> Plus, the spent fuel has no place to go, it stays on site in concrete casks, potentially forever.
Great! Seriously, there are zero problems with that.
'In fact, the U.S. has produced roughly 83,000 metrics tons of used fuel since the 1950s—and all of it could fit on a single football field at a depth of less than 10 yards.' [0]
[0] https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-...
If by “regulated to death”, you mean, “heavily subsidized and granted special liability regimes to reduce individual operator risk exposure”, that would be true.
Nuclear power plants are money printing machines, not money pits.
This is a point on which nuclear advocates and the nuclear industry disagree.
I wonder which understands the economics of the situation better?
You can’t breath money.
How much have carbon emissions cost individuals in the form of negative health outcomes? Diablo Canyon cost 14b in 2019 dollars to build and has been producing carbon free energy for half a century. The state's total spending in 2017 -- State and federal funds -- was $256b.
The fuel could go to Yucca, or it could to go to Finland, which regularly takes nuclear waste. Or it could stay where it is just fine.
Did you just wake up from a coma?
Nothing will go to Yucca Mountain because it isn't operational. Obama terminated funding in 2011. Trump has opposed reactivating the project and Congress hasn't funded it. This isn't surprising considering Nevada doesn't want to be America's nuclear waste dumping ground. There is strong opposition from its residents, including Native Americans, and state government.
Finland doesn't take nuclear waste. It used to ship its waste to Russia (and the Soviet Union) for reprocessing. That stopped in 1996 due to legislation in 1994 that mandated domestic long term storage.
>Or it could stay where it is just fine.
Ah, not a coma, just stupidity.
Let's pretend that this is unequivocally true. Sometimes doing things for public health and safety costs money. It seems like the main question we should ask is "would switching to nuclear significantly save lives and improve the environment?". Most research says yes.
See e.g.:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-d...
https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy
And since that's the case, then we can ask a new question: "Does your 'money pit' statement account for the benefits of reduced mortality and greenhouse emissions, or are you only thinking about the electric bill?"
I don't have to pretend, it is true. Not a single nuclear plant in the United States has opened on time and on budget. Not a single one. In the 1950s, nuclear power was heralded as the cheapest electricity possible, so cheap that it would be almost free. Electricity generated from nuclear is about four times more expensive than solar and wind.
>Does your 'money pit' statement account for the benefits of reduced mortality and greenhouse emissions, or are you only thinking about the electric bill?
I don't live in fantasy land, somebody has to pay for it. I am already on the hook for PG&E's misdeeds.
Having tens of nuclear graveyards, especially close to population centers is not a good idea when California is covered with active faults. Nuclear needs water and lots of it. Perhaps you are not familiar with California.
Well, I hear that the air force has so much extra money sitting around that they are working on yet another fighter jet. Maybe we could dig in the military industrial couch cushions a bit. "Somebody has to pay for it" is not the same as "we can't afford it". We absolutely could afford it.
> Having tens of nuclear graveyards, especially close to population centers is not a good idea when California is covered with active faults.
Given that California currently gets a third of its power from entirely outside of the state, clearly it's possible to build them not directly on top of the fault lines.
Looking at a map, it seems California is right beside a fairly large body of water, the Pacific Ocean. Maybe you could place your thermal power plants by the coast rather than smack in the middle of Death Valley? Perhaps not coincidentally, both Diablo Canyon and San Onofre nuclear power plants are sited right beside the ocean, and use(d) ocean water for cooling.
Perhaps you should look at a fault map of California. Diablo, the only nuclear plant still operating, sits on an active fault that wasn't discovered until 2008. Not surprising, many new faults have been discovered recently. The Hollywood Fault was mapped in 2014 and many buildings in Los Angeles sit on it. Zoning was changed because of that discovery.
The coast of California is eroding through a combination of rising seas and sediment reduction. In 2010, an entire city block in Pacifica was red tagged because it was close to falling into the ocean. Many asked, why were these buildings allowed that close to the cliff? Well, in 1962 they were about fifty feet away.
Perhaps you should do some reading on the California Coastal Commission. The consensus is we need to retreat from the coast.
Let us imagine we can build magic nuclear plants. Where are we going to build them? Not Southern California. Well, maybe Camp Pendleton or Vandenberg, but that is federal land and they would be operated by the military. Maybe we can sneak one in the top of the northern coast near Oregon.
Says the person who was not aware California is right beside the biggest body of water on the planet.
> Perhaps you should look at a fault map of California. Diablo, the only nuclear plant still operating, sits on an active fault that wasn't discovered until 2008. Not surprising, many new faults have been discovered recently. The Hollywood Fault was mapped in 2014 and many buildings in Los Angeles sit on it. Zoning was changed because of that discovery.
Great. So when/if California builds a new nuclear plant, they can use the new information and not place it on top of a fault line. And earthquake-proof it as well, just to be sure.
> The coast of California is eroding through a combination of rising seas and sediment reduction. In 2010, an entire city block in Pacifica was red tagged because it was close to falling into the ocean. Many asked, why were these buildings allowed that close to the cliff? Well, in 1962 they were about fifty feet away.
How is that relevant wrt to siting a nuclear plant? Fifty feet in 50 years. So build the plant 500 feet away and make a tunnel for the cooling water.
> Perhaps you should do some reading on the California Coastal Commission. The consensus is we need to retreat from the coast.
If so, the incremental cost to build thermal power plants with dry cooling is not even a rounding error compared to the cost of moving cities with millions of inhabitants.
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa...
Does that cost comparison include the storage required to use the solar and wind at night, during dark winter days, etc?
Nuclear plants are highly economic, at least outside the US. Every plant in Germany so far has already financed itself.
For an existing plant, what are the marginal costs and benefits of keeping it running?
Your child comment: > Electricity generated from nuclear is about four times more expensive than solar and wind.
Again, you are badly mixing arguments about sunk costs versus marginal costs.
Since it was built in 1968, two faults were discovered, one a few miles offshore and another less than a mile inland. PG&E made structural changes to the plant in 1981. In 2011, PG&E told the NRC to hold the twenty year renewal permit until the company could do a seismic study in wake of the Fukushima disaster because coastal California suffers from both earthquakes and tsunamis. PG&E determined it was too expensive to continue to operate the plant and it could not take on the liability if a Fukushima type disaster happened at Diablo.