5 ms·

The obstacles that nuclear power faces are formidable. One is that two other carbon-free options, solar and wind, are dropping in cost at a rapid rate at the s

by marze 12y ago

The obstacles that nuclear power faces are formidable. One is that two other carbon-free options, solar and wind, are dropping in cost at a rapid rate at the same time that cost estimates for new nuclear plants are rising at a similarly rapid rate. Another is that there isn't anyone who thought their investment in the existing fleet of nuclear plants in the US was a good investment. They were uniformly bad investments, which is the primary reason for the 40 year gap with essentially no new plants ordered. Furthermore, even completely amortized plants are shutting down in the US. They can't even cover their operating costs, the few that shut down in the last year, let alone operating cost plus amortized construction cost. So even with the federal government guaranteeing 90% of the funds used for new plant construction (free money) it hasn't been easy to find investors willing to put up the remaining 10%. Nuclear power is awesome, especially if it is fusion power, and the reactor is 90M miles away, and anyone can use it for free just by put an inexpensive fusion power receiving panel outside with a clear view of the sky. One just needs to project what the wholesale price of PV power will be in 10 years to see the real reason it is difficult to find investors for new nuclear plants. Why spend $5B on a nuclear plant when you could spend it on five solar panel plants that each produce 1GW of solar panels, each year, creating substantially more jobs than the reactor would? Just asking.

osmala 12y ago
Problem with nuclear is that they cannot operate in situation where there is other players which destabilizes the network and are profitable with subsidies even if they sell at negative price. Nuclear is long term base load you just cannot shutdown a nuclear plant in windy situations, and expect it up in next hour and save anything by doing it. Solar and wind is more expensive if you take away all subsidies and force everyone to handle the smoothing their electricity production to grid needs. But force buying in short term spot prices and giving more subsidy than cost of production per kw/hour for intermittent sources is actually terrible way of handling the grid, it increases greenhouse emissions by forcing to use low efficiency gas plants when sun doesn't shine, (not high efficiency since you cannot bring them online fast enough). Nuclear gets loan guaranties which are not free money, and regulatory fees which are additional tax for nuclear industry.
hackuser 12y ago
My guess is that one reason for nuclear power's relatively high cost is that they must spend large amounts on safety while their primary competition, carbon-based power, gets a free ride from the rest of society on their safety costs, especially climate change. Nuclear pays for its own safety (AFAIK); who pays for climate change prevention, mitigation, and damage (e.g., hurricanes, seawalls, droughts, etc.)? The taxpayers. Make carbon pay to clean up the mess it creates, and nuclear will look much more attractive.
- ljf 12y ago
  While nuclear pays for site safety, it is the tax payer that covers the decommissioning and future waste storage / processing. As the costs for this is just so obscenely high that no private company would be involved if they had to pay for it from the meager profits they'd made from the electricity they'd produced. So once again it is the tax payer that covers the damage.
afterburner 12y ago
In addition, problems facing nuclear are: - huge cost overruns, both in construction and maintenance - very expensive end-of-life shutdown costs - shut down costs incentivizing the unwise extension of nuclear facility lifetimes
ars 12y ago
> One is that two other carbon-free options, solar and wind, are dropping in cost What's with that myth? They are certainly not "carbon-free" (presumably you mean carbon dioxide free). Solar and wind use huge amounts of energy to build. The most common way they make money is be spending energy where it is cheap, and selling energy where it is expensive. (But the CO2 is global, as is the pollution.) In essence they are a complicated way of shipping energy. They have a positive EROEI, but not hugely, just somewhat. You make a good point on the financial costs of nuclear.
- throwaway5752 12y ago
  "Solar and wind use huge amounts of energy to build" That's just patently false. And without being too insulting, stupidly so, in a really obvious way. A 300 watt panel without obstructed view in an average climate is going to get something on the order of magnitude of: 10 hours of sunlight / day 250 sunny days / year 20 years of service so, 15 million watt-hours, or 15 megawatts hours. Per wikipedia it takes 400 kilowatt-hours to produce 1 ton of steel in an arc furnace (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_arc_furnace http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_arc_furnace). That single panel can produce enough energy to produce something like 35 tons of steel over its service life. Just looking at a state of the art PV panel (http://us.sunpower.com/sites/sunpower/files/media-library/data-sheets/ds-x21-series-335-345-residential-solar-panels-datasheet.pdf http://us.sunpower.com/sites/sunpower/files/media-library/da...) - note, its capacity is 345 watts - it weighs 41 pounds. I am fairly confident that, outside of it being made of pure energy, that the EROEI is pretty decent. edit: Also, I can't imagine this is a favorable comparison to nuclear, which requires immense amounts of energy-intensive steel and concrete, as well as a fuel that is difficult to mine, process, purify, and separate.
  - ars 12y ago
    Every one of your numbers are not realistic. You won't get 10 hours of direct sun, you're lucky to get 6. You are also unlikely to get 20 years out of it - certainly not with zero maintenance (i.e. zero cost). And you are ignoring conversion losses. Assuming 6 hours and 10 years you get 4.5MW out of it, and let's ignore conversion losses. 4.5MW of electricty at $0.15 per KW/h costs $675. Installed cost for a 300 watt solar cell? About $500. Not including the inverter. Cost is a reasonable proxy for energy usage, so your EROEI is about 1.35. Even assuming your figures you have an EROEI of about 4. Less once you include maintenance. i.e. huge energy costs. PS. Don't confuse my numbers for financial ROI - if you want that you need to include the time-value of money, and once you include that solar cells loose money even by your measure.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

by marze 12y ago

osmala 12y ago

Problem with nuclear is that they cannot operate in situation where there is other players which destabilizes the network and are profitable with subsidies even if they sell at negative price. Nuclear is long term base load you just cannot shutdown a nuclear plant in windy situations, and expect it up in next hour and save anything by doing it. Solar and wind is more expensive if you take away all subsidies and force everyone to handle the smoothing their electricity production to grid needs. But force buying in short term spot prices and giving more subsidy than cost of production per kw/hour for intermittent sources is actually terrible way of handling the grid, it increases greenhouse emissions by forcing to use low efficiency gas plants when sun doesn't shine, (not high efficiency since you cannot bring them online fast enough). Nuclear gets loan guaranties which are not free money, and regulatory fees which are additional tax for nuclear industry.

hackuser 12y ago

My guess is that one reason for nuclear power's relatively high cost is that they must spend large amounts on safety while their primary competition, carbon-based power, gets a free ride from the rest of society on their safety costs, especially climate change. Nuclear pays for its own safety (AFAIK); who pays for climate change prevention, mitigation, and damage (e.g., hurricanes, seawalls, droughts, etc.)? The taxpayers. Make carbon pay to clean up the mess it creates, and nuclear will look much more attractive.

ljf 12y ago
While nuclear pays for site safety, it is the tax payer that covers the decommissioning and future waste storage / processing. As the costs for this is just so obscenely high that no private company would be involved if they had to pay for it from the meager profits they'd made from the electricity they'd produced. So once again it is the tax payer that covers the damage.

afterburner 12y ago

In addition, problems facing nuclear are: - huge cost overruns, both in construction and maintenance - very expensive end-of-life shutdown costs - shut down costs incentivizing the unwise extension of nuclear facility lifetimes

ars 12y ago

> One is that two other carbon-free options, solar and wind, are dropping in cost What's with that myth? They are certainly not "carbon-free" (presumably you mean carbon dioxide free). Solar and wind use huge amounts of energy to build. The most common way they make money is be spending energy where it is cheap, and selling energy where it is expensive. (But the CO2 is global, as is the pollution.) In essence they are a complicated way of shipping energy. They have a positive EROEI, but not hugely, just somewhat. You make a good point on the financial costs of nuclear.

throwaway5752 12y ago
"Solar and wind use huge amounts of energy to build" That's just patently false. And without being too insulting, stupidly so, in a really obvious way. A 300 watt panel without obstructed view in an average climate is going to get something on the order of magnitude of: 10 hours of sunlight / day 250 sunny days / year 20 years of service so, 15 million watt-hours, or 15 megawatts hours. Per wikipedia it takes 400 kilowatt-hours to produce 1 ton of steel in an arc furnace (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_arc_furnace http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_arc_furnace). That single panel can produce enough energy to produce something like 35 tons of steel over its service life. Just looking at a state of the art PV panel (http://us.sunpower.com/sites/sunpower/files/media-library/data-sheets/ds-x21-series-335-345-residential-solar-panels-datasheet.pdf http://us.sunpower.com/sites/sunpower/files/media-library/da...) - note, its capacity is 345 watts - it weighs 41 pounds. I am fairly confident that, outside of it being made of pure energy, that the EROEI is pretty decent. edit: Also, I can't imagine this is a favorable comparison to nuclear, which requires immense amounts of energy-intensive steel and concrete, as well as a fuel that is difficult to mine, process, purify, and separate.
- ars 12y ago
  Every one of your numbers are not realistic. You won't get 10 hours of direct sun, you're lucky to get 6. You are also unlikely to get 20 years out of it - certainly not with zero maintenance (i.e. zero cost). And you are ignoring conversion losses. Assuming 6 hours and 10 years you get 4.5MW out of it, and let's ignore conversion losses. 4.5MW of electricty at $0.15 per KW/h costs $675. Installed cost for a 300 watt solar cell? About $500. Not including the inverter. Cost is a reasonable proxy for energy usage, so your EROEI is about 1.35. Even assuming your figures you have an EROEI of about 4. Less once you include maintenance. i.e. huge energy costs. PS. Don't confuse my numbers for financial ROI - if you want that you need to include the time-value of money, and once you include that solar cells loose money even by your measure.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]