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These days I don't see why we don't just build lots more regular old LWR fission reactors. Because they lose money. Nobody, not the USA, Russia, China, Fran

by BMc2020 4y ago

*These days I don't see why we don't just build lots more regular old LWR fission reactors.* Because they lose money. Nobody, not the USA, Russia, China, France, Japan, Korea has ever made them profitable. They are always subsidized. The CCP bought Westinghouse AP1000s so they could steal their design and they still couldn't make it work. And you can't blame the environmentalists when it's in China. Full disclosure: I'm not an accountant, but since I started taking an interest in this subject several years ago I've learned about wishing away decomissioning costs by claiming the plants will last 60 or 100 years. Ask the taxpayers of Oregon what 'stranded costs' are. Making 150 square km of Japan uninhabitable is also a bit spendy. IIRC almost all of the Dept of Energy's budget goes to nuclear. But, nothing will change because military nuclear is a national security issue and that always trumps every other issue. Back to fusion: Fusion power plants will be at least as big and complicated as fission plants, so it's never going to be 'too cheap to meter' electricity. I do hold out hope for it to be a drive for space craft though.

acidburnNSA 4y ago
Cost for deeply decarbonized grids are cheapest if you have low carbon firm energy like nuclear. The LCOE numbers thrown around today are meaningless wrt systems costs. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2542435118303866 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S254243511... nuclear plants save a fraction of their revenue in a trust that pays for decommissioning. for thr vast majority of plants this has been and will be more than sufficient. therr are exceptions but it isnt fair to dwell on them given the other successess. The dose rates are barely above background already in most of the area around Fukushima. I'm with Elon in that I will gladly eat vegetebles from slightly elevated dose areas because I belive the science that says damger starts at 100 mSv acute/300 mSv annual. Getting an extra 40 mSv in a year is not uninhabitable. civilian nuclear power has pretty much nothing to do with military nuclear so not sure I follow your point there. And for the record, here's the full Too Cheap To Meter quote, from a Science Writers Dinner in 1954: "It is not too much to expect that our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter, will know of great periodic regional famines in the world only as matters of history, will travel effortlessly over the seas and under them and through the air with a minimum of danger and at great speeds, and will experience a lifespan far longer than ours, as disease yields and man comes to understand what causes him to age"
- BMc2020 4y ago
  Thanks for your thoughtful reply. I see by your bio you've been on yc since 2013 and a "Nuclear reactor physicist in Seattle. If you want to talk about how best to push the envelope in nuclear for climate change, I'm in!" Are you J** W***? You haven't updated your blog in a while.
  - acidburnNSA 4y ago
    I am not J* W*
DrBazza 4y ago
> Because they lose money, nobody has ever made them profitable ....They are always subsidized That's how it appears but that's not an argument against them. Two things: firstly they are regulated because nuclear fuel can be used for warfare, so when a government gets involved things cost more, that's just an unfortunate fact, secondly they've never been commercialised. Could you imagine if cars or jumbo jets were built ad-hoc? What would the profit or loss be? A better example, perhaps, is Space X vs NASA. How much does a NASA rocket cost (government controlled), versus Space X (private industry) that has had to industrialise a process? And how much profit does NASA make per launch versus Space X? Nuclear power stations could be industrialised and would definitely be cheaper.

*These days I don't see why we don't just build lots more regular old LWR fission reactors.* Because they lose money. Nobody, not the USA, Russia, China, Fran

acidburnNSA 4y ago

Cost for deeply decarbonized grids are cheapest if you have low carbon firm energy like nuclear. The LCOE numbers thrown around today are meaningless wrt systems costs. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2542435118303866 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S254243511... nuclear plants save a fraction of their revenue in a trust that pays for decommissioning. for thr vast majority of plants this has been and will be more than sufficient. therr are exceptions but it isnt fair to dwell on them given the other successess. The dose rates are barely above background already in most of the area around Fukushima. I'm with Elon in that I will gladly eat vegetebles from slightly elevated dose areas because I belive the science that says damger starts at 100 mSv acute/300 mSv annual. Getting an extra 40 mSv in a year is not uninhabitable. civilian nuclear power has pretty much nothing to do with military nuclear so not sure I follow your point there. And for the record, here's the full Too Cheap To Meter quote, from a Science Writers Dinner in 1954: "It is not too much to expect that our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter, will know of great periodic regional famines in the world only as matters of history, will travel effortlessly over the seas and under them and through the air with a minimum of danger and at great speeds, and will experience a lifespan far longer than ours, as disease yields and man comes to understand what causes him to age"

BMc2020 4y ago
Thanks for your thoughtful reply. I see by your bio you've been on yc since 2013 and a "Nuclear reactor physicist in Seattle. If you want to talk about how best to push the envelope in nuclear for climate change, I'm in!" Are you J** W***? You haven't updated your blog in a while.
- acidburnNSA 4y ago
  I am not J* W*

DrBazza 4y ago

> Because they lose money, nobody has ever made them profitable ....They are always subsidized That's how it appears but that's not an argument against them. Two things: firstly they are regulated because nuclear fuel can be used for warfare, so when a government gets involved things cost more, that's just an unfortunate fact, secondly they've never been commercialised. Could you imagine if cars or jumbo jets were built ad-hoc? What would the profit or loss be? A better example, perhaps, is Space X vs NASA. How much does a NASA rocket cost (government controlled), versus Space X (private industry) that has had to industrialise a process? And how much profit does NASA make per launch versus Space X? Nuclear power stations could be industrialised and would definitely be cheaper.