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The costs are regulatory. Just cut out the NNSA oversight and nukes will be cheap. edit ok, unsubstantiated assertions are bad. Here's just one example of reg
by jfoutz 14y ago
The costs are regulatory. Just cut out the NNSA oversight and nukes will be cheap.
edit
ok, unsubstantiated assertions are bad. Here's just one example of regulatory overhead that other types of power don't have to deal with,
"Since it may cost $300 million or more to shut down and decommission a plant, the NRC requires plant owners to set aside money when the plant is still operating to pay for the future shutdown costs." straight from the nrc http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/basic-ref/students/decommissioning.html http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/basic-ref/students/decommissio...
- CWuestefeld 14y agoThe OP shows this not to be the case. US costs are in-line with French costs, while the US has much greater regulation than France.
- jfoutz 14y agoIs it possible france's costs are higher because of all the other stuff they provide, like free health care and six weeks of vacation? The op blew off 30 years of thinking on the expense of nuclear power with a reference to an unlinked paper. Sure. It's possible nukes are just kind of expensive "because", but there's nothing compelling in that article to change my thinking that it's regulatory cost.
- pjscott 14y agoThe money put aside to pay for decommissioning is actually a pretty minuscule part of the cost; that's all included under operating costs, which are lower than coal's, i.e. very cheap. A much bigger problem is the delay and uncertainty introduced by a chronically backlogged and red-tape-infested NRC. Think about it this way: building a modern giant nuke plant takes a lot of money, and every month you're waiting for approval is a month you're paying interest on that money. Interest on loans is a huge part of the construction costs of a nuclear plant, and one of the harder to predict.