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>. It's a huge gamble, that even if it pays off, won't start paying off until 10-30 years from now I'm sure I read this argument at least 10 years ago...

by dTal 5y ago

epistasis 5y ago
We started construction of the next generation of nuclear around ~2008, and it was a gamble that has failed miserably. In the US, VC Summer was a disaster that was abandoned after many billions were wasted. Vogtle chugs along, with continual cost increases and delays, with no end in sight. At $30B estimated for Vogtle's two reactors, it is clear that no US utility will be foolish enough to embark down this path again. Europe is in the same boat with the EPR's construction failures, and it is quite clear that their gamble did not pay off. Which is why people are talking about modular nuclear reactors now, rather than large GW reactors. The industry had rejected modular reactors in the past as inherently more expensive than large GW reactors, but the difficult of constructing GW scale reactors has led them to try something smaller. Will modular reactors succeed? Who knows! We will see. But it is definitely a gamble.
- belorn 5y ago
  How does that nuclear project stack up to an other major energy project in 2010, the keystone pipeline. How much did people pay for that and what did we get in return in terms of $ per energy produced and pollution.
  - epistasis 5y ago
    I don't know much about the Keystone pipeline, but I don't think it can be directly compared. It's more like transmission than generation. And an oil pipeline use is to reduce costs of bringing oil from a particular area to market. It doesn't necessarily have benefits that translate to the entire market, unless the change is so big as to move the entire market. And I don't think Keystone was that big, but couldn't say. Also oil is not generally used at all in our electrical grid. Far to inefficient, and far more useful as fuel for vehicles. Further, VC Summer has delivered zero benefit to people, despite it costing the average utility bill an extra $20/month last I heard. Keystone has had several phases complete, so there has been oil delivered to markets.
    - belorn 5y ago
      It is not a perfect comparison, but there are some related aspect to it. The company behind keystone pipe line is the energy company TC Energy, and I think a lot of the natural gas that they burn do comes from the oil refineries and oil fields. Through the aspect I wanted to bring up is that an energy company spent tens of billions on just transporting fossil fuel from one point to an other. Since it is the customer that pays for it in the end, I suspect most would prefer that their money went somewhere which does not contribute to global warming. If I were a customer of TC Energy, I rather would have seen a failed nuclear plant than a failed pipeline for fossil fuels.

>. It's a huge gamble, that even if it pays off, won't start paying off until 10-30 years from now I'm sure I read this argument at least 10 years ago...

by dTal 5y ago

>. It's a huge gamble, that even if it pays off, won't start paying off until 10-30 years from now I'm sure I read this argument at least 10 years ago...

epistasis 5y ago

We started construction of the next generation of nuclear around ~2008, and it was a gamble that has failed miserably. In the US, VC Summer was a disaster that was abandoned after many billions were wasted. Vogtle chugs along, with continual cost increases and delays, with no end in sight. At $30B estimated for Vogtle's two reactors, it is clear that no US utility will be foolish enough to embark down this path again. Europe is in the same boat with the EPR's construction failures, and it is quite clear that their gamble did not pay off. Which is why people are talking about modular nuclear reactors now, rather than large GW reactors. The industry had rejected modular reactors in the past as inherently more expensive than large GW reactors, but the difficult of constructing GW scale reactors has led them to try something smaller. Will modular reactors succeed? Who knows! We will see. But it is definitely a gamble.

belorn 5y ago
How does that nuclear project stack up to an other major energy project in 2010, the keystone pipeline. How much did people pay for that and what did we get in return in terms of $ per energy produced and pollution.
- epistasis 5y ago
  I don't know much about the Keystone pipeline, but I don't think it can be directly compared. It's more like transmission than generation. And an oil pipeline use is to reduce costs of bringing oil from a particular area to market. It doesn't necessarily have benefits that translate to the entire market, unless the change is so big as to move the entire market. And I don't think Keystone was that big, but couldn't say. Also oil is not generally used at all in our electrical grid. Far to inefficient, and far more useful as fuel for vehicles. Further, VC Summer has delivered zero benefit to people, despite it costing the average utility bill an extra $20/month last I heard. Keystone has had several phases complete, so there has been oil delivered to markets.
  - belorn 5y ago
    It is not a perfect comparison, but there are some related aspect to it. The company behind keystone pipe line is the energy company TC Energy, and I think a lot of the natural gas that they burn do comes from the oil refineries and oil fields. Through the aspect I wanted to bring up is that an energy company spent tens of billions on just transporting fossil fuel from one point to an other. Since it is the customer that pays for it in the end, I suspect most would prefer that their money went somewhere which does not contribute to global warming. If I were a customer of TC Energy, I rather would have seen a failed nuclear plant than a failed pipeline for fossil fuels.