operating reactors have already announced plans to retire them through 2025.... Twenty more reactors faced closure in the last decade before states stepped in to save them, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute , the industry's trade association.... Low electricity prices are the main cause of this trend, though federal and state policies to boost wind and solar have contributed as well, the NEI added.
There are 55 commercial nuclear power plants with 93 nuclear reactors in 28 U.S. states. Nuclear power already provides about 20% of electricity in the U.S., or about half the nation's carbon-free energy. If reactors do close before their licenses expire, fossil fuel plants will likely fill the void and emissions will increase, which would be a substantial setback, said Andrew Griffith, acting assistant secretary for nuclear energy at DOE. While natural gas may be cheaper, nuclear power hasn't been given credit for its carbon-free contribution to the grid and that has caused nuclear plants to struggle financially, Griffith added....
David Schlissel, at the Ohio-based Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, said he wishes the federal government, before it allocated the $6 billion, had analyzed whether that money might have been better spent on ramping up renewables, battery storage and energy efficiency projects, which can be done quickly and cheaply to displace fossil fuels.
Just buy them (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead of what essentially seems like a bailout. Nuclear power makes logistical and environmental sense, it doesn not totally make economic sense. I happen to think the advantages of the first two outweight the 3rd but that takes it out of the realm of "free markets" as it can't really compete on the costs, especially on the short term with massive upfront investments.
If we want nuclear power the best option is to nationalize it and/or form a non-profit subsidiary to manage it like the Post Office or the Tenessee Valley Authority. This entity can keep the plants runnig as long as feasible and also have the freedom to replace these units with newer models.
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No, not inherently but as I understand it a bailout really is supposed to be a temporary measure to prop up a company or a sector through a particularly unprecented circumstance. With the banks and auto companies also there was good chance that these sectors would recover enough to return a good chunk of the money (which they did).
In this case I don't necessarily see a clear case that these plants will suddenly turn profitiable to that point, nor is the changing energy market combined with aging infrastruc
Sympathy for orphan who killed their parents? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the old, old joke of the guy on trial for killing his parents asking for sympathy because he is an orphan now.
If you are going to disadvantage everything but the renewables by ordering "power from wind and solar gets sold first", you are putting nuclear out of business. That might be OK if the goal is to put nuclear out of business on account of all of the problems with nuclear, but don't come crying that the backup sources are fossil-fuel powered.
And I don't want to hear "the 6 billion dollars to keep nuclear plants would be better spent on renewables and energy storage." This is how we got to the point of spending 6 billion dollars to keep nuclear plants going.
The goal is New Zero, these new subsidies for nuclear is foreseeable requirement.
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Actually, battery storage at nuclear plants would likely improve their viability. The battery energy costs $70/MWh more, but is likely worth a $200/MWh premium. It is a clear-cut example of pushing out gas leakers and grid services that functions year round.
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And I don't want to hear "the 6 billion dollars to keep nuclear plants would be better spent on renewables and energy storage." This is how we got to the point of spending 6 billion dollars to keep nuclear plants going.
The goal is New Zero, these new subsidies for nuclear is foreseeable requirement.
/quote Can you show us the amazing profits that nuclear made before those dam windmills and solar panels came along? Your statement that those renewable sources killed nuclear to the tune of needing 6 billion dollars is interesting - I'm 100 percent certain you can provide the dates and citations.
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No, not inherently but as I understand it a bailout really is supposed to be a temporary measure to prop up a company or a sector through a particularly unprecented circumstance. With the banks and auto companies also there was good chance that these sectors would recover enough to return a good chunk of the money (which they did).
In this case I don't necessarily see a clear case that these plants will suddenly turn profitiable to that point, nor is the changing energy market combined with aging infrastructure an unprecedented circumstance.
If nuclear could ever turn a profit, it would have by now.
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There's plenty wrong with bailouts; that doesn't mean they aren't sometimes the least-bad option.
Of course some things that are perceived as "bailouts" aren't really bailouts. The GM "bailout" was really a government coordinated liquidation of the company and a sale of its assets, including the GM name, to a new company. The original company was renamed "Motors Liquidation Company", and continued in existence for two more years, during which it distributed proceeds of the sale to creditors. That at leas
Re:Just buy them (Score:4, Funny)
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Re: Just buy them (Score:2)
You guys complain about capitalism and corporatism in government
Wait, who's always beating up the post office??
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Re:Just buy them (Score:5, Insightful)
Nuclear is like medicine - we have the worst of all worlds with poor infrastructure and sky-high costs while a few people got rich.
A plant near here got zero maintenance while all the revenues got siphoned off into a multinational conglomerate until the regulators ordered it shut down.
So the $6B is most likely to go to corporate welfare. Which is a crime that won't be prosecuted.
One of the things I'm seeing discussed (Score:2)
Steal a bunch of diapers and medicine? We nail you to the wall. Folks say "they're gonna sell those diapers and medicines!" to which I say "A seller requires a buyer, meaning there's still people who buy stolen diapers because they can't afford the store".
Meanwhile steal trillions while jacking up rent and making homeownership impossible by buying up all the houses with those trillions? A-Ok.
Pirates and Emperors [wikipedia.org] man, Pirates and Emperors...
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there's still people who buy stolen diapers because they can't afford the store".
Solution: cheaper contraceptives.
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You can't just replace a nuclear reactor with a newer one. The plant is custom built for the type of reactor previously installed. Besides the reactor, there is all the cooling and safety equipment, plus the steam loop that runs the generator.
Removing the old reactor is far from trivial either. Parts of it are high level nuclear waste that requires extremely careful handling. Can't just lift it on a crane, because if you drop it...
Generally it's easier to build a new plant, perhaps next to an existing one s
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I did not mean "rebuild a reactor in an existing plant" but the option to rebuild an entirely new plant in the same region or even same location to continue the role that plant plays in an area. Nationlization can definitely lubricate the gears in terms of eminent domain, environmental review, waste management and design around regulation. Definitely not everything but better than the private market I would imagine.
I think at the moment the private energy market has handled wind and solar pretty well so
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The French tried what you suggested. EDF is state owned and builds and operates their nuclear plants. It hasn't worked out very well. The power is extremely expensive (the price consumers pay is heavily subsidised and no little relation to the actual cost) and EDF is perpetually in need of bail-outs as it tries to build more around Europe.
EDF's current estimate is 20 years to build a new power plant, which seems about right given how their current projects are going. They were originally supposed to take 10
Re:Just buy them (Score:4, Interesting)
I am not syaing EDF does not have problems but in many perspectives EDF has absolutely been a success and they seem to think so as well as they are planning to build 14 more plants in the next 30 years.
From a pure cost perspective nuclear for France is not the cheapest but not the most expensive either, they have a very secure domestic production of electricity and are not reliant on oil imports for key energy needs as well as being ahead of the curve on emissions. There are a lot of intangibles they get along with stable and reliable power, it's a question of if those are worth the price which is likely always going to need some amount of subsidzation. The energy cost increases and rising infrastructure cost seem to follow the general trends of the market and it's not as though the free market system is building plants cheaper and faster either.
I think the EDF model is closer to what nuclear power has to be to actually work if nuclear power is to be a key part of the energy mix. That's a different and more important qestion though and I will admit I like nuclear power but I have seen some arguments and scenarios of an all-renewable but low-nuclear energy market I could get on board with.
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and are not reliant on oil imports for key energy needs as well as being ahead of the curve on emissions.
They are reliant on oil exports. Or do you think all the french cars are electric?
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Correct, that was a mistake on my part. I should have said natural gas since thats the fuel that is offset by their nuclear plants.
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France does not import much natural gas.
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Building additional reactors at the same site is often a sensible even if re-using components usually isn't-- some of the over head is the security staff, the storage facilities and the licensing approval for the site.
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Generally it's easier to build a new plant, perhaps next to an existing one so it can take advantage of existing infrastructure and stuff like environmental surveys that were done for the original. Any NIMBYs tend to have already lost their legal challenges or moved away by then too.
There is serious ongoing work on converting coal plants to nuclear using modular designs that can be build in a factory and placed on site exploiting existing buildings, steam and power infrastructure.
Not that it's worth building new reactors at all. The money is better spent on renewables.
New reactors are essential for providing a "green" baseload. There are currently no viable alternative save untapped hydro and geo in most areas of the world that can do this without resorting to burning hydrocarbons.
Material and environmental cost associated with over building of intermittent sources (wind,
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Base load is getting less and less relevant.
https://energypost.eu/intervie... [energypost.eu]
Nuclear is going to have a hard time in the market in the future. That's why EDF is demanding guaranteed prices for the energy - they know it's going to be uncompetitive and largely unneeded.
At the moment is possible to choose an energy provider that doesn't use nuclear power, but in future that option will have to go away so that consumers are forced to pay for it.
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Base load is getting less and less relevant.
Why is it less relevant?
https://energypost.eu/intervie... [energypost.eu]
Did you read the article before citing it? It's gibberish.
"The idea of baseload power is already outdated. I think you should look at this the other way around. From a consumerâ(TM)s point of view, baseload is what I am producing myself. The solar on my rooftop, my heat pump - thatâ(TM)s the baseload. Those are the electrons that are free at the margin."
My personal favorite:
"How much of a problem is the integration of intermittent renewables in Holliday's view? "It's simpl
Re: Just buy them (Score:4, Interesting)
Start with Florida, and build two new plants... one to replace Crystal River (which shut down after a botched repair job damaged the containment dome, but the storage site, transformer yard, and transmission lines are still there ready for a new plant at the same site), and one near Clewiston (planned years ago, but never built).
It's good that FPL is adding 2 new reactors to Turkey Point (Miami), but the new capacity is BARELY enough to satisfy Miami's own base load demands... and a major hurricane anywhere south of the Broward-Palm Beach county line will sever TP's grid connection to the rest of the state for weeks, causing rolling blackouts a hundred miles or more away from the actual hurricane zone (because FPL's transmission lines north of I-4 can't deliver 100% of the power needed to fully satisfy southwest Florida's base load, let alone peak summer afternoon demands, now that Crystal River is gone).
Southwest Jacksonville (near Palatka) would be another good spot for a reactor.
In theory, Disney/RCID could have built a reactor local NIMBYs couldn't have stopped (and in fact, it was actually Disney's strongest SELLING POINT for the creation of RCID), but the surrounding land is now too expensive to set aside the kind of buffer zone a new reactor would require. Nearby Windmere has vacant lots starting at tens of millions of dollars an acre... there's no way Disney would ever make enough money from power-generation to offset the loss of future real estate development on that land.
Then again... if it could move quickly enough, Disney COULD use it as an ultimate 'Fuck You' against Florida for terminating RCID. As I understand it, the day RCID ends, Orange County forcibly inherits RCID's debt. If that includes debt incurred between now and 2023, Disney COULD file for nuclear plant approval, then sell land for it to RCID at the full market value of the land if developed for luxury housing, instantly sealing its profit & saddling Orange County with a HUNDRED billion dollars in municipal debt, not just "a few" billion.
It would be the ultimate "poison pill" to force Florida's legislature to nullify the law it just passed. OC would be bankrupted by that kind of bond obligation. Meanwhile, if RCID were reinstated, it would just sell the land back to Disney in exchange for cancelling the bonds Disney would have sold to itself in the first place.
The best part about such a plot is, Disney wouldn't even HAVE to exaggerate the land's market value. It IS valuable, and by taking the land (via RCID) from itself (Disney) via eminent domain for a recognized public purpose (to build a reactor it's guaranteed by law to be allowed to build), it could inflate the price by 25% just because it IS eminent domain.
God, that WOULD be a plot worthy of grabbing a bowl of popcorn & watching Florida's legislature & DeSantis completely freak out over.
Don't get me wrong... IMHO, RCID *should* have built a nuclear power plant there 40 years ago as promised... but now, the land is too expensive, and there are more economically-sensible places 20-50 miles away. On one hand, I'd hate to see Disney using the uneducated public's fear of "Nucular" Power as a weapon... but it would give Disney one HELL of a "poison pill" bargaining chip.
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Florida may be mostly underwater within those plants' lifetimes. Florida has potential for a massive amount of wind power. Why build more nuclear?
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Why build more nuclear?
Because of land area requirements.
Danger! Log-log scale graph ahead! http://www.inference.org.uk/su... [inference.org.uk]
On that graph we see solar power gets best case 20 watts power produced per square meter of land area. Not on the graph is that nuclear power get 1000 watts per square meter, which is shown here: http://www.withouthotair.com/c... [withouthotair.com]
Wind power produces about 2.5 watts per square meter. Land use requirements alone dictate we need nuclear power.
Then comes safety.
Here's one graph showing how safe nuclear powe
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No idea where you get your stupid numbers from.
Click on the links provided and you will see where I get my numbers. Where did you get your numbers?
Look at this graph: http://www.inference.org.uk/su... [inference.org.uk]
That graph tells me that most every nation in Europe would have to cover about 5% of their land area in windmills and solar collectors to meet their energy needs. You think that they can just put that off shore? Okay, now your energy costs just doubled. https://www.iea.org/reports/pr... [iea.org]
We are going to build more nuclear power plants because it beats ever
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Perhaps you once would look on a windmill area?
E.g. here: https://www.google.com/maps/@4... [google.com]
Oops.
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I didn't see any numbers in your link, are you certain you posted the correct link?
If Dr. MacKay had the numbers wrong then where can I find the correct numbers? What are the correct numbers?
Every nation in Europe will be building nuclear power plants soon, and in large numbers. This is because their experiments in producing power from wind and sun are failing, and because Russia is proving to be an unreliable source of energy.
The UK is building a huge undersea power cable to get wind and solar power from
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Source: google.
Source: common knowledge.
If you know nothing about solar energy, why post? Or ask silly questions?
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My best guess is the 1200 to 1500 kWh per year per square meter is the heating power of the sun in Europe. Because there are conversion losses in turning this into something other than heat we'd get far less than that in electrical or mechanical power. Using conventional solar PV we'd get something like 20% of that in electrical power. Using space grade PV or concentrated solar thermal electricity production we'd get something like 30% or 40% conversion. If we account for other losses in the process, su
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The way I would put it is that we don't have anything like a sane pricing system on energy-- the actual costs of carbon emissions are not captured in the price of the energy, so you can't just "let the market decide".
Team anti-nuclear right now likes the line "it's just economics!", having suddenly discovered the laissez-faire religion (except when talking about subsidies for solar and wind or electric cars).
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it doesn not totally make economic sense
It would if we externalise costs appropriately. Every cent of keeping a nuclear power plant open should come directly from the profits of a coal / gas power plant. After all that's how you enact government policy.
But back in reality the coal and gas industry is too large (read: creates lots of jobs) to be taxed for its externalities, so it falls on the taxpayor to cover the cost of nuclear while the world continues to flush itself down the carbon toilet.
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There is no free market for electricity.
The cheapest option, coal is banned. Solar, wind, and thermal are heavily subsidized. And hyrdo is heavily restricted for environmental reasons.
Really the only two options that actually compete are natural gas and nuclear, with natural gas being the clearly cheaper option. Everything else is decided by government intervention.
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Instead of what essentially seems like a bailout. Nuclear power makes logistical and environmental sense, it doesn not totally make economic sense. I happen to think the advantages of the first two outweight the 3rd but that takes it out of the realm of "free markets" as it can't really compete on the costs, especially on the short term with massive upfront investments.
If we want nuclear power the best option is to nationalize it and/or form a non-profit subsidiary to manage it like the Post Office or the Tenessee Valley Authority. This entity can keep the plants runnig as long as feasible and also have the freedom to replace these units with newer models.
So we are now supposed to nationalize it because it lives up to none of it's grand promises. The idea of it being a non-profit is funny, because it appears to be a rather big black hole.
It just makes no business sense. If we were to settle on a storage medium for renewables, and launch it, there's money to be made producing the new stuff, not throw it into a money pit which will only continue to grow.
Re: Just buy them (Score:2)
My entire argument is based around the assumption that nuclear power doesn't make economic sense from a private ownership point of view. If all of the logistical (cheap to generate, reliable and stable power) and environmental (low emissions per MW generated) benefits are something we find worth it still then the best way forward is as a public ally owned enterprise in my opinion.
On a scale of decades nuclear actually can make a lot of sense but the high up front cost and regulations likely make it too lar
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My entire argument is based around the assumption that nuclear power doesn't make economic sense from a private ownership point of view. If all of the logistical (cheap to generate, reliable and stable power) and environmental (low emissions per MW generated) benefits are something we find worth it still then the best way forward is as a public ally owned enterprise in my opinion.
Large players are working on modular designs with entire self contained nuclear power stations in the footprint of shipping containers. Given the exceptional EROI of nuclear I just find it bizarre to assume nuclear can't be profitable.
The only thing holding back nuclear energy in the us is political bullshit.
And if we eliminated all those regulations like examining the parts for defects, and the utterly stupid idea of containment structures, we could have unlimited power too cheap to meter.
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Good, about time. Now ... (Score:3)
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Some context (Score:5, Interesting)
For those too lazy to click (Score:2)
It's only fair ... (Score:4, Insightful)
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How do you calculate nuclear subsidies though? The free insurance they get is worth $infinity, it's literally unlimited and provided at zero cost. What is infinity divided by zero?
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The free insurance they get is worth $infinity
Not really. You add up the mitigation costs plus payouts. Even if these were paid by the government. Divide that figure by the energy produced or the total installed nuclear capacity. That's the total insurance cost. Even if the operating companies don't pay it.
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Price Carbon Emissions (Score:2)
> While natural gas may be cheaper, nuclear power hasn't been given credit for its carbon-free contribution to the grid and that has caused nuclear plants to struggle financially, Griffith added
A great way to address this would be to put a price on carbon emissions as proposed in the Economists' Statement (https://econstatement.org/) or the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividends Act (https://energyinnovationact.org/). Nuclear, renewables, and fossil fuels could then compete on a more level playing field
natural nuclear (Score:3)
It's either that or fossil (Score:3)
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Right Luckyo?
Because 'Nuclular' is the cheapest option!!!
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Or enough storage.
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Op said 24/7, there needs to be a baseload generation even at night.
I'm not certain why, but apparently solar and wind cannot use any of the energy storage mechanisms already in use by legacy plants. Go figure.
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there needs to be a baseload generation even at night.
The wind blows at night.
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But not reliably. When wind can't take the slack at night, either nuclear or fossil fuel has to generate the difference.
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If you put all your wind turbines in one place, they will produce power intermittently.
If you spread them out geographically, they will produce reliable power.
When winds are calm in one area, they are stronger elsewhere.
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Considering that Luckyo is living in Finland - the country with the highest cost overrun and time overrun reactor ever build (which is not finished yet) - his opinions are pretty bizarre to me :P
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The insanity here is that we are giving subsidies to ALL of the various electricity.
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With fossil fuel plants by and large banished, it just may be now.
Nope: https://www.power-technology.c... [power-technology.com]
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Mycle Schneider is a one man band that publishes World Nuclear Industry Status Report as anti-nuclear propaganda. This man has no real credentials in energy or nuclear engineering. He just publishes what appears to be the same bullshit every year in an attempt to put an end to nuclear power.
Which seems to put him on about the same level as David MacKay, whose book you promote endlessly. Sure, Schneider appears to not have a degree, and MacKay does. In theoretical physics no less. Notably not in nuclear energy or energy policy, however. Other than that, their other qualifications are memberships (or former memberships in MacKay's case, since he has been dead for 6 years) in government advisory and policy groups. MacKay is clearly very smart and accomplished. Most of his notable academic accompl
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When Vogtle and Hinkley are finally completed after many years of delay, they will produce power at twice the price of solar and four times the price of wind.
Vogtle hits new delays, costs surge to $30B [eenews.net]
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Who cares? The nuke plants will produce carbon emission free power at night when solar can't, and wind is not an on demand power source. If new nuke plants were properly designed, state of the art, molten salt based reactors, they'll be near impossible to have a meltdown disaster, which should drive down the cost of power it provides, and potentially be able to "reclaim" spent nuke fuel rods.
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If new nuke plants were properly designed
Only if you can retrocatively define "proper design". Fukushima was properly designed until it failed.
state of the art, molten salt based reactors
MSRs are not "state the art".
They are experimental R&D. None are in commercial operation.
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Only if you can retrocatively define "proper design". Fukushima was properly designed until it failed.
New power plants are passively safe. Fukushima would not have happened with current reactor designs.
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New power plants are passively safe.
New designs that haven't been built yet are passively safe.
In theory, lots of things are safe. In reality, many of them aren't.
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New designs that haven't been built yet are passively safe.
Passively safe designs like Westinghouse AP1000 have been in commercial operation for years and many more are presently in construction all around the world.
In theory, lots of things are safe. In reality, many of them aren't.
In practice nuclear is by far the safest form of energy production available.
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Passively safe designs like Westinghouse AP1000
The AP1000 is a PWR. It has some passive safety features, but no PWR is inherently safe.
many more are presently in construction all around the world.
And many of them are years behind schedule with massive cost overruns. Vogtle is an AP1000.
Re: Too cheap to meter (Score:2)
Solar panels aren't worthless after 20 years, either. They just produce less power than when new. 25 to 30 years is considered the useful lifespan, but they can still continue to be useful for 40 to 50 years.
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And they will produce power at night as well.
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Molten salt reactors replace impossibly expensive engineered safety with intrinsic safety. There are two companies that strike me as likely to succeed at actually pushing mass deployment: ThorCon and Moltex. They realize that we need a 90% solution that starts delivering by the 2020s, not a super whizb
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With fossil fuel plants by and large banished, it just may be now.
Yeah - 6 billion here, 6 billion there - after a while you're talking real money.
What I would love is a supporter solution. The stalwarts of nookyaler power personally fund it, and the rest of us fools can use wind and solar.
How could a nookyaler lover not jump at the chance to put their money where their mouths are? I mean, it's the safest, and cheapest and best power system out there.
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Fund the fuel production, fund the disposal, and legislate essentially no liability, and it looks really really cheap to run.
All nuclear power development should be stopped until renewables are funded and maxed out.
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Re: Too cheap to meter (Score:2)
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I'm fine with the State subsidizing carbon-free power sources.
If it is an emergency, money should be no object.
Clearly not an emergency.
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Air pollution kills around 7 million people per year.
I would say that is an emergency even worse than the potential damages of global warming, and it's happening right now.
10 people died of it while i was typing this message pretty much.
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I'm fine with the State subsidizing carbon-free power sources.
Tell us how mining, processing, and infrastructure building of all that goes into a nuc plant is carbon free.
Takes a hella lot of ore and machinery to turn it into fuel.
Now of course, no electrical generation method is truly carbon free. But nuc proponents seem to believe they are in a state of carbon free grace.
Re:Too cheap to meter (Score:4, Insightful)
Tell us how mining, processing, and infrastructure building of all that goes into a nuc plant is carbon-free.
To be fair, the $6B will subsidize nukes that are already built and running. So the CO2 from the sunk costs is irrelevant.
Building new nukes is nuts, but keeping old nukes running may make more economic sense than building more wind turbines. I don't know. TFA doesn't provide enough information to determine that.
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Tell us how mining, processing, and infrastructure building of all that goes into a nuc plant is carbon-free.
To be fair, the $6B will subsidize nukes that are already built and running. So the CO2 from the sunk costs is irrelevant.
Building new nukes is nuts, but keeping old nukes running may make more economic sense than building more wind turbines. I don't know. TFA doesn't provide enough information to determine that.
True dat, I just can get a little spunky when people talk about nuc power as somehow free of carbon release.
In my area, the wind power is simplicity itself. The Allegheny front is a great place for generating wind power. The escarpment is right in a natural funnel. so it really never stops. Now the only time the shut down other than when the power isn't needed is during bat migration. So after batteries are installed, the sites will produce power even then. Then start up in the morning when the bats aren'
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Why don't people install a wire mesh bird/bat protector? Then the wind mill should be like any other installation, like a tree or a building with windows, and not an aerial abattoir.
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Building new nukes is nuts,
What is nuts is NOT building new nukes esp. in California. California needs to clean up their air further, AND desalinate large amounts of water.
However, what would be crazy, would be doing so with the old gen 3 reactors, as opposed to gen 4 SMRS.
These are safer, inexpensive to run, fast to get up once approved, and inexpensive to put up AND take down.
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But nuc proponents seem to believe they are in a state of carbon free grace.
No, its the brain dead ignorance of hippie-only power source supporters. The reality is that civilization uses gigawatts of electricity at night. Wind can't carry that load, solar can't do squat, there is no energy storage technology sufficient to cover the evening power requirements. Its either nuke plants firing up at night, or fossil fuel pollution.
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Batteries are environmentally vile. What's the other choice, pumped-storage hydro -- uses a lot of land?
Nuclear + electric rail is generally the right idea. Chinese, French, and Russians have got it.
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Yes, that was the mantra when the government was trying to get the public behind building atomic bomb factories in the 1950s.
Is there a reason why you're still repeating it?
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It illustrates the point that nuclear has always been sold with lies.
This tradition continues to this day.
You simply cannot claim that nuclear power is clean while the waste is still sitting around, and is going to be a problem for the foreseeable future. Until it's been dealt with, we still don't know what effects it will have. So it's not cheap and it's not clean, and if it's not clean it's inherently not safe.
Nuclear has never delivered on its promises, and fission never will. Fusion might someday, but n
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Nuclear has never delivered on its promises, and fission never will. Fusion might someday, but not any time soon. Even if just continuing to scale up what's almost working now will make them work, that will take a lot of time and money to accomplish. Promoting nuclear power is promoting lies.
Speaking of being sold on lies, fusion power is making the lies told about it bad enough to make Marjorie Taylor Green blush.
After listening to my favorite Physicist Sabine Hossenfelder throw some truth bombs into the Fusion powercircle jerk, it really doesn't look good for it at all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]. Those efficiency numbers of the latest "breakthrough" are only a tad better than the ones set in like 1996-7, and the real efficiencies are abysmal.
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It is even worse: as soon as it is efficient, we still have a huge engineering problem to get some electricity out of a fusion plant.
Don't get me wrong, I'm full for fusion research. But in the end, as soon as we have a working plant, we still have the same problem like with fusion:
* massive cost and time overruns
* a reactor with limited lifespan, which is highly radioactive waste when it is about to dismantle it
* the open question if we can scale it
Hint: deuterium or tritium is won/created by evapouring wa
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The true cost of wind and solar are also not cheap. Coal is probably cheaper. Should we go with coal?
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Modern reactors can take that poison out of the ground, and use it for the energy we need now.
I'm fairly confident in saying that no modern commercial reactors for power generation can be fueled -- much less in a cost-effective manner -- using Cesium-137 and Strontium-90 that's been liberally sprinkled on the ground, taken up in plants and animals, and absorbed into the groundwater.
Reactors designed in the eighties were able to reuse fuel to the point it was mostly spent, but for "reasons" they were not put into use.
It's because breeder reactors are a good way to get military grade nuclear materials. The proliferation risk is considered to be dangerously high. Also, they're just good at consuming fuel more efficiently; they still o
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Wow, get a load of Mister Optimistic over here