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I know it is tiring to see this comment. But, the cost of nuclear power quoted everywhere does NOT include the cost of safely handling the waste from it for hun

I know it is tiring to see this comment. But, the cost of nuclear power quoted everywhere does NOT include the cost of safely handling the waste from it for hundreds of years right? Until it is included it is like Saudi Arabia claiming that oil is the best thing in the world because it costs €1/barrel because they only need to factor the cost of digging for it.

adhesive_wombat 5y ago
Nuclear power strike prices usually do include much of the long term costs, and money has to be committed into a trust (or some similar scheme) as part of getting approval in the first place. And it would be more like Saudi Arabia claiming that oil only costs $100 per barrel because they don't need to pay for pollution remediation, healthcare costs, spill cleanup and their share of all climate change effects from the time they sold the oil until the time that oil's effects have been removed from the system. Which they don't.
- renox 5y ago
  > Nuclear power strike prices usually do include much of the long term costs In theory yes, but given that they aren't able to predict correctly the cost of building a nuclear station, I don't see why we should trust them on predicting the real cost of dismantling them..
  - JohnHaugeland 5y ago
    It's very easy to accurately predict the building costs of a nuclear reactor. The overruns you're talking about come from politicians showing up halfway through the project and changing the rules to show their voters that they are involved
    - renox 5y ago
      In France the new nuclear reactors have been plagued by hardware issue, delays.. So no, it isn't 'easy' to predict the building costs, it's easy only when you're replicating an already existing reactor and only if it was built recently!
      - JohnHaugeland 5y ago
        > In France the new nuclear reactors have been plagued by hardware issue, delays That's odd, can you show me some evidence of that?
        natmaka 5y ago
        The new type of nuclear reactor is the "EPR". The first project, in Finland (Olkiluoto-3) was a disaster: massive overcosts, 12 years late, customer lost, penalties paid, builder (Areva) saved thanks to public money. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olkiluoto_Nuclear_Power_Plant#Construction_delays https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olkiluoto_Nuclear_Power_Plant#... The second project, in France (Flamanville-3) is an ongoing disaster: massive overcosts (from 3,3 to 19,4 billions €, and counting), aleady 10 years late and counting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plan... The third project, in China (Taishan-1 & -2) was officially 5 years late and 60% overcosts (and very probably not break even for the builder). After 1 year one of the 2 reactors was stopped mid-2021 after an incident. The fourth project, in the U.-K. (Hinkley-Point C), started in 2018 and already announced overcosts and late delivery. Old reactors: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/frances-chinon-3-reactor-offline-tests-after-pipe-corrosion-detected-2022-02-21/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/frances-chinon-3-rea... Decommission costs: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18686703 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18686703
- pydry 5y ago
  Or insurance. If another fukushima strikes it's taxpayers on the hook for the $800 billion cleanup bill. Makes all the propaganda about how safe it truly is ring a bit hollow when they dont pay for their own damn insurance.
  - JohnHaugeland 5y ago
    The Fukushima cleanup, unique in history and resulting from radically unlikely natural disasters, cost less than half what the fuel it replaced that decade would have This is without considering the cost of climate change or all those prevented deaths
    - imtringued 5y ago
      You could have replaced all nuclear power plants with new ones for the cost of the fukushima cleanup. As always your theoretical modern designs that are safe are useless if you are still running power plants that are older than chernobyl.
    - krageon 5y ago
      > radically unlikely It's an island nation, and we're calling a tsunami "radically unlikely"? Given the time frames involved in cleaning up an event like what happened in Fukushima, once every 100 years is not very unlikely.
    - natmaka 5y ago
      The tsunami was the secondary cause, and believing that no-one could predict such a tsunami is misleading. Proof: another nuclear plant was less distant from the tsunami and survived, because someone (Y. Hirai) foresaw it and could impose his views: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onagawa_Nuclear_Power_Plant#2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onagawa_Nuclear_Power_Plant#20... The hard truth is: even a predictable cause can trigger a disaster. And many aren't predictable. Fukushima is by many criteria a "lucky" case, as many reactors were properly shutdown when the wave came, operators reacted globally adequately... The question isn't "is a disaster possible?" but "when, and of which magnitude?". This patently insufficient ability to foresee also sheds a light towards the "we know that dangerous nuclear waste will not be a problem for anyone during the next 100000 years or so". Renewables can do the trick without all those threats.
JohnHaugeland 5y ago
Digging miles into the ground with a 4 story mechanized oil rig is much more complicated than putting some dirt into a barrel and walking past it with a Geiger counter monthly, buddy

adhesive_wombat 5y ago

Nuclear power strike prices usually do include much of the long term costs, and money has to be committed into a trust (or some similar scheme) as part of getting approval in the first place. And it would be more like Saudi Arabia claiming that oil only costs $100 per barrel because they don't need to pay for pollution remediation, healthcare costs, spill cleanup and their share of all climate change effects from the time they sold the oil until the time that oil's effects have been removed from the system. Which they don't.

renox 5y ago
> Nuclear power strike prices usually do include much of the long term costs In theory yes, but given that they aren't able to predict correctly the cost of building a nuclear station, I don't see why we should trust them on predicting the real cost of dismantling them..
- JohnHaugeland 5y ago
  It's very easy to accurately predict the building costs of a nuclear reactor. The overruns you're talking about come from politicians showing up halfway through the project and changing the rules to show their voters that they are involved
  - renox 5y ago
    In France the new nuclear reactors have been plagued by hardware issue, delays.. So no, it isn't 'easy' to predict the building costs, it's easy only when you're replicating an already existing reactor and only if it was built recently!
    - JohnHaugeland 5y ago
      > In France the new nuclear reactors have been plagued by hardware issue, delays That's odd, can you show me some evidence of that?
      - natmaka 5y ago
        The new type of nuclear reactor is the "EPR". The first project, in Finland (Olkiluoto-3) was a disaster: massive overcosts, 12 years late, customer lost, penalties paid, builder (Areva) saved thanks to public money. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olkiluoto_Nuclear_Power_Plant#Construction_delays https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olkiluoto_Nuclear_Power_Plant#... The second project, in France (Flamanville-3) is an ongoing disaster: massive overcosts (from 3,3 to 19,4 billions €, and counting), aleady 10 years late and counting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plan... The third project, in China (Taishan-1 & -2) was officially 5 years late and 60% overcosts (and very probably not break even for the builder). After 1 year one of the 2 reactors was stopped mid-2021 after an incident. The fourth project, in the U.-K. (Hinkley-Point C), started in 2018 and already announced overcosts and late delivery. Old reactors: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/frances-chinon-3-reactor-offline-tests-after-pipe-corrosion-detected-2022-02-21/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/frances-chinon-3-rea... Decommission costs: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18686703 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18686703
pydry 5y ago
Or insurance. If another fukushima strikes it's taxpayers on the hook for the $800 billion cleanup bill. Makes all the propaganda about how safe it truly is ring a bit hollow when they dont pay for their own damn insurance.
- JohnHaugeland 5y ago
  The Fukushima cleanup, unique in history and resulting from radically unlikely natural disasters, cost less than half what the fuel it replaced that decade would have This is without considering the cost of climate change or all those prevented deaths
  - imtringued 5y ago
    You could have replaced all nuclear power plants with new ones for the cost of the fukushima cleanup. As always your theoretical modern designs that are safe are useless if you are still running power plants that are older than chernobyl.
  - krageon 5y ago
    > radically unlikely It's an island nation, and we're calling a tsunami "radically unlikely"? Given the time frames involved in cleaning up an event like what happened in Fukushima, once every 100 years is not very unlikely.
  - natmaka 5y ago
    The tsunami was the secondary cause, and believing that no-one could predict such a tsunami is misleading. Proof: another nuclear plant was less distant from the tsunami and survived, because someone (Y. Hirai) foresaw it and could impose his views: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onagawa_Nuclear_Power_Plant#2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onagawa_Nuclear_Power_Plant#20... The hard truth is: even a predictable cause can trigger a disaster. And many aren't predictable. Fukushima is by many criteria a "lucky" case, as many reactors were properly shutdown when the wave came, operators reacted globally adequately... The question isn't "is a disaster possible?" but "when, and of which magnitude?". This patently insufficient ability to foresee also sheds a light towards the "we know that dangerous nuclear waste will not be a problem for anyone during the next 100000 years or so". Renewables can do the trick without all those threats.

JohnHaugeland 5y ago

Digging miles into the ground with a 4 story mechanized oil rig is much more complicated than putting some dirt into a barrel and walking past it with a Geiger counter monthly, buddy