Hacker News Reader

Comment by foxylad | Hacker News Reader

The reason these plants haven't been replaced with newer ones is NOT environmental lobbying - it's because no-one has figured out how to do it economically. Decommissioning a highly radioactive power station is extremely expensive. When these things were built their proponents optimistically expected the decommissioning problem to be have been solved by now - but it hasn't.

I fully expect US nuclear power stations to end their useful lives by being sold to shell companies that promptly go bankrupt, leaving the problem (and cost) of rendering them safe to the usual suckers - the taxpayers. For generations. And generations. And generations. Our descendants are going to curse us for this for ever.

View on HN

U.S. reactor sales must be approved by the NRC, which reviews the buyer's financial position. Ad, operators must pre-fund decommissioning costs over the life of the reactor. (Obviously there are issues with estimating the cost, but it's not like they can just ignore the issue.)

So, no.

What is it that is difficult about decommissioning the plants? The leftover fuel/waste? Or is it that the equipment itself has been contaminated. If it's just the fuel/waste, then why can't it be used in one of those whizz-bang reactors that people keep talking about whenever a discussion about nuclear shows up here (or reddit, slashdot, etc)?

difference between waste products that have short lifespans and ones that have long lifespans..

In a power plant near its operational life span end you only have those waste products with long lifespans of radioactivity which no one has figured out how to do a reasonable cost decommission of as remember the plan infrastructure of the reactor vessel, etc also contains those long lifespan radioactive elements form being bombarded for 40+ years.

I was under the impression that quite a bit of the waste can be dealt with through reprocessing (which also makes money, as you get useful stuff out of it), except of course reprocessing of waste is illegal in the US...

The leftover fuel/waste is the bulk of the problem. Although the majority of the "waste" is actually usable nuclear fuel, it is illegal in the US to recycle it.

So instead, it needs to be safely buried in a place like Yucca Mountain under extremely stringent criteria (must survive 10k years with no maintenance, etc).

In France (and other places), the leftover fuel/waste is actually a valuable resource. They recycle it and get new nuclear fuel. Some of the waste products are used as radiation sources in medicine.

There's also the breeder reactor:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor

The other ones that people mention are Thorium reactors, though I gather those are still theoretical...

Since the development of commercial nuclear power the costs of building new reactors has risen dramatically primarily as a result of regulation introduced as a result of anti-nuclear lobbying.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Anti-nuclear#...

Entire stations don't need to be decommisioned, but new reactors built on existing sites.

Existing U.S. plants will continue operating for another 60 years as their licences to do so are being extended by another 20 years(with a review each additional 20 years, with the same happening in other countries).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com