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The anti-nuke environmentalists spend massive amounts of time and energy building public distrust of nuclear. They managed to shut down existing nuclear reactor

The anti-nuke environmentalists spend massive amounts of time and energy building public distrust of nuclear. They managed to shut down existing nuclear reactors with safe track records. This makes me pretty skeptical we'll be able to get new ones on line regardless of how much safer they are. Getting the NRC to approve them is one thing, getting a city to allow a nuclear power plant of any kind in their back yard is a whole other ball-game.

nemo44x 6y ago
It's not just them though. No one wants to handle the waste. If I recall, the middle of nowhere Nevada was designated to take on the waste from quite a few places and they fought it and won. Additionally, no one wants that waste passing through their town on the way. I support nuclear but acknowledge the worst case scenarios of it.
- tdy721 6y ago
  Well, the bombs are way more dangerous than power applications. How do we get rid of these bomb cores? Throw them into the reactors! Someone’s gonna have to do it, Canada already blends ex weapons plutonium into their CANDU reactors. http://ccnr.org/mox_griffith_1.html http://ccnr.org/mox_griffith_1.html
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
>Getting the NRC to approve them is one thing, getting a city to allow a nuclear power plant of any kind in their back yard is a whole other ball-game. Some rust belt city that doesn't have the luxury of making decisions in a way other than "strictly by the numbers" in a state that isn't inclined to meddle in local matters will go for it if those numbers make sense.
- underdown 6y ago
  There is a cost to long distance transmission which distorts those numbers, presumably.
  - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
    Rust Belt cities use electricity, too.
    - captainredbeard 6y ago
      Perhaps even more than expected — aluminum refining uses up a huge percentage (20%?) of total US GWHs produced.
    - kunai 6y ago
      I'm always in awe of how out of touch a lot of SV people are. The Rust Belt has cities. They have people. The rest of the country has people. The San Francisco-San Jose axis and NYC/LA are not the only parts of the country that matter. In Detroit alone, 6 million people live in the surrounding metro area. Cleveland? 2 million. Pittsburgh? 2.5. Nuclear would be a great way to replace coal and create new jobs as well. And that part of the country is prime for innovation in the energy sector having been dominated by coal for the last century and a half.
      - kasey_junk 6y ago
        Michigan produces ~25% of its power via nuclear. Ohio has 5 nuclear plants including several near Cleveland. Pennsylvania produces the second most nuclear power of any state and ~35% of its total power that way. Illinois has the most nuclear capacity in the country and generates over half its power that way. The Rust Belt has tons of nuclear penetration already. It's the west coast specifically that is lacking nuclear power. Either because hydro/solar are better options or regulatory reasons, I don't know.
epistasis 6y ago
The PR battle has nothing to do with the lack of investment. That all comes down to well-supported reactors not even being buildable. Even EDF in France, which has massive support, can't build nuclear these days, and France is often cited as nuclear's greatest success stories. It's time to stop blaming boogie men for nuclear's failures, because that does nothing to help it succeed. Anti-nuke "greens" blame does allow for building a culture war, which is why I think it survives in the public imagination. However, in utility boardrooms, and at the NRC, none of that has stopped the world's attempts at building the next generation nuclear fleet. What has stopped that is the cost of construction. It doesn't matter whether there is outsider opposition to the tech if it can't even be built economically.
- jandrese 6y ago
  I guess the next question is: Why is the construction and operation so expensive? Did the cost of steel and concrete skyrocket? Are new reactors excessively complex? Is there insufficient competition in the industry to keep costs under control? Excessive regulatory compliance costs compared to other forms of power generation? Is it the cost of paying a team lawyers for decades to keep fighting all of the lawsuits?
  - Lavery 6y ago
    I read a study a while ago arguing that reactor cost was as expensive as it is because nuclear plants are so large, complex, and infrequently built that each project is essentially bespoke.
    - jandrese 6y ago
      Was that study by chance suggesting a large number of small mass produced reactors? It's a workable idea unless you think the problem is that every reactor, no matter how large, has to deal with red tape and lawsuits from NIMBYs.
  - onlyrealcuzzo 6y ago
    I believe the cost of construction labor has outperformed inflation & materials have tracked inflation. But the cost of energy has underperformed inflation. If the trend continues for much longer, energy sources which require less labor will become more competitive (solar). If you're a greenie - this is a good thing. Because oil has almost nothing going for it beside how good a source of energy it is for jet/rocket fuel.
tdy721 6y ago
So they install one at Disney World. The Buena Vista district is privately run there. I think they even negotiated for nukes, when it was established. There are quite a few behemoth organizations that could pull it off, if the economics look ok.
arandolpha 6y ago
Existing nuclear reactors may have safe track records in terms of their operation, but we still have no long term solution for high-level nuclear waste disposal. At all. The decommissioned plant outside of San Onofre, for example, is now storing nuclear waste in steel canisters on site. That site is on an earthquake fault line, right next to the pacific ocean [0]. Unless we come up with a complete end-to-end model for safely handling the waste, I don't consider nuclear to be a viable option. As it stands, it's a massive liability to the health of our future environment. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-chapple-san-onofre-20180815-story.html https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-chapple-san-onof...
- in3d 6y ago
  We could've if there was enough political will though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_r...
  - klmadfejno 6y ago
    Do you want trains full of other cities' nuclear waste passing through your city?
    - cdash 6y ago
      Wouldn't care, its hardly dangerous.
    - gambiting 6y ago
      Is this like....a rhetorical question? Of course no one actively wants them, but it's just a thing to transport like any other. I also don't want sewage or slaughterhouse waste transported next to my house(very smelly) but it has to be done at some point. Let me ask you a question then - have you actually seen those railroad casks for nuclear waste? They are incredibly resilient, I'd be far less worried about having those travel through my city than living next to a 70 year old chemical plant(which I do).
    - dodobirdlord 6y ago
Krasnol 6y ago
Yeah all those terrible anti-nuke environmentalists making nuke expansive as hell and never done on time! They are the worst! PS. nobody stops you from building a reactor. Get it approved, come up with the money, build it and sell the power but stop begging for tax money. It's over in the civilised western world. Get over it. https://phys.org/news/2018-11-france-nuclear-reactors-macron.html https://phys.org/news/2018-11-france-nuclear-reactors-macron... https://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.742611.de/dwr-20-11-1.pdf https://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.74261...

nemo44x 6y ago

It's not just them though. No one wants to handle the waste. If I recall, the middle of nowhere Nevada was designated to take on the waste from quite a few places and they fought it and won. Additionally, no one wants that waste passing through their town on the way. I support nuclear but acknowledge the worst case scenarios of it.

tdy721 6y ago
Well, the bombs are way more dangerous than power applications. How do we get rid of these bomb cores? Throw them into the reactors! Someone’s gonna have to do it, Canada already blends ex weapons plutonium into their CANDU reactors. http://ccnr.org/mox_griffith_1.html http://ccnr.org/mox_griffith_1.html

throwaway0a5e 6y ago

>Getting the NRC to approve them is one thing, getting a city to allow a nuclear power plant of any kind in their back yard is a whole other ball-game. Some rust belt city that doesn't have the luxury of making decisions in a way other than "strictly by the numbers" in a state that isn't inclined to meddle in local matters will go for it if those numbers make sense.

underdown 6y ago
There is a cost to long distance transmission which distorts those numbers, presumably.
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  Rust Belt cities use electricity, too.
  - captainredbeard 6y ago
    Perhaps even more than expected — aluminum refining uses up a huge percentage (20%?) of total US GWHs produced.
  - kunai 6y ago
    I'm always in awe of how out of touch a lot of SV people are. The Rust Belt has cities. They have people. The rest of the country has people. The San Francisco-San Jose axis and NYC/LA are not the only parts of the country that matter. In Detroit alone, 6 million people live in the surrounding metro area. Cleveland? 2 million. Pittsburgh? 2.5. Nuclear would be a great way to replace coal and create new jobs as well. And that part of the country is prime for innovation in the energy sector having been dominated by coal for the last century and a half.
    - kasey_junk 6y ago
      Michigan produces ~25% of its power via nuclear. Ohio has 5 nuclear plants including several near Cleveland. Pennsylvania produces the second most nuclear power of any state and ~35% of its total power that way. Illinois has the most nuclear capacity in the country and generates over half its power that way. The Rust Belt has tons of nuclear penetration already. It's the west coast specifically that is lacking nuclear power. Either because hydro/solar are better options or regulatory reasons, I don't know.

epistasis 6y ago

The PR battle has nothing to do with the lack of investment. That all comes down to well-supported reactors not even being buildable. Even EDF in France, which has massive support, can't build nuclear these days, and France is often cited as nuclear's greatest success stories. It's time to stop blaming boogie men for nuclear's failures, because that does nothing to help it succeed. Anti-nuke "greens" blame does allow for building a culture war, which is why I think it survives in the public imagination. However, in utility boardrooms, and at the NRC, none of that has stopped the world's attempts at building the next generation nuclear fleet. What has stopped that is the cost of construction. It doesn't matter whether there is outsider opposition to the tech if it can't even be built economically.

jandrese 6y ago
I guess the next question is: Why is the construction and operation so expensive? Did the cost of steel and concrete skyrocket? Are new reactors excessively complex? Is there insufficient competition in the industry to keep costs under control? Excessive regulatory compliance costs compared to other forms of power generation? Is it the cost of paying a team lawyers for decades to keep fighting all of the lawsuits?
- Lavery 6y ago
  I read a study a while ago arguing that reactor cost was as expensive as it is because nuclear plants are so large, complex, and infrequently built that each project is essentially bespoke.
  - jandrese 6y ago
    Was that study by chance suggesting a large number of small mass produced reactors? It's a workable idea unless you think the problem is that every reactor, no matter how large, has to deal with red tape and lawsuits from NIMBYs.
- onlyrealcuzzo 6y ago
  I believe the cost of construction labor has outperformed inflation & materials have tracked inflation. But the cost of energy has underperformed inflation. If the trend continues for much longer, energy sources which require less labor will become more competitive (solar). If you're a greenie - this is a good thing. Because oil has almost nothing going for it beside how good a source of energy it is for jet/rocket fuel.

tdy721 6y ago

So they install one at Disney World. The Buena Vista district is privately run there. I think they even negotiated for nukes, when it was established. There are quite a few behemoth organizations that could pull it off, if the economics look ok.

arandolpha 6y ago

Existing nuclear reactors may have safe track records in terms of their operation, but we still have no long term solution for high-level nuclear waste disposal. At all. The decommissioned plant outside of San Onofre, for example, is now storing nuclear waste in steel canisters on site. That site is on an earthquake fault line, right next to the pacific ocean [0]. Unless we come up with a complete end-to-end model for safely handling the waste, I don't consider nuclear to be a viable option. As it stands, it's a massive liability to the health of our future environment. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-chapple-san-onofre-20180815-story.html https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-chapple-san-onof...

in3d 6y ago
We could've if there was enough political will though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_r...
- klmadfejno 6y ago
  Do you want trains full of other cities' nuclear waste passing through your city?
  - cdash 6y ago
    Wouldn't care, its hardly dangerous.
  - gambiting 6y ago
    Is this like....a rhetorical question? Of course no one actively wants them, but it's just a thing to transport like any other. I also don't want sewage or slaughterhouse waste transported next to my house(very smelly) but it has to be done at some point. Let me ask you a question then - have you actually seen those railroad casks for nuclear waste? They are incredibly resilient, I'd be far less worried about having those travel through my city than living next to a 70 year old chemical plant(which I do).
  - dodobirdlord 6y ago

Krasnol 6y ago

Yeah all those terrible anti-nuke environmentalists making nuke expansive as hell and never done on time! They are the worst! PS. nobody stops you from building a reactor. Get it approved, come up with the money, build it and sell the power but stop begging for tax money. It's over in the civilised western world. Get over it. https://phys.org/news/2018-11-france-nuclear-reactors-macron.html https://phys.org/news/2018-11-france-nuclear-reactors-macron... https://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.742611.de/dwr-20-11-1.pdf https://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.74261...