5 ms·

Problem is, there is no private sector money for that. You want that? You gotta figure out how to get government to pay for it. Investment in nuclear requires M

Problem is, there is no private sector money for that. You want that? You gotta figure out how to get government to pay for it. Investment in nuclear requires MUCH more captial than just throwing up some windmills somewhere. Even if you get rid of all regulation and taxes, it'd still be orders of magnitude more expensive. Private money would still rush into wind, solar, and storage.

kingnothing 8y ago
Vogtle, the only nuclear power plant currently under construction in the US, is privately funded. The only info I see about government involvement is the guarantee of about $8B of construction loans, with a total cost of around $25B paid for by a few regional power companies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogtle_Electric_Generating_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogtle_Electric_Generating_Pla...
- beat 8y ago
  If it was economically viable, it would be done. Forget the US and complaining about the darn treehuggers. Look at countries that don't particularly care about the environment. Russia gets about 20% of its power from nuclear, and is currently scaling back expansion plans due to cost. India gets only 3% from nuclear, and new development will get that to maybe 5%. China gets less than 4% of its power from nuclear, and is backing off from new construction plans as well. If nuclear were really cheap, and environmentalist resistance was really the problem, we'd see much more nuclear power in these countries, both existing and under construction.
  - lstodd 8y ago
    > Russia gets about 20% of its power from nuclear, and is currently scaling back expansion plans due to cost. Citation needed on scaling back. Any way you slice it, Russia can't rely on renewables, it's either fossil or nuclear since most of hydroelectric is already harnessed. Edit: I just had a cursory look of Moscow energy needs. It has about 12GWe installed capacity in city limits, all natural gas. Up to twice that is used in distict heating in winter. I did not dig up how much energy is imported, but given how many high-voltage transmission lines come in it can't be trivial. Replacing that with "renewables" is not possible.
    - beat 8y ago
      12Gw == 12,000Mw. Off a quick lookup, 2Mw of wind requires 1.5 acres of land. A little arithmetic, some rounding up, and we need, say, 10,000 acres of wind power, around 15 square miles. But you'll raise an objection, so double that. And then you'll raise another objection, so double it again, and sooner or later, we're up to 100 square miles of windmills. The city of Moscow alone is 970 square miles. For point of comparison, Minnesota produced 3500Mw of wind in 2016, from wind farms mostly in the southwest part of the state. There's lots and lots of land left for more wind farms.
      - jessaustin 8y ago
        If Russia has plenty of anything, it's land. USA is in a similar situation. If politics didn't intervene, they both would naturally use more wind power than more densely populated nations.
    - godelski 8y ago
      >> Russia gets about 20% of its power from nuclear, and is currently scaling back expansion plans due to cost. > Citation needed on scaling back. [0] says 11% btw [0] https://www.worlddata.info/europe/russia/energy- https://www.worlddata.info/europe/russia/energy-
    - int_19h 8y ago
      Don't forget that many power plants are thermal combined-heat-and-power that utilize waste heat from power generation. If you replace them all with renewables, you'd have to compensate for that heat output, not just electricity.
  - godelski 8y ago
    France is 50% nuclear. Sweeden is 22%. Both have two of the lowest carbon footprints in Europe. https://www.worlddata.info/europe/france/energy-consumption.php https://www.worlddata.info/europe/france/energy-consumption.... https://www.worlddata.info/europe/sweden/energy-consumption.php https://www.worlddata.info/europe/sweden/energy-consumption....
    - thatfrenchguy 8y ago
      France is more like 80% nuclear.
      - godelski 8y ago
        Good catch, I posted 2014 numbers. WNA says as of November 2018 that France uses 75%[0]. They note two important things though. 1) France is one of the largest net exporters of energy in the world (citing the low cost.) 2) That they will reduce nuclear output to 50% by 2035. Bonus 3) 17% of energy is purely from RECYCLED nuclear fuel. [0] https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/france.aspx https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-pr...
  - lixtra 8y ago
    > China gets less than 4% of its power from nuclear, and is backing off from new construction plans as well. Do you have a source for that? Wikipedia states that China plans to increase nuclear more than 30 times by end of the century [1]: As of March 2019, China has 46 nuclear reactors in operation with a capacity of 42.8 GW [...] By mid-century fast neutron reactors are seen as the main technology, with a planned 1400 GW capacity by 2100. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China
  - hairytrog 8y ago
    Fact 1: Physics says it should be cheaper, because of massive energy density, as you need less stuff, and so less human effort to juice the energy source. Event history: 1. lots of reactors in the 60s and 70s 2. reactors are water cooled and designed essentially like normal power reactors, meaning they are similar size and operate with little margin 3. accidents happen - accidents that were conceivable though beyond the design basis 4. environmental and mass resistance heats up in response to 3 - rightfully so 5. 3. also leads to pressure to make current reactors safer by adding safety systems 6. reactors turn into giant jumble of safety systems with massive man power and maintenance costs, costs that similar sized coal or natural gas do not have. The increase in safety systems enhances safety superficially, and costs increase until the plant is barely break even. The key is that the accidents created a new and higher demand for safety that could not be economically met by the previous designs. But those previous designs were in place and had to operate, so they back-engineered a bunch of crap to make them "safe" at huge cost - a cost that basically annihilates all of nuclear's energy density benefits. At the same time, resistance was too high to build new reactor design concepts that could match the new safety paradigm, and so gen IV was not achieved. What you say is true - "it is not economically viable." But you shouldn't bundle all of nuclear into that category. The crap from the past was not economically viable with safety standards we have today. What's coming is.
    - jessaustin 8y ago
      This all makes sense, but the public has been through this cycle with the nuclear power industry enough to be wary. "We'll get it right this time!" Maybe you would, but since we have options now, why would we take the risk?
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  Vogtie is the example that proves the rule. Originally, it was supposed to cost right around USD14 Billion. Cost overruns have pushed that, not to USD25 Billion, but USD28 Billion. (And the online date has been pushed back from this year, to 2022.) Keep in mind, the DoE was supposed to back USD8 Billion of the original USD14 Billion price tag. So needless to say, the financials have changed considerably. So much so that the consortium behind Vogtie nearly fell apart due to the latest cost overrun combined with the fact that they could not pass any more cost overruns on to their customers. (The customers under state law are not allowed to switch energy suppliers.) Vogtie is a slow motion train crash. When it comes online, the customers will be forced to pay more than wind power customers BECAUSE the government intervened and prohibited any customers from changing suppliers. And I suspect that's gonna go over about as well as a fart in church.
ThomPete 8y ago
But there isn't much private sector money in windmills either and solar isn't going to deliver enough energy. So that leaves us with oil and coal and wood. Whatever the third phase of clean energy will be it won't be disrupting anything fundamental, it can't and it isn't as clean as we like to believe.
credit_guy 8y ago
> Even if you get rid of all regulation and taxes, it'd still be orders of magnitude more expensive Are you sure about that? There is a company in upstate New York [1] that quietly builds about one nuclear reactor per year. You don't hear much about it because that reactor goes to power a submarine. The safety record of these reactors is unbelievable; after all some people spend weeks at a time within meters of them. Here's a quote from a US Navy spokesperson: "We have never had an accident or release of radioactivity which has had an adverse effect on human health or the environment" [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knolls_Atomic_Power_Laboratory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knolls_Atomic_Power_Laboratory [2] https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2008/jun/09/john-mccain/navys-record-unblemished/ https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2008/jun...
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  Compare the cost of just one of those reactors... to the cost of a fully installed windmill in Iowa. Heck, go ahead and compare the cost of one of those reactors to a fully installed wind FARM in Iowa, or Wisconsin, or wherever. There's just no comparison. Some of these windfarms are producing at, what? $0.02 a kWh? Maybe $0.03? And that's before you even count subsidies or tax breaks. It's no wonder some go to $0.00 a kWh, and some even go negative. You sound like you know something about what it takes to build a reactor. So I'm assuming you understand the costs there. Which likely means that you think a windmill costs far more than a windmill actually costs. Nuclear is MUCH more expensive in terms of capital outlay, and it is prohibitively expensive in terms of operating costs when compared with wind or solar. The only reason the reactors we're discussing are being built is because the government is doing it. This is what would have to happen to make nuclear a reality in our future power mix. The government would have to pay for it. It's too expensive for anyone else to try without government assurances.
  - belorn 8y ago
    When people talk about cost of nuclear vs wind the issue is that you can not go to a wind farm and get a contract that give 24/7 energy at a set level for $0.02 kWh. What you get is a contract that give you $0.02 kWh when the wind farm is producing at peak capacity, and then you have to buy the somewhat more expensive coal and gas produced energy whenever the wind is not at peak capacity. It is like comparing the transportation cost of rail vs trucks. It is obvious that the price per km is cheaper for the rail. If what you want is to transport goods between two railway stations that has excess rail capacity it going to be extremely cheap compared to have a truck driver. $ per kWh is not relevant. $ per contracted supply of continuous power 24/7 is. The video even mention the wind + solar + battery, but is questionably if the average output of all three puts it better than nuclear. A benefit however over nuclear is that such constellation can be created independent of each other with shorter investment spans that nuclear.

kingnothing 8y ago

Vogtle, the only nuclear power plant currently under construction in the US, is privately funded. The only info I see about government involvement is the guarantee of about $8B of construction loans, with a total cost of around $25B paid for by a few regional power companies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogtle_Electric_Generating_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogtle_Electric_Generating_Pla...

beat 8y ago
If it was economically viable, it would be done. Forget the US and complaining about the darn treehuggers. Look at countries that don't particularly care about the environment. Russia gets about 20% of its power from nuclear, and is currently scaling back expansion plans due to cost. India gets only 3% from nuclear, and new development will get that to maybe 5%. China gets less than 4% of its power from nuclear, and is backing off from new construction plans as well. If nuclear were really cheap, and environmentalist resistance was really the problem, we'd see much more nuclear power in these countries, both existing and under construction.
- lstodd 8y ago
  > Russia gets about 20% of its power from nuclear, and is currently scaling back expansion plans due to cost. Citation needed on scaling back. Any way you slice it, Russia can't rely on renewables, it's either fossil or nuclear since most of hydroelectric is already harnessed. Edit: I just had a cursory look of Moscow energy needs. It has about 12GWe installed capacity in city limits, all natural gas. Up to twice that is used in distict heating in winter. I did not dig up how much energy is imported, but given how many high-voltage transmission lines come in it can't be trivial. Replacing that with "renewables" is not possible.
  - beat 8y ago
    12Gw == 12,000Mw. Off a quick lookup, 2Mw of wind requires 1.5 acres of land. A little arithmetic, some rounding up, and we need, say, 10,000 acres of wind power, around 15 square miles. But you'll raise an objection, so double that. And then you'll raise another objection, so double it again, and sooner or later, we're up to 100 square miles of windmills. The city of Moscow alone is 970 square miles. For point of comparison, Minnesota produced 3500Mw of wind in 2016, from wind farms mostly in the southwest part of the state. There's lots and lots of land left for more wind farms.
    - jessaustin 8y ago
      If Russia has plenty of anything, it's land. USA is in a similar situation. If politics didn't intervene, they both would naturally use more wind power than more densely populated nations.
  - godelski 8y ago
    >> Russia gets about 20% of its power from nuclear, and is currently scaling back expansion plans due to cost. > Citation needed on scaling back. [0] says 11% btw [0] https://www.worlddata.info/europe/russia/energy- https://www.worlddata.info/europe/russia/energy-
  - int_19h 8y ago
    Don't forget that many power plants are thermal combined-heat-and-power that utilize waste heat from power generation. If you replace them all with renewables, you'd have to compensate for that heat output, not just electricity.
- godelski 8y ago
  France is 50% nuclear. Sweeden is 22%. Both have two of the lowest carbon footprints in Europe. https://www.worlddata.info/europe/france/energy-consumption.php https://www.worlddata.info/europe/france/energy-consumption.... https://www.worlddata.info/europe/sweden/energy-consumption.php https://www.worlddata.info/europe/sweden/energy-consumption....
  - thatfrenchguy 8y ago
    France is more like 80% nuclear.
    - godelski 8y ago
      Good catch, I posted 2014 numbers. WNA says as of November 2018 that France uses 75%[0]. They note two important things though. 1) France is one of the largest net exporters of energy in the world (citing the low cost.) 2) That they will reduce nuclear output to 50% by 2035. Bonus 3) 17% of energy is purely from RECYCLED nuclear fuel. [0] https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/france.aspx https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-pr...
- lixtra 8y ago
  > China gets less than 4% of its power from nuclear, and is backing off from new construction plans as well. Do you have a source for that? Wikipedia states that China plans to increase nuclear more than 30 times by end of the century [1]: As of March 2019, China has 46 nuclear reactors in operation with a capacity of 42.8 GW [...] By mid-century fast neutron reactors are seen as the main technology, with a planned 1400 GW capacity by 2100. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China
- hairytrog 8y ago
  Fact 1: Physics says it should be cheaper, because of massive energy density, as you need less stuff, and so less human effort to juice the energy source. Event history: 1. lots of reactors in the 60s and 70s 2. reactors are water cooled and designed essentially like normal power reactors, meaning they are similar size and operate with little margin 3. accidents happen - accidents that were conceivable though beyond the design basis 4. environmental and mass resistance heats up in response to 3 - rightfully so 5. 3. also leads to pressure to make current reactors safer by adding safety systems 6. reactors turn into giant jumble of safety systems with massive man power and maintenance costs, costs that similar sized coal or natural gas do not have. The increase in safety systems enhances safety superficially, and costs increase until the plant is barely break even. The key is that the accidents created a new and higher demand for safety that could not be economically met by the previous designs. But those previous designs were in place and had to operate, so they back-engineered a bunch of crap to make them "safe" at huge cost - a cost that basically annihilates all of nuclear's energy density benefits. At the same time, resistance was too high to build new reactor design concepts that could match the new safety paradigm, and so gen IV was not achieved. What you say is true - "it is not economically viable." But you shouldn't bundle all of nuclear into that category. The crap from the past was not economically viable with safety standards we have today. What's coming is.
  - jessaustin 8y ago
    This all makes sense, but the public has been through this cycle with the nuclear power industry enough to be wary. "We'll get it right this time!" Maybe you would, but since we have options now, why would we take the risk?
bilbo0s 8y ago
Vogtie is the example that proves the rule. Originally, it was supposed to cost right around USD14 Billion. Cost overruns have pushed that, not to USD25 Billion, but USD28 Billion. (And the online date has been pushed back from this year, to 2022.) Keep in mind, the DoE was supposed to back USD8 Billion of the original USD14 Billion price tag. So needless to say, the financials have changed considerably. So much so that the consortium behind Vogtie nearly fell apart due to the latest cost overrun combined with the fact that they could not pass any more cost overruns on to their customers. (The customers under state law are not allowed to switch energy suppliers.) Vogtie is a slow motion train crash. When it comes online, the customers will be forced to pay more than wind power customers BECAUSE the government intervened and prohibited any customers from changing suppliers. And I suspect that's gonna go over about as well as a fart in church.

ThomPete 8y ago

But there isn't much private sector money in windmills either and solar isn't going to deliver enough energy. So that leaves us with oil and coal and wood. Whatever the third phase of clean energy will be it won't be disrupting anything fundamental, it can't and it isn't as clean as we like to believe.

credit_guy 8y ago

> Even if you get rid of all regulation and taxes, it'd still be orders of magnitude more expensive Are you sure about that? There is a company in upstate New York [1] that quietly builds about one nuclear reactor per year. You don't hear much about it because that reactor goes to power a submarine. The safety record of these reactors is unbelievable; after all some people spend weeks at a time within meters of them. Here's a quote from a US Navy spokesperson: "We have never had an accident or release of radioactivity which has had an adverse effect on human health or the environment" [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knolls_Atomic_Power_Laboratory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knolls_Atomic_Power_Laboratory [2] https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2008/jun/09/john-mccain/navys-record-unblemished/ https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2008/jun...

bilbo0s 8y ago
Compare the cost of just one of those reactors... to the cost of a fully installed windmill in Iowa. Heck, go ahead and compare the cost of one of those reactors to a fully installed wind FARM in Iowa, or Wisconsin, or wherever. There's just no comparison. Some of these windfarms are producing at, what? $0.02 a kWh? Maybe $0.03? And that's before you even count subsidies or tax breaks. It's no wonder some go to $0.00 a kWh, and some even go negative. You sound like you know something about what it takes to build a reactor. So I'm assuming you understand the costs there. Which likely means that you think a windmill costs far more than a windmill actually costs. Nuclear is MUCH more expensive in terms of capital outlay, and it is prohibitively expensive in terms of operating costs when compared with wind or solar. The only reason the reactors we're discussing are being built is because the government is doing it. This is what would have to happen to make nuclear a reality in our future power mix. The government would have to pay for it. It's too expensive for anyone else to try without government assurances.
- belorn 8y ago
  When people talk about cost of nuclear vs wind the issue is that you can not go to a wind farm and get a contract that give 24/7 energy at a set level for $0.02 kWh. What you get is a contract that give you $0.02 kWh when the wind farm is producing at peak capacity, and then you have to buy the somewhat more expensive coal and gas produced energy whenever the wind is not at peak capacity. It is like comparing the transportation cost of rail vs trucks. It is obvious that the price per km is cheaper for the rail. If what you want is to transport goods between two railway stations that has excess rail capacity it going to be extremely cheap compared to have a truck driver. $ per kWh is not relevant. $ per contracted supply of continuous power 24/7 is. The video even mention the wind + solar + battery, but is questionably if the average output of all three puts it better than nuclear. A benefit however over nuclear is that such constellation can be created independent of each other with shorter investment spans that nuclear.