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> Nuclear definitely needs to be a larger part of our energy future. Why? I think nuclear is effectively obsolete at this point. It had a potential once upon a

> Nuclear definitely needs to be a larger part of our energy future. Why? I think nuclear is effectively obsolete at this point. It had a potential once upon a time, but no longer because the world just moved on, like happened with say steam powered trains. Nuclear is really ill-fitting tech to the modern age. Say, who's going to build it? Investors? But it has a terrible time making a profit. It's incredibly expensive to build, and has a very long payoff time. If you're into money, then you don't like a business plan that requires a loan of many billions and that might pay off in decades, if renewables don't ruin the business model. If you're a banker you probably don't like that either. Okay, let's say it's a political project then, we'll pay for it with taxes. But that's not great either because construction times are long. As a politician if you throw your effort behind nuclear, your chances are slim to see it being turned on while you retain your position. The chances of seeing that plan start to profit are even slimmer. The chances of a successor sabotaging your legacy are pretty big. So your incentives as a politician to get behind nuclear aren't great. Let's say the politicians are onboard anyway. Even then, it's tricky. Governments are sovereign. Even if the current government promised that this plant is guaranteed to sell its power for $X and therefore is guaranteed a profit... guess what, if in the future it turns out that solar is everywhere and your power costs 10X than anyone else's, people will likely get tired of paying for that, and might as well break the promise some other party made 15 years ago, and there goes your profit.

lettergram 4y ago
Power companies where I have lived can charge a percentage over costs. Basically, they can build nuclear all they want; amortize it and charge 10% above cost to customers. Further, I can imagine an insurance broker (similar to the FDIC) collaborating across areas of nuclear was an option. Laws are what’s stopping nuclear, not finances or economics. I’ve mentioned it here before, my family was in the industry building nuclear plants. They’d have 3+ people for every weld, fit; etc. example of real situation: contractor is supposed to weld frame, the union guy is supposed to weld pipes, there are different inspectors for each. Pipe inspector comes Wednesday, frame inspector comes Thursday. Frame must be inspected before pipe is in. Contractor welds pipe and frame Tuesday because union guy is out sick. Pipe inspector approves on Wednesday. Pipe welder returns Thursday, frame inspector comes and pipe welder complains, take it out. Next week, the pipe welder drinks all week. Frame welder welds frame, inspection complete and passes. Following week pipe welder completes weld for pipe. But inspector was out sick. Further sections must be put on hold until inspected. Following week pipe inspector inspects and approve. At this point the project is 1 month behind where it could have been due to union rules (enforced by law) & legal requirements of inspection. What really put the nail in the coffin, was (I believe it was GE) was caught faking photos of pipes. There was then a requirement to remove and replace all the piping for a project(s) - at cost. Which was a hell of a lot of money and regulations were then dramatically increased. Haven’t built since.
- dale_glass 4y ago
  > Power companies where I have lived can charge a percentage over costs. Basically, they can build nuclear all they want; amortize it and charge 10% above cost to customers. Okay, and if people are selling wind or solar at 30% of the price, why would anyone pay to the nuclear plant? > Laws are what’s stopping nuclear, not finances or economics. I’ve mentioned it here before, my family was in the industry building nuclear plants. They’d have 3+ people for every weld, fit; etc. Well, tough shit, that's how things work when you're dealing with dangerous stuff. I fully believe nuclear can be a safe technology. But it's only safe when everything is done by the rules, and there are inspectors for everything.
  - cnlevy 4y ago
    > that's how things work when you're dealing with dangerous stuff What the OP described was looking more like an Italian strike than manufacturing sensitive construction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work-to-rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work-to-rule
  - fewavewavewa 4y ago
    If modern renewables are so affordable as investments, provide quick returns, and produce electrictiy that's 30% the cost of nuclear, then why isn't it everywhere and electric power very cheap?
    - dale_glass 4y ago
      They take time to build, solar is intermittent, and just like with nuclear there are NIMBY issues. Installed solar capacity is rapidly going up. Solar in particular is a big potential issue for nuclear, because so long the sun is shining, why would you buy any nuclear power? Solar is far cheaper to provide, so any rational person would buy solar first. And the more solar the less nuclear has to do during the day, which means that all those billions take longer and longer to pay off. And you better hope storage doesn't kick off before that.
      - 4y ago
amw 4y ago
You are treating "because it doesn't generate profit" and "because it's obsolete" as equivalent conditions. This is pretty normal, but let me suggest that the two don't have to exist together, because the market is, in fact, not a dispassionate force of nature but a creation by men to serve the needs of a subset of those men. In this particular case, even, it is a market that has decided to keep the secondary costs of nuclear associated with its generation, while dramatically underweighting the secondary costs of fossil fuels, even though the latter kills more people per month than have ever died from any nuclear event or waste in the entire lifetime of the tech. But even from there, nuclear is constantly under development. Its leading edge is miles beyond the nuclear of the generation when it was being built out commonly in the US, and the new tech is both very safe and produces way more manageable waste output. China is building both more nuclear and more renewable energy than any other country in the world, and is just one place showing that that the combination is a viable way of meeting our needs. Put another way, I do think you're right when you say (lack od) profitability is the major problem. But I think, given a frank assessment of the technology (preferably from sources not funded by people with an interest in maintaining the status quo), we should consider seriously that the problem isn't nuclear tech, but the concept of profit, itself.
- dale_glass 4y ago
  > In this particular case, even, it is a market that has decided to keep the secondary costs of nuclear associated with its generation, while dramatically underweighting the secondary costs of fossil fuels, even though the latter kills more people per month than have ever died from any nuclear event or waste in the entire lifetime of the tech. True, but arguing in favor of nuclear is unlikely to fix that. That's more of a matter of passing some sort of carbon tax legislation, which I very much support. > But even from there, nuclear is constantly under development. Its leading edge is miles beyond the nuclear of the generation when it was being built out commonly in the US, and the new tech is both very safe and produces way more manageable waste output. That's I think is one of the issues with the tech. You can make a new solar panel or new wind turbine quickly. Experimenting with nuclear is an enormous ordeal, which nobody seems to want to engage in all that much. If building a powerplant is already not profitable, imagine building an experimental one, stuffed to the gills with instrumentation. My view is that on the tech angle it also almost certainly loses. Renewables are just simple and amenable to mass manufacturing. > we should consider seriously that the problem isn't nuclear tech, but the concept of profit, itself. I think for a thing as core as energy, we can't really ignore money. Say, what happens if your power is 3X more expensive than your neighbour's? That's unlikely to be competitive, so why wouldn't industry just move across the border? You might have noble ideals, but industry as a whole doesn't.

lettergram 4y ago

Power companies where I have lived can charge a percentage over costs. Basically, they can build nuclear all they want; amortize it and charge 10% above cost to customers. Further, I can imagine an insurance broker (similar to the FDIC) collaborating across areas of nuclear was an option. Laws are what’s stopping nuclear, not finances or economics. I’ve mentioned it here before, my family was in the industry building nuclear plants. They’d have 3+ people for every weld, fit; etc. example of real situation: contractor is supposed to weld frame, the union guy is supposed to weld pipes, there are different inspectors for each. Pipe inspector comes Wednesday, frame inspector comes Thursday. Frame must be inspected before pipe is in. Contractor welds pipe and frame Tuesday because union guy is out sick. Pipe inspector approves on Wednesday. Pipe welder returns Thursday, frame inspector comes and pipe welder complains, take it out. Next week, the pipe welder drinks all week. Frame welder welds frame, inspection complete and passes. Following week pipe welder completes weld for pipe. But inspector was out sick. Further sections must be put on hold until inspected. Following week pipe inspector inspects and approve. At this point the project is 1 month behind where it could have been due to union rules (enforced by law) & legal requirements of inspection. What really put the nail in the coffin, was (I believe it was GE) was caught faking photos of pipes. There was then a requirement to remove and replace all the piping for a project(s) - at cost. Which was a hell of a lot of money and regulations were then dramatically increased. Haven’t built since.

dale_glass 4y ago
> Power companies where I have lived can charge a percentage over costs. Basically, they can build nuclear all they want; amortize it and charge 10% above cost to customers. Okay, and if people are selling wind or solar at 30% of the price, why would anyone pay to the nuclear plant? > Laws are what’s stopping nuclear, not finances or economics. I’ve mentioned it here before, my family was in the industry building nuclear plants. They’d have 3+ people for every weld, fit; etc. Well, tough shit, that's how things work when you're dealing with dangerous stuff. I fully believe nuclear can be a safe technology. But it's only safe when everything is done by the rules, and there are inspectors for everything.
- cnlevy 4y ago
  > that's how things work when you're dealing with dangerous stuff What the OP described was looking more like an Italian strike than manufacturing sensitive construction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work-to-rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work-to-rule
- fewavewavewa 4y ago
  If modern renewables are so affordable as investments, provide quick returns, and produce electrictiy that's 30% the cost of nuclear, then why isn't it everywhere and electric power very cheap?
  - dale_glass 4y ago
    They take time to build, solar is intermittent, and just like with nuclear there are NIMBY issues. Installed solar capacity is rapidly going up. Solar in particular is a big potential issue for nuclear, because so long the sun is shining, why would you buy any nuclear power? Solar is far cheaper to provide, so any rational person would buy solar first. And the more solar the less nuclear has to do during the day, which means that all those billions take longer and longer to pay off. And you better hope storage doesn't kick off before that.
    - 4y ago

amw 4y ago

You are treating "because it doesn't generate profit" and "because it's obsolete" as equivalent conditions. This is pretty normal, but let me suggest that the two don't have to exist together, because the market is, in fact, not a dispassionate force of nature but a creation by men to serve the needs of a subset of those men. In this particular case, even, it is a market that has decided to keep the secondary costs of nuclear associated with its generation, while dramatically underweighting the secondary costs of fossil fuels, even though the latter kills more people per month than have ever died from any nuclear event or waste in the entire lifetime of the tech. But even from there, nuclear is constantly under development. Its leading edge is miles beyond the nuclear of the generation when it was being built out commonly in the US, and the new tech is both very safe and produces way more manageable waste output. China is building both more nuclear and more renewable energy than any other country in the world, and is just one place showing that that the combination is a viable way of meeting our needs. Put another way, I do think you're right when you say (lack od) profitability is the major problem. But I think, given a frank assessment of the technology (preferably from sources not funded by people with an interest in maintaining the status quo), we should consider seriously that the problem isn't nuclear tech, but the concept of profit, itself.

dale_glass 4y ago
> In this particular case, even, it is a market that has decided to keep the secondary costs of nuclear associated with its generation, while dramatically underweighting the secondary costs of fossil fuels, even though the latter kills more people per month than have ever died from any nuclear event or waste in the entire lifetime of the tech. True, but arguing in favor of nuclear is unlikely to fix that. That's more of a matter of passing some sort of carbon tax legislation, which I very much support. > But even from there, nuclear is constantly under development. Its leading edge is miles beyond the nuclear of the generation when it was being built out commonly in the US, and the new tech is both very safe and produces way more manageable waste output. That's I think is one of the issues with the tech. You can make a new solar panel or new wind turbine quickly. Experimenting with nuclear is an enormous ordeal, which nobody seems to want to engage in all that much. If building a powerplant is already not profitable, imagine building an experimental one, stuffed to the gills with instrumentation. My view is that on the tech angle it also almost certainly loses. Renewables are just simple and amenable to mass manufacturing. > we should consider seriously that the problem isn't nuclear tech, but the concept of profit, itself. I think for a thing as core as energy, we can't really ignore money. Say, what happens if your power is 3X more expensive than your neighbour's? That's unlikely to be competitive, so why wouldn't industry just move across the border? You might have noble ideals, but industry as a whole doesn't.