6 ms·

The "cheap to operate" myth has long been debunked by all of the 100% depreciated nuclear plants closing, because, they are not cheap to operate.

by marze 9y ago

bluedino 9y ago
Although at the current time, low natural gas prices make natural gas plants very attractive, most nuclear plants are closed because of public outcry. A lot of these plants are nearing 50 years old as well.
- beat 9y ago
  Per the article, old nuclear plants are being closed because they are not cost-competitive with natural gas. If you're saying they're actually being closed due to public opposition, you should cite a source. Preferably one as non-partisan as the NYT.
  - epistasis 9y ago
    You are correct, they are being closed due to financial reasons, not due to public outcry. However, there is an argument that they should get the economic benefit of being carbon free, something that is granted to solar and wind. Right now we subsidize two technologies, rather than taxing the externality. It would be far more economically rational to tax carbon emissions, and for coal to also tax the other costs it imposes in non-carbon emissions. There's currently a legal battle going on to allow nuclear plants to have Zero Emmisions Credits (ZEC) in several states where nuclear plants can no longer compete in the marketplace: http://www.utilitydive.com/news/zecs-appeal-illinois-new-york-nuclear-cases-could-shape-power-market-juri/448096/ http://www.utilitydive.com/news/zecs-appeal-illinois-new-yor...
    - freeflight 9y ago
      > However, there is an argument that they should get the economic benefit of being carbon free, something that is granted to solar and wind. They already have the benefit of not having to pay for their long term waste disposal and being bailed out in the event of a critical failure, which is arguably among the biggest long-term costs for nuclear. Not too long ago German energy companies paid a flat fee of 24 billion Euros to absolve them from any future responsibility to pay for end storage. The US nuclear industry does pay a tax for disposal but that doesn't cover anywhere near the actual costs of storage. We are talking about materials that need to be stored thousands of years here, a couple of dozens billion Euros (or Dollars) are peanuts in that regard. The timescales are just insane with this stuff and make it very likely that we still gonna have to pay for keeping disposal intact many thousand years after we phased out of nuclear into something we can't even fathom right now. Isn't that a nice vision of the future? We might manage to get our cheap, clean and renewable energy, but we will still be stuck taking care of very dangerous and expensive waste for thousands of years.
      - opo 9y ago
        >...We are talking about materials that need to be stored thousands of years here, a couple of dozens billion Euros (or Dollars) are peanuts in that regard. The timescales are just insane with this stuff and make it very likely that we still gonna have to pay for keeping disposal intact many thousand years after we phased out of nuclear into something we can't even fathom right now. Right now nuclear waste can and should be recycled which would reduce the amount of waste: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste Soon it will be possible to use most of the waste as fuel: "...Fast reactors can "burn" long lasting nuclear transuranic waste (TRU) waste components (actinides: reactor-grade plutonium and minor actinides), turning liabilities into assets. Another major waste component, fission products (FP), would stabilize at a lower level of radioactivity than the original natural uranium ore it was attained from in two to four centuries, rather than tens of thousands of years" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_fast_reactor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_fast_reactor The worry people have about nuclear waste is greatly overblown to say the least. The amounts generated are manageable and in a relatively short amount of time we can use most of this "waste" to generate electricity. To put it into perspective, no one of the general public has ever been hurt by nuclear waste and you definitely can't say that about coal waste.
- gozur88 9y ago
  Changes in technology have made natural gas cheap. But I think that's temporary - twenty years from now we're probably going to regret shuttering our nuclear plants and will be stuck with coal for at least a decade.
pm90 9y ago
Coal plants would not be cheap to operate either if they had to pay for all the environmental damage they actually cause. Natural gas plants... they seem to be a good compromise for now, but we just cannot depend on fossil fuel to meet the electrical needs of future generations. It is my sincere hope that we continue having a nuclear power industry to maintain the know-how learned over several generations. This would be useful not just for domestic power generations, but e.g. generating power for space stations, lunar/martian bases etc.
- maxerickson 9y ago
  There is always the Navy. Or at least, I would expect them to continue operating nuclear vessels for quite some time.
  - pc86 9y ago
    Part of the appeal of nuclear operations for the Navy (aside from the prestige) is the lucrative private sector opportunity. You'll see fewer folks going into that field if those private sector jobs dry up.
mseebach 9y ago
Has it, though? Keep in mind the difference between "expensive" and "a lot of money". Nuclear costs a ton to build and a ton to decommission, but in between is a very long period of nearly constant very high power production. New-built nuclear costs around €5.3b (Finland[1] and France[2]) to €9.3b (UK[3]) per installed GW, and France, Germany and UK estimates €300m, €1.4b and €2.7b (respectively) pr GW installed to decommission. That's €6-€13b/GW total + operating costs -- and those costs will come down as (if) we start ramping up construction and learn to avoid the cost overruns and get experience decommissioning plants. New-built offshore wind costs €3-4.7b/GW[4] -- and these prices are set to go up, as the easy sites for installation are running out. Capacity factors are only around 50%, so already there offshore wind is roughly on par with fully loaded nuclear (which has capacity factors of 90+%), and that's without counting decommissioning, extremely high operating expenses and the extra infrastructure and pollution required to deal with the unreliability of wind (typically, gas plants), and, most severely, the expected lifetime of ~25 years[5] compared to 60+ years for nuclear. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olkiluoto_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olkiluoto_Nuclear_Power_Plant 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plan... 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_... 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_offshore_wind_farms_in_the_North_Sea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_offshore_wind_farms_in... 5: http://www.windpowermonthly.com/article/1320109/question-week-offshore-projects-built-last http://www.windpowermonthly.com/article/1320109/question-wee...
- epistasis 9y ago
  Thank you for injecting some great numbers! One minor quibble though, as offshore construction procedures improve, and get cheaper, it looks as though more sites are becoming "easy." And in the US, off-shore wind construction hasn't even really begun. Nuclear is also similarly "non-dispatchable" when compared to wind; nuclear has to be run at maximum capacity in order to get to those numbers, just as wind's energy has to be used to get to its numbers, and neither of these follows the demand. So both nuclear and wind require other dispatchable resources. Though it's gas plants at the moment, it seems very likely that battery storage will take over quite soon from gas plants. In many markets, peaker plants are already more expensive than battery storage. As batteries get cheaper, and more technologies (like flow batteries) mature, gas's days are numbered (except perhaps for combined-cycle gas turbines). I also can't share your optimism about nuclear construction costs going down. The numbers you are citing already are best-case scenarios, of well-managed projects without huge cost overruns like what happens in the US. The promise of the AP1000 reactors which were just abandoned in South Carolina was that it was a modular, consistent design, implemented around the world. The cost savings for that have not materialized. Meanwhile, the tech curves for wind, solar, and storage technologies have had more than a decade of proof of declining costs. Even in "modular and reusable" designs, every nuclear plant seems to be a one-off, due to the massive scale.

The "cheap to operate" myth has long been debunked by all of the 100% depreciated nuclear plants closing, because, they are not cheap to operate.

by marze 9y ago

The "cheap to operate" myth has long been debunked by all of the 100% depreciated nuclear plants closing, because, they are not cheap to operate.

bluedino 9y ago

Although at the current time, low natural gas prices make natural gas plants very attractive, most nuclear plants are closed because of public outcry. A lot of these plants are nearing 50 years old as well.

beat 9y ago
Per the article, old nuclear plants are being closed because they are not cost-competitive with natural gas. If you're saying they're actually being closed due to public opposition, you should cite a source. Preferably one as non-partisan as the NYT.
- epistasis 9y ago
  You are correct, they are being closed due to financial reasons, not due to public outcry. However, there is an argument that they should get the economic benefit of being carbon free, something that is granted to solar and wind. Right now we subsidize two technologies, rather than taxing the externality. It would be far more economically rational to tax carbon emissions, and for coal to also tax the other costs it imposes in non-carbon emissions. There's currently a legal battle going on to allow nuclear plants to have Zero Emmisions Credits (ZEC) in several states where nuclear plants can no longer compete in the marketplace: http://www.utilitydive.com/news/zecs-appeal-illinois-new-york-nuclear-cases-could-shape-power-market-juri/448096/ http://www.utilitydive.com/news/zecs-appeal-illinois-new-yor...
  - freeflight 9y ago
    > However, there is an argument that they should get the economic benefit of being carbon free, something that is granted to solar and wind. They already have the benefit of not having to pay for their long term waste disposal and being bailed out in the event of a critical failure, which is arguably among the biggest long-term costs for nuclear. Not too long ago German energy companies paid a flat fee of 24 billion Euros to absolve them from any future responsibility to pay for end storage. The US nuclear industry does pay a tax for disposal but that doesn't cover anywhere near the actual costs of storage. We are talking about materials that need to be stored thousands of years here, a couple of dozens billion Euros (or Dollars) are peanuts in that regard. The timescales are just insane with this stuff and make it very likely that we still gonna have to pay for keeping disposal intact many thousand years after we phased out of nuclear into something we can't even fathom right now. Isn't that a nice vision of the future? We might manage to get our cheap, clean and renewable energy, but we will still be stuck taking care of very dangerous and expensive waste for thousands of years.
    - opo 9y ago
      >...We are talking about materials that need to be stored thousands of years here, a couple of dozens billion Euros (or Dollars) are peanuts in that regard. The timescales are just insane with this stuff and make it very likely that we still gonna have to pay for keeping disposal intact many thousand years after we phased out of nuclear into something we can't even fathom right now. Right now nuclear waste can and should be recycled which would reduce the amount of waste: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste Soon it will be possible to use most of the waste as fuel: "...Fast reactors can "burn" long lasting nuclear transuranic waste (TRU) waste components (actinides: reactor-grade plutonium and minor actinides), turning liabilities into assets. Another major waste component, fission products (FP), would stabilize at a lower level of radioactivity than the original natural uranium ore it was attained from in two to four centuries, rather than tens of thousands of years" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_fast_reactor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_fast_reactor The worry people have about nuclear waste is greatly overblown to say the least. The amounts generated are manageable and in a relatively short amount of time we can use most of this "waste" to generate electricity. To put it into perspective, no one of the general public has ever been hurt by nuclear waste and you definitely can't say that about coal waste.
gozur88 9y ago
Changes in technology have made natural gas cheap. But I think that's temporary - twenty years from now we're probably going to regret shuttering our nuclear plants and will be stuck with coal for at least a decade.

pm90 9y ago

Coal plants would not be cheap to operate either if they had to pay for all the environmental damage they actually cause. Natural gas plants... they seem to be a good compromise for now, but we just cannot depend on fossil fuel to meet the electrical needs of future generations. It is my sincere hope that we continue having a nuclear power industry to maintain the know-how learned over several generations. This would be useful not just for domestic power generations, but e.g. generating power for space stations, lunar/martian bases etc.

maxerickson 9y ago
There is always the Navy. Or at least, I would expect them to continue operating nuclear vessels for quite some time.
- pc86 9y ago
  Part of the appeal of nuclear operations for the Navy (aside from the prestige) is the lucrative private sector opportunity. You'll see fewer folks going into that field if those private sector jobs dry up.

mseebach 9y ago

Has it, though? Keep in mind the difference between "expensive" and "a lot of money". Nuclear costs a ton to build and a ton to decommission, but in between is a very long period of nearly constant very high power production. New-built nuclear costs around €5.3b (Finland[1] and France[2]) to €9.3b (UK[3]) per installed GW, and France, Germany and UK estimates €300m, €1.4b and €2.7b (respectively) pr GW installed to decommission. That's €6-€13b/GW total + operating costs -- and those costs will come down as (if) we start ramping up construction and learn to avoid the cost overruns and get experience decommissioning plants. New-built offshore wind costs €3-4.7b/GW[4] -- and these prices are set to go up, as the easy sites for installation are running out. Capacity factors are only around 50%, so already there offshore wind is roughly on par with fully loaded nuclear (which has capacity factors of 90+%), and that's without counting decommissioning, extremely high operating expenses and the extra infrastructure and pollution required to deal with the unreliability of wind (typically, gas plants), and, most severely, the expected lifetime of ~25 years[5] compared to 60+ years for nuclear. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olkiluoto_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olkiluoto_Nuclear_Power_Plant 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plan... 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_... 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_offshore_wind_farms_in_the_North_Sea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_offshore_wind_farms_in... 5: http://www.windpowermonthly.com/article/1320109/question-week-offshore-projects-built-last http://www.windpowermonthly.com/article/1320109/question-wee...

epistasis 9y ago
Thank you for injecting some great numbers! One minor quibble though, as offshore construction procedures improve, and get cheaper, it looks as though more sites are becoming "easy." And in the US, off-shore wind construction hasn't even really begun. Nuclear is also similarly "non-dispatchable" when compared to wind; nuclear has to be run at maximum capacity in order to get to those numbers, just as wind's energy has to be used to get to its numbers, and neither of these follows the demand. So both nuclear and wind require other dispatchable resources. Though it's gas plants at the moment, it seems very likely that battery storage will take over quite soon from gas plants. In many markets, peaker plants are already more expensive than battery storage. As batteries get cheaper, and more technologies (like flow batteries) mature, gas's days are numbered (except perhaps for combined-cycle gas turbines). I also can't share your optimism about nuclear construction costs going down. The numbers you are citing already are best-case scenarios, of well-managed projects without huge cost overruns like what happens in the US. The promise of the AP1000 reactors which were just abandoned in South Carolina was that it was a modular, consistent design, implemented around the world. The cost savings for that have not materialized. Meanwhile, the tech curves for wind, solar, and storage technologies have had more than a decade of proof of declining costs. Even in "modular and reusable" designs, every nuclear plant seems to be a one-off, due to the massive scale.