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While I agree with most points, I don't understand bashing bailout for nuclear energy plants. Putting them into the same basket with coal-based energy plants is

While I agree with most points, I don't understand bashing bailout for nuclear energy plants. Putting them into the same basket with coal-based energy plants is rather unfair. Nuclear energy is the only practical and CO neutral way of energy production that we have now, right now. We can dream about fully renewable energy, but we are simply not there yet, but global warming is happening now. I think a lot of "pro eco" people missing this, unfortunately.

krageon 7y ago
It would really help the believability of your argument if you gave some proper argumentation for why you think we "are simply not there yet", which is a really big claim that I would say you are almost hilariously wrong about. If you were going to claim a lack of being able to meet spot demands I would be able to follow along with you, but seeing as you're promoting nuclear here that is evidently not the main selling point. So what is?
- numlock86 7y ago
  Maybe he's referring to the fact that nuclear power has the lowest carbon footprint of currently available technology when it comes to generating consumable electric power for the masses. Just a wild guess, though.
  - myspy 7y ago
    And again the question which decides the future of every nuclear power plant. Where to put the fuel after usage? No one wants it, tax payers have to pay for the disposal.
    - isostatic 7y ago
      The externalities should be covered by the cost of the electricity it generates - same as the externalities of solar or coal production.
    - numlock86 7y ago
      We have working solutions for storage and disposal. Yes, no one wants those, they cost a lot of money and are at best temporary. But they are practical. The same isn't true for carbon, or rather the "fuel after usage" when it comes to gas or coal power plants. I don't much like the situation or nuclear power plants either, but considering the time we have to fix this (climate change) it seems like a valid solution.
      - cujo 7y ago
        > Yes, no one wants those, they cost a lot of money and are at best temporary. But they are practical. I don't understand this, and would love if someone could point me to a resource on it. How is it practical to essentially "kick the can" on storage/disposal? As I understand it, the plan o more or less bury the stuff and hope we figure it out in the future. I read this as "just let some future generation deal with a catastrophic failure". That sounds awfully similar to how we've dealt with the climate/environment in general.
        krageon 7y ago
        You're exactly right about the current stance on long-term storage of radioactive waste.
        viraptor 7y ago
        What do you mean by "deal with a catastrophic failure" in this case? Yes, we pretty much bury the stuff. That doesn't sound like a catastrophy to me.
        numlock86 7y ago
        Ok, storing carbon in the air and oceans is much more practical as it basically comes for free. Well, not counting in the cost of climate change of course. Burying atomic waste on the other hand requires laughable amounts of space if you want to compare atomic waste vs carbon for let's say 100 years of global energy production. We already have to deal with the "catastrophic failure" of carbon storage as a "future generation" as you already mentioned. I know a lot of people like to imagine that getting rid of atomic waste is basically some people with shovels digging holes for some hazardous yellow barrels, hoping in a thousand years no one will find them. Well, no. Atomic waste is much more manageable. And to be honest: If we had a way to say efficiently compact/solidify/whatever carbon then we would do the same with that stuff today already, just with the difference that we would leave much much much more waste behind for future generations.
    - Agustus 7y ago
      The United States of America already solved this issue with the perfect Mojave desert option. Unfortunately, politics caused mayhem to the program.
    - TheHypnotist 7y ago
      Typically kept on site in concrete casks. The spent fuel takes up shockingly little space. At least around where I am, "tax payers" don't foot the bill.
      - logfromblammo 7y ago
        Also, the "spent" fuel can still be used as fuel in a different type of reactor (fast-neutron), or reprocessed to recover the unused fuel back into slow-neutron light-water reactor fuel. The reason why it sits in on-site storage is because on-site storage is about the only option in the US, due to anti-proliferation regulation, and the politicization of Yucca Mountain. France's 55+ reactors send their spent fuel to a single facility in La Hague, where it only consumes half the facility's capacity. The remaining capacity is resold to other countries' nuclear plants, inasmuch as other countries still operate nuclear plants after Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters. Reprocessing is about 6% the cost of their entire nuclear program. The program in turn can supply about 1/6th of the program's nuclear fuel. But they stockpile it, unenriched, whenever original processing of mined uranium ores would be cheaper. The non-Pu, non-U radioactives still have to be extracted in a separate step or be buried somewhere for their 100-year cooling-off period, but the volume is much lower than it would otherwise be without reprocessing. If Yucca Mtn were ever fully opened, and if it took only post-reprocessing waste, it could bury all the world's vitrified waste until it becomes cooler than the average parking lot, much more safely than the current status quo.
    - acidburnNSA 7y ago
      Finland chose to solve the problem. The US could do the same. Anti-nuclear activists who claim to be worried about nuclear waste used politics to shut down our attempt at yucca mountain with the cynical goal of just making it expensive. Ironically doing so made everyone at least a little less safe. Also, tax payers don't pay for nuclear waste. Rate payers do. It's factored into the sale price of nuclear electricity via the Nuclear Waste Fund. https://psmag.com/ideas/the-hiding-place-inside-the-worlds-first-long-term-storage-facility-for-highly-radioactive-nuclear-waste https://psmag.com/ideas/the-hiding-place-inside-the-worlds-f...
    - beobab 7y ago
      Some varieties of Gen IV can use the nuclear waste from previous generations as fuel.
  - wingi 7y ago
    Coal-fired power plants produce CO2 daily as waste products, nuclear power plants use fuel rods annually and solar energy uses nothing. The costs for coal-fired and nuclear power plants are after 50 years, for solar cells probably after 15 years. So the environmental impact is expected to be 50 years, although Chernobyl cannot be recycled forever.
- Agustus 7y ago
  Base load power. Solar and wind do not provide this. Storing the power from these solutions is not possible in our current scientific state. We have people who claim there are storage solutions just around the corner, but the corner has been stated since the beginning of renewables. Nuclear can be used in conjunction with the renewables for no carbon solutions.
  - MH15 7y ago
    Power can be stored in other mediums besides batteries. See reservoirs, winches, etc.
    - DuskStar 7y ago
      None of those are cheap enough to use for baseload power on a utility scale. Maybe in the future, but then we're getting into the "around the corner" from the GP.
      - nate_meurer 7y ago
        No, pumped hydro is still quite economical. For the time being I believe it's the cheapest from of utility-scale energy storage. The whole "baseload" thing is largely a myth pushed by the coal and nuclear lobbies. It hasn't been relevant in new generating capacity in a long time. Instead, new capacity is being planned and built with multiple "overlapping" dispatchable sources along with storage. Eventually the term will go away completely. http://redgreenandblue.org/2017/07/18/myth-baseload-power-not-think/ http://redgreenandblue.org/2017/07/18/myth-baseload-power-no...
        DuskStar 7y ago
        > pumped hydro is still quite economical. For the time being I believe it's the cheapest from of utility-scale energy storage. Where it's cheap/possible to build, you mean. It's very uneconomical if you don't have any appropriate geological formations nearby. > The whole "baseload" thing is largely a myth pushed by the coal and nuclear lobbies. Ok, fine. "This term is used by evil people" doesn't change the problem of "we need cheap storage to completely switch away from carbon fuels, and we don't have cheap storage" or even "we need power on calm nights". And even the article linked still suggests keeping around natural gas. > multiple "overlapping" dispatchable sources along with storage. Pretty sure that "dispatchable" means "not wind or solar" [0] and generally simplifies to "carbon, nuclear or hydro". 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispatchable_generation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispatchable_generation
- coldtea 7y ago
  >why you think we "are simply not there yet", which is a really big claim that I would say you are almost hilariously wrong about Actually he is hilariously right about it. Renewables are nowhere near adequate to replace conventional (fossil, etc) fuels. Even if everything was great (costs, externalities, energy storage, etc), the cost and scale of replacing existing fossil fuel based infrastructure would be ginormous. It's simply not possible in any scale smaller than 3-5 decades... Aside from other problems, we are nowhere near the capacity of producing the required number of renewable units (turbines, solar panels). And that's for a steady target, whereas energy demands increase. Solar and wind still provide a tiny amount of total energy, and even that with fossil fuel backups (due to intermittency).
  - kragen 7y ago
    I'm interested to see the calculations from which you derived “3–5 decades”. My calculation in 2017 was that, for example, Japan had enough exports to import enough solar panels to reach energy autarky by 2028. But prices have fallen dramatically since 2017. Clearly this would involve continued investment in production capacity for photovoltaic panels; you are correct that if production capacity remained stuck at 2019 levels, we would not be able to make the transition. Were you assuming that would be the case? That seems like a an unwarrantedly pessimistic assumption, even more so than my assumption that prices would remain constant. Indeed, your assumption (if it is indeed yours) would entail that photovoltaic panels would suddenly start to get more and more expensive! My calculations are in notes/japan-energy-autarky.html in http://canonical.org/~kragen/dercuano-20190724.tar.gz http://canonical.org/~kragen/dercuano-20190724.tar.gz.
    - coldtea 7y ago
      >Were you assuming that would be the case? That seems like a an unwarrantedly pessimistic assumption, even more so than my assumption that prices would remain constant. Indeed, your assumption (if it is indeed yours) would entail that photovoltaic panels would suddenly start to get more and more expensive! Which is not really far fetched: "Reuters is reporting that Eric Luo, president of one of the largest solar panel makers in China, predicts that “the party is definitely over.” Speaking at the World Economic Forum, Luo said that prices have quit dropping and he expected industry consolidation to cause prices to rise by as much as 15% over the next two years." And that's with current-ish levels of demand. Imagine the increase in demand for replacing most of fossil fuel and other conventional sources with photovoltaics...
Fnoord 7y ago
It is a matter of long-term planning. You don't build a nuclear power plant for it to last 5 years. If a "pro eco" person is against building of a new nuclear power plant perhaps their argument is that we should instead invest more in renewable energy instead. Is that feasible? Lets see. Denmark is fully self-reliant on energy. They invested a lot in wind. [1] Quote: "[..] The Danish Government has introduced the following targets for national energy policy: * Eliminating coal from power production by 2030. * Providing all electrical and heating from renewable sources by 2035. * Providing 100% of Denmark's energy requirements in electricity, heating and transport from renewable sources by 2050." [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Denmark https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Denmark
- bilbo0s 7y ago
  Yep. Our last nuclear plant cost right around 30 billion. (And the cost overruns still haven't stopped with Vogtie. In the end it will cost more.) Now even if you get rid of any and all regulations, you're still talking about 2 to 5 billion to build one of these things. And it's transitional in nature. It will be shut off when the renewables take over. So that's the problem. Energy investors can take this enormous risk on nuclear, that will be going away, but they don't really know when? So the gamble is, will I make my money back before the renewables do my plant in? Or Those same investors can just slap up windmills everywhere and start making their money back right away, and continue generating income on each windmill for the life of the equipment. Even energy investors like Pickens have switched over to the "slap up a windmill" strategy. (Or in his case, I guess it's more of a "slap up so many that no one else can compete with you" strategy.) Point is, Pickens is old, stodgy, conservative, has a preference for big energy projects, and is not prone to rash action. If you can't even convince guys like that to back nuclear in actual deed instead of screed, you really are just not being realistic about the challenges faced by nuclear investors. It's not just regulation, it's all the other energy options that offer far better returns. If we want nuclear, the American tax payer will have to foot the bill for it, and that's just not terribly likely to happen.
  - wil421 7y ago
    If Westinghouse didn’t go bankrupt we would probably have 1 of 2 nuclear reactors online this year in Georgia. Total cost is about $25 billion so far.
aczerepinski 7y ago
The article says the energy company wouldn't share financials on the nuclear plant and some suspect it's actually profitable. That makes the bailout sound like a political handout to me as an outsider.
- TheHypnotist 7y ago
  In this day and age and in their region, it's highly unlikely the Nuclear plant is actually profitable. Just as an example, look at the ZEC's in NJ.
  - michaelbuckbee 7y ago
    Either way, the unwillingness to share actual financial data about the plants is bad both for the larger case for Nuclear energy and because they are asking for a bailout to keep in operation. How can someone possibly make an informed decision in this scenario: are they near profitability? millions/billions in the hole? Is there a horizon where they'll break even?
coldtea 7y ago
>Nuclear energy is the only practical and CO neutral way of energy production that we have now, right now. Then again, I've read that if you add design, construction, operational, and storage costs plus expected operational timespan, nuclear only works with hefty subsidies. And the byproducts are a ticking timebomb...
- Symmetry 7y ago
  The first two are good reasons not to build new nuclear power plants, but we're talking about keeping existing plants running here.
- TheHypnotist 7y ago
  How are the byproducts a timebomb? Half-life is the exact opposite of a timebomb.
  - coldtea 7y ago
    A timebomb as in "matter of time before the problem exploded" (they spill/poison waters/etc). The half-lives involved are so large compared to societal time they don't really matter (and doesn't really play into the metaphor). It's not like we just need to store them for 1-10 years and then we're OK. Plutonium has a HL of 20K years IIRC. Btw, conventional time-bombs also lose their potency over time (e.g. TNT breaks down in thousands of years). But the explosion can be programmed much earlier, and similarly, the byproducts can mess things up much earlier than their half lives.
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
Going on most nuclear plants, and current renewables including decommissioning costs for each, I would bet heavily you could build wind and solar out to the same capacity before, and cheaper than the nuclear plant. Leaving change from the nuclear option's budget for storage, maybe pumped hydro.
settsu 7y ago
The point in the context of the article had nothing to do with the viability of nuclear power. It was that a bail out was being paid based on questionable net operating losses.
pjc50 7y ago
Existing nuclear plants should be kept running for as long as it is safe to do so, but building new ones is a fraught, expensive, and slow process. Hinkley Point C was commissioned in 2008 and is simply not there yet. Meanwhile the UK has de-coaled almost entirely, mostly by replacing with a wind power/CCGT mix, and the whole-country emissions are down by 40% since 1990. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47121399 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47121399 Then there's the other issue: weapons proliferation. Look down https://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/science-and-impacts/science/each-countrys-share-of-co2.html https://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/science-and-impacts/sc... : country #8 is Iran, which the US is very against expanding nuclear, and #10 is Saudi Arabia, which should not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons either.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- ufo 7y ago
  Saudi Arabia helped Pakistan to develop their nuclear project so it is likely that they already have or can quickly gain access to nuclear weapons.
- lisper 7y ago
  Dealing with climate change is going to be a fraught, expensive, and slow process no matter how you approach it. Nuclear technology has advanced and improved since the last plant was built in the U.S. If we don't reduce carbon emissions dramatically, the resulting catastrophe is going to make Fukushima -- and even Chernobyl -- look mild by comparison. And who are we to say who can and cannot have nuclear weapons? The United States' claim to the moral high ground is pretty shaky nowadays, particularly with regards to Saudi Arabia. Saudi (and Iran too) is what it is in no small measure because of our meddling in their politics. If we don't like the results, well, you reap what you sow.
  - siffland 7y ago
    I agree we should have more nuclear power in the US for the current time. It is just expensive to get a power palnt with all the regulations, but they are needed to help prevent disaters. And with the research into Thorium-based nuclear power it could become a little safer. The US does not stop countries from have Nulcear Weapons. But you know if you signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and then make nuclear weapons you are in violation of the treaty. Pull out of the treaty and no one can do anything. We dont stop North Korea, yeah we try to convince them not to because they are slightly unstable, we dont invade and destroy their nukes. Iran did sign the treaty though.
fredthomsen 7y ago
I agree with this. My main grip with this type of government spending is not the action itself, but rather this is same party that whines and slashes foodstamp and WIC funding, yet has no issue with corporate welfare.

krageon 7y ago

It would really help the believability of your argument if you gave some proper argumentation for why you think we "are simply not there yet", which is a really big claim that I would say you are almost hilariously wrong about. If you were going to claim a lack of being able to meet spot demands I would be able to follow along with you, but seeing as you're promoting nuclear here that is evidently not the main selling point. So what is?

numlock86 7y ago
Maybe he's referring to the fact that nuclear power has the lowest carbon footprint of currently available technology when it comes to generating consumable electric power for the masses. Just a wild guess, though.
- myspy 7y ago
  And again the question which decides the future of every nuclear power plant. Where to put the fuel after usage? No one wants it, tax payers have to pay for the disposal.
  - isostatic 7y ago
    The externalities should be covered by the cost of the electricity it generates - same as the externalities of solar or coal production.
  - numlock86 7y ago
    We have working solutions for storage and disposal. Yes, no one wants those, they cost a lot of money and are at best temporary. But they are practical. The same isn't true for carbon, or rather the "fuel after usage" when it comes to gas or coal power plants. I don't much like the situation or nuclear power plants either, but considering the time we have to fix this (climate change) it seems like a valid solution.
    - cujo 7y ago
      > Yes, no one wants those, they cost a lot of money and are at best temporary. But they are practical. I don't understand this, and would love if someone could point me to a resource on it. How is it practical to essentially "kick the can" on storage/disposal? As I understand it, the plan o more or less bury the stuff and hope we figure it out in the future. I read this as "just let some future generation deal with a catastrophic failure". That sounds awfully similar to how we've dealt with the climate/environment in general.
      - krageon 7y ago
        You're exactly right about the current stance on long-term storage of radioactive waste.
      - viraptor 7y ago
        What do you mean by "deal with a catastrophic failure" in this case? Yes, we pretty much bury the stuff. That doesn't sound like a catastrophy to me.
      - numlock86 7y ago
        Ok, storing carbon in the air and oceans is much more practical as it basically comes for free. Well, not counting in the cost of climate change of course. Burying atomic waste on the other hand requires laughable amounts of space if you want to compare atomic waste vs carbon for let's say 100 years of global energy production. We already have to deal with the "catastrophic failure" of carbon storage as a "future generation" as you already mentioned. I know a lot of people like to imagine that getting rid of atomic waste is basically some people with shovels digging holes for some hazardous yellow barrels, hoping in a thousand years no one will find them. Well, no. Atomic waste is much more manageable. And to be honest: If we had a way to say efficiently compact/solidify/whatever carbon then we would do the same with that stuff today already, just with the difference that we would leave much much much more waste behind for future generations.
  - Agustus 7y ago
    The United States of America already solved this issue with the perfect Mojave desert option. Unfortunately, politics caused mayhem to the program.
  - TheHypnotist 7y ago
    Typically kept on site in concrete casks. The spent fuel takes up shockingly little space. At least around where I am, "tax payers" don't foot the bill.
    - logfromblammo 7y ago
      Also, the "spent" fuel can still be used as fuel in a different type of reactor (fast-neutron), or reprocessed to recover the unused fuel back into slow-neutron light-water reactor fuel. The reason why it sits in on-site storage is because on-site storage is about the only option in the US, due to anti-proliferation regulation, and the politicization of Yucca Mountain. France's 55+ reactors send their spent fuel to a single facility in La Hague, where it only consumes half the facility's capacity. The remaining capacity is resold to other countries' nuclear plants, inasmuch as other countries still operate nuclear plants after Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters. Reprocessing is about 6% the cost of their entire nuclear program. The program in turn can supply about 1/6th of the program's nuclear fuel. But they stockpile it, unenriched, whenever original processing of mined uranium ores would be cheaper. The non-Pu, non-U radioactives still have to be extracted in a separate step or be buried somewhere for their 100-year cooling-off period, but the volume is much lower than it would otherwise be without reprocessing. If Yucca Mtn were ever fully opened, and if it took only post-reprocessing waste, it could bury all the world's vitrified waste until it becomes cooler than the average parking lot, much more safely than the current status quo.
  - acidburnNSA 7y ago
    Finland chose to solve the problem. The US could do the same. Anti-nuclear activists who claim to be worried about nuclear waste used politics to shut down our attempt at yucca mountain with the cynical goal of just making it expensive. Ironically doing so made everyone at least a little less safe. Also, tax payers don't pay for nuclear waste. Rate payers do. It's factored into the sale price of nuclear electricity via the Nuclear Waste Fund. https://psmag.com/ideas/the-hiding-place-inside-the-worlds-first-long-term-storage-facility-for-highly-radioactive-nuclear-waste https://psmag.com/ideas/the-hiding-place-inside-the-worlds-f...
  - beobab 7y ago
    Some varieties of Gen IV can use the nuclear waste from previous generations as fuel.
- wingi 7y ago
  Coal-fired power plants produce CO2 daily as waste products, nuclear power plants use fuel rods annually and solar energy uses nothing. The costs for coal-fired and nuclear power plants are after 50 years, for solar cells probably after 15 years. So the environmental impact is expected to be 50 years, although Chernobyl cannot be recycled forever.
Agustus 7y ago
Base load power. Solar and wind do not provide this. Storing the power from these solutions is not possible in our current scientific state. We have people who claim there are storage solutions just around the corner, but the corner has been stated since the beginning of renewables. Nuclear can be used in conjunction with the renewables for no carbon solutions.
- MH15 7y ago
  Power can be stored in other mediums besides batteries. See reservoirs, winches, etc.
  - DuskStar 7y ago
    None of those are cheap enough to use for baseload power on a utility scale. Maybe in the future, but then we're getting into the "around the corner" from the GP.
    - nate_meurer 7y ago
      No, pumped hydro is still quite economical. For the time being I believe it's the cheapest from of utility-scale energy storage. The whole "baseload" thing is largely a myth pushed by the coal and nuclear lobbies. It hasn't been relevant in new generating capacity in a long time. Instead, new capacity is being planned and built with multiple "overlapping" dispatchable sources along with storage. Eventually the term will go away completely. http://redgreenandblue.org/2017/07/18/myth-baseload-power-not-think/ http://redgreenandblue.org/2017/07/18/myth-baseload-power-no...
      - DuskStar 7y ago
        > pumped hydro is still quite economical. For the time being I believe it's the cheapest from of utility-scale energy storage. Where it's cheap/possible to build, you mean. It's very uneconomical if you don't have any appropriate geological formations nearby. > The whole "baseload" thing is largely a myth pushed by the coal and nuclear lobbies. Ok, fine. "This term is used by evil people" doesn't change the problem of "we need cheap storage to completely switch away from carbon fuels, and we don't have cheap storage" or even "we need power on calm nights". And even the article linked still suggests keeping around natural gas. > multiple "overlapping" dispatchable sources along with storage. Pretty sure that "dispatchable" means "not wind or solar" [0] and generally simplifies to "carbon, nuclear or hydro". 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispatchable_generation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispatchable_generation
coldtea 7y ago
>why you think we "are simply not there yet", which is a really big claim that I would say you are almost hilariously wrong about Actually he is hilariously right about it. Renewables are nowhere near adequate to replace conventional (fossil, etc) fuels. Even if everything was great (costs, externalities, energy storage, etc), the cost and scale of replacing existing fossil fuel based infrastructure would be ginormous. It's simply not possible in any scale smaller than 3-5 decades... Aside from other problems, we are nowhere near the capacity of producing the required number of renewable units (turbines, solar panels). And that's for a steady target, whereas energy demands increase. Solar and wind still provide a tiny amount of total energy, and even that with fossil fuel backups (due to intermittency).
- kragen 7y ago
  I'm interested to see the calculations from which you derived “3–5 decades”. My calculation in 2017 was that, for example, Japan had enough exports to import enough solar panels to reach energy autarky by 2028. But prices have fallen dramatically since 2017. Clearly this would involve continued investment in production capacity for photovoltaic panels; you are correct that if production capacity remained stuck at 2019 levels, we would not be able to make the transition. Were you assuming that would be the case? That seems like a an unwarrantedly pessimistic assumption, even more so than my assumption that prices would remain constant. Indeed, your assumption (if it is indeed yours) would entail that photovoltaic panels would suddenly start to get more and more expensive! My calculations are in notes/japan-energy-autarky.html in http://canonical.org/~kragen/dercuano-20190724.tar.gz http://canonical.org/~kragen/dercuano-20190724.tar.gz.
  - coldtea 7y ago
    >Were you assuming that would be the case? That seems like a an unwarrantedly pessimistic assumption, even more so than my assumption that prices would remain constant. Indeed, your assumption (if it is indeed yours) would entail that photovoltaic panels would suddenly start to get more and more expensive! Which is not really far fetched: "Reuters is reporting that Eric Luo, president of one of the largest solar panel makers in China, predicts that “the party is definitely over.” Speaking at the World Economic Forum, Luo said that prices have quit dropping and he expected industry consolidation to cause prices to rise by as much as 15% over the next two years." And that's with current-ish levels of demand. Imagine the increase in demand for replacing most of fossil fuel and other conventional sources with photovoltaics...

Fnoord 7y ago

It is a matter of long-term planning. You don't build a nuclear power plant for it to last 5 years. If a "pro eco" person is against building of a new nuclear power plant perhaps their argument is that we should instead invest more in renewable energy instead. Is that feasible? Lets see. Denmark is fully self-reliant on energy. They invested a lot in wind. [1] Quote: "[..] The Danish Government has introduced the following targets for national energy policy: * Eliminating coal from power production by 2030. * Providing all electrical and heating from renewable sources by 2035. * Providing 100% of Denmark's energy requirements in electricity, heating and transport from renewable sources by 2050." [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Denmark https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Denmark

bilbo0s 7y ago
Yep. Our last nuclear plant cost right around 30 billion. (And the cost overruns still haven't stopped with Vogtie. In the end it will cost more.) Now even if you get rid of any and all regulations, you're still talking about 2 to 5 billion to build one of these things. And it's transitional in nature. It will be shut off when the renewables take over. So that's the problem. Energy investors can take this enormous risk on nuclear, that will be going away, but they don't really know when? So the gamble is, will I make my money back before the renewables do my plant in? Or Those same investors can just slap up windmills everywhere and start making their money back right away, and continue generating income on each windmill for the life of the equipment. Even energy investors like Pickens have switched over to the "slap up a windmill" strategy. (Or in his case, I guess it's more of a "slap up so many that no one else can compete with you" strategy.) Point is, Pickens is old, stodgy, conservative, has a preference for big energy projects, and is not prone to rash action. If you can't even convince guys like that to back nuclear in actual deed instead of screed, you really are just not being realistic about the challenges faced by nuclear investors. It's not just regulation, it's all the other energy options that offer far better returns. If we want nuclear, the American tax payer will have to foot the bill for it, and that's just not terribly likely to happen.
- wil421 7y ago
  If Westinghouse didn’t go bankrupt we would probably have 1 of 2 nuclear reactors online this year in Georgia. Total cost is about $25 billion so far.

aczerepinski 7y ago

The article says the energy company wouldn't share financials on the nuclear plant and some suspect it's actually profitable. That makes the bailout sound like a political handout to me as an outsider.

TheHypnotist 7y ago
In this day and age and in their region, it's highly unlikely the Nuclear plant is actually profitable. Just as an example, look at the ZEC's in NJ.
- michaelbuckbee 7y ago
  Either way, the unwillingness to share actual financial data about the plants is bad both for the larger case for Nuclear energy and because they are asking for a bailout to keep in operation. How can someone possibly make an informed decision in this scenario: are they near profitability? millions/billions in the hole? Is there a horizon where they'll break even?

coldtea 7y ago

>Nuclear energy is the only practical and CO neutral way of energy production that we have now, right now. Then again, I've read that if you add design, construction, operational, and storage costs plus expected operational timespan, nuclear only works with hefty subsidies. And the byproducts are a ticking timebomb...

Symmetry 7y ago
The first two are good reasons not to build new nuclear power plants, but we're talking about keeping existing plants running here.
TheHypnotist 7y ago
How are the byproducts a timebomb? Half-life is the exact opposite of a timebomb.
- coldtea 7y ago
  A timebomb as in "matter of time before the problem exploded" (they spill/poison waters/etc). The half-lives involved are so large compared to societal time they don't really matter (and doesn't really play into the metaphor). It's not like we just need to store them for 1-10 years and then we're OK. Plutonium has a HL of 20K years IIRC. Btw, conventional time-bombs also lose their potency over time (e.g. TNT breaks down in thousands of years). But the explosion can be programmed much earlier, and similarly, the byproducts can mess things up much earlier than their half lives.

NeedMoreTea 7y ago

Going on most nuclear plants, and current renewables including decommissioning costs for each, I would bet heavily you could build wind and solar out to the same capacity before, and cheaper than the nuclear plant. Leaving change from the nuclear option's budget for storage, maybe pumped hydro.

settsu 7y ago

The point in the context of the article had nothing to do with the viability of nuclear power. It was that a bail out was being paid based on questionable net operating losses.

pjc50 7y ago

Existing nuclear plants should be kept running for as long as it is safe to do so, but building new ones is a fraught, expensive, and slow process. Hinkley Point C was commissioned in 2008 and is simply not there yet. Meanwhile the UK has de-coaled almost entirely, mostly by replacing with a wind power/CCGT mix, and the whole-country emissions are down by 40% since 1990. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47121399 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47121399 Then there's the other issue: weapons proliferation. Look down https://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/science-and-impacts/science/each-countrys-share-of-co2.html https://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/science-and-impacts/sc... : country #8 is Iran, which the US is very against expanding nuclear, and #10 is Saudi Arabia, which should not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons either.

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ufo 7y ago
Saudi Arabia helped Pakistan to develop their nuclear project so it is likely that they already have or can quickly gain access to nuclear weapons.
lisper 7y ago
Dealing with climate change is going to be a fraught, expensive, and slow process no matter how you approach it. Nuclear technology has advanced and improved since the last plant was built in the U.S. If we don't reduce carbon emissions dramatically, the resulting catastrophe is going to make Fukushima -- and even Chernobyl -- look mild by comparison. And who are we to say who can and cannot have nuclear weapons? The United States' claim to the moral high ground is pretty shaky nowadays, particularly with regards to Saudi Arabia. Saudi (and Iran too) is what it is in no small measure because of our meddling in their politics. If we don't like the results, well, you reap what you sow.
- siffland 7y ago
  I agree we should have more nuclear power in the US for the current time. It is just expensive to get a power palnt with all the regulations, but they are needed to help prevent disaters. And with the research into Thorium-based nuclear power it could become a little safer. The US does not stop countries from have Nulcear Weapons. But you know if you signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and then make nuclear weapons you are in violation of the treaty. Pull out of the treaty and no one can do anything. We dont stop North Korea, yeah we try to convince them not to because they are slightly unstable, we dont invade and destroy their nukes. Iran did sign the treaty though.

fredthomsen 7y ago

I agree with this. My main grip with this type of government spending is not the action itself, but rather this is same party that whines and slashes foodstamp and WIC funding, yet has no issue with corporate welfare.