6 ms·

Cheap nuclear is an oxymoron. Germany dropped it and now the tax payers are hit with over 100 billion in nuclear waste disposal costs. The operators paid 23 bil

Cheap nuclear is an oxymoron. Germany dropped it and now the tax payers are hit with over 100 billion in nuclear waste disposal costs. The operators paid 23 billion to legally wash their hands of the mess [1]. The worst part even the green party accepted it because they feared the operators would simply declare bankruptcy since there was no way for them to handle it themselves. This on top of the hundreds of billions of subsidies that in the end didn't accomplish anything. But at least they are not in South Carolina where the consumers are still paying for the 9 billion wasted on VC Summer before they concluded "this project will never be in the black" and quit [2]. Nuclear's tagline since the beginning was "energy too cheap to meter" which turned out to be one of the biggest frauds in the history of mankind. [1] https://www.dw.com/en/german-government-does-nuclear-waste-deal-with-energy-companies/a-36089376 https://www.dw.com/en/german-government-does-nuclear-waste-d... [2] https://theintercept.com/2019/02/06/south-caroline-green-new-deal-south-carolina-nuclear-energy/ https://theintercept.com/2019/02/06/south-caroline-green-new...

nickpp 4y ago
Most of those costs are because of onerous regulations and lack of competition due to... you guessed it: onerous governmental regulations.
- pydry 4y ago
  If the ~$800 billion cleanup costs of a Fukushima event werent fully borne by taxpayers then maybe the safety regulations wouldnt have to be as onerous. But they are, and Ive never heard of a single pro nuclear advocate ever argue that nuclear power is safe enough that this enormous subsidy should be unwound. They generally pretend it doesnt exist. Meanwhile solar/wind/storage is a lot cheaper even without taking this subsidy into account.
  - nickpp 4y ago
    The cleanup after a nuclear incident is also regulated through the wazoo. Thus it's expensive, deeply corrupted and probably unnecessary. We'd probably be better off simply closing the area for a couple hundred years until the most radioactive (and thus dangerous) stuff half-lifes away. Meanwhile coal plants keep spewing slightly radioactive ash into the air and into our lungs and the cost is paid by us all in life expectancy. And soon by our whole civilization in global warming.
  - panick21_ 4y ago
    Funny how anti-nuclear people never admit that the last 30 years of anti nuclear opposition have lead to 1000s of deaths, 100000s of people less health and more cost then any theoretical nuclear accident. Its totally ok to argue that the government should have shared responsibility for health care. But arguing that government should control the energy production in a sensible way and adopt the risk for that is somehow crazy. And yet they end up doing it anyway as we have seen in the recent crisis. Had the government simply adopted a nuclear strategy from the beginning it would be vastly cheaper, population would be vastly healthier, grid operation would be far easier and energy security for the next 100 years would not even remotely be in question. It wouldn't have forced the German right to make a devils deal with Russia and the Left would have gotten their carbon free grid.
    - largepeepee 4y ago
      "the last 30 years of anti nuclear opposition have lead to 1000s of deaths, 100000s of people less health and more cost then any theoretical nuclear accident." Where are you pulling these numbers from? Your ass? The last 30 years were also one of best times to be alive as an average person on the globe generally. How nuclear idiots can spin everything negatively is pretty funny.
      - kelseyfrog 4y ago
        It's the number of excessive deaths due to coal fired power plants in the US per year(~3000). Anyone can search for that and critique the methodology.
    - locallost 4y ago
      Nuclear has failed for now 70 years to change anything. It's because it plainly doesn't work. Worldwide only one country has managed to produce the vast majority of its electricity from nuclear and even this country is faltering right now. The french electricity company is deeply in debt, was nationalized as a consequence of it and just posted a 20 billion loss for last year. The plants are reaching their end of life, the prototype replacement in Flamanville is a national embarrassment and is now over a decade and over 10 billion over budget. If the world decides to go all in on nuclear it would take decades to decarbonize a tiny percentage of the grid and horrendous costs.
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  Cool. We'll start with removing the vienna convention.
panick21_ 4y ago
Nonsense. Had Germany adopted nuclear in 2020 for the Grünewende they would be done by now, and they would have cost them less then they actually spend in that time and what they will have to spend. Even with pessimistic assumption of paying 5 billion $ per plant. If Germany had done what France did in the 70/80s they would be much better off now and for the next 100 years. And the cost per plant would be far lower once you start mass production. If you actually did it right rather then incredibly stupidly, nuclear waste would be a resource for the future, and the idea of disposing it would be utterly ridiculous. Just as with all these idiotic disposal solution that governments like to waste money on. In typical fashion the anti nuclear people first create problems, demand that money is spend on them and then blame nuclear for those problems. A sensible approach would be have a government fuel bank responsible for securing reserves of nuclear fuel, supplying and recycling nuclear fuel to the nations nuclear fleet. This fuel reserve centrally managed and it controls access to fuel for both commercial operates, research, ESA and so on. Maintenance of spend fuel is not actually expensive and it places little burden on government to do, even if its for 100s of years. Its literally just a bunch of containers in a warehouse. And that could of course be supported by fees for rate payers.
- locallost 4y ago
  Complete denial of reality. I've posted actual numbers on real costs, but of course there are always people like you dealing with imaginary money, throwing around numbers they can't back up. Pessimistic 5 billion per plant -- what a joke. Flamanville 20 years under construction, 20 billion. Olkiluoto 15 years under construction, 15 billion. Hinkley C, deadline for 2027 already clear will not be held, price tag already estimated now to be 40 billion in the end [1]. If Germany had done what France had done in the 70s and 80s it would be in the same situation as France is today: every other month a plant goes into emergency maintenance because of cracks in the pipes, and relying on neighbors to keep its lights on. If it had invested in nuclear 20 years ago it would be sitting on heaps of unfinished uneconomical plants and it would still use coal for the majority of its electricity. The plants even if finished would take decades to make up for the lost opportunity to reduce emissions during the decades of construction. Rubbish! Nuclear energy's days are numbered. That industry will need to find another way to take tax payers' money. [1] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/cost-edfs-new-uk-nuclear-project-soars-40-bln-2023-02-20/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/cost-edfs-new-uk-nuc...

nickpp 4y ago

Most of those costs are because of onerous regulations and lack of competition due to... you guessed it: onerous governmental regulations.

pydry 4y ago
If the ~$800 billion cleanup costs of a Fukushima event werent fully borne by taxpayers then maybe the safety regulations wouldnt have to be as onerous. But they are, and Ive never heard of a single pro nuclear advocate ever argue that nuclear power is safe enough that this enormous subsidy should be unwound. They generally pretend it doesnt exist. Meanwhile solar/wind/storage is a lot cheaper even without taking this subsidy into account.
- nickpp 4y ago
  The cleanup after a nuclear incident is also regulated through the wazoo. Thus it's expensive, deeply corrupted and probably unnecessary. We'd probably be better off simply closing the area for a couple hundred years until the most radioactive (and thus dangerous) stuff half-lifes away. Meanwhile coal plants keep spewing slightly radioactive ash into the air and into our lungs and the cost is paid by us all in life expectancy. And soon by our whole civilization in global warming.
- panick21_ 4y ago
  Funny how anti-nuclear people never admit that the last 30 years of anti nuclear opposition have lead to 1000s of deaths, 100000s of people less health and more cost then any theoretical nuclear accident. Its totally ok to argue that the government should have shared responsibility for health care. But arguing that government should control the energy production in a sensible way and adopt the risk for that is somehow crazy. And yet they end up doing it anyway as we have seen in the recent crisis. Had the government simply adopted a nuclear strategy from the beginning it would be vastly cheaper, population would be vastly healthier, grid operation would be far easier and energy security for the next 100 years would not even remotely be in question. It wouldn't have forced the German right to make a devils deal with Russia and the Left would have gotten their carbon free grid.
  - largepeepee 4y ago
    "the last 30 years of anti nuclear opposition have lead to 1000s of deaths, 100000s of people less health and more cost then any theoretical nuclear accident." Where are you pulling these numbers from? Your ass? The last 30 years were also one of best times to be alive as an average person on the globe generally. How nuclear idiots can spin everything negatively is pretty funny.
    - kelseyfrog 4y ago
      It's the number of excessive deaths due to coal fired power plants in the US per year(~3000). Anyone can search for that and critique the methodology.
  - locallost 4y ago
    Nuclear has failed for now 70 years to change anything. It's because it plainly doesn't work. Worldwide only one country has managed to produce the vast majority of its electricity from nuclear and even this country is faltering right now. The french electricity company is deeply in debt, was nationalized as a consequence of it and just posted a 20 billion loss for last year. The plants are reaching their end of life, the prototype replacement in Flamanville is a national embarrassment and is now over a decade and over 10 billion over budget. If the world decides to go all in on nuclear it would take decades to decarbonize a tiny percentage of the grid and horrendous costs.
Schroedingersat 4y ago
Cool. We'll start with removing the vienna convention.

panick21_ 4y ago

Nonsense. Had Germany adopted nuclear in 2020 for the Grünewende they would be done by now, and they would have cost them less then they actually spend in that time and what they will have to spend. Even with pessimistic assumption of paying 5 billion $ per plant. If Germany had done what France did in the 70/80s they would be much better off now and for the next 100 years. And the cost per plant would be far lower once you start mass production. If you actually did it right rather then incredibly stupidly, nuclear waste would be a resource for the future, and the idea of disposing it would be utterly ridiculous. Just as with all these idiotic disposal solution that governments like to waste money on. In typical fashion the anti nuclear people first create problems, demand that money is spend on them and then blame nuclear for those problems. A sensible approach would be have a government fuel bank responsible for securing reserves of nuclear fuel, supplying and recycling nuclear fuel to the nations nuclear fleet. This fuel reserve centrally managed and it controls access to fuel for both commercial operates, research, ESA and so on. Maintenance of spend fuel is not actually expensive and it places little burden on government to do, even if its for 100s of years. Its literally just a bunch of containers in a warehouse. And that could of course be supported by fees for rate payers.

locallost 4y ago
Complete denial of reality. I've posted actual numbers on real costs, but of course there are always people like you dealing with imaginary money, throwing around numbers they can't back up. Pessimistic 5 billion per plant -- what a joke. Flamanville 20 years under construction, 20 billion. Olkiluoto 15 years under construction, 15 billion. Hinkley C, deadline for 2027 already clear will not be held, price tag already estimated now to be 40 billion in the end [1]. If Germany had done what France had done in the 70s and 80s it would be in the same situation as France is today: every other month a plant goes into emergency maintenance because of cracks in the pipes, and relying on neighbors to keep its lights on. If it had invested in nuclear 20 years ago it would be sitting on heaps of unfinished uneconomical plants and it would still use coal for the majority of its electricity. The plants even if finished would take decades to make up for the lost opportunity to reduce emissions during the decades of construction. Rubbish! Nuclear energy's days are numbered. That industry will need to find another way to take tax payers' money. [1] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/cost-edfs-new-uk-nuclear-project-soars-40-bln-2023-02-20/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/cost-edfs-new-uk-nuc...