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The Chinese government can afford it. If you want nuclear here in the US, the government has to kick in the lion's share of the funds for it. That's just the s

The Chinese government can afford it. If you want nuclear here in the US, the government has to kick in the lion's share of the funds for it. That's just the situation we're in. Even with no regulation and taxes at all, nuclear is just enormously expensive compared to just continuing to use coal, or just slapping up some windmills someplace. People have to be willing to take the tax hit, one way or the other, to get nuclear. Witness Vogtie. Where the government has come to the rescue and made a law forbidding residents from buying the cheaper wind or coal power. Literally. No one can switch from using Vogtie power. That's the sort of assistance that nuclear needs. (Yes, I know that Vogtie is late and still over budget despite the unprecedented government assistance. But that only reinforces my point really. Even Vogtie, which now has guaranteed captive customers, still needs semi trailers full of cash to make it work.)

AnthonyMouse 8y ago
> Even with no regulation and taxes at all, nuclear is just enormously expensive compared to just continuing to use coal Given access to enriched uranium and no regulation, a nuclear reactor is basically a high school science fair project. In practice you're going to want a larger scale than that and a design from a team of professional engineers rather than a high school student, but it should still cost an order of magnitude less than it currently does, with the difference attributable primarily to regulatory compliance costs. Some of those regulations are obviously important, but many of them are purposely designed to increase costs, lobbied for by competitors who want nuclear to be uneconomical. Even a simple change like having the rules a plant is constructed under be the ones in effect when construction begins rather than when it ends would be a significant cost reduction, because as it is one of the major costs is that the rules for "new plants" often change after the relevant portion of the plant has already been constructed. > People have to be willing to take the tax hit, one way or the other, to get nuclear. Maybe we could just start by leveling the playing field. Renewables and fossil fuels are already directly and indirectly subsidized, either eliminate those or apply them equally to nuclear. We need to price carbon. Use the same standards for radioactive emissions for coal and nuclear. If you're going to require nuclear to pay up front for decommissioning and price in various other things then do the same for everything else etc.
- natechols 8y ago
  These are excellent points. If everyone was forced to pay the true cost of their energy consumption, including not just fuel and up-front capital costs but long-term environmental remediation, accident insurance, and so on, how expensive would the various technologies be?
  - bilbo0s 8y ago
    In complete fairness here, wind does have to pay "not just ... up-front capital costs but long-term environmental remediation, accident insurance, and so on". Farmers and the various states' departments of natural resources don't just hand over their land for free with no strings attached, and insurance on those windmills is not cheap. Even so, it still comes in orders of magnitude cheaper than nuclear.
    - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
      People keep saying nuclear is really expensive. https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/renewable/electric-generating-costs-a-primer/ https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/renewable/electri... https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2015/08/f25/LCOE.pdf https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2015/08/f25/LCOE.pdf Moreover, "orders of magnitude cheaper" means hundreds of times cheaper. You would have to be doing something silly like comparing one 3MW wind turbine to one 3000MW nuclear reactor.
      - pfdietz 8y ago
        If you look at what nuclear power plants actually end up costing, they are very expensive. Paper studies that promise us otherwise don't make up for that. It's been the consistent history of nuclear power that those promises aren't worth the paper they're printed on.
        AnthonyMouse 8y ago
        Nuclear proponents: This should be cost effective. Nuclear opponents: [Change laws/rules during construction to drive up costs on purpose; cost is now more than projected but still less than coal] Nuclear opponents: Look at all these cost overruns. It now costs more than solar would if we solved the nighttime problem with hypothetical cheaper storage technology that doesn't currently exist, therefore nuclear is unviable and we should never attempt it again.

AnthonyMouse 8y ago

> Even with no regulation and taxes at all, nuclear is just enormously expensive compared to just continuing to use coal Given access to enriched uranium and no regulation, a nuclear reactor is basically a high school science fair project. In practice you're going to want a larger scale than that and a design from a team of professional engineers rather than a high school student, but it should still cost an order of magnitude less than it currently does, with the difference attributable primarily to regulatory compliance costs. Some of those regulations are obviously important, but many of them are purposely designed to increase costs, lobbied for by competitors who want nuclear to be uneconomical. Even a simple change like having the rules a plant is constructed under be the ones in effect when construction begins rather than when it ends would be a significant cost reduction, because as it is one of the major costs is that the rules for "new plants" often change after the relevant portion of the plant has already been constructed. > People have to be willing to take the tax hit, one way or the other, to get nuclear. Maybe we could just start by leveling the playing field. Renewables and fossil fuels are already directly and indirectly subsidized, either eliminate those or apply them equally to nuclear. We need to price carbon. Use the same standards for radioactive emissions for coal and nuclear. If you're going to require nuclear to pay up front for decommissioning and price in various other things then do the same for everything else etc.

natechols 8y ago
These are excellent points. If everyone was forced to pay the true cost of their energy consumption, including not just fuel and up-front capital costs but long-term environmental remediation, accident insurance, and so on, how expensive would the various technologies be?
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  In complete fairness here, wind does have to pay "not just ... up-front capital costs but long-term environmental remediation, accident insurance, and so on". Farmers and the various states' departments of natural resources don't just hand over their land for free with no strings attached, and insurance on those windmills is not cheap. Even so, it still comes in orders of magnitude cheaper than nuclear.
  - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
    People keep saying nuclear is really expensive. https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/renewable/electric-generating-costs-a-primer/ https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/renewable/electri... https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2015/08/f25/LCOE.pdf https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2015/08/f25/LCOE.pdf Moreover, "orders of magnitude cheaper" means hundreds of times cheaper. You would have to be doing something silly like comparing one 3MW wind turbine to one 3000MW nuclear reactor.
    - pfdietz 8y ago
      If you look at what nuclear power plants actually end up costing, they are very expensive. Paper studies that promise us otherwise don't make up for that. It's been the consistent history of nuclear power that those promises aren't worth the paper they're printed on.
      - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
        Nuclear proponents: This should be cost effective. Nuclear opponents: [Change laws/rules during construction to drive up costs on purpose; cost is now more than projected but still less than coal] Nuclear opponents: Look at all these cost overruns. It now costs more than solar would if we solved the nighttime problem with hypothetical cheaper storage technology that doesn't currently exist, therefore nuclear is unviable and we should never attempt it again.