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Privately owned nuclear power is borderline insanity to me. What if it is not profitable any more? Who would deal with the mess? Of course, public! Bit if it p

Privately owned nuclear power is borderline insanity to me. What if it is not profitable any more? Who would deal with the mess? Of course, public! Bit if it public who owns the risk, why is the "good part" owned by some private interest?

AnthonyMouse 8y ago
> What if it is not profitable any more? The main cost of a nuclear plant is the initial construction. Once you've paid that as a sunk cost, the cost of continued operation is tough to beat. There is a reason the older reactors operate for so long and it's not because continuing to operate them isn't cost competitive. > Who would deal with the mess? Nuclear plants are required to put money into a decommissioning fund for this. (Notably nothing else requires this. Who pays to deal with recycling old solar panels? Coal mines? Hydro dams?) > Bit if it public who owns the risk, why is the "good part" owned by some private interest? Because they supplied the money to build the plant.
- tmh79 8y ago
  > The main cost of a nuclear plant is the initial construction the main cost is storing the waste for 10k+ years with zero defect rate
  - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
    Newer reactors don't produce long-lived waste, and for that matter can use the waste from existing reactors as fuel. So if you don't like the nuclear waste we already have, build newer reactors to get rid of it.
    - carlisle_ 8y ago
      That's pretty neat, what makes the newer reactors able to use old waste as fuel?
      - adrianN 8y ago
        A large part of the "waste" gets turned into fuel through breeding. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor
      - TomMarius 8y ago
        I can't answer you but this concept is part of 4th generation reactor design. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor
      - fulafel 8y ago
        They don't - unless we talk about prospective future designs or small research reactors. There are big downsides to these designs, which is why their development stalled in the 70s and have been on life support since. (Technically an exception is the bn-800 but it was modified rebuild from an 80s aborted reactor construction project, to get rid of weapons grade plutonium, before the the us/russia treaty fell apart... Good story at http://euanmearns.com/the-bn-800-fast-reactor-a-milestone-on-a-long-road/ http://euanmearns.com/the-bn-800-fast-reactor-a-milestone-on... )
        Recurecur 8y ago
        "There are big downsides to these designs, which is why their development stalled in the 70s and have been on life support since." Not really, what happened is there were "good enough" designs, there was a China Syndrome inspired move away from nuclear, and the government had little to no interest in reactor designs that made it hard to recover weapon materials. Bill Gates is championing both molten salt and traveling wave reactors that "burn" nuclear waste. There are other very interesting designs, including the Xscale helium-cooled pebble bed design. It, and many of the molten salt designs, don't require water cooling. Not needing a source of nearby water vastly expands siting options. https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/x-energy-developing-pebble-bed-reactor-they-say-cant-melt-down https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/x-energy-developing-pebbl... Another interesting design is ThorCon's molten salt reactor, which it recommends siting 100 feet underground, eliminating almost all security issues including plane strike. http://thorconpower.com/ http://thorconpower.com/
    - ranbumo 8y ago
      Sure, newer plants produce less highly radioactive waste than old ones. Don't those plants also still contaminate their building materials over time, which then results in literal tons of somewhat radioactive waste that also needs to be stored, albeit with less stringent requirements?
    - inflatableDodo 8y ago
      Hi from the UK. We started doing that with BNFL ages ago. Then we faked the measurement data of the fuel pellets we were shipping to Japan, Tepco noticed and sent them back, no new customers appeared and BNFL collapsed. We are now getting China and France to build our new nuclear, having successfully driven our own industry into the ground by lying to our customers. edit - what worries me about nuclear power is the attitude and practices of the industry, not the technology per-se. The only group I have ever heard of that comes up to scratch for how you would want nuclear plants to be run is the US Navy, though that might be because they live on them.
  - newnewpdro 8y ago
    Or the cost of handling a Fukushima-level disaster. "In December 2016 the government estimated decontamination, compensation, decommissioning, and radioactive waste storage costs at 21.5 trillion yen ($187 billion), nearly double the 2013 estimate." [1] For comparison purposes, Diablo Canyon cost $13.8B to construct in 2018 dollars. [2] That same page states graceful decommissioning of the plant is estimated to cost $4B (!) dollars. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster#Compensation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_Canyon_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_Canyon_Power_Plant
    - adrianN 8y ago
      Amortized over the number of reactors in the world, Fukushima probably isn't all that expensive.
      - imtringued 8y ago
        But the world didn't pay for it. The japanese government did. This money could have been spent on 50GW of wind capacity instead.
        Recurecur 8y ago
        > But the world didn't pay for it. The japanese government did. That is poetic justice, given that the Japanese government could have made sure the backup generators were stored securely. They were, as it turned out, fairly important. ;-) Don't forget that a couple of working diesel generators providing power to keep the cooling working would have entirely avoided the disaster. Some were actually flown there in time, but the connectors were wrong and time ran out. > This money could have been spent on 50GW of wind capacity instead. Sure, and when the wind doesn't blow, and the storage runs out, and it's a nighttime cold event - people freeze to death. That's aside from the economic effects on industry from unreliable energy sources. Wind costs generally aren't being calculated correctly, as reliable backup power is required for any wind that dips into the "minimum baseline" power supply, which is the essential power required for basic needs and industry. Nuclear is overall one of the safest ways of producing energy, and is the ONLY scalable, reliable power source that doesn't emit CO2. With mass-produced, modular, reactors, it can also be the cheapest power source overall. Cheaper than wind, solar or coal. The world desperately needs mass nuclear power from a couple of perspectives. If Global Warming is in fact a major threat, there is no choice in the matter. That is my touchstone as to whether or not the "Green" movement has gotten serious about it.
  - Mirioron 8y ago
    Nuclear reactors produce so little waste that I very much doubt that storing the waste would be the main cost. It's even likely that some of the spent fuel would simply be used in newer reactors later.
    - Retric 8y ago
      Spent fuel is a small portion of the waste generated. Even equipment used to decommission a nuclear reactor becomes contaminated. It’s not that dangerous for very long, but safe disposal is still expensive.
      - Retric 8y ago
        Not sure why that was downvoted, it’s easy to demonstrate with even minimal research. From a pro nuclear website: 97% of the waste produced is classified as low- or intermediate-level waste (LLW or ILW). Such waste has been widely disposed of in near-surface repositories for many years. In France, where fuel is reprocessed, just 0.2% of all radioactive waste by volume is classified as high-level waste (HLW) http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-wastes/radioactive-wastes-myths-and-realities.aspx http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fue...
        adrianN 8y ago
        The claim is that the most expensive part is storing the waste for 10000 years. All LLW and ILW doesn't have to be stored that long.
        Retric 8y ago
        ILW and HLW are generally assumed to both be stored in the same areas long term. Which means they are about as expensive to deal with long term. For example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository#/media/File%3AYucca_Mountain_-_Nuclear_Waste_Repository.jpg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste...
- wnkrshm 8y ago
  In Germany there was a problem with the decommissioning of plants - the owning companies didn't have any funds for decommissioning because they didn't have to have the capital. They only had to take debt in advance for it, which they can get out of more easily. Edit: typo
  - roenxi 8y ago
    > the owning companies didn't ... have the capital I'll admit to not speaking German, but wasn't a contributing factor that the government simply didn't give them very much notice they were being shut down? I've worked on mine sites at an industrial scale that couldn't hope to remediate the pit if they were hit with a short-term shutdown - it'd be an ecological and social disaster. However, if you let them run to planned completion the remediation gets done.
    - lispm 8y ago
      > government simply didn't give them very much notice they were being shut down? like ten to twenty years? The nuclear exit was agreed on in 2000 and they were given long times to close their reactors. When should a company start saving for a shutdown? In the last days?
      - roenxi 8y ago
        > The nuclear exit was agreed on in 2000 My impression was it was a little more political and complicated than that [0]. I mean, if it was technically time to shut down the reactors then somebody obviously screwed up - but Germany isn't a great place to be citing examples from because their government has obviously been a massive headache for anyone planning out a nuclear reactor's lifespan. > When should a company start saving for a shutdown? In the last days? It should start when it needs to to have budget + contingency at the time of shut down. [0] https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-g-n/germany.aspx https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-pr...
        8y ago
- IanCal 8y ago
  > Who pays to deal with recycling old solar panels? For specifically this, at least for consumer purchases I think it'd be somewhat covered by the WEEE directives in the EU. The manufacturer and distributor should be either providing or paying for the recycling.
- wongarsu 8y ago
  > The main cost of a nuclear plant is the initial construction Now that we actually start decomissioning them in Germany it turns out that decomissioning nuclear plants is more expensive than constructing them. Everything has to be measured for radioactivity, with a significant portion of the structure turning into nuclear waste due to being exposed to radioactivity for decades. Insuring nuclear plants at a fair rate would also be really expensive. While serious accidents are rare they are exceedingly costly. The Fukushima disaster cost somewhere around $100-200 billion. Ukraine still spends 5-7% of their national budget on Chernobyl, 30 years after the disaster. Somewhat strangely most of that financial risk is taken by the government instead of the plant operator.
  - NicoJuicy 8y ago
    You do know that Chernobyl had to happen? They turned off every security check to test what would happen. Doesn't seem very smart to me.
    - wongarsu 8y ago
      Yes, Chernobyl was a stupid disaster (though I would blame the delay of the test more than the test itself). Chernobyl was also unusually expensive since today's plants at least can't literally explode. But human error happens and has to be in your risk calculation. Just like natural disasters happen (Fukushima was insured, just not against earthquakes, tsunamis and the like) Edit: for context, "unusually expensive" means we hope to get the whole thing fixed within the 21st century.
    - village-idiot 8y ago
      Chernobyl happened for a lot of reasons, you’re being reductive. The reactor design, testing procedure, and crew all contributed to that disaster. If I had to pick one reason, I would blame reactor design. The RBMK reactor had what’s known as a positive void coefficient. When voids (boiling water pockets) formed, these reduced the reactor’s ability to moderate neutrons, thus accelerating the reaction rate. This makes the reactor fundamentally unsafe, and guaranteed that something was going to go wrong. This is a design flaw that has thankfully been fixed in other reactors, including all other RBMK reactors. The flaw was known to the Soviet’s at the time, but the RBMK was designed to produce nuclear weapons, so they swept the flaws under the rug.
- markdog12 8y ago
  > Notably nothing else requires this Common in the oil industry: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=oil%20field%20cleanup%20fund https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=oil%20field%20cleanup%...
roenxi 8y ago
> What if it is not profitable any more? Who would deal with the mess? So the answer to it potentially being the public's problem is to guarantee that it is the public's problem? That isn't necessarily a bad idea, but it doesn't gel with how the rest of the economy works.
- grecy 8y ago
  Not at all. If the thing were publicly owned, then all the profit from the years of operation would go into making sure it can be properly decommissioned, rather than into making the share price of a private company go up, and paying multi-million dollar bonuses to CEOs. What you mean to say is "Make the public responsible and accountable for something the private sector will try to weasel their way out of." Which is perfectly acceptable.
dsfyu404ed 8y ago
You could say the exact same thing about hydroelectric. Also, people aren't idiots. If something sounds insane it's probably because you don't understand the situation and incentives well enough, not because it's actually insane.
johnisgood 8y ago
I think this is relevant: https://mises.org/library/libertarian-manifesto-pollution https://mises.org/library/libertarian-manifesto-pollution

AnthonyMouse 8y ago

> What if it is not profitable any more? The main cost of a nuclear plant is the initial construction. Once you've paid that as a sunk cost, the cost of continued operation is tough to beat. There is a reason the older reactors operate for so long and it's not because continuing to operate them isn't cost competitive. > Who would deal with the mess? Nuclear plants are required to put money into a decommissioning fund for this. (Notably nothing else requires this. Who pays to deal with recycling old solar panels? Coal mines? Hydro dams?) > Bit if it public who owns the risk, why is the "good part" owned by some private interest? Because they supplied the money to build the plant.

tmh79 8y ago
> The main cost of a nuclear plant is the initial construction the main cost is storing the waste for 10k+ years with zero defect rate
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago
  Newer reactors don't produce long-lived waste, and for that matter can use the waste from existing reactors as fuel. So if you don't like the nuclear waste we already have, build newer reactors to get rid of it.
  - carlisle_ 8y ago
    That's pretty neat, what makes the newer reactors able to use old waste as fuel?
    - adrianN 8y ago
      A large part of the "waste" gets turned into fuel through breeding. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor
    - TomMarius 8y ago
      I can't answer you but this concept is part of 4th generation reactor design. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor
    - fulafel 8y ago
      They don't - unless we talk about prospective future designs or small research reactors. There are big downsides to these designs, which is why their development stalled in the 70s and have been on life support since. (Technically an exception is the bn-800 but it was modified rebuild from an 80s aborted reactor construction project, to get rid of weapons grade plutonium, before the the us/russia treaty fell apart... Good story at http://euanmearns.com/the-bn-800-fast-reactor-a-milestone-on-a-long-road/ http://euanmearns.com/the-bn-800-fast-reactor-a-milestone-on... )
      - Recurecur 8y ago
        "There are big downsides to these designs, which is why their development stalled in the 70s and have been on life support since." Not really, what happened is there were "good enough" designs, there was a China Syndrome inspired move away from nuclear, and the government had little to no interest in reactor designs that made it hard to recover weapon materials. Bill Gates is championing both molten salt and traveling wave reactors that "burn" nuclear waste. There are other very interesting designs, including the Xscale helium-cooled pebble bed design. It, and many of the molten salt designs, don't require water cooling. Not needing a source of nearby water vastly expands siting options. https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/x-energy-developing-pebble-bed-reactor-they-say-cant-melt-down https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/x-energy-developing-pebbl... Another interesting design is ThorCon's molten salt reactor, which it recommends siting 100 feet underground, eliminating almost all security issues including plane strike. http://thorconpower.com/ http://thorconpower.com/
  - ranbumo 8y ago
    Sure, newer plants produce less highly radioactive waste than old ones. Don't those plants also still contaminate their building materials over time, which then results in literal tons of somewhat radioactive waste that also needs to be stored, albeit with less stringent requirements?
  - inflatableDodo 8y ago
    Hi from the UK. We started doing that with BNFL ages ago. Then we faked the measurement data of the fuel pellets we were shipping to Japan, Tepco noticed and sent them back, no new customers appeared and BNFL collapsed. We are now getting China and France to build our new nuclear, having successfully driven our own industry into the ground by lying to our customers. edit - what worries me about nuclear power is the attitude and practices of the industry, not the technology per-se. The only group I have ever heard of that comes up to scratch for how you would want nuclear plants to be run is the US Navy, though that might be because they live on them.
- newnewpdro 8y ago
  Or the cost of handling a Fukushima-level disaster. "In December 2016 the government estimated decontamination, compensation, decommissioning, and radioactive waste storage costs at 21.5 trillion yen ($187 billion), nearly double the 2013 estimate." [1] For comparison purposes, Diablo Canyon cost $13.8B to construct in 2018 dollars. [2] That same page states graceful decommissioning of the plant is estimated to cost $4B (!) dollars. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster#Compensation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_Canyon_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_Canyon_Power_Plant
  - adrianN 8y ago
    Amortized over the number of reactors in the world, Fukushima probably isn't all that expensive.
    - imtringued 8y ago
      But the world didn't pay for it. The japanese government did. This money could have been spent on 50GW of wind capacity instead.
      - Recurecur 8y ago
        > But the world didn't pay for it. The japanese government did. That is poetic justice, given that the Japanese government could have made sure the backup generators were stored securely. They were, as it turned out, fairly important. ;-) Don't forget that a couple of working diesel generators providing power to keep the cooling working would have entirely avoided the disaster. Some were actually flown there in time, but the connectors were wrong and time ran out. > This money could have been spent on 50GW of wind capacity instead. Sure, and when the wind doesn't blow, and the storage runs out, and it's a nighttime cold event - people freeze to death. That's aside from the economic effects on industry from unreliable energy sources. Wind costs generally aren't being calculated correctly, as reliable backup power is required for any wind that dips into the "minimum baseline" power supply, which is the essential power required for basic needs and industry. Nuclear is overall one of the safest ways of producing energy, and is the ONLY scalable, reliable power source that doesn't emit CO2. With mass-produced, modular, reactors, it can also be the cheapest power source overall. Cheaper than wind, solar or coal. The world desperately needs mass nuclear power from a couple of perspectives. If Global Warming is in fact a major threat, there is no choice in the matter. That is my touchstone as to whether or not the "Green" movement has gotten serious about it.
- Mirioron 8y ago
  Nuclear reactors produce so little waste that I very much doubt that storing the waste would be the main cost. It's even likely that some of the spent fuel would simply be used in newer reactors later.
  - Retric 8y ago
    Spent fuel is a small portion of the waste generated. Even equipment used to decommission a nuclear reactor becomes contaminated. It’s not that dangerous for very long, but safe disposal is still expensive.
    - Retric 8y ago
      Not sure why that was downvoted, it’s easy to demonstrate with even minimal research. From a pro nuclear website: 97% of the waste produced is classified as low- or intermediate-level waste (LLW or ILW). Such waste has been widely disposed of in near-surface repositories for many years. In France, where fuel is reprocessed, just 0.2% of all radioactive waste by volume is classified as high-level waste (HLW) http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-wastes/radioactive-wastes-myths-and-realities.aspx http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fue...
      - adrianN 8y ago
        The claim is that the most expensive part is storing the waste for 10000 years. All LLW and ILW doesn't have to be stored that long.
        Retric 8y ago
        ILW and HLW are generally assumed to both be stored in the same areas long term. Which means they are about as expensive to deal with long term. For example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository#/media/File%3AYucca_Mountain_-_Nuclear_Waste_Repository.jpg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste...
wnkrshm 8y ago
In Germany there was a problem with the decommissioning of plants - the owning companies didn't have any funds for decommissioning because they didn't have to have the capital. They only had to take debt in advance for it, which they can get out of more easily. Edit: typo
- roenxi 8y ago
  > the owning companies didn't ... have the capital I'll admit to not speaking German, but wasn't a contributing factor that the government simply didn't give them very much notice they were being shut down? I've worked on mine sites at an industrial scale that couldn't hope to remediate the pit if they were hit with a short-term shutdown - it'd be an ecological and social disaster. However, if you let them run to planned completion the remediation gets done.
  - lispm 8y ago
    > government simply didn't give them very much notice they were being shut down? like ten to twenty years? The nuclear exit was agreed on in 2000 and they were given long times to close their reactors. When should a company start saving for a shutdown? In the last days?
    - roenxi 8y ago
      > The nuclear exit was agreed on in 2000 My impression was it was a little more political and complicated than that [0]. I mean, if it was technically time to shut down the reactors then somebody obviously screwed up - but Germany isn't a great place to be citing examples from because their government has obviously been a massive headache for anyone planning out a nuclear reactor's lifespan. > When should a company start saving for a shutdown? In the last days? It should start when it needs to to have budget + contingency at the time of shut down. [0] https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-g-n/germany.aspx https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-pr...
      - 8y ago
IanCal 8y ago
> Who pays to deal with recycling old solar panels? For specifically this, at least for consumer purchases I think it'd be somewhat covered by the WEEE directives in the EU. The manufacturer and distributor should be either providing or paying for the recycling.
wongarsu 8y ago
> The main cost of a nuclear plant is the initial construction Now that we actually start decomissioning them in Germany it turns out that decomissioning nuclear plants is more expensive than constructing them. Everything has to be measured for radioactivity, with a significant portion of the structure turning into nuclear waste due to being exposed to radioactivity for decades. Insuring nuclear plants at a fair rate would also be really expensive. While serious accidents are rare they are exceedingly costly. The Fukushima disaster cost somewhere around $100-200 billion. Ukraine still spends 5-7% of their national budget on Chernobyl, 30 years after the disaster. Somewhat strangely most of that financial risk is taken by the government instead of the plant operator.
- NicoJuicy 8y ago
  You do know that Chernobyl had to happen? They turned off every security check to test what would happen. Doesn't seem very smart to me.
  - wongarsu 8y ago
    Yes, Chernobyl was a stupid disaster (though I would blame the delay of the test more than the test itself). Chernobyl was also unusually expensive since today's plants at least can't literally explode. But human error happens and has to be in your risk calculation. Just like natural disasters happen (Fukushima was insured, just not against earthquakes, tsunamis and the like) Edit: for context, "unusually expensive" means we hope to get the whole thing fixed within the 21st century.
  - village-idiot 8y ago
    Chernobyl happened for a lot of reasons, you’re being reductive. The reactor design, testing procedure, and crew all contributed to that disaster. If I had to pick one reason, I would blame reactor design. The RBMK reactor had what’s known as a positive void coefficient. When voids (boiling water pockets) formed, these reduced the reactor’s ability to moderate neutrons, thus accelerating the reaction rate. This makes the reactor fundamentally unsafe, and guaranteed that something was going to go wrong. This is a design flaw that has thankfully been fixed in other reactors, including all other RBMK reactors. The flaw was known to the Soviet’s at the time, but the RBMK was designed to produce nuclear weapons, so they swept the flaws under the rug.
markdog12 8y ago
> Notably nothing else requires this Common in the oil industry: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=oil%20field%20cleanup%20fund https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=oil%20field%20cleanup%...

roenxi 8y ago

> What if it is not profitable any more? Who would deal with the mess? So the answer to it potentially being the public's problem is to guarantee that it is the public's problem? That isn't necessarily a bad idea, but it doesn't gel with how the rest of the economy works.

grecy 8y ago
Not at all. If the thing were publicly owned, then all the profit from the years of operation would go into making sure it can be properly decommissioned, rather than into making the share price of a private company go up, and paying multi-million dollar bonuses to CEOs. What you mean to say is "Make the public responsible and accountable for something the private sector will try to weasel their way out of." Which is perfectly acceptable.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago

You could say the exact same thing about hydroelectric. Also, people aren't idiots. If something sounds insane it's probably because you don't understand the situation and incentives well enough, not because it's actually insane.

johnisgood 8y ago

I think this is relevant: https://mises.org/library/libertarian-manifesto-pollution https://mises.org/library/libertarian-manifesto-pollution