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By buying nuclear plants now, we lock into today's nuclear technology for the next 50 years (nuclear plants have 40-50 year life cycles). By investing heavily i

By buying nuclear plants now, we lock into today's nuclear technology for the next 50 years (nuclear plants have 40-50 year life cycles). By investing heavily in renewables and a new power grid, we can continually improve renewable generation and incrementally add to and improve existing facilities. Also, when a disaster happens, we can go "uh oh, 100 windmills fell over; man, we better wait until it's safe to go fix/replace them" instead "holy shit this could turn into a disaster right now unless we frantically try to control the situation and in doing so put several workers' lives in immediate and horrible risk!" Every dollar wasted on nuclear power is a lost opportunity. Renewables can be vastly improved, several advances have already been made just not fully capitalized on. Nuclear power doesn't show the same promise. Maybe in 50 years it will, but now it looks like same old same old. In the meantime I keep reading how advances in solar cell technology and long distance power grids can tap into more energy than perhaps most expect.

light3 16y ago
'Renewables can be vastly improved, several advances have already been made just not fully capitalized on' such as? I think the major advantage of nuclear is its cost efficiency and low pollution.
- afterburner 16y ago
  If you insist on a cited post, lead by example.
  - light3 16y ago
    Firstly I didn't ask for citation, I asked for examples. Secondly, I gave my opinion which I think is based on accepted facts, if you insist on citations you can find them on Wikipedia. You just gave a statement, wrote your proposition on that statement, with nothing to back it up.
    - afterburner 16y ago
      Yeah, same as you. I'd debate your unsupported statement about cost efficiency. See my post below about the bids for Ontario nuclear expansion two years ago.
      - light3 16y ago
        This chart is on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nuke,_coal,_gas_generating_costs.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nuke,_coal,_gas_generating... But that's sidetracking, instead of ridiculous citation wars, what I was really asking for was some examples of: 'Renewables can be vastly improved, several advances have already been made just not fully capitalized on'
        afterburner 16y ago
        Google: advances in solar cell technology
- lispm 16y ago
  A total disconnect from reality. In reality a new reactor here in Europe costs about 5 billion Euros a piece. Nobody is wanting to finance a nuclear reactor. They even don't need to be insured, since no insurance company would provide insurance for a nuclear reactor. The nuclear reactors all need huge government subsidies or need to be fully financed by the government. In the US almost nobody wants to finance a nuclear reactor, even though the government runs around with lots of money for those. In France for example the nuclear industry is a fully government run system. Socialism at work.
whyenot 16y ago
Fukushima is 40 years old and recently got an extension to operate for another 10 years. TEPCO had said they wanted to continue operating the plant for another 20 years. Maybe nuclear plants should have an unextendable expiration date -- you can operate a new plant for 40 years or whatever, but after 40 years you have to raze the plant and rebuild with a more current, hopefully safer design.
- pjscott 16y ago
  You'd get bigger safety improvements by keeping old, less safe nuclear plants operating longer and building new ones alongside them. Even aging nuclear plants are a hell of a lot safer than the coal and natural gas plants that would otherwise be supplying the power they produce. (Note that natural gas is a lot less dangerous than coal, but they're both several orders of magnitude more dangerous than nuclear.)
  - whyenot 16y ago
    That really depends on how you define "safety." In terms of mortality, yes. But, nuclear plants have other risks associated with them. There is a nuclear plant in the Ukraine with a contaminated area the size of Switzerland around it, a significant portion of which is currently uninhabitable. Ideally, we'd like to ensure that never happens again. I think replacing aging plants with new plants would help a lot.
    - yummyfajitas 16y ago
      According to Wikipedia, the zone is about 2,800 km^2 while Switzerland is 41,000 km^2.
      - whyenot 16y ago
        According to the NY Times[1] the area, as designated by the Ukraine parliament is 15,000 square miles. Switzerland is 15,937 square miles. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/weekinreview/20chernobyl.html http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/weekinreview/20chernobyl.h... edit: Your figure is for the exclusion zone. That is the area currently unfit for human habitation, and is defined as the area in a radius 30km around the plant. The area that was, and still is contaminated by the accident is significantly larger than the exclusion zone.
pjscott 16y ago
Some numbers of design lives: in general, the older nuclear plants were designed to be in operation for 40 years, and the newer ones are designed for 60 years. In the time since the older plants were built, we've learned a thing or two about how to keep them in good working order, and many of them are being extended to operate for more like 60 years. There are efforts underway to figure out how to extend that to 80 years.
- afterburner 16y ago
  I don't think my point about plant lifetimes was clear. It's not a good thing that they last so long; after all, you're still paying a lot for that long lifetime. But the long lifetime means that, for all that is said about whatever potential nuclear power plants might have (breeder plants and whatnot), that's not what would get built right now if all governments caved to nuclear lobbies right now. What would get built is today's technology, which would be so expensive that we would be stuck with it for 40, or 50, or as you say, 80 years. Renewables, which everybody loves to say aren't good enough, will get good enough, provided we shift enough funds to develop them. I would prefer if those funds aren't tied up in 40, 50, 80 year projects. Because if a project is projected to last 80 years, you'd better believe that'll allow a much higher bottom line to get passed in the local budget.
  - pjscott 16y ago
    That's not how the economics of nuclear power work. The vast majority of the cost of nuclear power is the up-front cost of building the plants; the operation and maintenance costs are remarkably low. The longer you keep them running, the more profitable they are. Once you get them built, you want to keep running them for a long time, because once you've paid off the cost of building it in the first place, it's one hell of a cash cow. We're not talking about "funds tied up in 80 year projects"; we're talking about several-year expensive projects to construct the plant, followed by 80 years of cheap power. The closest thing to a problem here is that we may develop energy production methods so amazing that they're way cheaper to build and operate than keeping a nuclear plant running. I wish we had such a wonderful problem.
jacques_chester 16y ago
Before spending trillions of dollars building triplicate and quadruplicate power systems to distribute wind and terrestial solar power from all over the place, I'd rather invest the trillions in orbital solar power.

light3 16y ago

'Renewables can be vastly improved, several advances have already been made just not fully capitalized on' such as? I think the major advantage of nuclear is its cost efficiency and low pollution.

afterburner 16y ago
If you insist on a cited post, lead by example.
- light3 16y ago
  Firstly I didn't ask for citation, I asked for examples. Secondly, I gave my opinion which I think is based on accepted facts, if you insist on citations you can find them on Wikipedia. You just gave a statement, wrote your proposition on that statement, with nothing to back it up.
  - afterburner 16y ago
    Yeah, same as you. I'd debate your unsupported statement about cost efficiency. See my post below about the bids for Ontario nuclear expansion two years ago.
    - light3 16y ago
      This chart is on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nuke,_coal,_gas_generating_costs.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nuke,_coal,_gas_generating... But that's sidetracking, instead of ridiculous citation wars, what I was really asking for was some examples of: 'Renewables can be vastly improved, several advances have already been made just not fully capitalized on'
      - afterburner 16y ago
        Google: advances in solar cell technology
lispm 16y ago
A total disconnect from reality. In reality a new reactor here in Europe costs about 5 billion Euros a piece. Nobody is wanting to finance a nuclear reactor. They even don't need to be insured, since no insurance company would provide insurance for a nuclear reactor. The nuclear reactors all need huge government subsidies or need to be fully financed by the government. In the US almost nobody wants to finance a nuclear reactor, even though the government runs around with lots of money for those. In France for example the nuclear industry is a fully government run system. Socialism at work.

whyenot 16y ago

Fukushima is 40 years old and recently got an extension to operate for another 10 years. TEPCO had said they wanted to continue operating the plant for another 20 years. Maybe nuclear plants should have an unextendable expiration date -- you can operate a new plant for 40 years or whatever, but after 40 years you have to raze the plant and rebuild with a more current, hopefully safer design.

pjscott 16y ago
You'd get bigger safety improvements by keeping old, less safe nuclear plants operating longer and building new ones alongside them. Even aging nuclear plants are a hell of a lot safer than the coal and natural gas plants that would otherwise be supplying the power they produce. (Note that natural gas is a lot less dangerous than coal, but they're both several orders of magnitude more dangerous than nuclear.)
- whyenot 16y ago
  That really depends on how you define "safety." In terms of mortality, yes. But, nuclear plants have other risks associated with them. There is a nuclear plant in the Ukraine with a contaminated area the size of Switzerland around it, a significant portion of which is currently uninhabitable. Ideally, we'd like to ensure that never happens again. I think replacing aging plants with new plants would help a lot.
  - yummyfajitas 16y ago
    According to Wikipedia, the zone is about 2,800 km^2 while Switzerland is 41,000 km^2.
    - whyenot 16y ago
      According to the NY Times[1] the area, as designated by the Ukraine parliament is 15,000 square miles. Switzerland is 15,937 square miles. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/weekinreview/20chernobyl.html http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/weekinreview/20chernobyl.h... edit: Your figure is for the exclusion zone. That is the area currently unfit for human habitation, and is defined as the area in a radius 30km around the plant. The area that was, and still is contaminated by the accident is significantly larger than the exclusion zone.

pjscott 16y ago

Some numbers of design lives: in general, the older nuclear plants were designed to be in operation for 40 years, and the newer ones are designed for 60 years. In the time since the older plants were built, we've learned a thing or two about how to keep them in good working order, and many of them are being extended to operate for more like 60 years. There are efforts underway to figure out how to extend that to 80 years.

afterburner 16y ago
I don't think my point about plant lifetimes was clear. It's not a good thing that they last so long; after all, you're still paying a lot for that long lifetime. But the long lifetime means that, for all that is said about whatever potential nuclear power plants might have (breeder plants and whatnot), that's not what would get built right now if all governments caved to nuclear lobbies right now. What would get built is today's technology, which would be so expensive that we would be stuck with it for 40, or 50, or as you say, 80 years. Renewables, which everybody loves to say aren't good enough, will get good enough, provided we shift enough funds to develop them. I would prefer if those funds aren't tied up in 40, 50, 80 year projects. Because if a project is projected to last 80 years, you'd better believe that'll allow a much higher bottom line to get passed in the local budget.
- pjscott 16y ago
  That's not how the economics of nuclear power work. The vast majority of the cost of nuclear power is the up-front cost of building the plants; the operation and maintenance costs are remarkably low. The longer you keep them running, the more profitable they are. Once you get them built, you want to keep running them for a long time, because once you've paid off the cost of building it in the first place, it's one hell of a cash cow. We're not talking about "funds tied up in 80 year projects"; we're talking about several-year expensive projects to construct the plant, followed by 80 years of cheap power. The closest thing to a problem here is that we may develop energy production methods so amazing that they're way cheaper to build and operate than keeping a nuclear plant running. I wish we had such a wonderful problem.

jacques_chester 16y ago

Before spending trillions of dollars building triplicate and quadruplicate power systems to distribute wind and terrestial solar power from all over the place, I'd rather invest the trillions in orbital solar power.