5 ms·

Yet we don't use nuclear energy because of its "risks"

by krupan 7y ago

tstrimple 7y ago
I believe that we don't use nuclear energy because it's not economically feasible in a private energy market. Startup costs and operation costs are very high compared to natural gas, solar and wind. We saw how energy companies plowed right through public outcry and resistance in the Dakota Access Pipeline. I think it's silly to assume they wouldn't do the same with nuclear power if they saw a profit in it. Even with federal subsidies and loan guarantees energy companies aren't biting.
- Super_Jambo 7y ago
  Would've been feasable if the CO2 industries actually had to pay for the externality of ruining the atmosphere though right?
  - jessant 7y ago
    I doubt anyone could accurately price CO2 emissions.
- api 7y ago
  This is a point that needs to be made more often. People think nuclear isn't big because of greens, but greens almost always get beaten into the ground politically when they go up against the fossil fuel industry. Fossil fuels are much more profitable than nuclear power.
  - khrbrt 7y ago
    Fossil fuels are much more subsidized than nuclear power.
    - tstrimple 7y ago
      This isn't quite that clear cut. In 2018, fossil fuels generated 4.17 trillion kWh and nuclear power generated 0.8 trillion kWh. Fossil fuel subsidies amount to about 7% of energy subsidies while nuclear gets about 5%. If you look at subsidies versus energy generated or at subsidies versus power plant, nuclear gets significantly more.
      - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
        You didn't provide a source for your numbers, but let's have a look at the report listed as a reference in Wikipedia: https://web.archive.org/web/20130513055956/http://www.iisd.org/gsi/sites/default/files/relative_energy_subsidies.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20130513055956/http://www.iisd.o... Which in turn references this: https://www.nirs.org/wp-content/uploads/neconomics/weltstatusbericht0908.pdf https://www.nirs.org/wp-content/uploads/neconomics/weltstatu... Which basically says they have crappy data but then proceeds to lump in a lot of historical costs, like the sum of all taxpayer-funded fission R&D, including things like weapons and nuclear submarines that have little to do with civilian power generation, "liability caps" even though there hasn't actually been a reactor incident in the US that reached the liability cap (and fossil fuels and everything else also has de facto liability caps because of corporate limited liability), and "stranded cost" rules in deregulated energy markets that also apply to fossil fuel generating plants but aren't included there because the numbers are coming from completely different sources. Moreover, even some of the legitimate costs (like the R&D actually used for civilian power generation) are fixed costs that stay the same, and thus decline per kWh, if you build more plants. And that's what I could find in a few minutes of glancing at it. This is par for the course in these comparisons. People want nuclear to look bad, so they lump in every cost they can find to the calculation, even ones that don't even apply, without doing the same for competing generation methods. And this is before we even count the massive subsidy fossil fuels get from carbon not being priced.
- vmchale 7y ago
  > We saw how energy companies plowed right through public outcry and resistance in the Dakota Access Pipeline. In the US it got blown into something completely different, about sticking it to the libs or whatnot. So we went ahead and did it because our president has the personality of a toddler.
  - briandear 7y ago
    The president doesn't make decisions on pipelines. And as far as public outcry -- showing up to a protest doesn't make that the representative voice of the public. I support that pipeline because it's better than sending trucks and trains overland to ship energy. But was my voice counted? Not if using protests as a proxy for public opinion is how it's done. The oil company could use Star Trek teleportation technology and people would still protest it. They don't oppose the pipeline, they oppose what runs through it. Yet, they didn't all get to those protests in electric cars on on bicycles. They didn't tweet about it on stone tablets -- they use the very product they don't want people to use. Don't like oil? Stop benefiting from it while simultaneously hating it.
    - minikites 7y ago
      >Don't like oil? Stop benefiting from it while simultaneously hating it. You don't have a particularly compelling argument, as illustrated in this humorous cartoon: https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha
    - munk-a 7y ago
      > Don't like oil? Stop benefiting from it while simultaneously hating it. As someone who doesn't drive and has opposed oil and natural gas based energy solutions thank you, I will.
- jessant 7y ago
  Judging by this[1] graph, the federal government spends like 10x on renewable energy subsidies vs nuclear. Imagine how much more developed the nuclear power capabilities of the US would be if it received similar attention. [1] https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2019/09/23/energy-subsidies-renewables-fossil-fuels/ https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2019/09/23/energy-subsidies-re...
  - tstrimple 7y ago
    Spending more on nuclear subsidies in order to promote adoption is probably the only way that we'll see any significant growth of nuclear power. I'm all for it. But that still indicates that it's too expensive to compete in a private market. I'm not convinced by a graph like you presented though. That's a measurement of subsidies which were spent, not subsidies which were available. In other words, if more nuclear power plants were built we'd be seeing a much higher amount being spent on subsidizing nuclear power. Since no one is building nuclear (thus taking advantage of available subsidies) and we are dropping wind turbines all over the place, it's only natural that renewable subsidies would far exceed nuclear.
    - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
      We could just stop subsidizing fossil fuels and implement a carbon tax. That would make fossil fuels uncompetitive against everything and then people would turn to whichever alternatives are most suitable. Then you'd get more nuclear for baseload and in areas with less sunlight or cold winters, more solar for loads that align with its generation curve (like air conditioning) or are easy to time shift into sunlight hours (like charging electric cars) etc.
      - tstrimple 7y ago
        If we're going to imagine things we could "just" do, my vote is for nationalizing energy production so decisions like this aren't based on shareholder profits and trying to incentivize private companies into doing the right thing.
- dv_dt 7y ago
  Nuclear is simply too expensive operate and too slow to build no mater who is providing the funding. https://www.lazard.com/perspective/lcoe2019/ https://www.lazard.com/perspective/lcoe2019/
  - lm28469 7y ago
    And here I am paying 30ct per KW in Germany whereas I would pay 13ct in my home country, France. de: https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=country&solar=false&remote=true&wind=false&countryCode=DE https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=country&solar=false&rem... fr:https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=country&solar=false&remote=true&wind=false&countryCode=FR https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=country&solar=false&rem...
    - dv_dt 7y ago
      LCOE in the lazard report is a forward looking report for comparing costs of new builds with current and past tech. The prices you are quoting have sunk costs into them and don't represent total system costs of the initial build for example. As French nuclear plants from earlier investments reach end of life, France itself is estimating the need to introduce a higher portion of renewable and expects to save time and money from it. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-10/french-power-costs-will-rise-if-renewables-are-sidestepped https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-10/french-po... "France will save 39 billion euros ($44.5 billion) if it refrains from building 15 new nuclear plants by 2060, and bets instead on renewable energy sources to replace all its aging atomic facilities."
      - Grue3 7y ago
        >renewable energy sources to replace all its aging atomic facilities Name one nuclear power station that has ever been successfully completely replaced by renewables.
        dv_dt 7y ago
        Arguably San Onofre Nuclear power station in Southern California.

Yet we don't use nuclear energy because of its "risks"

by krupan 7y ago

Yet we don't use nuclear energy because of its "risks"

I believe that we don't use nuclear energy because it's not economically feasible in a private energy market. Startup costs and operation costs are very high compared to natural gas, solar and wind. We saw how energy companies plowed right through public outcry and resistance in the Dakota Access Pipeline. I think it's silly to assume they wouldn't do the same with nuclear power if they saw a profit in it. Even with federal subsidies and loan guarantees energy companies aren't biting.

Super_Jambo 7y ago
Would've been feasable if the CO2 industries actually had to pay for the externality of ruining the atmosphere though right?
- jessant 7y ago
  I doubt anyone could accurately price CO2 emissions.
api 7y ago
This is a point that needs to be made more often. People think nuclear isn't big because of greens, but greens almost always get beaten into the ground politically when they go up against the fossil fuel industry. Fossil fuels are much more profitable than nuclear power.
- khrbrt 7y ago
  Fossil fuels are much more subsidized than nuclear power.
  - tstrimple 7y ago
    This isn't quite that clear cut. In 2018, fossil fuels generated 4.17 trillion kWh and nuclear power generated 0.8 trillion kWh. Fossil fuel subsidies amount to about 7% of energy subsidies while nuclear gets about 5%. If you look at subsidies versus energy generated or at subsidies versus power plant, nuclear gets significantly more.
    - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
      You didn't provide a source for your numbers, but let's have a look at the report listed as a reference in Wikipedia: https://web.archive.org/web/20130513055956/http://www.iisd.org/gsi/sites/default/files/relative_energy_subsidies.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20130513055956/http://www.iisd.o... Which in turn references this: https://www.nirs.org/wp-content/uploads/neconomics/weltstatusbericht0908.pdf https://www.nirs.org/wp-content/uploads/neconomics/weltstatu... Which basically says they have crappy data but then proceeds to lump in a lot of historical costs, like the sum of all taxpayer-funded fission R&D, including things like weapons and nuclear submarines that have little to do with civilian power generation, "liability caps" even though there hasn't actually been a reactor incident in the US that reached the liability cap (and fossil fuels and everything else also has de facto liability caps because of corporate limited liability), and "stranded cost" rules in deregulated energy markets that also apply to fossil fuel generating plants but aren't included there because the numbers are coming from completely different sources. Moreover, even some of the legitimate costs (like the R&D actually used for civilian power generation) are fixed costs that stay the same, and thus decline per kWh, if you build more plants. And that's what I could find in a few minutes of glancing at it. This is par for the course in these comparisons. People want nuclear to look bad, so they lump in every cost they can find to the calculation, even ones that don't even apply, without doing the same for competing generation methods. And this is before we even count the massive subsidy fossil fuels get from carbon not being priced.
vmchale 7y ago
> We saw how energy companies plowed right through public outcry and resistance in the Dakota Access Pipeline. In the US it got blown into something completely different, about sticking it to the libs or whatnot. So we went ahead and did it because our president has the personality of a toddler.
- briandear 7y ago
  The president doesn't make decisions on pipelines. And as far as public outcry -- showing up to a protest doesn't make that the representative voice of the public. I support that pipeline because it's better than sending trucks and trains overland to ship energy. But was my voice counted? Not if using protests as a proxy for public opinion is how it's done. The oil company could use Star Trek teleportation technology and people would still protest it. They don't oppose the pipeline, they oppose what runs through it. Yet, they didn't all get to those protests in electric cars on on bicycles. They didn't tweet about it on stone tablets -- they use the very product they don't want people to use. Don't like oil? Stop benefiting from it while simultaneously hating it.
  - minikites 7y ago
    >Don't like oil? Stop benefiting from it while simultaneously hating it. You don't have a particularly compelling argument, as illustrated in this humorous cartoon: https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha
  - munk-a 7y ago
    > Don't like oil? Stop benefiting from it while simultaneously hating it. As someone who doesn't drive and has opposed oil and natural gas based energy solutions thank you, I will.
jessant 7y ago
Judging by this[1] graph, the federal government spends like 10x on renewable energy subsidies vs nuclear. Imagine how much more developed the nuclear power capabilities of the US would be if it received similar attention. [1] https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2019/09/23/energy-subsidies-renewables-fossil-fuels/ https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2019/09/23/energy-subsidies-re...
- tstrimple 7y ago
  Spending more on nuclear subsidies in order to promote adoption is probably the only way that we'll see any significant growth of nuclear power. I'm all for it. But that still indicates that it's too expensive to compete in a private market. I'm not convinced by a graph like you presented though. That's a measurement of subsidies which were spent, not subsidies which were available. In other words, if more nuclear power plants were built we'd be seeing a much higher amount being spent on subsidizing nuclear power. Since no one is building nuclear (thus taking advantage of available subsidies) and we are dropping wind turbines all over the place, it's only natural that renewable subsidies would far exceed nuclear.
  - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
    We could just stop subsidizing fossil fuels and implement a carbon tax. That would make fossil fuels uncompetitive against everything and then people would turn to whichever alternatives are most suitable. Then you'd get more nuclear for baseload and in areas with less sunlight or cold winters, more solar for loads that align with its generation curve (like air conditioning) or are easy to time shift into sunlight hours (like charging electric cars) etc.
    - tstrimple 7y ago
      If we're going to imagine things we could "just" do, my vote is for nationalizing energy production so decisions like this aren't based on shareholder profits and trying to incentivize private companies into doing the right thing.
dv_dt 7y ago
Nuclear is simply too expensive operate and too slow to build no mater who is providing the funding. https://www.lazard.com/perspective/lcoe2019/ https://www.lazard.com/perspective/lcoe2019/
- lm28469 7y ago
  And here I am paying 30ct per KW in Germany whereas I would pay 13ct in my home country, France. de: https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=country&solar=false&remote=true&wind=false&countryCode=DE https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=country&solar=false&rem... fr:https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=country&solar=false&remote=true&wind=false&countryCode=FR https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=country&solar=false&rem...
  - dv_dt 7y ago
    LCOE in the lazard report is a forward looking report for comparing costs of new builds with current and past tech. The prices you are quoting have sunk costs into them and don't represent total system costs of the initial build for example. As French nuclear plants from earlier investments reach end of life, France itself is estimating the need to introduce a higher portion of renewable and expects to save time and money from it. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-10/french-power-costs-will-rise-if-renewables-are-sidestepped https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-10/french-po... "France will save 39 billion euros ($44.5 billion) if it refrains from building 15 new nuclear plants by 2060, and bets instead on renewable energy sources to replace all its aging atomic facilities."
    - Grue3 7y ago
      >renewable energy sources to replace all its aging atomic facilities Name one nuclear power station that has ever been successfully completely replaced by renewables.
      - dv_dt 7y ago
        Arguably San Onofre Nuclear power station in Southern California.