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40B will not be enough to clean up the mess left behind by nuclear planets AND take care of radioactive waste for 100.000+ years.
by Tepix 7y ago
40B will not be enough to clean up the mess left behind by nuclear planets AND take care of radioactive waste for 100.000+ years.
- moogly 7y agoYeah. The Fukushima cleanup has already cost almost half of that fund, and estimated to have cost upwards to 200 billion when it's done (but who knows). The total economic damage caused by Chernobyl is estimated to be 235 billion dollars (but who really knows).
- ceejayoz 7y agoThat's like comparing a car crash to an oil change, though. Cleaning up after a disaster isn't the same as cleaning up a plant's stored waste.
- bbojan 7y agoAnd you base that statement on what exactly? I could as well say that I've calculated that 42 dollars will be enough to take care of all the leftover nuclear waste forever.
- bildung 7y agoAround where I live a nuclear plant is being decomissioned - for over 20 years now. The labor cost alone is over €1 billion. I'd say it would be wildly optimistic to plan for €2 billion per plant for decomissioning and waste disposal. The fund has $40 billion, but there are 60 commercial plants in the US. Even with the optimistic $2 billion per plant and ignoring scientific plants and interim storage facilities and Fukushima situations, there are still about $80 billion that are not yet internalized into nuclear power production costs.
- belorn 7y agoI wonder what the ballpark cost to decommission existing fossil fuel plants and install and operate enough carbon scrubbers to undo the environmental damage from oil, coal and gas plants.
- bildung 7y agoDecomissioning fossil fuel plants is vastly cheaper because those are not radioactive. The obvious alternative are renewables, though, not fossil fuel plants.
- acidburnNSA 7y agoThe nuclear waste fund in the US is for long-term nuclear waste disposal only, not decommissioning. Decommissioning is paid for by plant-specific trust funds that are also paid into throughout the life of the plant. In general, it's looking to be slightly cheaper than expected to decommission plants, and so there's a bit of a gold rush to access these funds. That's why you see stuff like this: https://www.ipsecinfo.org/2018/11/23/holtec-seeks-approval-to-buy-scrap-nuclear-power-plant/ https://www.ipsecinfo.org/2018/11/23/holtec-seeks-approval-t... This is another element in the equation of why nuclear plants are shutting down early.
- vectorEQ 7y agonuclear planets sounds amazing