US to build two new nuclear power stations | Hacker News Reader

US to build two new nuclear power stations

news.bbc.co.uk

"On an issue which affects our economy, our security, and the future of our planet, we cannot continue to be mired in the same old debates between left and right, between environmentalists and entrepreneurs," said President Obama.

Well, that's a little insulting :)

They're adding two new AP1000 reactors to an existing site. Each reactor produces 1.1 GW of electricity, reliably, for 60-80 years. While the building cost is large (about the same as wind, on a per-average-megawatt basis) the operating costs are low, and the power will become cheaper than coal over time as the initial investment is paid off.

There's been some misunderstanding about the government's involvement in this, so let me be explicit: this is not a loan, nor a subsidy. This is the government insuring the loan in case the company building the reactors defaults on the loans they got from private investors. Unless disaster strikes, the government will actually make a profit on this without paying a dime.

we need 200.

2 is a step in the right direction though.. when the last plant built, in the 70s?

400 would allow us to get off coal completely. That would be a stimulus package I'd support.

Each power station usually has multiple units, each unit usually runs at about 2-2.5 GW for a large scale reactor. 400 stations with 2 units apiece would generate 1.75TW assuming about 10% were offlined for maintenance at any one time. Existing nuclear plants already generate a good chunk of power, non-coal sources exist as well.

Currently California's peak energy needs in the summer months tends to be only 50GW or so. That's roughly one sixth of the population of the US. Even if you assume the nation needs 500GW total, that's nowhere near 1.75TW.

In other words, I think your 400 estimate is much too high, where did you get your numbers?

My numbers show about 75 generating stations with 2 reactors each supplying the power needs for the entire US. This assumes no offlining and only 300GW needed but also calculates based on each reactor supplying 2GW when most of the ones we have in the US supply over that.

(Note: Calculated from a US-centric point of view because the parent post was talking about a theoretical stimulus package and so I'm trying to work the numbers on what my particular nation would need to move its entire energy infrastructure to new nuclear plants.)

(Note the second: It's possible my numbers aren't taking into account tranmission losses, would someone who knows more about power infrastructure than me fill me in on this? I got my 50GW peak summer usage number from the California independent system operator, does that number already factor in transmission losses?)

We used 3.8 TW-hrs in 2005 (which translates to average 434 GW usage, so 500GW is probably a bit low for peak).

DOE (http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/pdf/overview.pdf) projects usage of 5.3 TW-hours in 2035, which translates to about 605 GW average. We probably need 1+ TW capacity in the US to handle peak usage.

In other words, I think your 400 estimate is much too high, where did you get your numbers?

From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_Sta...), the US has 104 reactors which produced 19.6% of the electricity we used in 2008.

Ah, but all of those 104 reactors are at least 30 years old--if modern reactors aren't significantly more efficient, I'll be sorely disappointed.

Even the old technology has been getting more efficient. Those reactors have been producing ever-increasing amounts of electricity for those past 30 years as they upgraded the systems and figured out how to reduce downtime.

A few minor corrections:

When the BBC talks about "two new power stations" what they mean is "two new AP1000 reactors being added to an existing site". So this is actually a single power plant. But I find it more productive to talk about reactors anyway.

Second, the largest reactors today are about 1.6 GW. The reactors being built here are 1.1 GW AP1000s. That affects your numbers.

Agreed, but if these 2 plants are built with high publicity and everyone sees no problem for several years then the fear of nuclear will decrease. It's been over 30 years since a new reactor was built in the US, the public opinion is mostly that it's extremely dangerous citing a handful of incidents from thousands of reactors because nuclear has been demonized.

What the public doesn't know is that more people die annual from the radioactivity released from [coal] plants than have died from every nuclear plant accident combined. Then there's the massive amounts of smog produced from coal plants that seriously hamper longevity and are directly linked to millions of deaths globally of the elderly and infants, not to mention it likely causes hundreds of thousands of deaths in ordinary healthy people who've contracted a survivable case of pneumonia.

Nuclear power is necessary as a matter of life or death in western countries, and countries around the world.

What the public doesn't know is that more people die annual from the radioactivity released from nuclear plants

Did you mean coal plants?

>more people die annual from the radioactivity released from nuclear plants than have died from every nuclear plant accident combined.

you mean coal plants i presume?

Yes, thank you for catching that, made the edit.

Total US power consumption is about 790 GW. An AP1000 reactor is about 1.1 GW. A typical installation like this one has two reactors. Therefore it would take about 360 of these power plants to provide all the US's electrical needs.

To just replace coal, build 150 of these 2.2 GW power plants. I'm taking these numbers from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_States#Ele...

that is really excellent news.

"... to help build the first US nuclear power stations for 30 years."

Shouldn't that be the first US nuclear power stations in 30 years?

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