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Nuclear Power Won’t Survive Without A Government Handout

22 points by onychomys 8y ago

ourmandave 8y ago
Some are shutting down. New ones aren’t being built. And the ones still operational can’t compete with other sources of power on price. Capitalism at work then?
- hsljekskfh 8y ago
  boy, i wonder if this has anything to do with fossil fuel subsidies and a total lack of accountability for environmental effects.
- Analemma_ 8y ago
  Not quite: the main thing hurting nuclear isn't wind/solar, it's natural gas. Which is unfairly cheap (and thus effectively subsidized) because the externality costs of CO2 aren't being priced in. If we had a carbon tax and thus a level playing field, nuclear could beat natural gas.
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    I disagree with this thesis. Renewables are killing nuclear because renewables have no marginal fuel cost. Natural gas can always spin down dictated by grid demand, nuclear must always maintain a certain level of output; If its generation is crowded out by renewables, it must sell electricity at a loss. Nuclear could survive even without a carbon tax on natural gas if you could find large power consumers who would sign direct PPA agreements with commercial nuclear generators (as power consumers have done with wind and solar plants), perhaps utility scale battery operators.
- chalkandpaste 8y ago
  Not really. One of the things prohibiting the market is the Price-Anderson Act, which stipulates, irrespective of the sort of reactor (and since there have been newer and cheaper reactor designs) a level of insurrance that nuclear plants need. Effectively, this has made it impossible to enter the market with reactor designs that are smaller and safer and do not require the insurance proscribed by the act. I don’t personally know operational costs for these other sorts of reactors, but suffice it to say there are artificial limitations in place that skew this market.
  - legulere 8y ago
    It doesn't skew the market, it just prevents externalizing of costs.
    - chalkandpaste 8y ago
      How does it not (potentially) skew the market? If one such alternative plant had a higher operating efficiency and therefore lower cost, wouldn't the fact that there is a law preventing the lower cost from being reached skew the market? Am I missing something?
Analemma_ 8y ago
Since competition from natural gas seems like the main hindrance toward big capital investments in nuclear, nuclear could probably survive without handouts if we had a proper carbon tax. Which we should: natural gas might be better than coal, but it's still a CO2-generating energy source and should have its externalities priced in accordingly.
- clairity 8y ago
  yes, capitalism can't work properly if incentives are distorted. nuclear lumbers under a strict regulatory environment while fossil fuels enjoy a lax one, at the cost of shortened human lives. let's focus on fairness in the market as opposed to the partisan bickering over whether the rules are too tight or lax (à la the goldilocks principle).
- mlazos 8y ago
  yeah it’s unfortunate that the “price of gas” is so often referred to as a proxy of how good the economy is for the average person. If that weren’t so it would be more politically feasible to have a higher carbon tax.
- vondur 8y ago
  A carbon tax would hit the poorest the hardest. I’d rather spend money on making more nuclear power plants and shutting down existing coal plants.
  - Latteland 8y ago
    The carbon tax (that didn't pass) in washington state had a system to rebate costs for poor people, ie giving them money. it's a hard problem, figuring out how to incentivize safer environmental behavior.
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  Not really certain of the top line numbers here but you have to consider the fact that a nuclear plant always has to run at a certain baseload even when the utilities purchasing power from it are somewhere else in their dispatch stacks. I'm a technical guy, and not a cost accountant, but even I realize that SOMEONE has to pay for that. And it would probably end up being those utilities. Which MIGHT impact the position of that nuclear resource in the dispatch stacks of those utilities? (I'm not sure how close all of these sources would be to one another in terms of price when operational costs like that are factored in.) In any case, nuclear would still only make sense in certain places. For instance, if there is a giant hydroelectric resource nearby, you probably don't want to invest in a long term nuclear resource in that area. So the number of places that could potentially take advantage of nuclear is going down too.

22 points by onychomys 8y ago

Some are shutting down. New ones aren’t being built. And the ones still operational can’t compete with other sources of power on price. Capitalism at work then?

hsljekskfh 8y ago
boy, i wonder if this has anything to do with fossil fuel subsidies and a total lack of accountability for environmental effects.
Analemma_ 8y ago
Not quite: the main thing hurting nuclear isn't wind/solar, it's natural gas. Which is unfairly cheap (and thus effectively subsidized) because the externality costs of CO2 aren't being priced in. If we had a carbon tax and thus a level playing field, nuclear could beat natural gas.
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  I disagree with this thesis. Renewables are killing nuclear because renewables have no marginal fuel cost. Natural gas can always spin down dictated by grid demand, nuclear must always maintain a certain level of output; If its generation is crowded out by renewables, it must sell electricity at a loss. Nuclear could survive even without a carbon tax on natural gas if you could find large power consumers who would sign direct PPA agreements with commercial nuclear generators (as power consumers have done with wind and solar plants), perhaps utility scale battery operators.
chalkandpaste 8y ago
Not really. One of the things prohibiting the market is the Price-Anderson Act, which stipulates, irrespective of the sort of reactor (and since there have been newer and cheaper reactor designs) a level of insurrance that nuclear plants need. Effectively, this has made it impossible to enter the market with reactor designs that are smaller and safer and do not require the insurance proscribed by the act. I don’t personally know operational costs for these other sorts of reactors, but suffice it to say there are artificial limitations in place that skew this market.
- legulere 8y ago
  It doesn't skew the market, it just prevents externalizing of costs.
  - chalkandpaste 8y ago
    How does it not (potentially) skew the market? If one such alternative plant had a higher operating efficiency and therefore lower cost, wouldn't the fact that there is a law preventing the lower cost from being reached skew the market? Am I missing something?

Analemma_ 8y ago

Since competition from natural gas seems like the main hindrance toward big capital investments in nuclear, nuclear could probably survive without handouts if we had a proper carbon tax. Which we should: natural gas might be better than coal, but it's still a CO2-generating energy source and should have its externalities priced in accordingly.

clairity 8y ago
yes, capitalism can't work properly if incentives are distorted. nuclear lumbers under a strict regulatory environment while fossil fuels enjoy a lax one, at the cost of shortened human lives. let's focus on fairness in the market as opposed to the partisan bickering over whether the rules are too tight or lax (à la the goldilocks principle).
mlazos 8y ago
yeah it’s unfortunate that the “price of gas” is so often referred to as a proxy of how good the economy is for the average person. If that weren’t so it would be more politically feasible to have a higher carbon tax.
vondur 8y ago
A carbon tax would hit the poorest the hardest. I’d rather spend money on making more nuclear power plants and shutting down existing coal plants.
- Latteland 8y ago
  The carbon tax (that didn't pass) in washington state had a system to rebate costs for poor people, ie giving them money. it's a hard problem, figuring out how to incentivize safer environmental behavior.
bilbo0s 8y ago
Not really certain of the top line numbers here but you have to consider the fact that a nuclear plant always has to run at a certain baseload even when the utilities purchasing power from it are somewhere else in their dispatch stacks. I'm a technical guy, and not a cost accountant, but even I realize that SOMEONE has to pay for that. And it would probably end up being those utilities. Which MIGHT impact the position of that nuclear resource in the dispatch stacks of those utilities? (I'm not sure how close all of these sources would be to one another in terms of price when operational costs like that are factored in.) In any case, nuclear would still only make sense in certain places. For instance, if there is a giant hydroelectric resource nearby, you probably don't want to invest in a long term nuclear resource in that area. So the number of places that could potentially take advantage of nuclear is going down too.