5 ms·

One of the points that the article brings up is that a nuclear power plant takes around ten years to build, and that's ignoring the political red tape that you

One of the points that the article brings up is that a nuclear power plant takes around ten years to build, and that's ignoring the political red tape that you mentioned which would add on another 5+ years, plus the huge upfront capex costs. With the energy industry changing so rapidly at the moment, that's a huge risk for anyone wanting to invest. In that ten years for construction its likely that battery, solar, and wind prices all drop by two or three times. So by the time that the nuclear plant is completed its very likely to be far too expensive. As the article mentions, the only future for nuclear is going to be small, cheaper reactors that are quick to construct.

pdonis 4y ago
> the only future for nuclear is going to be small, cheaper reactors that are quick to construct But even those will be nonstarters unless the regulatory environment is fixed. Nuclear has always been held to much, much stricter standards than any other energy source, for no good reason.
- WheatM 4y ago
- cycomanic 4y ago
  That's a myth. Regulatory requirements for all large scale power generation have to deal with very similar regulatory requirements, which typically scales with size of the project. In fact wind had likely to deal with more restrictions than nuclear (largely to protect the nuclear investments of operators), let's not even talk about certain housing communities not allowing rooftop solar for aesthetic reasons.
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    Indeed. One of the first big rulings that nuclear fans complained about was that nuclear had to comply with a law that applied generally to all industrial activities, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The AEC had interpreted their responsibilities under this act very narrowly, and lost in court on that when sued. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvert_Cliffs%27_Coordinating_Committee,_Inc._v._Atomic_Energy_Commission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvert_Cliffs%27_Coordinating...
  - pdonis 4y ago
    > Regulatory requirements for all large scale power generation have to deal with very similar regulatory requirements As far as the general regulatory requirements for large scale power generation, that may be true. But there are additional requirements that nuclear has to meet that no other power source does. One is the completely irrational requirement for a waste disposal plan that has to last ten thousand years or more--instead of just reprocessing the waste, which is what every other country that uses nuclear energy does. That requirement alone basically killed nuclear power in the US for several decades.
    - cycomanic 4y ago
      > As far as the general regulatory requirements for large scale power generation, that may be true. But there are additional requirements that nuclear has to meet that no other power source does. One is the completely irrational requirement for a waste disposal plan that has to last ten thousand years or more--instead of just reprocessing the waste, which is what every other country that uses nuclear energy does. That requirement alone basically killed nuclear power in the US for several decades. What do you mean? There does not exist a fully worked out waste disposal plan anywhere in the world AFAIK. All larger long-term deposits are still in the investigation phase. So by that argument no nuclear power plants should have every been built. Also saying it is irrational to require this, why should nuclear be exempt from requirements that everyone else has to follow? If I build a house I have to specify what I'm going to do with the waste. Regarding reprocessing, unless you plan to make nuclear bombs, reprocessing is uneconomical. Moreover it actually increases the amount of waste. The produced waste is lower grade, but still needs special long-term disposal, especially because its half-life is typically very long.
- webmaven 4y ago
  > > the only future for nuclear is going to be small, cheaper reactors that are quick to construct > But even those will be nonstarters unless the regulatory environment is fixed. Nuclear has always been held to much, much stricter standards than any other energy source, for no good reason. The stricter standards are addressable. What's missing from the above is the word "standardized". As it is, practically every large reactor built is a custom implementation. Smaller, cheaper, standardized reactors that are built in a dedicated facility (I'm not sure "factory" is quite right) and then shipped to the installation site should fix that problem.
- Joeri 4y ago
  As far as I understand the regulation that exists was added to prevent disasters of the kind that occurred previously. You seem to be arguing some of the added regulations were unnecessary for safety? Which ones are they, and how much money can be saved by getting rid of them?
  - pdonis 4y ago
    > As far as I understand the regulation that exists was added to prevent disasters of the kind that occurred previously. What "disasters" are these that you speak of? In the US, which is the country with the most dysfunctional regulatory requirements on nuclear power, there have been no incidents with commercial nuclear reactors that have caused harm to the general public. The worst US incident, Three Mile Island, caused harm to a fair number of plant workers, but no members of the general public were harmed. In comparison to the harm done by fossil fuel energy sources, nuclear isn't even in the same ballpark. For example, orders of magnitude more coal miners have been killed or severely injured than nuclear plant workers, even if we normalize by units of energy generated. Plus, if we take into account things like air pollution and its contribution to respiratory illness, there has been significant harm done to the general public by fossil fuels. Yet fossil fuels are regulated much less strictly than nuclear. > You seem to be arguing some of the added regulations were unnecessary for safety? I am saying that if we were really concerned about safety, we would have looked objectively at the harms caused by each energy source per unit of energy generated, and regulated them accordingly. That would have meant we would have shifted a large fraction of our base load power generation to nuclear energy decades ago, since per unit of energy generated it causes much less harm than fossil fuels. And when an incident like Three Mile Island happened, instead of panicking and acting like it was a world-shaking disaster, we would have looked objectively at what flaws in the plant design and operation the incident exposed, and fixed them, and gone on with nuclear power.
- 7sidedmarble 4y ago
  I think nuclear has a place in our future energy sources, but... Could the difference perhaps be that one has the capability of venting radioactive materials into the surrounding countryside?

pdonis 4y ago

> the only future for nuclear is going to be small, cheaper reactors that are quick to construct But even those will be nonstarters unless the regulatory environment is fixed. Nuclear has always been held to much, much stricter standards than any other energy source, for no good reason.

WheatM 4y ago
cycomanic 4y ago
That's a myth. Regulatory requirements for all large scale power generation have to deal with very similar regulatory requirements, which typically scales with size of the project. In fact wind had likely to deal with more restrictions than nuclear (largely to protect the nuclear investments of operators), let's not even talk about certain housing communities not allowing rooftop solar for aesthetic reasons.
- pfdietz 4y ago
  Indeed. One of the first big rulings that nuclear fans complained about was that nuclear had to comply with a law that applied generally to all industrial activities, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The AEC had interpreted their responsibilities under this act very narrowly, and lost in court on that when sued. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvert_Cliffs%27_Coordinating_Committee,_Inc._v._Atomic_Energy_Commission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvert_Cliffs%27_Coordinating...
- pdonis 4y ago
  > Regulatory requirements for all large scale power generation have to deal with very similar regulatory requirements As far as the general regulatory requirements for large scale power generation, that may be true. But there are additional requirements that nuclear has to meet that no other power source does. One is the completely irrational requirement for a waste disposal plan that has to last ten thousand years or more--instead of just reprocessing the waste, which is what every other country that uses nuclear energy does. That requirement alone basically killed nuclear power in the US for several decades.
  - cycomanic 4y ago
    > As far as the general regulatory requirements for large scale power generation, that may be true. But there are additional requirements that nuclear has to meet that no other power source does. One is the completely irrational requirement for a waste disposal plan that has to last ten thousand years or more--instead of just reprocessing the waste, which is what every other country that uses nuclear energy does. That requirement alone basically killed nuclear power in the US for several decades. What do you mean? There does not exist a fully worked out waste disposal plan anywhere in the world AFAIK. All larger long-term deposits are still in the investigation phase. So by that argument no nuclear power plants should have every been built. Also saying it is irrational to require this, why should nuclear be exempt from requirements that everyone else has to follow? If I build a house I have to specify what I'm going to do with the waste. Regarding reprocessing, unless you plan to make nuclear bombs, reprocessing is uneconomical. Moreover it actually increases the amount of waste. The produced waste is lower grade, but still needs special long-term disposal, especially because its half-life is typically very long.
webmaven 4y ago
> > the only future for nuclear is going to be small, cheaper reactors that are quick to construct > But even those will be nonstarters unless the regulatory environment is fixed. Nuclear has always been held to much, much stricter standards than any other energy source, for no good reason. The stricter standards are addressable. What's missing from the above is the word "standardized". As it is, practically every large reactor built is a custom implementation. Smaller, cheaper, standardized reactors that are built in a dedicated facility (I'm not sure "factory" is quite right) and then shipped to the installation site should fix that problem.
Joeri 4y ago
As far as I understand the regulation that exists was added to prevent disasters of the kind that occurred previously. You seem to be arguing some of the added regulations were unnecessary for safety? Which ones are they, and how much money can be saved by getting rid of them?
- pdonis 4y ago
  > As far as I understand the regulation that exists was added to prevent disasters of the kind that occurred previously. What "disasters" are these that you speak of? In the US, which is the country with the most dysfunctional regulatory requirements on nuclear power, there have been no incidents with commercial nuclear reactors that have caused harm to the general public. The worst US incident, Three Mile Island, caused harm to a fair number of plant workers, but no members of the general public were harmed. In comparison to the harm done by fossil fuel energy sources, nuclear isn't even in the same ballpark. For example, orders of magnitude more coal miners have been killed or severely injured than nuclear plant workers, even if we normalize by units of energy generated. Plus, if we take into account things like air pollution and its contribution to respiratory illness, there has been significant harm done to the general public by fossil fuels. Yet fossil fuels are regulated much less strictly than nuclear. > You seem to be arguing some of the added regulations were unnecessary for safety? I am saying that if we were really concerned about safety, we would have looked objectively at the harms caused by each energy source per unit of energy generated, and regulated them accordingly. That would have meant we would have shifted a large fraction of our base load power generation to nuclear energy decades ago, since per unit of energy generated it causes much less harm than fossil fuels. And when an incident like Three Mile Island happened, instead of panicking and acting like it was a world-shaking disaster, we would have looked objectively at what flaws in the plant design and operation the incident exposed, and fixed them, and gone on with nuclear power.
7sidedmarble 4y ago
I think nuclear has a place in our future energy sources, but... Could the difference perhaps be that one has the capability of venting radioactive materials into the surrounding countryside?