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I hope that the federal government can provide incentives to keep reactors running that would otherwise close prematurely. 5.1 gigawatts of American reactors a

I hope that the federal government can provide incentives to keep reactors running that would otherwise close prematurely. 5.1 gigawatts of American reactors are expected to retire this year: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=46436 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=46436 It's a shame that the US is retiring working reactors while still burning fossil fuels for electricity. Reactors are far safer and cleaner than fossil electric generation. It's mostly the low price of natural gas that is driving these early retirements. Low gas prices have also retired a lot of coal usage -- which is good! -- but we'd make more climate progress if those low prices didn't also threaten nuclear generation. Some states like New York already provided incentives to keep reactors running for climate reasons: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=41534 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=41534 Federal policy could be more comprehensive.

DennisAleynikov 6y ago
if we are to come out the other side of this climate emergency we must keep our reactors online. the purity testing of what do we do with the waste is not helpful critique when we are still reliant on coal
- snuxoll 6y ago
  The ignorance of the externalities of fossil fuels and a bipolar hyper focus on those of nuclear energy is mind boggling at this point. I’m all for developing renewables, but we cannot abandon the one good technology we have for generating massive amounts of energy our base loads demand without polluting our air.
  - SCHiM 6y ago
    Indeed that is the strangest thing. By _any_ metric coal is far worse. Even the metric "amount of radioactive material that ended up in the atmosphere per watt of energy." (Coal contains trace amounts of radioactive material, that gets spread when burned). The fact of the matter is, that we can dump all our waste on a couple of football fields worth of space. Or even better: store it in a cave somewhere deep and dark and away from rivers.
    - Multicomp 6y ago
      This is probably one of those hacker news comments where it sounds good for 1 second then when you stop to think about it it falls apart, bu here goes. throw the waste in a bucket strong enough to survive hitting earth at terminal velocitty. place bucket in spacex falcon9 rocket. launch rocket into orbit with escape velocity. watch nuclear waste vanish into vacuum of space forever. if crash, collect bucket and restart with new rocket. financially costly? yes. solves the 'what about in 5000 years when someone opens it or it leaks?' questions, yes.
      - cperciva 6y ago
        The standard answer is "there's too much of a risk that an explosion would spread nuclear waste through the atmosphere". These days I'm not sure if it's true -- we've learned a lot about building containers which are safe even during rapid unscheduled disassemblies, and used them e.g. when sending nuclear powered rovers to Mars -- but that's the usual concern.
        throwaway894345 6y ago
        I mean we’re wishing for a bucket that can survive terminal velocity impact with the earth and is yet light enough to ride a rocket, why not add to that wish that it could survive explosion from said rocket?
        perardi 6y ago
        I think there’s a few orders of magnitude difference in the amount of radioactive material in an RTG in a probe bounds for Mars, and the total radioactive daughter particle output of a nuclear reactor.
      - shadowgovt 6y ago
        Ironically perhaps, the best reason not to do this is "It is extremely likely that, given sufficient time, we will either figure out a way to use the waste besides high-yield weapons or a cheaper way to dispose of the waste." Earth is huge. At the rate reactors create waste, the amount of land consumed by storing it is staggeringly low (the higher risks are transportation, which unfortunately the rocket idea doesn't solve unless we build a dedicated rocket site next to each reactor). Low enough to justify the risk-over-time of securely sequestering it instead of throwing it away.
  - stjohnswarts 6y ago
    I simply don't understand those people who claim to want to fix the problem but balk at nuclear. It's like they'd prefer going back to rubbing two sticks together for heat and building lean-tos for shelter. Which is where we might end up going back to if we keep overpopulating and destroying the earth and climate.
    - jhayward 6y ago
      I simply don't understand those people who claim to want to fix the problem but insist on only getting 1/10th the electricity for their invested dollar, and at a schedule 10x slower than renewables. It's like they are being deliberately obtuse.
      - effie 6y ago
        It's not about money, but about replacing the coal and gas power plants. Renewable sources can't do that alone, they need massive energy storage facilities (which so far do not exist).
        ldbooth 6y ago
        Because storage isn't tax credit incentivized, at least in the US. Coal still is. And FYI California will install 1.3GW of storage this year, and a storage tax credit is likely by end of this year. It's coming. Hopefully we find something more elegant or ways to recycle storage/battery materials.
      - redwall_hp 6y ago
        I see two options: 1. They're ignorant and follow a fallacious "appeal to nature" mentality. They seriously think that some sort of return to nature will result in a utopia instead of disease and famine. 2. They're Malthus apologists who want to cause an energy crisis and cause people (who aren't them) to die. It also overlaps with the anti-GMO types.
  - arithmomachist 6y ago
    Three Mile Island and Chernobyl loom very large in the imaginations of the boomers and gen x, respectively. Nuclear plant meltdowns are world news on the few occasions they've happened, whereas horrifying explosions and accidents at fossil fuel plants aren't considered remarkable. It's the same reason people overestimate the risk of flying relative to driving.
    - petre 6y ago
      Just wait until a lithium battry storage facility catches on fire.
  - godelski 6y ago
    There's also an ignorance of the externalities of renewables. Yes, they are magnitudes better than fossil fuels, but it amazes me how much people bring up uranium mining and ignore everything to do with rare earth mining in general. Or talk about waste storage of heavy metals and lithium. The problem is that everything has a cost. You can't make good comparisons if you only look at the costs of one system and the benefits of another. These are extremely complicated equations that people act like they are simple. I also frequently see a lot of belief that the issues are purely political (renewables and nuclear) when there is so much technical challenges still left. There's no free lunch. I want to make it clear that I'm not trying to say "nuclear > renewables" or even "renewables > nuclear" (this is a dumb comparison imo), but rather that every time we have these conversations in HN and most places we aren't even attempting to make a one-to-one fair comparison. I just wish that, especially on a technical form, that the conversations would focus on technology and science rather than the politics. Though I understand that not every (anyone) is really qualified to talk technically so we talk politically because we still want to engage.
- thisisbrians 6y ago
  The way I think about the waste: for nuclear, the waste can be reliably (and safely) contained in a very small area, far from civilization and habitats, where it can't cause much of a problem. When we burn hydrocarbons, they pollute the atmosphere — for the entire planet.
notJim 6y ago
I couldn't agree more. Retiring reactors before a green replacement is available has been a total disaster for Germany. To be honest, I'm pretty agnostic as to what the replacement is, but at least keep them going until it's available.
- rjzzleep 6y ago
  it's basically what happens when decisions are made only based on ratings to get you through the next 4 years, instead of long term strategy.
- legulere 6y ago
  I would call it unwise, but there has been no disaster. Electricity production through fossil fuels went down, renewables reached 50% last year while Germany still has one of the most stable electricity network worldwide: https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites/default/files/medien/384/bilder/dateien/3_abb_bruttostromerzeugung-et_2020-02-25.pdf https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites/default/files/medien/38...
  - effie 6y ago
    50% of german electric energy production is from high availability sources (nuclear+fossil fuels) and Germany's network is connected to the continental network, so of course the network is stable. It will be hard to get these sources down and maintain that stability. Maybe it can be done with energy storage, but so far it is not built.
    - legulere 6y ago
      Those fears have been discussed endlessly. Just look at the graph I posted to see the change in the last years that is still continuing. Availability has nothing to do with what you are talking about (it’s much higher for photovoltaics anyway). Out of the 49.5% non-renewables only gas which makes up 12.5 percent of electricity can really be used to follow demand. Coal and nuclear are too slow for that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_factor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_factor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaking_power_plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaking_power_plant https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/de/presse-und-medien/news/2020/nettostromerzeugung-in-deutschland-2021-erneuerbare-energien-erstmals-ueber-50-prozent.html https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/de/presse-und-medien/news/2020...
legulere 6y ago
The question needs to be asked how new power plants that have to cope with much higher building costs can be more cost-efficient than already existing ones. It’s not like that nuclear has any cost-cutting progress like wind and photovoltaics still have.
- andrewlgood 6y ago
  Exactly
antattack 6y ago
About Iowas Duane Arnold plant that is being closed: "The Mark I containment was undersized in the original design; the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Harold Denton estimated a 90% probability of explosive failure if the pressure containment system were ever needed in a severe accident.[18] This design flaw may have been the reason that the tsunami in 2011 led to explosions and fire in Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.[19]" (Wikipedia) It's likely that many old power plants are just not safe and too costly to operate reliably.
- lumost 6y ago
  The follow-on question is why aren't these plants retrofitted to be secure? I'd somewhat naively expect that its simpler to upgrade an existing plant than permit a new plant in.a separate location.
  - antattack 6y ago
    Duane Arnold plant is being replaced with solar panels and battery storage: https://www.thegazette.com/subject/news/business/duane-arnold-nuclear-plant-solar-farm-nextera-energy-palo-ia-20210318 https://www.thegazette.com/subject/news/business/duane-arnol...
    - belorn 6y ago
      A 615-megawatt facility coupled with 60 megawatts seems a bit low on the storage side. The more common approach I have seen with solar panels is 75% capacity for about 3-4 hours running time. It should be quite clear that neither solution are even close to enough power to bridge the gap and require additional energy in the form of fossil fuels. It will be less fossil fuels than if the nuclear plant was exclusively replaced with fossil fuels, but it will be more fossil fuels than before and it will be adding to global warming in a time where the planet can't take more.
  - benchaney 6y ago
    It’s possible that it would be more expensive to upgrade than to replace in many cases. While I support expanding nuclear power capabilities in general, a straightforward rule like “don’t decommission old plants as long as fossil fuels are still being used” seems dangerous and irresponsible.
imtringued 6y ago
That's incredibly stupid. Do you really want to waste your budget on expensive disaster cleanup of a single nuclear power plant? If you decommission old nuclear power plants you save the 200 billion needed to clean them up in an accident (think of Fukushima). That money could have been used to build 5 modern power plants and do a non disaster cleanup of the old power plant.
- andrewlgood 6y ago
  You don't waste your budget on either. You build solar/wind with natural gas combined cycles. Then you shut down the existing nuclear plant that is hemorrhaging cash and never build the new nuclear. The only new nuclear power plant under construction in the US is Georgia Power's Vogtle 3/4. As described above it is incredibly over budget. What investor would seek to try again? It is not like we build 1,000 of these a year and the industry get more adept. We are building 2 units over 10 years.
andrewlgood 6y ago
Nuclear power plants have become incredibly expensive to operate. You are correct that some states such as NY, IL, and MA have provided subsidies, but these have been about saving jobs and tax base, not as much about the government. In NY the subsidy is for the Rochester-area plants, not Indian Point. Indian Point produces 12% of the state's power and an even larger % of power for NYC. In Ohio, the subsidies we so large they led to bribery payments of $60 million by FirstEnergy (former owner of the nuclear plants) to the Ohio Speaker of the House. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_nuclear_bribery_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_nuclear_bribery_scandal Low gas prices have accelerated the decision to close down existing nuclear power plants as gas prices look to be low for the foreseeable future thus keeping power prices low. As for new nuclear, I do not think there will be anymore after the Vogtle 3/4 plants are online. The certified construction and capital costs were estimated at $14 billion in 2017. In 2018 the costs were estimated upward to $25 billion. Analysts are now estimating an additional $1-2 billion due to COVID. With the estimated completion dates of Nov 21 and Nov 22 likely being pushed back. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogtle_Electric_Generating_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogtle_Electric_Generating_Pla... A sister set of plants (Westinghouse AP1000) design were begun in South Carolina (Summer 2/3). In 2008, costs were estimated at $9.8 billion. Project was cancelled in July of 2017 after $9 billion spent and total cost to complete was estimated at $25 billion. We do not know how to build new nuclear power plants even remotely cost effectively. The French have tried and it bankrupted their lead nuclear developer, Areva, in 2016. China has built some new nuclear power plants, but has not started a new one in a number of years. One last side note, another item damaging nuclear power plants, particularly in the Midwest is the structure of the subsidy for wind power. Wind power tax credits are a Production Tax Credit (PTC). To earn the tax credit, the wind turbine must generate power into the grid. As a consequence, wind turbines have a tax incentive to produce power in negative price environments (e.g. overnight). Nuclear power plants cannot turn on and off easily so they end up paying to produce power at these negative price time. Not helpful for profitability.

DennisAleynikov 6y ago

if we are to come out the other side of this climate emergency we must keep our reactors online. the purity testing of what do we do with the waste is not helpful critique when we are still reliant on coal

snuxoll 6y ago
The ignorance of the externalities of fossil fuels and a bipolar hyper focus on those of nuclear energy is mind boggling at this point. I’m all for developing renewables, but we cannot abandon the one good technology we have for generating massive amounts of energy our base loads demand without polluting our air.
- SCHiM 6y ago
  Indeed that is the strangest thing. By _any_ metric coal is far worse. Even the metric "amount of radioactive material that ended up in the atmosphere per watt of energy." (Coal contains trace amounts of radioactive material, that gets spread when burned). The fact of the matter is, that we can dump all our waste on a couple of football fields worth of space. Or even better: store it in a cave somewhere deep and dark and away from rivers.
  - Multicomp 6y ago
    This is probably one of those hacker news comments where it sounds good for 1 second then when you stop to think about it it falls apart, bu here goes. throw the waste in a bucket strong enough to survive hitting earth at terminal velocitty. place bucket in spacex falcon9 rocket. launch rocket into orbit with escape velocity. watch nuclear waste vanish into vacuum of space forever. if crash, collect bucket and restart with new rocket. financially costly? yes. solves the 'what about in 5000 years when someone opens it or it leaks?' questions, yes.
    - cperciva 6y ago
      The standard answer is "there's too much of a risk that an explosion would spread nuclear waste through the atmosphere". These days I'm not sure if it's true -- we've learned a lot about building containers which are safe even during rapid unscheduled disassemblies, and used them e.g. when sending nuclear powered rovers to Mars -- but that's the usual concern.
      - throwaway894345 6y ago
        I mean we’re wishing for a bucket that can survive terminal velocity impact with the earth and is yet light enough to ride a rocket, why not add to that wish that it could survive explosion from said rocket?
      - perardi 6y ago
        I think there’s a few orders of magnitude difference in the amount of radioactive material in an RTG in a probe bounds for Mars, and the total radioactive daughter particle output of a nuclear reactor.
    - shadowgovt 6y ago
      Ironically perhaps, the best reason not to do this is "It is extremely likely that, given sufficient time, we will either figure out a way to use the waste besides high-yield weapons or a cheaper way to dispose of the waste." Earth is huge. At the rate reactors create waste, the amount of land consumed by storing it is staggeringly low (the higher risks are transportation, which unfortunately the rocket idea doesn't solve unless we build a dedicated rocket site next to each reactor). Low enough to justify the risk-over-time of securely sequestering it instead of throwing it away.
- stjohnswarts 6y ago
  I simply don't understand those people who claim to want to fix the problem but balk at nuclear. It's like they'd prefer going back to rubbing two sticks together for heat and building lean-tos for shelter. Which is where we might end up going back to if we keep overpopulating and destroying the earth and climate.
  - jhayward 6y ago
    I simply don't understand those people who claim to want to fix the problem but insist on only getting 1/10th the electricity for their invested dollar, and at a schedule 10x slower than renewables. It's like they are being deliberately obtuse.
    - effie 6y ago
      It's not about money, but about replacing the coal and gas power plants. Renewable sources can't do that alone, they need massive energy storage facilities (which so far do not exist).
      - ldbooth 6y ago
        Because storage isn't tax credit incentivized, at least in the US. Coal still is. And FYI California will install 1.3GW of storage this year, and a storage tax credit is likely by end of this year. It's coming. Hopefully we find something more elegant or ways to recycle storage/battery materials.
    - redwall_hp 6y ago
      I see two options: 1. They're ignorant and follow a fallacious "appeal to nature" mentality. They seriously think that some sort of return to nature will result in a utopia instead of disease and famine. 2. They're Malthus apologists who want to cause an energy crisis and cause people (who aren't them) to die. It also overlaps with the anti-GMO types.
- arithmomachist 6y ago
  Three Mile Island and Chernobyl loom very large in the imaginations of the boomers and gen x, respectively. Nuclear plant meltdowns are world news on the few occasions they've happened, whereas horrifying explosions and accidents at fossil fuel plants aren't considered remarkable. It's the same reason people overestimate the risk of flying relative to driving.
  - petre 6y ago
    Just wait until a lithium battry storage facility catches on fire.
- godelski 6y ago
  There's also an ignorance of the externalities of renewables. Yes, they are magnitudes better than fossil fuels, but it amazes me how much people bring up uranium mining and ignore everything to do with rare earth mining in general. Or talk about waste storage of heavy metals and lithium. The problem is that everything has a cost. You can't make good comparisons if you only look at the costs of one system and the benefits of another. These are extremely complicated equations that people act like they are simple. I also frequently see a lot of belief that the issues are purely political (renewables and nuclear) when there is so much technical challenges still left. There's no free lunch. I want to make it clear that I'm not trying to say "nuclear > renewables" or even "renewables > nuclear" (this is a dumb comparison imo), but rather that every time we have these conversations in HN and most places we aren't even attempting to make a one-to-one fair comparison. I just wish that, especially on a technical form, that the conversations would focus on technology and science rather than the politics. Though I understand that not every (anyone) is really qualified to talk technically so we talk politically because we still want to engage.
thisisbrians 6y ago
The way I think about the waste: for nuclear, the waste can be reliably (and safely) contained in a very small area, far from civilization and habitats, where it can't cause much of a problem. When we burn hydrocarbons, they pollute the atmosphere — for the entire planet.

notJim 6y ago

I couldn't agree more. Retiring reactors before a green replacement is available has been a total disaster for Germany. To be honest, I'm pretty agnostic as to what the replacement is, but at least keep them going until it's available.

rjzzleep 6y ago
it's basically what happens when decisions are made only based on ratings to get you through the next 4 years, instead of long term strategy.
legulere 6y ago
I would call it unwise, but there has been no disaster. Electricity production through fossil fuels went down, renewables reached 50% last year while Germany still has one of the most stable electricity network worldwide: https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites/default/files/medien/384/bilder/dateien/3_abb_bruttostromerzeugung-et_2020-02-25.pdf https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites/default/files/medien/38...
- effie 6y ago
  50% of german electric energy production is from high availability sources (nuclear+fossil fuels) and Germany's network is connected to the continental network, so of course the network is stable. It will be hard to get these sources down and maintain that stability. Maybe it can be done with energy storage, but so far it is not built.
  - legulere 6y ago
    Those fears have been discussed endlessly. Just look at the graph I posted to see the change in the last years that is still continuing. Availability has nothing to do with what you are talking about (it’s much higher for photovoltaics anyway). Out of the 49.5% non-renewables only gas which makes up 12.5 percent of electricity can really be used to follow demand. Coal and nuclear are too slow for that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_factor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_factor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaking_power_plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaking_power_plant https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/de/presse-und-medien/news/2020/nettostromerzeugung-in-deutschland-2021-erneuerbare-energien-erstmals-ueber-50-prozent.html https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/de/presse-und-medien/news/2020...

legulere 6y ago

The question needs to be asked how new power plants that have to cope with much higher building costs can be more cost-efficient than already existing ones. It’s not like that nuclear has any cost-cutting progress like wind and photovoltaics still have.

andrewlgood 6y ago
Exactly

antattack 6y ago

About Iowas Duane Arnold plant that is being closed: "The Mark I containment was undersized in the original design; the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Harold Denton estimated a 90% probability of explosive failure if the pressure containment system were ever needed in a severe accident.[18] This design flaw may have been the reason that the tsunami in 2011 led to explosions and fire in Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.[19]" (Wikipedia) It's likely that many old power plants are just not safe and too costly to operate reliably.

lumost 6y ago
The follow-on question is why aren't these plants retrofitted to be secure? I'd somewhat naively expect that its simpler to upgrade an existing plant than permit a new plant in.a separate location.
- antattack 6y ago
  Duane Arnold plant is being replaced with solar panels and battery storage: https://www.thegazette.com/subject/news/business/duane-arnold-nuclear-plant-solar-farm-nextera-energy-palo-ia-20210318 https://www.thegazette.com/subject/news/business/duane-arnol...
  - belorn 6y ago
    A 615-megawatt facility coupled with 60 megawatts seems a bit low on the storage side. The more common approach I have seen with solar panels is 75% capacity for about 3-4 hours running time. It should be quite clear that neither solution are even close to enough power to bridge the gap and require additional energy in the form of fossil fuels. It will be less fossil fuels than if the nuclear plant was exclusively replaced with fossil fuels, but it will be more fossil fuels than before and it will be adding to global warming in a time where the planet can't take more.
- benchaney 6y ago
  It’s possible that it would be more expensive to upgrade than to replace in many cases. While I support expanding nuclear power capabilities in general, a straightforward rule like “don’t decommission old plants as long as fossil fuels are still being used” seems dangerous and irresponsible.

imtringued 6y ago

That's incredibly stupid. Do you really want to waste your budget on expensive disaster cleanup of a single nuclear power plant? If you decommission old nuclear power plants you save the 200 billion needed to clean them up in an accident (think of Fukushima). That money could have been used to build 5 modern power plants and do a non disaster cleanup of the old power plant.

andrewlgood 6y ago
You don't waste your budget on either. You build solar/wind with natural gas combined cycles. Then you shut down the existing nuclear plant that is hemorrhaging cash and never build the new nuclear. The only new nuclear power plant under construction in the US is Georgia Power's Vogtle 3/4. As described above it is incredibly over budget. What investor would seek to try again? It is not like we build 1,000 of these a year and the industry get more adept. We are building 2 units over 10 years.

andrewlgood 6y ago

Nuclear power plants have become incredibly expensive to operate. You are correct that some states such as NY, IL, and MA have provided subsidies, but these have been about saving jobs and tax base, not as much about the government. In NY the subsidy is for the Rochester-area plants, not Indian Point. Indian Point produces 12% of the state's power and an even larger % of power for NYC. In Ohio, the subsidies we so large they led to bribery payments of $60 million by FirstEnergy (former owner of the nuclear plants) to the Ohio Speaker of the House. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_nuclear_bribery_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_nuclear_bribery_scandal Low gas prices have accelerated the decision to close down existing nuclear power plants as gas prices look to be low for the foreseeable future thus keeping power prices low. As for new nuclear, I do not think there will be anymore after the Vogtle 3/4 plants are online. The certified construction and capital costs were estimated at $14 billion in 2017. In 2018 the costs were estimated upward to $25 billion. Analysts are now estimating an additional $1-2 billion due to COVID. With the estimated completion dates of Nov 21 and Nov 22 likely being pushed back. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogtle_Electric_Generating_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogtle_Electric_Generating_Pla... A sister set of plants (Westinghouse AP1000) design were begun in South Carolina (Summer 2/3). In 2008, costs were estimated at $9.8 billion. Project was cancelled in July of 2017 after $9 billion spent and total cost to complete was estimated at $25 billion. We do not know how to build new nuclear power plants even remotely cost effectively. The French have tried and it bankrupted their lead nuclear developer, Areva, in 2016. China has built some new nuclear power plants, but has not started a new one in a number of years. One last side note, another item damaging nuclear power plants, particularly in the Midwest is the structure of the subsidy for wind power. Wind power tax credits are a Production Tax Credit (PTC). To earn the tax credit, the wind turbine must generate power into the grid. As a consequence, wind turbines have a tax incentive to produce power in negative price environments (e.g. overnight). Nuclear power plants cannot turn on and off easily so they end up paying to produce power at these negative price time. Not helpful for profitability.