8 ms·

I'm pro nuclear if costs are not externalized (insurance, EOL tear down, waste management) but priced in.

logifail 8y ago
Is there anywhere where new nuclear plants are being constructed or even planned under such constraints? We should also note that signing long-term contracts and guaranteeing minimum prices are other ways to subsidise nuclear power[1] [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-13413684 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-13413684
dmm 8y ago
In principle I agree with you that in general we should attempt to internalize externalities whenever possible. But, for example, burning coal kills thousands of Americans every year from fine particle pollution. Why not internalize coal costs right now? Shouldn't that be the priority?
- Kalium 8y ago
  You're completely correct! In terms of impact, that should absolutely be the priority. Some people prefer to incorporate difficulty, time costs, and resources required into their prioritization process rather than being purely impact-based. This may lead some of them to a different set of results.
- montenegrohugo 8y ago
  Definitely, and that has been proposed tons of times in the form of a carbon tax. Whether it will some day implemented or not depends on the voters.
  - brockers 8y ago
    Fine particle pollution is entirely different from CO2 emission and would not be included as part of any carbon tax I've seen.
    - telchar 8y ago
      But it would be incidentally reduced by a carbon tax since that would cause some coal plants to be shut down.
NeedMoreTea 8y ago
Can we have costs for all forms of power priced in then? Let them all include EOL costs, pollution and everything else so we can compare like with like.
- FrojoS 8y ago
  Right. This would then also include the damage caused by global warming (CO2). Anyone offering insurance against Earth turning into Mars? How high are the premiums?
  - philwelch 8y ago
    That’s a bit of a sloppy metaphor, since if anything Mars has the opposite problem. In fact, heightened carbon emissions would be a good first step in terraforming Mars.
  - NeedMoreTea 8y ago
    Yes it would. That's rather the point. Pretending pollution and CO2 are externalities is how we got to where we are. I think we're heading in the direction of Venus not Mars though. :)
  - rbanffy 8y ago
    It's more likely to turn into a Venus. And it'd make nuclear power virtually free compared to fossil fuels.
    - thaumasiotes 8y ago
      > It's more likely to turn into a Venus. I've always had the feeling that there are people out there worrying about this, but you're the first one I've seen actually admit to it. The idea is much too ridiculous to even mention. The atmosphere of Venus contains roughly four times the amount of nitrogen as the atmosphere of Earth. You may recall that the atmosphere of Earth is ~80% nitrogen. The atmosphere of Venus is under 4% nitrogen and over 96% carbon dioxide. The total mass of Venus' atmosphere is about 100 times that of Earth's. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Venus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Venus ) No, the Earth cannot turn into a Venus.
rayiner 8y ago
Why? We subsidize solar and wind because we realize it'd be politically impossible to force internalization of the costs of goal and gas. Why put nuclear at an artificial disadvantage?
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  Because nuclear waste is an unsolved problem, while cheap renewables promotes decentralized energy production using inputs that’s can’t be controlled. Solar panels and wind turbines can also be recycled. They require no expensive trust funds to decommission at end of life, and hazard to life to cut up radioactive components and bury them safely away from life. If we’re going to subsidize anything, it might as well be solar and wind. It’s fusion energy at a distance.
  - realusername 8y ago
    Why would you decentralize energy production? Centralization brings down the cost by the power of scale, it worked for every industry, I don't see why energy would be any different. And even with renewables, it's far cheaper to make a renewable energy farm than spreading it randomly with massive subsidies.
    - toomuchtodo 8y ago
      Centralization creates transmission losses and enables control over the resource by an entity you might not have input into. My utility can’t do anything about the power I generate with the solar on my roof. Your local community has very little input over for profit generators (versus shareholders).
      - realusername 8y ago
        > My utility can’t do anything about the power I generate with the solar on my roof. Your local community has very little input over for profit generators (versus shareholders). That's looks more like a problem than anything positive, electricity grid planning is at a country level, not a local one. And personally I don't believe on private electricity generation, it should be public without shareholders for that reason. > Centralization creates transmission losses and enables control over the resource by an entity you might not have input into. How exactly? Every industry is like this. Factories came bigger and bigger, farms got bigger, trucks got bigger, cities became more dense, that's just economy of scale. Renewables are not immune to that, it's far cheaper to create a solar grid than spreading them randomly.
DennisP 8y ago
Nuclear plants over their lifetimes pay into trust funds (from their own revenue) to pay for their decommissioning: https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/environment/2017/07/14/when-nuclear-plant-shuts-down-who-pays/479392001/ https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/environment/2017/07/14/... Until 2013 they also paid into the Nuclear Waste Fund, which currently has $46 billion. Since politicians killed Yucca Mountain and didn't come up with an alternative, a federal court in 2013 said they have to stop collecting fees until they come up with a use for them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Waste_Policy_Act#Nuclear_Waste_Fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Waste_Policy_Act#Nucle... Regarding insurance, I'm in favor of internalizing costs if we take a rational approach to actual damage. Specifically, if something happens and causes radiation levels that occur naturally in cities with normal cancer rates, then don't evacuate the city. If cancer rates are unchanged after an accident, throw out claims that particular cancers were caused by the accident. In general, reexamine the linear no-threshold hypothesis, which is looking increasingly shaky. (However, some GenIV plants look so inherently safe that this might not be worth fighting about.)
- roenxi 8y ago
  > In general, reexamine the linear no-threshold hypothesis, which is looking increasingly shaky. I reckon we'd all be surprised by how many people are killed by a lifetime of shaking hands under a linear no-threshold hypothesis applied to Newtonian force. I really don't understand how anyone can bring that model up seriously without adding in "and this highly unusual choice of model is justified by ...". It is an extraordinary claim in my book.
  - acidburnNSA 8y ago
    Hahaha, amazing. I'm adding this to my repertoire. I just started using the aspirin analogy. If you take 100 aspirins at once you'll die so what are the odds that you'll die if you take 1? Is it 1/100? Or is it 0?
    - jessriedel 8y ago
      There are reasons to dispute the linear no-threshold model, but there are specific justifications involving ideas about cancer risk that are much more reasonable than your aspirin example.
realusername 8y ago
No technology have everything priced it, just ask yourself what is going to happen when China (which has a near-monopoly on solar panels) stops to artificially subsidize them by their state to destroy the competition.
- dd36 8y ago
  It should be subsidized until we have a carbon tax.
  - realusername 8y ago
    What I meant is that it's currently subsidized both by the Chinese government and then by the EU country or US after for the installation.
- ajross 8y ago
  Uh... prices will rise instantaneously by the amount of the subsidy, then gradually drop as competition is restored? You seem to be positing a Giant Solar Crash or something, and that doesn't seem likely. Chinese panels are maybe a bit under cost now, but these are just not expensive devices.
AnthonyMouse 8y ago
> I'm pro nuclear if costs are not externalized (insurance, EOL tear down, waste management) but priced in. Then fossil fuels would have to pay a carbon tax, natural gas would have to pay for every ounce of methane they leak into the atmosphere, other plants would also have to factor in decommissioning (a 10GW reactor is equivalent to more than fifty million solar panels, how much does that cost to recycle?), hydro dams, coal mines and oil platforms would have to carry catastrophe insurance, etc. Pricing in every cost for nuclear but not for anything else is not a level playing field. Come to nuclear after you've actually priced in the costs for fossil fuels.
travisoneill1 8y ago
Would not be competitive with carbon since it currently benefits from this. Yes, that should be changed, but if externalized costs is the price to pay to make nuclear competitive then I would be in favor of paying that price. CO2 has much higher tail risk than nuclear so willing to let the nuclear industry screw us taxpayers a bit if that's what it takes.

Is there anywhere where new nuclear plants are being constructed or even planned under such constraints? We should also note that signing long-term contracts and guaranteeing minimum prices are other ways to subsidise nuclear power[1] [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-13413684 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-13413684

dmm 8y ago

In principle I agree with you that in general we should attempt to internalize externalities whenever possible. But, for example, burning coal kills thousands of Americans every year from fine particle pollution. Why not internalize coal costs right now? Shouldn't that be the priority?

Kalium 8y ago
You're completely correct! In terms of impact, that should absolutely be the priority. Some people prefer to incorporate difficulty, time costs, and resources required into their prioritization process rather than being purely impact-based. This may lead some of them to a different set of results.
montenegrohugo 8y ago
Definitely, and that has been proposed tons of times in the form of a carbon tax. Whether it will some day implemented or not depends on the voters.
- brockers 8y ago
  Fine particle pollution is entirely different from CO2 emission and would not be included as part of any carbon tax I've seen.
  - telchar 8y ago
    But it would be incidentally reduced by a carbon tax since that would cause some coal plants to be shut down.

NeedMoreTea 8y ago

Can we have costs for all forms of power priced in then? Let them all include EOL costs, pollution and everything else so we can compare like with like.

FrojoS 8y ago
Right. This would then also include the damage caused by global warming (CO2). Anyone offering insurance against Earth turning into Mars? How high are the premiums?
- philwelch 8y ago
  That’s a bit of a sloppy metaphor, since if anything Mars has the opposite problem. In fact, heightened carbon emissions would be a good first step in terraforming Mars.
- NeedMoreTea 8y ago
  Yes it would. That's rather the point. Pretending pollution and CO2 are externalities is how we got to where we are. I think we're heading in the direction of Venus not Mars though. :)
- rbanffy 8y ago
  It's more likely to turn into a Venus. And it'd make nuclear power virtually free compared to fossil fuels.
  - thaumasiotes 8y ago
    > It's more likely to turn into a Venus. I've always had the feeling that there are people out there worrying about this, but you're the first one I've seen actually admit to it. The idea is much too ridiculous to even mention. The atmosphere of Venus contains roughly four times the amount of nitrogen as the atmosphere of Earth. You may recall that the atmosphere of Earth is ~80% nitrogen. The atmosphere of Venus is under 4% nitrogen and over 96% carbon dioxide. The total mass of Venus' atmosphere is about 100 times that of Earth's. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Venus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Venus ) No, the Earth cannot turn into a Venus.

rayiner 8y ago

Why? We subsidize solar and wind because we realize it'd be politically impossible to force internalization of the costs of goal and gas. Why put nuclear at an artificial disadvantage?

toomuchtodo 8y ago
Because nuclear waste is an unsolved problem, while cheap renewables promotes decentralized energy production using inputs that’s can’t be controlled. Solar panels and wind turbines can also be recycled. They require no expensive trust funds to decommission at end of life, and hazard to life to cut up radioactive components and bury them safely away from life. If we’re going to subsidize anything, it might as well be solar and wind. It’s fusion energy at a distance.
- realusername 8y ago
  Why would you decentralize energy production? Centralization brings down the cost by the power of scale, it worked for every industry, I don't see why energy would be any different. And even with renewables, it's far cheaper to make a renewable energy farm than spreading it randomly with massive subsidies.
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    Centralization creates transmission losses and enables control over the resource by an entity you might not have input into. My utility can’t do anything about the power I generate with the solar on my roof. Your local community has very little input over for profit generators (versus shareholders).
    - realusername 8y ago
      > My utility can’t do anything about the power I generate with the solar on my roof. Your local community has very little input over for profit generators (versus shareholders). That's looks more like a problem than anything positive, electricity grid planning is at a country level, not a local one. And personally I don't believe on private electricity generation, it should be public without shareholders for that reason. > Centralization creates transmission losses and enables control over the resource by an entity you might not have input into. How exactly? Every industry is like this. Factories came bigger and bigger, farms got bigger, trucks got bigger, cities became more dense, that's just economy of scale. Renewables are not immune to that, it's far cheaper to create a solar grid than spreading them randomly.

DennisP 8y ago

Nuclear plants over their lifetimes pay into trust funds (from their own revenue) to pay for their decommissioning: https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/environment/2017/07/14/when-nuclear-plant-shuts-down-who-pays/479392001/ https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/environment/2017/07/14/... Until 2013 they also paid into the Nuclear Waste Fund, which currently has $46 billion. Since politicians killed Yucca Mountain and didn't come up with an alternative, a federal court in 2013 said they have to stop collecting fees until they come up with a use for them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Waste_Policy_Act#Nuclear_Waste_Fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Waste_Policy_Act#Nucle... Regarding insurance, I'm in favor of internalizing costs if we take a rational approach to actual damage. Specifically, if something happens and causes radiation levels that occur naturally in cities with normal cancer rates, then don't evacuate the city. If cancer rates are unchanged after an accident, throw out claims that particular cancers were caused by the accident. In general, reexamine the linear no-threshold hypothesis, which is looking increasingly shaky. (However, some GenIV plants look so inherently safe that this might not be worth fighting about.)

roenxi 8y ago
> In general, reexamine the linear no-threshold hypothesis, which is looking increasingly shaky. I reckon we'd all be surprised by how many people are killed by a lifetime of shaking hands under a linear no-threshold hypothesis applied to Newtonian force. I really don't understand how anyone can bring that model up seriously without adding in "and this highly unusual choice of model is justified by ...". It is an extraordinary claim in my book.
- acidburnNSA 8y ago
  Hahaha, amazing. I'm adding this to my repertoire. I just started using the aspirin analogy. If you take 100 aspirins at once you'll die so what are the odds that you'll die if you take 1? Is it 1/100? Or is it 0?
  - jessriedel 8y ago
    There are reasons to dispute the linear no-threshold model, but there are specific justifications involving ideas about cancer risk that are much more reasonable than your aspirin example.

realusername 8y ago

No technology have everything priced it, just ask yourself what is going to happen when China (which has a near-monopoly on solar panels) stops to artificially subsidize them by their state to destroy the competition.

dd36 8y ago
It should be subsidized until we have a carbon tax.
- realusername 8y ago
  What I meant is that it's currently subsidized both by the Chinese government and then by the EU country or US after for the installation.
ajross 8y ago
Uh... prices will rise instantaneously by the amount of the subsidy, then gradually drop as competition is restored? You seem to be positing a Giant Solar Crash or something, and that doesn't seem likely. Chinese panels are maybe a bit under cost now, but these are just not expensive devices.

AnthonyMouse 8y ago

> I'm pro nuclear if costs are not externalized (insurance, EOL tear down, waste management) but priced in. Then fossil fuels would have to pay a carbon tax, natural gas would have to pay for every ounce of methane they leak into the atmosphere, other plants would also have to factor in decommissioning (a 10GW reactor is equivalent to more than fifty million solar panels, how much does that cost to recycle?), hydro dams, coal mines and oil platforms would have to carry catastrophe insurance, etc. Pricing in every cost for nuclear but not for anything else is not a level playing field. Come to nuclear after you've actually priced in the costs for fossil fuels.

travisoneill1 8y ago

Would not be competitive with carbon since it currently benefits from this. Yes, that should be changed, but if externalized costs is the price to pay to make nuclear competitive then I would be in favor of paying that price. CO2 has much higher tail risk than nuclear so willing to let the nuclear industry screw us taxpayers a bit if that's what it takes.