8 ms·

Nuclear power gets new push in U.S., winning converts (2022)

64 points by mpweiher 3y ago

mpweiher 3y ago
https://archive.is/oGki2/again?url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/05/business/energy-environment/nuclear-energy-politics.html https://archive.is/oGki2/again?url=https://www.nytimes.com/2...
throw0101b 3y ago
Bloomberg's Odd Lots podcast had an episode on nuclear recently: > The US is taking a fresh look at nuclear power. After a dearth of construction, and de-commissioning of working nuclear plants, people are talking, yet again, about it as a source of steady, affordable, carbon-free electricity. But of course, nuclear has its drawbacks, particularly on the financial side, as new plants have been plagued by cost over-runs, contributing to utility bankruptcies. So what would need to happen to get the economics working again? On this episode we speak with Mark Nelson, the founder of Radiant Energy Group, to discuss the state of the industry, the state of the technology, and what it would take to bring nuclear back into the mix. * https://omny.fm/shows/odd-lots/whats-really-standing-in-the-way-of-a-nuclear-rena https://omny.fm/shows/odd-lots/whats-really-standing-in-the-... * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d084PIspUwk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d084PIspUwk [audio-only]
- loeg 3y ago
  Yeah, it was a very good episode.
pydry 3y ago
It isnt challenges in meeting clean energy goals that motivates politicians from both sides to give nuclear power an extra push, its the industrial and skill requirements of the nuclear-military industrial complex: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2214629621003066 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S22146... If clean energy were the goal, costs and speed of construction would dictate only solar, wind and storage (pumped/hydrogen/battery) be built. This is what they mean in the article when they refer to a "cost problem".
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  Yes, there are links between civilian and military nuclear. (That’s almost an argument for nuclear power, since the military spending is a sunk cost.) Gen III+ reactors, which China is competently constructing, get past many of those problems. > only solar, wind and storage (pumped/hydrogen/battery) Solar and wind, yes. Only solar and wind, hilariously no. Solar and wind + storage, in the long run, is currently not cost competitive in most markets.
  - jvanderbot 3y ago
    If there is one thing I'd love to change about humanity, it'd be that proponents of a given solution believe exclusively in that solution. It is counter productive, creates unnecessary strife among competing solutions (competition is a good thing), and creates pseudo enemies from friends attempting to accomplish the same goal.
  - pydry 3y ago
    >That’s almost an argument for nuclear power I suppose. That depends how much against the NPT you are and how big a fan of extinction inducing weapons you are I guess. I wouldnt exactly treat the maintenance and construction of nukes as a sunk cost. It is possible to reduce our collective stocks through diplomacy. We've done it before. >Solar and wind + storage, in the long run, is currently not cost competitive It's beaten by solar + wind + natural gas. Nuclear power doesnt come close to being economically competitive even with the price anderson catastrophe liability cap. It needs to be lavished with subsidies to even exist. For the military, however, cost is rarely an object.
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > depends how much against the NPT you are It depends on how realistic you are. > possible to reduce our collective stocks through diplomacy Sure. But the world is currently sprinting in the opposite direction, with belligerence proliferating. And coupling an entirely separate coördination problem to the already labyrinthian onr of climate change is conceding the game at the opening. > it needs to be lavished with subsidies to even exist Nope. Gen III+ reactors are competitive with solar within a few years.
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
“While the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) at these capital price points will not be immediately competitive in most U.S. markets (i.e., greater than $60/MWhre), long term decarbonization goals combined with the long lifetime of the plant (i.e., LCOE of less than $30/MWhre for 40-60 years) should motivate revisiting the AP1000 economic feasibility if decarbonization targets are taken seriously.” Extrapolating from Georgia for Gen III+, even just for the U.S., is flawed. https://web.mit.edu/kshirvan/www/research/ANP193%20TR%20CANES.pdf https://web.mit.edu/kshirvan/www/research/ANP193%20TR%20CANE...
- bitshiftfaced 3y ago
  I'm in the unfortunate position where I'm curious to learn why extrapolating from Georgia is flawed, while also not loving the idea of reading through a 30 page technical document to find out why.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    They “experienced several one-time delays including redesign and reworks from the first application of 10CFR52 design certification process and insufficient engineering before start of the construction” [1]. If you’re building N of a kind, the N = 1 costs are almost always higher. We know these are possible with AP1000s because we can see the same cost curve in China, albeit shifted down due to lower labour costs. [1] Executive Summary
osigurdson 3y ago
Public support for nuclear is a pure function of time since last disaster. The last one was in 2011 so in the public's mind we are back in "probably will never happen again" territory. However, we will still see more Fukushimas in the future (according to [1]). A 100X improvement in safety would really help the cause. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629615301067 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221462961....
- mpweiher 3y ago
  Or maybe better communication? Nuclear is, depending on what stats you use, either among the safest or actually the safest energy source. https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy (And the top 3 are so close that differences are essentially noise)
  - rightbyte 3y ago
    In the same way the Concordes were the safest passenger jets, until they suddenly weren't.
    - mpweiher 3y ago
      Nope, this is including two accidents. And Concorde was retired because they could no longer operate it, for example no spare parts.
      - laszlojamf 3y ago
        And also didn't it just turn out that people weren't really interested in spending a lot more money to get to where they were going a little bit faster?
        mpweiher 3y ago
        One might think so, but no, that wasn't the case. Concorde was operating profitably with reasonable load factors. And of course you now have aviation startups trying to tap the same market.
wolverine876 3y ago
Public financial and in-kind support for nuclear power is transferring wealth from taxpayers to large corporations. Nuclear might be worth it to reduce climate change (a discussion for a different subthread) but let's be careful of corporate welfare. At least, find a way for that wealth transfer to reach the public, not the shareholders.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- Lonestar1440 3y ago
  Couldn't we say the same about any public subsidy for climate-friendly technology (or anything at all)? What makes Nuclear special, and worth singling out?
  - wolverine876 3y ago
    Two reasons: First, nuclear requires very large corporations. Other energy sources don't require size to the same degree. Solar panels can be purchased by the homeowner and installed by a local Mom-and-Pop shop. Second, it depends on how we define 'public subsidy'. If we accurately price externalities, such as climate impact, then we are effectively reducing subsidies (i.e., letting people use the commons for free is a subsidy).
    - Sanzig 3y ago
      > First, nuclear requires very large corporations. Nuclear power plants can be state-owned, and commonly are outside the US. For example, all Canadian nuclear power reactors are owned by provincial governments (about half of Ontario's reactors are on long term lease to a private operator under a public-private partnership deal, but the reactors are still government owned). In France, the company which owns and operates all the reactors in the country is majority owned by the French state. Requiring generating assets to be owned and operated by private enterprises seems to be a primarily American phenomenon.
TradingPlaces 3y ago
Nukes are expensive and take forever to build. This ship sailed 40 years ago.
- nikhilsimha 3y ago
  France?
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    Coasting on old nuclear. They’ve been importing renewables from Germany due to reduced capacity factor. The fleet is a money pit. https://www.rechargenews.com/energy-transition/embattled-edf-stuck-with-30bn-bill-from-ailing-nuclear-fleet-as-utility-makes-massive-loss/2-1-1406062 https://www.rechargenews.com/energy-transition/embattled-edf... https://www.france24.com/en/france/20230105-how-france-s-prized-nuclear-sector-stalled-in-europe-s-hour-of-need https://www.france24.com/en/france/20230105-how-france-s-pri...
    - mpweiher 3y ago
      Old news, a one time occurrence in 2022 when they scheduled a lot of inspections and maintenance they had put off in the COVID years. At that point the long underinvestment caught up with them. In 2023, they were net exporting again, like they were in the last 20+ years or so. But you are right that they had been coasting and were exploiting their nuclear plants without reinvesting. That has now changed.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
  - pedrocr 3y ago
    According to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_France#Nuclear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Fran... the last time France put a new nuclear reactor online was over 20 years ago. There was probably a window where we could have powered our grids with nuclear and done well with that versus the alternatives. A bunch of factors, including lobbying by fossil fuel interests, meant that didn't happen. These days that same lobbying and other factors are fighting against solar+wind+hydro but hopefully this time it's unstoppable. The fact that solar and wind are distributed and don't have extreme tail risks helps a lot. Nuclear was too easy to stop because of the extremely complex projects and very unlikely but very high magnitude risks.
RobertRoberts 3y ago
Why is there so much marketing to support nuclear? The reason people don't want it in their back yard is because disasters are so drastic (even if rare), the waste nearly permanent (and one of the most toxic we produce on earth), and trust in government and corporations to protect our health and safety is at historic lows. I simply do not trust lobbiests, CEOs and career politicians with the health and safety of my family, and I don't think anyone else should either.
- pfdietz 3y ago
  I think those in the nuclear business understand this is the last hurrah. It's now or never, so the marketing is being pushed to the maximum. It also means you shouldn't trust a single word from them; they're desperate and care nothing for their future reputation if they fail.
Krasnol 3y ago
Meanwhile in Spain: "Spain confirms nuclear power phase-out, extends renewable projects deadlines" https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/spain-confirms-nuclear-power-phase-out-extends-renewable-projects-deadlines-2023-12-27/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/spain-confirms-nucle...
Krasnol 3y ago
> Thomas Mundy, chief commercial officer for NuScale Power, said his company’s product could be built and put into use in about three years, a fraction of the time it takes to build larger reactor units. Funny somebody dug this out from 2022 when the news are so disastrous: > Investors Sue NuScale (SMR) for Concealing True Cost of Flagship Nuclear Reactor Project-Hagens Berman https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2023/12/06/2791942/0/en/Investors-Sue-NuScale-SMR-for-Concealing-True-Cost-of-Flagship-Nuclear-Reactor-Project-Hagens-Berman.html https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2023/12/06/279194... > Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) and NuScale Power Agree to Terminate the Carbon Free Power Project (CFPP) https://www.nuscalepower.com/en/news/press-releases/2023/uamps-and-nuscale-power-agree-to-terminate-the-carbon-free-power-project https://www.nuscalepower.com/en/news/press-releases/2023/uam... Maybe greenwashing isn't enough to cover up the fact that nuclear is not a good way to go about energy in the future.
- zaphar 3y ago
  The fact is that we probably need all of the following to have any hope of reaching carbon neutral: 1. Nuclear for base load 2. Wind and solar with storage for supplemental 3. Carbon capture and storage Any discussion that tries to exclude one of them is in my mind non-serious and the ultimate form of greenwashing. In practical terms it's not going to be possible to get there without some form of all of the above.
  - pfdietz 3y ago
    We don't need nuclear for base load. Nuclear and renewables don't play together well either.
    - mpweiher 3y ago
      We don't need unreliable renewables when we have reliable nuclear. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But it can be nice on top for things that can be deferred or that align with availability. For example, solar seems really sweet for running air-conditioning units in hot/sunny climates. And you can probably schedule charging your EV for when the wind is blowing. But stop an aluminum smelter for more than 6 hours and the factory is kaput. And if we're going to heat our homes using electricity, I'd rather not have that be contingent on whether the weather is feeling like it today.
jmyeet 3y ago
Nuclear is going nowhere. It’s too expensive, takes too long to build, requires significant government subsidies and the failure modes have an exceptionally bad long tail. $122 billion has been spent in the Fukushima clean up to date with no end in sight. Likely this will take decades, maybe a century or more, and when all is said and done, may well cost over $1 trillion. The Chernobyl absolute exclusion zone is still quite literally 1000 square miles, nearly 40 years later. Yet the very real examples get hand waved away despite their being multiple catastrophic incidents when we’ve only built less than 700 nuclear power reactors.

64 points by mpweiher 3y ago

https://archive.is/oGki2/again?url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/05/business/energy-environment/nuclear-energy-politics.html https://archive.is/oGki2/again?url=https://www.nytimes.com/2...

throw0101b 3y ago

Bloomberg's Odd Lots podcast had an episode on nuclear recently: > The US is taking a fresh look at nuclear power. After a dearth of construction, and de-commissioning of working nuclear plants, people are talking, yet again, about it as a source of steady, affordable, carbon-free electricity. But of course, nuclear has its drawbacks, particularly on the financial side, as new plants have been plagued by cost over-runs, contributing to utility bankruptcies. So what would need to happen to get the economics working again? On this episode we speak with Mark Nelson, the founder of Radiant Energy Group, to discuss the state of the industry, the state of the technology, and what it would take to bring nuclear back into the mix. * https://omny.fm/shows/odd-lots/whats-really-standing-in-the-way-of-a-nuclear-rena https://omny.fm/shows/odd-lots/whats-really-standing-in-the-... * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d084PIspUwk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d084PIspUwk [audio-only]

loeg 3y ago
Yeah, it was a very good episode.

pydry 3y ago

It isnt challenges in meeting clean energy goals that motivates politicians from both sides to give nuclear power an extra push, its the industrial and skill requirements of the nuclear-military industrial complex: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2214629621003066 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S22146... If clean energy were the goal, costs and speed of construction would dictate only solar, wind and storage (pumped/hydrogen/battery) be built. This is what they mean in the article when they refer to a "cost problem".

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
Yes, there are links between civilian and military nuclear. (That’s almost an argument for nuclear power, since the military spending is a sunk cost.) Gen III+ reactors, which China is competently constructing, get past many of those problems. > only solar, wind and storage (pumped/hydrogen/battery) Solar and wind, yes. Only solar and wind, hilariously no. Solar and wind + storage, in the long run, is currently not cost competitive in most markets.
- jvanderbot 3y ago
  If there is one thing I'd love to change about humanity, it'd be that proponents of a given solution believe exclusively in that solution. It is counter productive, creates unnecessary strife among competing solutions (competition is a good thing), and creates pseudo enemies from friends attempting to accomplish the same goal.
- pydry 3y ago
  >That’s almost an argument for nuclear power I suppose. That depends how much against the NPT you are and how big a fan of extinction inducing weapons you are I guess. I wouldnt exactly treat the maintenance and construction of nukes as a sunk cost. It is possible to reduce our collective stocks through diplomacy. We've done it before. >Solar and wind + storage, in the long run, is currently not cost competitive It's beaten by solar + wind + natural gas. Nuclear power doesnt come close to being economically competitive even with the price anderson catastrophe liability cap. It needs to be lavished with subsidies to even exist. For the military, however, cost is rarely an object.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > depends how much against the NPT you are It depends on how realistic you are. > possible to reduce our collective stocks through diplomacy Sure. But the world is currently sprinting in the opposite direction, with belligerence proliferating. And coupling an entirely separate coördination problem to the already labyrinthian onr of climate change is conceding the game at the opening. > it needs to be lavished with subsidies to even exist Nope. Gen III+ reactors are competitive with solar within a few years.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

“While the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) at these capital price points will not be immediately competitive in most U.S. markets (i.e., greater than $60/MWhre), long term decarbonization goals combined with the long lifetime of the plant (i.e., LCOE of less than $30/MWhre for 40-60 years) should motivate revisiting the AP1000 economic feasibility if decarbonization targets are taken seriously.” Extrapolating from Georgia for Gen III+, even just for the U.S., is flawed. https://web.mit.edu/kshirvan/www/research/ANP193%20TR%20CANES.pdf https://web.mit.edu/kshirvan/www/research/ANP193%20TR%20CANE...

bitshiftfaced 3y ago
I'm in the unfortunate position where I'm curious to learn why extrapolating from Georgia is flawed, while also not loving the idea of reading through a 30 page technical document to find out why.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  They “experienced several one-time delays including redesign and reworks from the first application of 10CFR52 design certification process and insufficient engineering before start of the construction” [1]. If you’re building N of a kind, the N = 1 costs are almost always higher. We know these are possible with AP1000s because we can see the same cost curve in China, albeit shifted down due to lower labour costs. [1] Executive Summary

osigurdson 3y ago

Public support for nuclear is a pure function of time since last disaster. The last one was in 2011 so in the public's mind we are back in "probably will never happen again" territory. However, we will still see more Fukushimas in the future (according to [1]). A 100X improvement in safety would really help the cause. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629615301067 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221462961....

mpweiher 3y ago
Or maybe better communication? Nuclear is, depending on what stats you use, either among the safest or actually the safest energy source. https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy (And the top 3 are so close that differences are essentially noise)
- rightbyte 3y ago
  In the same way the Concordes were the safest passenger jets, until they suddenly weren't.
  - mpweiher 3y ago
    Nope, this is including two accidents. And Concorde was retired because they could no longer operate it, for example no spare parts.
    - laszlojamf 3y ago
      And also didn't it just turn out that people weren't really interested in spending a lot more money to get to where they were going a little bit faster?
      - mpweiher 3y ago
        One might think so, but no, that wasn't the case. Concorde was operating profitably with reasonable load factors. And of course you now have aviation startups trying to tap the same market.

wolverine876 3y ago

Public financial and in-kind support for nuclear power is transferring wealth from taxpayers to large corporations. Nuclear might be worth it to reduce climate change (a discussion for a different subthread) but let's be careful of corporate welfare. At least, find a way for that wealth transfer to reach the public, not the shareholders.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Lonestar1440 3y ago
Couldn't we say the same about any public subsidy for climate-friendly technology (or anything at all)? What makes Nuclear special, and worth singling out?
- wolverine876 3y ago
  Two reasons: First, nuclear requires very large corporations. Other energy sources don't require size to the same degree. Solar panels can be purchased by the homeowner and installed by a local Mom-and-Pop shop. Second, it depends on how we define 'public subsidy'. If we accurately price externalities, such as climate impact, then we are effectively reducing subsidies (i.e., letting people use the commons for free is a subsidy).
  - Sanzig 3y ago
    > First, nuclear requires very large corporations. Nuclear power plants can be state-owned, and commonly are outside the US. For example, all Canadian nuclear power reactors are owned by provincial governments (about half of Ontario's reactors are on long term lease to a private operator under a public-private partnership deal, but the reactors are still government owned). In France, the company which owns and operates all the reactors in the country is majority owned by the French state. Requiring generating assets to be owned and operated by private enterprises seems to be a primarily American phenomenon.

TradingPlaces 3y ago

Nukes are expensive and take forever to build. This ship sailed 40 years ago.

nikhilsimha 3y ago
France?
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  Coasting on old nuclear. They’ve been importing renewables from Germany due to reduced capacity factor. The fleet is a money pit. https://www.rechargenews.com/energy-transition/embattled-edf-stuck-with-30bn-bill-from-ailing-nuclear-fleet-as-utility-makes-massive-loss/2-1-1406062 https://www.rechargenews.com/energy-transition/embattled-edf... https://www.france24.com/en/france/20230105-how-france-s-prized-nuclear-sector-stalled-in-europe-s-hour-of-need https://www.france24.com/en/france/20230105-how-france-s-pri...
  - mpweiher 3y ago
    Old news, a one time occurrence in 2022 when they scheduled a lot of inspections and maintenance they had put off in the COVID years. At that point the long underinvestment caught up with them. In 2023, they were net exporting again, like they were in the last 20+ years or so. But you are right that they had been coasting and were exploiting their nuclear plants without reinvesting. That has now changed.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- pedrocr 3y ago
  According to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_France#Nuclear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Fran... the last time France put a new nuclear reactor online was over 20 years ago. There was probably a window where we could have powered our grids with nuclear and done well with that versus the alternatives. A bunch of factors, including lobbying by fossil fuel interests, meant that didn't happen. These days that same lobbying and other factors are fighting against solar+wind+hydro but hopefully this time it's unstoppable. The fact that solar and wind are distributed and don't have extreme tail risks helps a lot. Nuclear was too easy to stop because of the extremely complex projects and very unlikely but very high magnitude risks.

RobertRoberts 3y ago

Why is there so much marketing to support nuclear? The reason people don't want it in their back yard is because disasters are so drastic (even if rare), the waste nearly permanent (and one of the most toxic we produce on earth), and trust in government and corporations to protect our health and safety is at historic lows. I simply do not trust lobbiests, CEOs and career politicians with the health and safety of my family, and I don't think anyone else should either.

pfdietz 3y ago
I think those in the nuclear business understand this is the last hurrah. It's now or never, so the marketing is being pushed to the maximum. It also means you shouldn't trust a single word from them; they're desperate and care nothing for their future reputation if they fail.

Krasnol 3y ago

Meanwhile in Spain: "Spain confirms nuclear power phase-out, extends renewable projects deadlines" https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/spain-confirms-nuclear-power-phase-out-extends-renewable-projects-deadlines-2023-12-27/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/spain-confirms-nucle...

Krasnol 3y ago

> Thomas Mundy, chief commercial officer for NuScale Power, said his company’s product could be built and put into use in about three years, a fraction of the time it takes to build larger reactor units. Funny somebody dug this out from 2022 when the news are so disastrous: > Investors Sue NuScale (SMR) for Concealing True Cost of Flagship Nuclear Reactor Project-Hagens Berman https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2023/12/06/2791942/0/en/Investors-Sue-NuScale-SMR-for-Concealing-True-Cost-of-Flagship-Nuclear-Reactor-Project-Hagens-Berman.html https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2023/12/06/279194... > Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) and NuScale Power Agree to Terminate the Carbon Free Power Project (CFPP) https://www.nuscalepower.com/en/news/press-releases/2023/uamps-and-nuscale-power-agree-to-terminate-the-carbon-free-power-project https://www.nuscalepower.com/en/news/press-releases/2023/uam... Maybe greenwashing isn't enough to cover up the fact that nuclear is not a good way to go about energy in the future.

zaphar 3y ago
The fact is that we probably need all of the following to have any hope of reaching carbon neutral: 1. Nuclear for base load 2. Wind and solar with storage for supplemental 3. Carbon capture and storage Any discussion that tries to exclude one of them is in my mind non-serious and the ultimate form of greenwashing. In practical terms it's not going to be possible to get there without some form of all of the above.
- pfdietz 3y ago
  We don't need nuclear for base load. Nuclear and renewables don't play together well either.
  - mpweiher 3y ago
    We don't need unreliable renewables when we have reliable nuclear. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But it can be nice on top for things that can be deferred or that align with availability. For example, solar seems really sweet for running air-conditioning units in hot/sunny climates. And you can probably schedule charging your EV for when the wind is blowing. But stop an aluminum smelter for more than 6 hours and the factory is kaput. And if we're going to heat our homes using electricity, I'd rather not have that be contingent on whether the weather is feeling like it today.

jmyeet 3y ago

Nuclear is going nowhere. It’s too expensive, takes too long to build, requires significant government subsidies and the failure modes have an exceptionally bad long tail. $122 billion has been spent in the Fukushima clean up to date with no end in sight. Likely this will take decades, maybe a century or more, and when all is said and done, may well cost over $1 trillion. The Chernobyl absolute exclusion zone is still quite literally 1000 square miles, nearly 40 years later. Yet the very real examples get hand waved away despite their being multiple catastrophic incidents when we’ve only built less than 700 nuclear power reactors.