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I support nuclear power and oppose subsidies for it. A better approach is to remove subsidies from their dirtier competitors.

BitwiseFool 5y ago
I feel like it would be far more politically practical to add subsidies to Nuclear rather than take away existing subsidies on other things.
gameswithgo 5y ago
Ideas about how to run governments need to be thought of in context of how the government operates. If was emporer of the USA, I would do what you suggest. But if I was president, I probably could not.
frereubu 5y ago
Why not both?
halfmatthalfcat 5y ago
Nuclear power capital requirements (up front) are one of the biggest roadblocks to building new plants, followed by regulatory complexity and cruft that hasn’t been streamlined to allow new reactor designs to be implemented. Doing both, removing subsidies from dirty energy and moving them to nuclear, would be the best case.
- xroche 5y ago
  Nuclear power requirements (up front) has also a big issue: the cost of money. The only viable solution is to have state-owned nuclear energy, because only states can borrow cheap money (ie. even at negative rates), where private companies are required to bleed interests during decades. Nuclear is the cheapest energy when state-owned, but struggle to compete against coal/gaz otherwise.
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago
    Have the Navy run them, make the land Navy bases (Crane Naval Support [1] near Bloomington, IN comes to mind). Encourage efficiency, require transparency, but have no tolerance for safety deficiencies or shortcuts. [1] https://www.navsea.navy.mil/Home/Warfare-Centers/NSWC-Crane/ https://www.navsea.navy.mil/Home/Warfare-Centers/NSWC-Crane/
    - Spartan-S63 5y ago
      Or have the government own the plants and lease out operation to a qualified commercial operator with rigorous certification requirements and regular recertification requirements.
      - toomuchtodo 5y ago
        I have more faith in the military chain of command versus a contractor who isn’t going to give AF if they lose a contract and the US gov has to pay out to rehabilitate a facility that wasn’t properly maintained. Contractors have less fear than someone who can be jailed (and let’s be honest, contractors and other commercial entities are never held accountable when they cut corners for profit and pollute with wild abandon leaving us with Superfund sites).
        danans 5y ago
        > when they cut corners for profit and pollute with wild abandon leaving us with Superfund sites The military doesn't have a great track record on Superfund sites i.e: https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/cursites/csitinfo.cfm?id=0902731 https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/cursites/csitinfo.cfm?id=0... However, I agree that at least the military has the culture that will follow orders if asked, and more importantly, it's the only government program that the US population is willing to put unchecked amounts of money towards. As Reagan said: "trust, but verify".
      - minikites 5y ago
        Why does it need to be run by a commercial operator at all? What advantage does that confer?
- epistasis 5y ago
  I hear about regulatory cruft, but have never heard of examples of what would be changed. We have two recent build sites in the US, one failed entirely, and the other is hobbling along. I've read lots of analyses and postmortems, and the only regulation-related criticisms I've found are that the NRC doesn't regulate enough. By only looking for safety of the design, Westinghouse was able to submit designs that were safe, but not particularly buildable. If the regulators had checked the work of Westinghouse to include basic build ability in addition to safety, tens of billions of dollars might have been saved, and we might have been building more nuclear reactors. But I would like to hear more specific complaints about how regulations could change, if it has the chance to improve nuclear.
  - R0b0t1 5y ago
    > By only looking for safety of the design, Westinghouse was able to submit designs that were safe, but not particularly buildable. Because the commission is biased towards safety above all else. They need to be more realistic and not cave in to fearmongering. The design needs to be safe, but against a realistic threat model. The designs also need to be assembly line and not so highly customized. French style reactor designs are good for this reason. Part that holds the reactor? Fine, evaluate for weather and calamity resistance and build per location. The reactor? Hope you like black.
    - epistasis 5y ago
      What is an example of this fearmongering, and what expense did it cause?
      - agloeregrets 5y ago
        From the outside, you have large-scale accidents that caused a lot of fear that killed the drive for us. Notably Three Mile Island in the US and the effects of seeing what happened in Chernobyl that was drummed up by the US government to show failures by the Soviets (even though the Soviet reactor design was far more dangerous). Additionally, I live near a plant and they hold extreme safety training on iodine distribution and such to school children that makes kids fear the plant.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- jkingsbery 5y ago
  Whether subsidies are a good idea or not in general for nuclear is an interesting question. The article states that the current plan is to give production tax credits - tax credits for energy produced. Such a subsidy, which does not help mitigate the up front capital costs, would therefore not really address the root problem in the US. To the more general question though: subsidies are to incentivize people (or companies) to do a thing (or do more of a thing). In the case of nuclear power, the timelines involved in building a power plant are so long, and given the uncertainty of having the same tax credits staying in place for long enough to impact financial plans, it seems unlikely that it would actually have the effect we'd want on nuclear power production.
- EricE 5y ago
  So don’t build big plants. Micro reactors are far cheaper, easier to maintain and a distributed network of micro reactors would greatly reduce the burden on our already archaic national electric grid. Kill two birds with one stone and all that…
  - dukeyukey 5y ago
    I love the idea, but how much energy to micro-reactors provide today, on a commercial basis?
    - EricE 5y ago
      As much as you need. Modern designs are modular - chain together as many as you need to provide base load and also provide some overage so you have coverage when they do inevitably need servicing. Or since they are modular if significant long term loads shift geographically, you can easily move them around to where needed too. I agree the concepts of massive plants aren’t desireable - luckily there are alternatives if we can ever get past the emotional arguments and actually discuss things rationally.
      - dukeyukey 5y ago
        They sound awesome, but as far as I know they still haven't been commercialised so their potential is still largely unknown.
        jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago
        NuScale is still moving, but they have slipped on schedule and budget, far enough some of their project partners have pulled out. So far everyone who's pursued this small modular reactors built by factories approach has failed in the ambition. Doesn't mean it's impossible but just maybe we should be a bit more bearish than bullish on the idea of this sparking a revolution in the capital costs and time scales of nuclear power.
    - thinkcontext 5y ago
- wffurr 5y ago
  This isn't about new reactors, it's about operating subsidies to keep existing ones running.
king_magic 5y ago
I'm fine with subsidies for nuclear power given the absolutely terrifying stakes of unchecked climate change.
- _huayra_ 5y ago
  Yes, I'd much rather that my taxes go to an up-front long term investment than have it blown away reacting to something that could have been prevented! It's a good investment for taxpayers, unlike subsidizing dino juice.
koheripbal 5y ago
The notion that there are large subsidies for fossil fuels is not backed up by the data. There are currently more subsidies for solar and wind.
- cameldrv 5y ago
  The subsidy is that they get to emit CO2 for free.
  - hackeraccount 5y ago
    Join the club? I mean, if they're doing it for free then we all are - if we're paying then so are they.
    - p1mrx 5y ago
      Yes, that's why taxing carbon would be useful; it encourages all emitters to find solutions in parallel.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > The notion that there are large subsidies for fossil fuels is not backed up by the data. The absence of Pigovian taxes to internalize te environmental externalities is a de facto subsidy equal to the value of the externalized negative impacts (it's paid by society at large through the externalized impacts rather than through government, but the impact is the same.)
  - moreira 5y ago
    Calling it a subsidy makes it seem like it's something governments are doing on purpose. That they can easily say "this subsidy has expired, we're not giving it to you anymore". That is not the case. Implementing a new tax for CO2 emissions is a much, much bigger political endeavour than simply letting a subsidy expire and not renewing it. That's why there's not much value in perverting language to somehow argue that fossil fuels are subsidised. They are not, there's no way to "remove subsidies from their dirtier competitors", as the parent poster suggested. There is a way to tax CO2 emissions, but that's a different discussion altogether.
exabrial 5y ago
Couldn't say it better. Subsidies don't work out the way you want. Look at ethanol: it's an incredibly dirty fuel source (using tons of diesel to make "fuel", smart!) but the ethanol lobby and unions have entrenched themselves permanently so its not worth the fight.
- galangalalgol 5y ago
  It just occurred to me that the EV transition will also affect food prices, that should be interesting. Big agro and big oil batting against it. Not sure how we are making even the little progress we are.
  - thinkcontext 5y ago
    Indeed, 40% of US corn is used for ethanol so the potential effect could be huge. However, there's a lot of movement afoot in the ethanol industry for using carbon capture. My guess is given the Ag lobby biofuel will be retained for some time.
- telchar 5y ago
  What unions are involved in ethanol? That's primarily the corn farmer/big ag corps' interest.
minikites 5y ago
>A better approach is to remove subsidies from their dirtier competitors. I see this argued a lot for many industries, has it ever actually happened for any of them? It doesn't seem realistic, but I'd love to be wrong.
hindsightbias 5y ago
As someone opposed to nuclear power, I agree with both points. Nuclear power cannot exist without subsidies for development, construction and all the externalities. It can't exist in a free market or a leveled playing field.
- orthecreedence 5y ago
  > It can't exist in a free market or a leveled playing field. Right, because free markets are not capable of pricing in externalities (and in fact they actively incentivize externalities). If they were capable of this, fossil fuels would be prohibitively expensive, and nuclear would be cheap.
citilife 5y ago
I think a better approach is to change some of the regulation. Most of it is good, but some of it is kinda insane. My father worked on nuclear plants in the 70-80's. According to him, from the 80's on it effectively was so much regulation that it was not at all worth building a plant. With technological advancement, a little change in regulations could go a long way.
- nebukadnezar 5y ago
  Good book what should be done: https://www.amazon.com/Why-Nuclear-Power-Been-Flop/dp/1098308964/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&qid=1620226677&refinements=p_27%3AJack+Devanney&s=books&sr=1-2&text=Jack+Devanney https://www.amazon.com/Why-Nuclear-Power-Been-Flop/dp/109830...
- Tostino 5y ago
  If you know, I would love to hear some of the specific regulations that he thought were ineffective and or hampering our nuclear power construction. I've seen it mentioned in this thread without specifics.
  - citilife 5y ago
    According to my father, the unions were requiring some crazy stuff like you had a pipe fitter do X, then a different pipe fitter do Y. Both had to be on seperate days. My dad actually left his role when he was stuck in a pipe shaft in 120 degree heat. A pipe fitter went up and the person who helped him out of the pipe and was fired for not following protocol. The regulation came in when they started codifying the union rules. There was also an incident where Westinghouse and GE were faking inspections. I don't have specifics on hand. Generally though, it seems corrupt. At least at the time, the unions essentially controlled construction and wanted to line their pockets, the politicians also lined their pockets. Eventually, the cost was too high to build.
  - lalaithion 5y ago
    Nuclear radiation safety is assessed using the "As Low As Reasonably Achievable" standard, which essentially says that if you make a nuclear power plant produce power at half the price of the next-door coal power plant, you have to spend all of the increased profit on increased safety measures. Nuclear can never out-compete non-nuclear power under that regulatory regime.
eloff 5y ago
In general I oppose subsidies, but I think it's a good idea here. Nuclear solves some major problems with other types of clean energy - it's just prohibitively expensive. I'm all for exploring all alternatives to fossil fuels in parallel - I think the seriousness of the climate situation warrants it. But that cost is largely a function of strong regulations and lack of innovation. If the government gets the ball rolling with subsidies it might get to the point where it doesn't need them anymore. Reducing regulation where appropriate could help too - but in general there are risks and regulation is warranted. And because it makes so much sense - implement a carbon tax that ramps up slowly to the full cost of the externalities of fossil fuels. It's the most effective thing to fight climate change, but instead of doing that we actually subsidize fossil fuels?!? I don't get it.
Sparkle-san 5y ago
In a free market perhaps, but nuclear power comes with loads of government oversight and regulations (and therefore costs) due to the inherent risk factors. Given that, subsidies seems appropriate.
- EricE 5y ago
  One would think the ultimate “subsidy” would be making the current regulatory environment more rational, no?
deleted 5y ago
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spamalot159 5y ago
The capital requirements for starting a nuclear company is likely much large than starting, say, an EV company. Subsidies for EV companies greatly helped in getting the technology off the ground. Subsidies might be a necessary evil in this case.
natch 5y ago
According to 2014 Elon Musk, if you cover the same square footage as taken up by a nuclear power plant and its exclusion zone with solar cells, you’ll get more electricity than the nuclear power plant would have supplied. 2014 was a long time ago. It’s possible both technologies have improved since then. I wonder why we don’t hear about this comparison more.
- JoshTko 5y ago
  That's for conventional nuclear. Small reactors will take a order less as they have structurally safer designs.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - natch 5y ago
    Don’t you love vaporware? It can do anything! Real-life non-vaporware solar + battery combo installations are improving and spreading all the time. By the time vaporware small nuclear materializes outside of demonstration projects (10 years? 20?) there’s no telling how efficient and ubiquitous solar + batteries will be.
- bluedino 5y ago
  In Tuscon, or Seattle?
  - natch 5y ago
    Eastern Washington gets plenty of sun and it’s not that far as grids go.
- politician 5y ago
  That didn't seem right, so I looked up nuclear exclusion zones -- those things are huge! [1] https://cdn.britannica.com/s:800x1000/00/196800-050-E30A2B4A/Map-exclusion-zones-accidents-Chernobyl-Fukushima-Japan.jpg https://cdn.britannica.com/s:800x1000/00/196800-050-E30A2B4A...
caffeine 5y ago
You are assuming the objective is clean power. But if the objective were to curry favour with as many people as possible, subsidising everything works better than leveling the playing field. Everybody gets a taste.
- deelowe 5y ago
  Politics is like 25% solving problems and 75% a popularity contest and that's being generous. No sane politician would ever remove something providing a benefit until well after it's outlived it's usefulness.
Mvandenbergh 5y ago
In the absence of a carbon tax, the next best approach is a subsidy that only applies to non CO2-emitting technologies funded from general taxation. Since there is not sufficient political consensus for the former in the US, the latter is a good interim solution.
- Robotbeat 5y ago
  Yeah, agreed. And it’s super annoying when people use the fact that a subsidy isn’t as efficient as a carbon tax (or some other broad measure) as justification for ending it (without a carbon tax replacement). For instance, Virginia (a Blue state) passed a usage fee on EVs (that’s actually higher than the typical state gas tax would be for the same distance traveled in a regular vehicle) in order to “compensate” for the fact that EVs don’t pay gas tax. Therefore turning the Pigouvian gas tax into an anti-Pigouvian fee for acting on the desire to use more efficient and lower emissions transportation. (Not to mention you ALSO were taxed on electricity and the battery... plus personal property tax for the battery... just to add insult to injury.) I guess because of the (false) perception that only rich f**ks buy electric cars. “Oh, but it’s JUST for paying for the roads!” Yeah, like the Pigouvian aspect didn’t matter and as if the state gas tax is solely used for roads.
downrightmike 5y ago
Both
macksd 5y ago
Clearly you don't know how to run up $28 trillion in debt.
orthecreedence 5y ago
I support not destroying the planet. Whatever gets the job done at this point. Removing subsidies is a political shitshow, and you're effectively saying "I support a decades-long political sparring contest while the planet burns." I think it's safe to say we're not operating under a democracy/republic anymore, so whatever will appease the coroporate/banking overlords the quickest is the best path forward.
Wowfunhappy 5y ago
I support serious measures to address climate change and oppose anything that gets in the way of such measures. If the government wants to give a free pony to people who installs solar panels, that's fine by me. More optimal policies are preferably, of course, but that's a secondary concern. Right now, it seems the most likely outcome is that we keep using fossil fuels, so I'm desperate for anything! (The exception are measures such as banning plastic straws, which I oppose because it's actually a significant inconvenience—which means spent political capital—but will do exceedingly little for the planet.)
datavirtue 5y ago
The french didn't need anything fancy. They stadardized and then scaled production of reactors. They now have the cheapest energy on the planet, sell excess to others, and have no carbon output from electricity generation. "Freedom fries?"
- pfdietz 5y ago
  They now are moving away from nuclear because they are finding it impossible to build new ones affordably. Also, I think you're confusing cost and price there.
anonuser123456 5y ago
Nuclear is expensive because of regulatory interference. The NRC literally has a mandate to increase cost. If nuclear had to compete with coal on actual safety, nuclear would already be cheaper than coal.
asdff 5y ago
The problem is capital doesn't care about the big picture. Nuclear power is an upfront costly measure, you don't see a return for perhaps decades. That's fine if you are a public agency since in time, this will pay for itself, and the concern is about bettering the public in the best way possible, not making a quick return on investment. It's not fine if you are a private energy company with shareholders who are looking to take on a gain and who are only looking at life one quarter at a time. Executives would rather invest in something cheaper where their investors will see a quicker return, because that's how executives keep their jobs. Executives and shareholders care about themselves and their profit, while the government is designed to care about the collective, although its great power is frequently commandeered by individuals seeking personal profit.
ineedasername 5y ago
If we're treating this as a world-critical issue, we shouldn't wait for market forces to fix it. Like evolution, market forces may converge on good solutions, but not quickly enough to save a species from near extinction. So, yeah, stop subsidizing dirty companies, but also subsidize those solutions that get us out of this mess faster.

BitwiseFool 5y ago

I feel like it would be far more politically practical to add subsidies to Nuclear rather than take away existing subsidies on other things.

gameswithgo 5y ago

Ideas about how to run governments need to be thought of in context of how the government operates. If was emporer of the USA, I would do what you suggest. But if I was president, I probably could not.

frereubu 5y ago

Why not both?

halfmatthalfcat 5y ago

Nuclear power capital requirements (up front) are one of the biggest roadblocks to building new plants, followed by regulatory complexity and cruft that hasn’t been streamlined to allow new reactor designs to be implemented. Doing both, removing subsidies from dirty energy and moving them to nuclear, would be the best case.

xroche 5y ago
Nuclear power requirements (up front) has also a big issue: the cost of money. The only viable solution is to have state-owned nuclear energy, because only states can borrow cheap money (ie. even at negative rates), where private companies are required to bleed interests during decades. Nuclear is the cheapest energy when state-owned, but struggle to compete against coal/gaz otherwise.
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  Have the Navy run them, make the land Navy bases (Crane Naval Support [1] near Bloomington, IN comes to mind). Encourage efficiency, require transparency, but have no tolerance for safety deficiencies or shortcuts. [1] https://www.navsea.navy.mil/Home/Warfare-Centers/NSWC-Crane/ https://www.navsea.navy.mil/Home/Warfare-Centers/NSWC-Crane/
  - Spartan-S63 5y ago
    Or have the government own the plants and lease out operation to a qualified commercial operator with rigorous certification requirements and regular recertification requirements.
    - toomuchtodo 5y ago
      I have more faith in the military chain of command versus a contractor who isn’t going to give AF if they lose a contract and the US gov has to pay out to rehabilitate a facility that wasn’t properly maintained. Contractors have less fear than someone who can be jailed (and let’s be honest, contractors and other commercial entities are never held accountable when they cut corners for profit and pollute with wild abandon leaving us with Superfund sites).
      - danans 5y ago
        > when they cut corners for profit and pollute with wild abandon leaving us with Superfund sites The military doesn't have a great track record on Superfund sites i.e: https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/cursites/csitinfo.cfm?id=0902731 https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/cursites/csitinfo.cfm?id=0... However, I agree that at least the military has the culture that will follow orders if asked, and more importantly, it's the only government program that the US population is willing to put unchecked amounts of money towards. As Reagan said: "trust, but verify".
    - minikites 5y ago
      Why does it need to be run by a commercial operator at all? What advantage does that confer?
epistasis 5y ago
I hear about regulatory cruft, but have never heard of examples of what would be changed. We have two recent build sites in the US, one failed entirely, and the other is hobbling along. I've read lots of analyses and postmortems, and the only regulation-related criticisms I've found are that the NRC doesn't regulate enough. By only looking for safety of the design, Westinghouse was able to submit designs that were safe, but not particularly buildable. If the regulators had checked the work of Westinghouse to include basic build ability in addition to safety, tens of billions of dollars might have been saved, and we might have been building more nuclear reactors. But I would like to hear more specific complaints about how regulations could change, if it has the chance to improve nuclear.
- R0b0t1 5y ago
  > By only looking for safety of the design, Westinghouse was able to submit designs that were safe, but not particularly buildable. Because the commission is biased towards safety above all else. They need to be more realistic and not cave in to fearmongering. The design needs to be safe, but against a realistic threat model. The designs also need to be assembly line and not so highly customized. French style reactor designs are good for this reason. Part that holds the reactor? Fine, evaluate for weather and calamity resistance and build per location. The reactor? Hope you like black.
  - epistasis 5y ago
    What is an example of this fearmongering, and what expense did it cause?
    - agloeregrets 5y ago
      From the outside, you have large-scale accidents that caused a lot of fear that killed the drive for us. Notably Three Mile Island in the US and the effects of seeing what happened in Chernobyl that was drummed up by the US government to show failures by the Soviets (even though the Soviet reactor design was far more dangerous). Additionally, I live near a plant and they hold extreme safety training on iodine distribution and such to school children that makes kids fear the plant.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jkingsbery 5y ago
Whether subsidies are a good idea or not in general for nuclear is an interesting question. The article states that the current plan is to give production tax credits - tax credits for energy produced. Such a subsidy, which does not help mitigate the up front capital costs, would therefore not really address the root problem in the US. To the more general question though: subsidies are to incentivize people (or companies) to do a thing (or do more of a thing). In the case of nuclear power, the timelines involved in building a power plant are so long, and given the uncertainty of having the same tax credits staying in place for long enough to impact financial plans, it seems unlikely that it would actually have the effect we'd want on nuclear power production.
EricE 5y ago
So don’t build big plants. Micro reactors are far cheaper, easier to maintain and a distributed network of micro reactors would greatly reduce the burden on our already archaic national electric grid. Kill two birds with one stone and all that…
- dukeyukey 5y ago
  I love the idea, but how much energy to micro-reactors provide today, on a commercial basis?
  - EricE 5y ago
    As much as you need. Modern designs are modular - chain together as many as you need to provide base load and also provide some overage so you have coverage when they do inevitably need servicing. Or since they are modular if significant long term loads shift geographically, you can easily move them around to where needed too. I agree the concepts of massive plants aren’t desireable - luckily there are alternatives if we can ever get past the emotional arguments and actually discuss things rationally.
    - dukeyukey 5y ago
      They sound awesome, but as far as I know they still haven't been commercialised so their potential is still largely unknown.
      - jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago
        NuScale is still moving, but they have slipped on schedule and budget, far enough some of their project partners have pulled out. So far everyone who's pursued this small modular reactors built by factories approach has failed in the ambition. Doesn't mean it's impossible but just maybe we should be a bit more bearish than bullish on the idea of this sparking a revolution in the capital costs and time scales of nuclear power.
  - thinkcontext 5y ago
wffurr 5y ago
This isn't about new reactors, it's about operating subsidies to keep existing ones running.

king_magic 5y ago

I'm fine with subsidies for nuclear power given the absolutely terrifying stakes of unchecked climate change.

_huayra_ 5y ago
Yes, I'd much rather that my taxes go to an up-front long term investment than have it blown away reacting to something that could have been prevented! It's a good investment for taxpayers, unlike subsidizing dino juice.

koheripbal 5y ago

The notion that there are large subsidies for fossil fuels is not backed up by the data. There are currently more subsidies for solar and wind.

cameldrv 5y ago
The subsidy is that they get to emit CO2 for free.
- hackeraccount 5y ago
  Join the club? I mean, if they're doing it for free then we all are - if we're paying then so are they.
  - p1mrx 5y ago
    Yes, that's why taxing carbon would be useful; it encourages all emitters to find solutions in parallel.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> The notion that there are large subsidies for fossil fuels is not backed up by the data. The absence of Pigovian taxes to internalize te environmental externalities is a de facto subsidy equal to the value of the externalized negative impacts (it's paid by society at large through the externalized impacts rather than through government, but the impact is the same.)
- moreira 5y ago
  Calling it a subsidy makes it seem like it's something governments are doing on purpose. That they can easily say "this subsidy has expired, we're not giving it to you anymore". That is not the case. Implementing a new tax for CO2 emissions is a much, much bigger political endeavour than simply letting a subsidy expire and not renewing it. That's why there's not much value in perverting language to somehow argue that fossil fuels are subsidised. They are not, there's no way to "remove subsidies from their dirtier competitors", as the parent poster suggested. There is a way to tax CO2 emissions, but that's a different discussion altogether.

exabrial 5y ago

Couldn't say it better. Subsidies don't work out the way you want. Look at ethanol: it's an incredibly dirty fuel source (using tons of diesel to make "fuel", smart!) but the ethanol lobby and unions have entrenched themselves permanently so its not worth the fight.

galangalalgol 5y ago
It just occurred to me that the EV transition will also affect food prices, that should be interesting. Big agro and big oil batting against it. Not sure how we are making even the little progress we are.
- thinkcontext 5y ago
  Indeed, 40% of US corn is used for ethanol so the potential effect could be huge. However, there's a lot of movement afoot in the ethanol industry for using carbon capture. My guess is given the Ag lobby biofuel will be retained for some time.
telchar 5y ago
What unions are involved in ethanol? That's primarily the corn farmer/big ag corps' interest.

minikites 5y ago

>A better approach is to remove subsidies from their dirtier competitors. I see this argued a lot for many industries, has it ever actually happened for any of them? It doesn't seem realistic, but I'd love to be wrong.

hindsightbias 5y ago

As someone opposed to nuclear power, I agree with both points. Nuclear power cannot exist without subsidies for development, construction and all the externalities. It can't exist in a free market or a leveled playing field.

orthecreedence 5y ago
> It can't exist in a free market or a leveled playing field. Right, because free markets are not capable of pricing in externalities (and in fact they actively incentivize externalities). If they were capable of this, fossil fuels would be prohibitively expensive, and nuclear would be cheap.

citilife 5y ago

I think a better approach is to change some of the regulation. Most of it is good, but some of it is kinda insane. My father worked on nuclear plants in the 70-80's. According to him, from the 80's on it effectively was so much regulation that it was not at all worth building a plant. With technological advancement, a little change in regulations could go a long way.

nebukadnezar 5y ago
Good book what should be done: https://www.amazon.com/Why-Nuclear-Power-Been-Flop/dp/1098308964/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&qid=1620226677&refinements=p_27%3AJack+Devanney&s=books&sr=1-2&text=Jack+Devanney https://www.amazon.com/Why-Nuclear-Power-Been-Flop/dp/109830...
Tostino 5y ago
If you know, I would love to hear some of the specific regulations that he thought were ineffective and or hampering our nuclear power construction. I've seen it mentioned in this thread without specifics.
- citilife 5y ago
  According to my father, the unions were requiring some crazy stuff like you had a pipe fitter do X, then a different pipe fitter do Y. Both had to be on seperate days. My dad actually left his role when he was stuck in a pipe shaft in 120 degree heat. A pipe fitter went up and the person who helped him out of the pipe and was fired for not following protocol. The regulation came in when they started codifying the union rules. There was also an incident where Westinghouse and GE were faking inspections. I don't have specifics on hand. Generally though, it seems corrupt. At least at the time, the unions essentially controlled construction and wanted to line their pockets, the politicians also lined their pockets. Eventually, the cost was too high to build.
- lalaithion 5y ago
  Nuclear radiation safety is assessed using the "As Low As Reasonably Achievable" standard, which essentially says that if you make a nuclear power plant produce power at half the price of the next-door coal power plant, you have to spend all of the increased profit on increased safety measures. Nuclear can never out-compete non-nuclear power under that regulatory regime.

eloff 5y ago

In general I oppose subsidies, but I think it's a good idea here. Nuclear solves some major problems with other types of clean energy - it's just prohibitively expensive. I'm all for exploring all alternatives to fossil fuels in parallel - I think the seriousness of the climate situation warrants it. But that cost is largely a function of strong regulations and lack of innovation. If the government gets the ball rolling with subsidies it might get to the point where it doesn't need them anymore. Reducing regulation where appropriate could help too - but in general there are risks and regulation is warranted. And because it makes so much sense - implement a carbon tax that ramps up slowly to the full cost of the externalities of fossil fuels. It's the most effective thing to fight climate change, but instead of doing that we actually subsidize fossil fuels?!? I don't get it.

Sparkle-san 5y ago

In a free market perhaps, but nuclear power comes with loads of government oversight and regulations (and therefore costs) due to the inherent risk factors. Given that, subsidies seems appropriate.

EricE 5y ago
One would think the ultimate “subsidy” would be making the current regulatory environment more rational, no?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

spamalot159 5y ago

The capital requirements for starting a nuclear company is likely much large than starting, say, an EV company. Subsidies for EV companies greatly helped in getting the technology off the ground. Subsidies might be a necessary evil in this case.

natch 5y ago

According to 2014 Elon Musk, if you cover the same square footage as taken up by a nuclear power plant and its exclusion zone with solar cells, you’ll get more electricity than the nuclear power plant would have supplied. 2014 was a long time ago. It’s possible both technologies have improved since then. I wonder why we don’t hear about this comparison more.

JoshTko 5y ago
That's for conventional nuclear. Small reactors will take a order less as they have structurally safer designs.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- natch 5y ago
  Don’t you love vaporware? It can do anything! Real-life non-vaporware solar + battery combo installations are improving and spreading all the time. By the time vaporware small nuclear materializes outside of demonstration projects (10 years? 20?) there’s no telling how efficient and ubiquitous solar + batteries will be.
bluedino 5y ago
In Tuscon, or Seattle?
- natch 5y ago
  Eastern Washington gets plenty of sun and it’s not that far as grids go.
politician 5y ago
That didn't seem right, so I looked up nuclear exclusion zones -- those things are huge! [1] https://cdn.britannica.com/s:800x1000/00/196800-050-E30A2B4A/Map-exclusion-zones-accidents-Chernobyl-Fukushima-Japan.jpg https://cdn.britannica.com/s:800x1000/00/196800-050-E30A2B4A...

caffeine 5y ago

You are assuming the objective is clean power. But if the objective were to curry favour with as many people as possible, subsidising everything works better than leveling the playing field. Everybody gets a taste.

deelowe 5y ago
Politics is like 25% solving problems and 75% a popularity contest and that's being generous. No sane politician would ever remove something providing a benefit until well after it's outlived it's usefulness.

Mvandenbergh 5y ago

In the absence of a carbon tax, the next best approach is a subsidy that only applies to non CO2-emitting technologies funded from general taxation. Since there is not sufficient political consensus for the former in the US, the latter is a good interim solution.

Robotbeat 5y ago
Yeah, agreed. And it’s super annoying when people use the fact that a subsidy isn’t as efficient as a carbon tax (or some other broad measure) as justification for ending it (without a carbon tax replacement). For instance, Virginia (a Blue state) passed a usage fee on EVs (that’s actually higher than the typical state gas tax would be for the same distance traveled in a regular vehicle) in order to “compensate” for the fact that EVs don’t pay gas tax. Therefore turning the Pigouvian gas tax into an anti-Pigouvian fee for acting on the desire to use more efficient and lower emissions transportation. (Not to mention you ALSO were taxed on electricity and the battery... plus personal property tax for the battery... just to add insult to injury.) I guess because of the (false) perception that only rich f**ks buy electric cars. “Oh, but it’s JUST for paying for the roads!” Yeah, like the Pigouvian aspect didn’t matter and as if the state gas tax is solely used for roads.

downrightmike 5y ago

Both

macksd 5y ago

Clearly you don't know how to run up $28 trillion in debt.

orthecreedence 5y ago

I support not destroying the planet. Whatever gets the job done at this point. Removing subsidies is a political shitshow, and you're effectively saying "I support a decades-long political sparring contest while the planet burns." I think it's safe to say we're not operating under a democracy/republic anymore, so whatever will appease the coroporate/banking overlords the quickest is the best path forward.

Wowfunhappy 5y ago

I support serious measures to address climate change and oppose anything that gets in the way of such measures. If the government wants to give a free pony to people who installs solar panels, that's fine by me. More optimal policies are preferably, of course, but that's a secondary concern. Right now, it seems the most likely outcome is that we keep using fossil fuels, so I'm desperate for anything! (The exception are measures such as banning plastic straws, which I oppose because it's actually a significant inconvenience—which means spent political capital—but will do exceedingly little for the planet.)

datavirtue 5y ago

The french didn't need anything fancy. They stadardized and then scaled production of reactors. They now have the cheapest energy on the planet, sell excess to others, and have no carbon output from electricity generation. "Freedom fries?"

pfdietz 5y ago
They now are moving away from nuclear because they are finding it impossible to build new ones affordably. Also, I think you're confusing cost and price there.

anonuser123456 5y ago

Nuclear is expensive because of regulatory interference. The NRC literally has a mandate to increase cost. If nuclear had to compete with coal on actual safety, nuclear would already be cheaper than coal.

asdff 5y ago

The problem is capital doesn't care about the big picture. Nuclear power is an upfront costly measure, you don't see a return for perhaps decades. That's fine if you are a public agency since in time, this will pay for itself, and the concern is about bettering the public in the best way possible, not making a quick return on investment. It's not fine if you are a private energy company with shareholders who are looking to take on a gain and who are only looking at life one quarter at a time. Executives would rather invest in something cheaper where their investors will see a quicker return, because that's how executives keep their jobs. Executives and shareholders care about themselves and their profit, while the government is designed to care about the collective, although its great power is frequently commandeered by individuals seeking personal profit.

ineedasername 5y ago

If we're treating this as a world-critical issue, we shouldn't wait for market forces to fix it. Like evolution, market forces may converge on good solutions, but not quickly enough to save a species from near extinction. So, yeah, stop subsidizing dirty companies, but also subsidize those solutions that get us out of this mess faster.