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Construction costs are only part of the picture and utility operators are well aware that they need to look at lifecycle costs. This includes everything from c
by photochemsyn 4y ago
Construction costs are only part of the picture and utility operators are well aware that they need to look at lifecycle costs. This includes everything from costs of fuel rods (look at the historically volatile uranium market), availability of large volumes of cooling water (see more frequent droughts), maintenance costs (maintenance being a major factor in the retirement of California's nuclear power plants), security costs, the cost of storing fuel rods onsite for decades, and finally, decommissioning costs (as reactors themselves become contaminated with in-situ activation products, i.e. radioactive cobalt/iron/carbon/nickel isotopes).
It's basically a huge long-term liability that just doesn't exist with solar/wind/storage, hydropower, or geothermal.
- dqpb 4y ago> the cost of storing fuel rods onsite for decades This environmental remediation cost is generally missing in comparisons with all other energy sources.
- iancmceachern 4y agoAnd mining too
- anamexis 4y agoIt’s generally missing from the other energy sources as well.
- joe_the_user 4y agoWhat remediation costs do solar or wind have?
- Jedd 4y agoWind turbine blades are next to impossible to recycle or (at the scale we're talking about) re-purpose. 'What What happens to all the old wind turbines?' (bbc.co.uk) [2020] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22265321 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22265321
- natmaka 4y agohttps://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/09/cement-production-to-use-old-wind-turbine-blades-after-ge-inks-deal-.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/09/cement-production-to-use-old... https://www.siemensgamesa.com/es-es/-/media/siemensgamesa/downloads/en/sustainability/environment/siemens-gamesa-recycablelblade-infographic-en.pdf https://www.siemensgamesa.com/es-es/-/media/siemensgamesa/do... https://www.ge.com/news/press-releases/towards-circular-wind-turbines-lm-wind-power-to-produce-zero-waste-blades-by-2030 https://www.ge.com/news/press-releases/towards-circular-wind...
- stephen_g 4y agoEven if that was always the case (I'm confident it won't be), compare it to, say, coal fly ash. In my country, coal ash is 1/5th of all waste generated (by weight, I think) over a year. 12 million metric tonnes per year [1]. And that's before even thinking about CO2 and other air pollutants. Wind turbine waste is almost nothing compared to that. Still worth fixing, but perspective is important. 1. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-10/coal-ash-has-become-one-of-australias-biggest-waste-problems/10886866 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-10/coal-ash-has-become-o...
- Jedd 4y agoOh, I don't think this is a significant problem - and agree that the volume of this fairly inert waste product is trivial in comparison to the huge volumes of nasties that come out of fossil fuel power stations. I'm sure these turbine blades will likely continue to be iteratively re-designed to be increasingly recyclable or at least re-purposable as times goes on. I was just answering the question about remediation costs for wind turbines, as this feature of the current popular implementations is often a surprise.
- duncanawoods 4y agoThere are 100% recyclable blades (including production byproducts) currently being tested. They are using Elium as the composite material which can be chemically broken down back into glass fibre and resin for reuse. https://www.lmwindpower.com/en/stories-and-press/stories/news-from-lm-places/zebra-project-achieves-key-milestone-with-first-prototype-of-recyclable-blade https://www.lmwindpower.com/en/stories-and-press/stories/new...
- chinchilla2020 4y agoThere are massive mining/smelting/manufacturing costs in metal for solar and wind. Solar panels in particular generate massive waste due to the rare earth metals through mine waste, concentrator tailings, leftover leach solution, solution-extraction-electrowinning waste, slag, transportation fuel, etc. Let's not forget the massive fuel costs involved. Solar panels may be tiny but they generate dozens of tons of waste material per panel. There is a good reason all the large mining companies and several of the large oil companies market/lobby their contribution to 'green energy' so zealously. https://www.fcx.com/sustainability/environment#climate https://www.fcx.com/sustainability/environment#climate (I used to work in this vertical)
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- wolverine876 4y agoThat's a good point. Carbon is dumped in the air - for free! That's because there is no cost resulting from it. (Edit: Yes, the last sentence is sarcastic.)
- spoonjim 4y agoCan’t you just dump radioactive uranium into the bottom of the ocean? Can’t imagine it would do much damage with all of the water around it.
- JodieBenitez 4y agoThere's life down there.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- raxxorraxor 4y agoPretty basic one even that is in a fundamental part in the food chain many successive chains depend on.
- iancmceachern 4y agoNo https://theecologist.org/2009/mar/01/somalia-used-toxic-dumping-ground https://theecologist.org/2009/mar/01/somalia-used-toxic-dump...
- stormbrew 4y agoI'm not saying I think dumping nuclear waste in the ocean is a good idea (though I am also curious if there's been specific impact studies done on it, if we're talking about very very deep ocean) but I'm pretty sure somalia isn't in the ocean.
- iancmceachern 4y agoThey were dumping waste off the coast of Somalia, in the ocean
- Dylan16807 4y ago"Bottom of the ocean" here doesn't mean on the continental shelf.
- coredog64 4y agoThe largest nuclear plant in the United States (Palo Verde) is in the middle of the Sonoran Desert and uses treated sewage output for cooling. People probably won’t stop urinating during a drought.
- cultofmetatron 4y agooh thats cool. I imagine all the pathogens are effectively killed for free
- speed_spread 4y agoIt also gives arguments to both sides, "nuclear is shit" and "nuclear is the shit"
- cratermoon 4y agokilled, or mutated?
- greyhair 4y agoI said the same just now, before I saw yours. I know it is going to get down voted, because I didn't append the '\s' tag, and it was a little to obscure. Cheers!
- ars 4y agoJust in case you are not joking, the sewage is not exposed to radiation. Water essentially can not become radioactive, and the sewage is used to cool water, not (directly) nuclear material. As you probably know all heat engines need a hot side (the uranium) and a cold side (the sewage) - the cold side is also those huge cooling towers you see while driving near a power plant.
- derefr 4y agoI don't think that's what they were implying; heat kills pathogens too.
- pmoriarty 4y agoAlso the insurance costs are so high as to make operating the plant unprofitable... which is where the taxpayer comes in, to foot the bill.
- MisterMower 4y agoWe subsidize every other form of energy in a most convoluted way possible, so why not?
- masom 4y agoHydro power has some high drawbacks, including being affected by droughts. They're flooding large swaths of land, destroying ecosystems, are extremely energy intensive while being built, cannot be built anywhere you'd need one, and result in large destruction when they fail.