Nuclear power gets new push in U.S., winning converts (2022)
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221462961....
Nuclear is, depending on what stats you use, either among the safest or actually the safest energy source.
https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy
(And the top 3 are so close that differences are essentially noise)
And Concorde was retired because they could no longer operate it, for example no spare parts.
And of course you now have aviation startups trying to tap the same market.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concorde#Accidents_and_inciden... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_4590#Conclus...
And it was caused by a DC-10!
They should probably have added the Kevlar lining on the fuel tanks a bit earlier, though.
And yes, caused by debris falling of a DC-10.
1975 Chinese Dam fails
150K deaths 4.6 million homes destroyed 11 million people displaced
Number of countries getting out of hydro: 0 ( in words: zero )
Japan and Ukraine are both among the countries that signed the “tripling nuclear by 2050” pledge. My guess would be that they have the best information on the risks of nuclear.
It looks like a derailment and OPs argument still stands, imho. The only thing is that you can add results of radiation throughout generations, where people develop mutations and/or die early. None of those cases are in the handy graphic from above, which only counts immediate deaths.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Containment_building
Your "results of radiation throughout generations" line doesn't really make sense. Don't go into the exclusion zone around Chernobyl. That's it.
You don't get much radiation from other nuclear power plants and certainly not "throughout generations". You do from radon gas in the basement in some parts of the world, you do from coal smoke (a tiny bit), and you do if you live in an area with a high background radiation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramsar,_Iran#Radioactivity
And what else? Yes, the evacuation around Fukushima. They panicked and evacuated far too many :(
The west never built reactors that dangerous, and nobody operates reactors that dangerous (that type was fixed).
Anti-nukies have this feeling that anything nuclear is categorically more dangerous than anything non-nuclear.
They imagine the exclusion zone around Chernobyl to be a liefeless wasteland out of a dystopian sci-fi movie, when in reality it is a thriving wild-life reserve where you might have a slightly higher statistical risk of cancer.
And you are absolutely right: they evacuated way too much. In Chernobyl as well.
In both cases the negative health effects of the evacuation were far more severe than the negative health effects of the radiation.
Doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have evacuated at all, but a whole lot less.
Numbers don’t lie.
I know. It is incredibly dishonest to use Chernobyl as an argument against nuclear power.
> thriving wild-life reserve
I know.
> where you might have a slightly higher statistical risk of cancer.
I know.
> In Chernobyl as well.
I know.
> In both cases the negative health effects of the evacuation were far more severe than the negative health effects of the radiation.
I know.
> Doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have evacuated at all, but a whole lot less.
Absolutely agreed.
> Numbers don’t lie.
I never really trusted 7.
Why did you do it then?
I didn't.
Also, the argument that "event x is not valid because it can't happen this way anymore" is as useless as the initial promise of safety. Some things don't happen this way. Others can still happen, and it can still end up being disastrous. There is always the human and nature factors. You just can't ignore them. Sure they are unlikely, but they still can happen and all those unlikely things that can happen to renewable sources are just by far less terrible than what can happen if you have a nuclear reactor around.
This is why your number games will never end up being fruitful. People who usually play those games accuse their adversaries as ignorant, when in fact they are the ignorant ones.
Pretty representative.
https://www.chernobyl-international.com/
> Or how nuclear power in France can go wrong if you didn't have either a Chernobyl scenario in mind or
I'm no nuclear scientists, but even they were unable to prevent the accidents which happened. So what's your point? Or didn't you get mine?
LOL.
Just tried a browser that goes through their illegal consent page without giving consent and it's actually worse than I had imagined.
It's all about orphans in Belarus, which for some reasons becomes "the Chernobyl region". No connection to radiation or the nuclear accident whatsoever. Certainly no "results of radiation throughout generations"
Oh, one claimed connection: "The effects of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster on the Belarusian economy prevented building and repair efforts, leaving many orphanages and Day-Care Centres poorly equipped,..."
Yeah...no.
Trying to verify those claims brings up articles that link back to this "charity". Nicely circular.
And of course what effects there are are socio-economic effects of the evacuation and stigmatization, not "results of radiation"
For example:
"The widespread public image of socially and economically depressed territories with traumatized populations often prevents economic activities from developing in the affected communities."
Of course the effects of the fall of the Soviet Union and the dictatorship in Belarus vastly exceed the effects even of this stigmatization.
We have similar effects in Fukushima, for example the fishermen have been negatively affected. Not by radiation, because the fish are totally fine+safe, but by people not wanting to buy fish from "Fukushima", because of their irrational fears.
So it all goes back to my old observation:
Fear of nuclear energy is vastly more dangerous than nuclear energy.
This is not the only charity, and seriously? You didn't know why Belarus? You are not aware of damages to the genome? Why do you even participate in a discussion around this topic? WTF are you doing here? Do you get money for this?
Lying about "generational radiation damage", for example.
Citing sources that in no way support those claims.
Where does this unconstrained hatred come from?
You know why Chernobyl was a disaster.
You know fully well why it has got nothing to do with the safety of current Western reactors, older Western reactors (except for some of the very first test reactors from the 40's and maybe early 50's), or even older Soviet reactors. It was a completely f*cked up design that nobody in the West would have allowed.
You know fully well that it is an argument designed to mislead.
You know fully well that you are the one misleading people here.
Especially with far safer, cleaner and cheaper alternatives already there and being rolled out in months instead of years....madness.
This must be a joke...and just like nuclear: I'm out here.
For environmental reasons, for example. Meanwhile, France is heating up rivers, so fish have to die for their failure to diversify and move on to future tech.
Your derailments are weak. Your argument that 11 years are "ok" remains, and no dam will ever make this madness better.
Nobody even remotely sane wants to die in a car crash either. Yet we drive cars.
Nobody even remotely sane wants to get poisoned by arsenic. Yet we make semiconductors, including solar panels.
Nobody even remotely sane wants superfund sites that have long term cleanup requirements. Yet we have them.
etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Superfund_sites
Herfa-Neurode stores enough arsenic to kill the entire world population. And tens of thousands tons of extremely poisonous heavy metals.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untertagedeponie_Herfa-Neurode
Making solar panels produces a lot more arsenic as waste than nuclear does per kWh.
You are under the illusion that other industrial processes don't have negative consequences. They do. And on balance nuclear is better.
You know how much soil is contaminated by arsenic and heavy metals used in the production of solar panels or wind turbines? I don't either, because it isn't in the news. When an installer falls off a roof, it doesn't make the news.
And the other thing that people don't understand is the energy density of nuclear. A single nuclear power plant is definitely much more dangerous than a single solar panel or a single wind turbine. But you need so much more of the latter two than the former that it evens out (or more than evens out).
I would think that hackers can figure out this sort of simple arithmetic.
Nobody is saying that the accidents are not bad. However, they are not actually that bad. And certainly not nearly as bad as laypeople think. And more importantly, there is nothing that has the perfect safety you appear to demand of nuclear. These things are tradeoffs, and those tradeoffs are very much in favor of nuclear.
As evidence, I present you Ukraine: the country that had the absolutely worst nuclear accident in the history of the world. Unstable reactor, no containment, authoritarian government with horrible crisis management. And yet, they kept their nuclear reactors. And not just that, they are among the 22 countries that have pledged to triple nuclear output by 2050.
What do they know that you do not?
As further evidence, I present you Japan: the country with the second worst nuclear accident in history. The accident you keep citing as so incredibly horrible that no sane person could possibly invest in nuclear. Of course the Tsunami was far worse than the nuclear accident, and the nuclear accident only happened because the Tsunami overwhelmed the protective infrastructure, as it overwhelmed the protective infrastructure of various non-nuclear facilities.
And yet, Japan is going with nuclear, and also happens to be among the 22 countries that signed the COP28 nuclear pledge to triple output by 2050.
What do they know that you do not?
The countries with the most experience with nuclear accidents are aware that these are tradeoffs, and have come to the conclusion that the tradeoffs favor nuclear.
This "assessment" is base upon a single image which is being handed up and down the nuclear astro-turf, and it's ignorant and disrespectful. There are still victims of Chernobyl out there, and there will be for generations.
You can give them some money to append for the use of this meme: https://www.chernobyl-international.com/
And not only there: https://culturacolectiva.com/en/history/mexico-radioactive-m...
https://www.bfs.de/EN/topics/ion/environment/foodstuffs/mush...
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1007843
> And the other thing that people don't understand is the energy density of nuclear.
Sure they do. They don't care because you know what's even better? The sun in the sky, for example...
> Nobody is saying that the accidents are not bad. However, they are not actually that bad.
We currently have a country full of reactors which are beyond the time they were supposed to run. Failures, accidents, shutdowns, global warming, etc. are happening to them, but the country doesn't have a diversified energy generation infrastructure. They'll keep it running. Accidents will keep on happening.
Meanwhile, the world keeps on turning. Global conflicts are coming nearer. Mad dictators waging wars, drones, hackers, machine learning, are happening. Why would any sane person even think about keeping or even BUILDING new targets in a densely populated area??
> As evidence, I present you Ukraine: the country that had the absolutely worst nuclear accident in the history of the world. Unstable reactor, no containment, authoritarian government with horrible crisis management. And yet, they kept their nuclear reactors. And not just that, they are among the 22 countries that have pledged to triple nuclear output by 2050.
They didn't have a choice back then. Now they have other things to care about. Like invading troops hiding their tanks and ammunition WITHIN their nuclear power plants! How the hell is this supposed to be an argument FOR nuclear?!?
Btw: I doubt they'll have even a fraction of the required money to build a single reactor in the future once the war is over. Renewables are incoming.
And yeah...gota love that "pledge": https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/12/11/nuclear-energy-cop28-el...
Nuclear has peaked, and even China invests much more in renewables than it said it would invest into nuclear. (The rest has other use: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/19/major-expansion-chi...) Time's up. Taxpayers will not be ready to waste money on those nonsense projects if the alternatives are cheaper and faster to build.
https://cleantechnica.com/2019/02/21/wind-solar-in-china-gen...
https://twitter.com/yo_ean/status/1718633487454904718
https://www.ft.com/content/2bccd67f-a3c6-48d1-baa5-8ef9d54cd...
> The countries with the most experience with nuclear accidents are aware that these are tradeoffs, and have come to the conclusion that the tradeoffs favor nuclear.
No they didn't. They greenwash regulations, rip off taxpayers, renationalize companies responsible for construction and maintenance because they can't survive on their own. It's a complete failure and the time is up.
https://about.bnef.com/blog/dead-horse-also-ran-or-unicorn-h...
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/World-Rep...
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/nuclears-share-world...
Incorrect. This assessment is based on the actual data.
> https://www.chernobyl-international.com/
A "charity" that's a .com domain and has an illegal "consent" form. (Not all consent forms are illegal, but that one clearly is). Yeah, sure what more reliable source could there possibly be?
I actually went through the reports by the WHO. The official reports they did every 10 years after the accident. Did you? Were you even aware of those reports? They are on the WHO website.
Each subsequent report lowered the estimate of "negative health effects" from the previous report by an order of magnitude. Yes, that's a factor of 10. Each one, and there have been a number of them. By the last couple, the negative health effects of the evacuation were significantly higher than those of the accident itself. Which has also been the case in Japan.
> > And the other thing that people don't understand is the energy density of nuclear.
> Sure they do. They don't care because you know what's even better? The sun in the sky, for example...
Thanks for so skillfully demonstrating how the lack of understanding of energy density looks like in practice! Very much appreciated.
> [Ukraine] How the hell is this supposed to be an argument FOR nuclear?!?
Everything you say should be, in your world, the best reasons for getting OUT of nuclear. Yet they are not just not getting out, they want to expand.
Maybe they know something you do not?
>> The countries with the most experience with nuclear accidents ... favor nuclear.
> ...greenwash, rip off, renationalize ...
To which you have exactly no response, except that they must all be corrupt and ignorant. Really? That's your position? You know better, the people who actually do have first hand knowledge and hundreds if not thousands of experts know nothing and are all corrupt.
Hmm..
Or maybe, just maybe, they know something you do not.
And no I didn't go through the WHO report (just like you didn't....you didn't even know why Belarus is a topic here so stop lying!), I know people PERSONALLY who are affected by that. Now what? What graphic will you pull out now?
In my previous comment, I brought up several sources to support my arguments. You have nothing here. Nothing besides the disgusting attitude you bring up towards those who suffer the technology you worship.
That's why the US government passed the Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act - to give nuclear power plants a free pass for any damage done costing over $300 mil so that sophisticated private insurers who can measure the risks wouldn't run a mile.
The real test to new design safety would be to repeal the act and see if sophisticated private insurers will cover them. So far the nuclear industry seems shy about putting extra skin in the game to prove that they're as safe as they claim they are to the general public, though.
They'd rather just pretend the act/subsidy doesn't exist.
But deaths is a pretty good high order bit.
Whole towns have been resettled for lignite coal and for other mining activities. Not just once many, many times. And guess where the power to make those cheap Chinese solar panels comes from? Coal.
So, yes almost certainly towns have had to be evacuated and abandoned, not due to solar industry accidents, but due to the solar industry working as intended.
And there are other effects:
https://www.csis.org/analysis/dark-spot-solar-energy-industr...
https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/04/12/clean-energy-china-xinj...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2021/06/21...
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/12/climate/electronic-marvel...
How many died from the nuclear reactor meltdown vs the flood?
there was (an earthquake + tsunami) AND A NUCLEAR ACCIDENT IN FUKUSHIMA IN WHICH 15000 PEOPLE DIED.
Now this is technically not a lie, just a "slight" skewing of emphasis and grouping, but it's how we've managed to anchor in the German population the "fact" that there was a horrible nuclear catastrophe in Fukushima where tens of thousands died, which we think was caused by a Tsunami or something, but that part doesn't really matter.
When, to belabor the obvious, that is not at all what happened. The Tsunami killed over 15000. The accident at the plant caused by the Tsunami killed no one. The over-eager evacuation, on the other hand, has been made responsible for a number of deaths.
So of course, technically it is true that there was a natural disaster and also a nuclear accident caused by that natural disaster. A lot of accidents were caused by the natural disaster that day, so singling out just that one seems a bit weird. And yes, the natural disaster was made slightly worse by every piece of technical infrastructure that failed to withstand this unprecedented earthquake + tsunami. For example all the seawalls built around towns that were, like the one around the plant, built to handle 7M waves. And were swept away by 14m waves that proceeded to kill thousands.
At least, find a way for that wealth transfer to reach the public, not the shareholders.
First, nuclear requires very large corporations. Other energy sources don't require size to the same degree. Solar panels can be purchased by the homeowner and installed by a local Mom-and-Pop shop.
Second, it depends on how we define 'public subsidy'. If we accurately price externalities, such as climate impact, then we are effectively reducing subsidies (i.e., letting people use the commons for free is a subsidy).
Nuclear power plants can be state-owned, and commonly are outside the US. For example, all Canadian nuclear power reactors are owned by provincial governments (about half of Ontario's reactors are on long term lease to a private operator under a public-private partnership deal, but the reactors are still government owned). In France, the company which owns and operates all the reactors in the country is majority owned by the French state.
Requiring generating assets to be owned and operated by private enterprises seems to be a primarily American phenomenon.
Some projects are simply too large with too long a payback period for private investment.
It is usually stated as fact with no backup. I’m open to being swayed either way by evidence. Do you have a link that represents the data that leads you to this conclusion?
And ditto for those who disagree with you.
Otherwise it’s just random people saying the other person is wrong.
> even the unsubsidized fully loaded cost with current technology is far cheaper than anything else
What in the GP addresses that question?
What I mean to say doesn't require data, but perhaps I didn't communicate well.
It usually comes down to two factors.
One, the time horizon over which we observe and discount the levelised cost of energy (unsubsidised) relative to the plant’s lifetime. Nukes’ long lives mean their tremendous capital costs’ amortisation matters. In this, the anti-nuke tends to fudge its numbers.
Two, the degree to which we believe the Nth model will be cheaper than the 1st. We’ve built two AP1000s in America, both in the same series. China has built four, one in just nine years (multi-year delay for coolant pumps), in two roughly-parallel series. So the anti-nukes’ too-slow argument is bunk. But the pro-nuke team needs a learning curve barely demonstrated in another country to continue.
The meta-debate, however, is between and and or. I’ve seen no good reason not to pursue both building nukes, where the cost curve is unknown, and building wind and solar, where the details around storage (and how we’ll pay for it) is unknown.
What long economic payback time means is that the risks are huge. A 15 year construction and 40 year payback time and we are in the 1960s. A 60 year payback time and it's 1940s and the second world war is raging. How reasonable is it for Churchill, FDR and Stalin to predict energy investments that they only expect to get returns on in the 2020s?
All while competing solutions are already eating nuclear energy's lunch.
Trying to use long amortization is simply a crutch by people who do not understand basic economics. You can extend the amortization for renewables power plants with similar effects.
The chosen 20 years are simply because it is more economically efficient to replace them early, because what we expect to have available in 20 years are so much better that the economic efficiency gains are worth it.
Engineering a renewable plant for 40 or 60 years is trivial, it simply is not worth it.
A read for you is: "Understanding the Time Value of Money"
Don’t do that. China built its first AP1000s in 9 years, including waiting approximately half that time for a coolant pump. We take about that long to NEPA a transmission line. The problem is very obviously permitting.
> can extend the amortization for renewables power plants with similar effects
No, you can’t, because they aren’t being built to actually last that long. Nukes are.
> what we expect to have available in 20 years are so much better that the economic efficiency gains are worth it
You’re confusing technological progress with the time value of money. The former is unpredictable, particularly between two technologies progressing at different frontiers.
Maybe it's safety, democracy (locals and others get a say in having a local nuclear plant) or lots of other things we could speculate. What does the evidence say? And even if permitting is involved, that could just be the mechanism of safety, democracy, etc.
Words like 'obviously' and 'bunk' (in a prior comment) aren't persuasive, just provocative - they signal to me that you won't listen to anyone else (maybe you don't mean it that way).
That it’s not safety related. The evidence being in the block you quoted: it shouldn’t take 10 years to clear a wire through environmental review.
For what? These threads are littered with citations and specific data.
> Do you work in the industry?
Nope.
Yeah, because China is what we want to emulate. Of course, if it paints nuclear power in a positive light you gotta do what you gotta do.
> No, you can’t, because they aren’t being built to actually last that long. Nukes are.
Which means you do not understand economics 101, while still trying to justify something that goes against it.
They are built for a certain lifespan because that is what investors find are the optimal between construction cost and payback time. It is trivial to engineer renewable a plant to last 40 or 60 years. The construction cost would of course not double or triple to achieve this.
Thus we aim for 20 years, because that is the current optimum.
> You’re confusing technological progress with the time value of money.
Technological progress, means risk, because your solution might become obsolete and a stranded asset before it pays back the investment.
Technological progress is the time value of money. The same as political progress. Imagine you construct a factory in eastern Ukraine in 2005. What is the risk of Russia invading?
This is why the time value of money is an exponential factor, the longer out you go the larger the profit must be because the risk increases exponentially.
No, but we don’t throw out data we don’t like. Pre-AP1000, in the modern era, the data are grim. Post-AP1000 it’s much better.
> Which means you do not understand economics 101
Have you ever held a senior role in finance or banking? If you’re going to go ad hominem, don’t bring a rubber duck to a battleship.
> we aim for 20 years, because that is the current optimum
It’s because it divides by 5. It’s a short-hand, similar to the value of a company being 10x and a reasonable margin of error 15%. (It’s also an available risk-free rate in most currencies.)
> trivial to engineer renewable a plant to last 40 or 60 years. The construction cost would of course not double or triple to achieve this.
Data sorely lacking. (Outside hydro.)
> Technological progress is the time value of money
No, it is not.
> This is why the time value of money is an exponential factor
Oof, no, it’s not. Seriously, you can derive this and it’s elementary finance. Also, like, the marshmallow test.
Why aren't you answering the point? Is it that hard to substantiate your claims that a 60 year amortization + 15 year construction = 75 years is reasonable.
> Data sorely lacking. (Outside hydro.)
You mean like the data available on economic nuclear energy? :)
> Oof, no, it’s not. Seriously, you can derive this and it’s elementary finance. Also, like, the marshmallow test.
Do you see the year in the investment time ending up in the exponent? Of course in reality you expect the money to trickle in over time reducing the risk a bit.
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/03/082703.asp#toc-calc...
What do you mean reasonable? It’s real. We amortise over long time horizons in project finance all the time. Also, look up residual value. (And dams.)
And yes, I’m contesting both 60 and 15; they’re 80 and 10 and could be 80 and 5 with permitting reform. And within that latter envelope, it works with conventional financing. (The same problem plagues HVDC lines, which also take 10+ years to permit.)
> Do you see the year investment time ending up in the exponent?
You may actually enjoy reading some of the foundational texts whose concepts you’re glancing across. (Principles of Economics, Mankiw, is a classic. For a more-applied text, Fabozzi’s Fixed Income.)
You’re citing real things. But you’re connecting them nonsensically. Investopedia isn’t a replacement for training, though it’s a good reference once you’ve learned the material.
(The exponent comes from compounding time preference. Its time component is orthogonal to technological progress, which embeds in the rate. That’s why it’s constant. If you want to consider obsolescence risk, you start getting into hyperbolic discounting.)
Residual value for nuclear power plants are negative. The plant is EOL and now it is time to decommission the entire site.
Now you try to equate nuclear power with infrastructure, even though we have cheaper alternatives which the public don't even have to finance. Sounds reasonable?
For the private industry a typical expected discount rate is 10-15% above the risk free return rate to account for known and unknown risks.
Apply this to nuclear investment. For the money being returned year 60, in percentage, what is the risk?
Please calculate it, don't try to suggest different methods of "delaying gratification", that is simply trying to talk around the subject because you know the answer.
The risk premium for the expected returns year 60 are ludicrous which is why no one suggests it.
Not what residual value means.
> you try to equate nuclear power with infrastructure, even though we have cheaper alternatives which the public don't even have to finance
Infrastructure isn’t dependent on source of financing. Neither do ROI calculations, though you might scope them differently for public benefit. We are doing none of that here.
> risk premium for the expected returns year 60 are ludicrous which is why no one suggests it
Plenty of large projects model residuals and terminal value over the long term. Bankers typically stop modelling when the financing has to be rolled over for practical reasons; it’s unnecessary to be precise.
I’m genuinely curious what your background in this is.
> Please calculate it
Lots of people at federal agencies, banks and private companies are; their work is cited across these threads. But if you’re arguing about the definition of time value and infrastructure, I don’t think that’s a productive place to start. There is seldom substitute for fundamentals.
The investment horizon is so long that we can't model it. Sounds good!
Looking at Hinkley Point C, Lazard, IEA, NuScale and the French accounting agency the number is $120-180/MWh.
You've found one low quality source which massage the numbers to fit your narrative and continue harping about it.
OK, let's take China out of the equation.
We have much more evidence of contruction being too slow (if that's what you mean); why is one example from the other side more convincing? Also, China is not directly comparable, being able to undemocratically externalize the welfare of residents, construction workers, and operators.
Also, the last sentence seems to agree that the evidence is weak ?
> the anti-nukes ... the pro-nuke
Maybe there are also people who just care about getting the best outcome, aren't on a team that has drawn a predetermined conclusion, and are working with the data.
Because it’s a Gen III+ design.
> the last sentence seems to agree that the evidence is weak
It’s a new design.
> people who just care about getting the best outcome, aren't on a team that has drawn a predetermined conclusion, and are working with the data
Very few people who have done this conclude we should go all in on a single solution. Nuclear, natural gas, solar and wind look like a solid mix.
It’s cleaner than the alternatives and has its distribution infrastructure already built. While waiting for more solar, or waiting for more solar and wind and nukes, those coal and oil plants are still burning.
And yet... the Netherlands closed down the Groningen gas field because the green voters wanted it and because they showed a few slightly cracked walls on a few houses on TV and claimed it was because of the gas field (and not because of shoddy foundations and poor construction).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groningen_gas_field
We also could have been doing fracking on land. Maybe in the future?
https://www.investigate-europe.eu/posts/europes-energy-crisi...
(2.9 on the Richter scale isn't much.)
And the biggest Danish gas field in the North Sea is still down due to the old off-shore facilities being scrapped and new ones being built. This is done by TotalEnergies and should have been completed more than a year ago. It was delayed by Covid-19 but should then have been completed by summer this year. It is still not complete :(
High expectations from TotalEnergies: https://totalenergies.com/projects/gas/tyra-major-offshore-p...
Danish realities: https://energinet.dk/gas/forsyningssikkerhed/tyra/
The last platform was only put in place in October 2022 (and there was still lots of work to do): https://energiwatch.dk/Energinyt/Olie___Gas/article14460490....
That doesn't exist yet.
>It’s a new design.
Which doesn't exist yet.
Vaporware is always cheaper.
Yes, it does. Per the original comment. AP1000s have been built and are generating power.
The storage details are not unknown. Battery prices are very known and continuously decreasing. As are the costs for wider grids. As are the costs of hydro storage. Some of them may be higher than we’d like, but they’re very known and going down. Unlike nuclear which has not been going down or getting faster.
Even in China, they are building solar wind and hydro far faster (and with increasing speed) than nuclear.
They’re known and currently high. The unknown is when it reaches a lower level.
> Unlike nuclear which has not been going down or getting faster
AP1000s are being built faster. We don’t know if we can manage cheaper.
> they are building solar wind and hydro far faster (and with increasing speed) than nuclear
Yes. Both. That’s my point.
https://web.mit.edu/kshirvan/www/research/ANP193%20TR%20CANE...
Still the same reactor chugging away…
After much turmoil the government negotiated a fixed strike price for £127/MWh = $160/MWh for 35 years after construction.
That is simply insane costs to pay for electricity. Those costs are expected and is why the only projects that ever gets going have government backing.
On top of this we subsidize the accident insurance. In the US it called the Price Anderson act, each nuclear plant pays a miniscule insurance premium compared to the Fukushima accident cost.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93Anderson_Nuclear...
Add another 10 - 20 cents for delivery depending on if it's a city or rural.
Last I checked that was with the subsidies (in use most places right now) that buffer the Russia-induced energy crisis. These are running out, partly because the way all the different subsidies were being hidden was unconstitutional.
German wholesale electricity prices are both cheaper than French and in line with the rest of Europe.
For the public there are quite high taxes to encourage energy efficiency, which the industry of course does not pay.
So you now claim that wholesale prices are cheaper, without subsidies I would presume. Do you have figures do back up those claims?
Not everybody agrees with you.
https://apnews.com/article/germany-economy-energy-crisis-rus...
"Germany risks “deindustrialization” as high energy costs and government inaction on other chronic problems threaten to send new factories and high-paying jobs elsewhere, "
"...a government-funded cap on industrial electricity prices to get the economy through the renewable energy transition."
I guess there may be some subsidies involved.
"...It was mistaken political decisions that primarily developed and influenced these high energy costs. And it can’t now be that German industry, German workers should be stuck with the bill.”
"A 2011 decision to shut down Germany’s remaining nuclear power plants has been questioned amid worries about electricity prices and shortages."
"In the meantime, energy-intensive companies are looking to cope with the price shock."
"“The perception of Germany’s underlying strength may also have contributed to the misguided decisions to exit nuclear energy, ban fracking for natural gas and bet on ample natural gas supplies from Russia,” he said. “Germany is paying the price for its energy policies.”"
By the way, here are some cost figure:
https://www.tech-for-future.de/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/...
3,0 €Cent/kWh Nuclear, extension
3,9 €Cent/kWh Hydro
5,3 €Cent/kWh Nuclear, new
6,1 €Cent/kWh Wind on shore
7,0 €Cent/kWh solar farm
8,4 €Cent/kWh Wind offshore
11,7 €Cent/kWh solar roof
13,9 €Cent/kWh gas + steam
17,2 €Cent/kWh biomass
17,6 €Cent/kWh coal
And then ethanol subsidies. 40m acres are subsidies to grow corn for ethanol, which is a net energy loss. [6,7]
1) https://e360.yale.edu/digest/fossil-fuel-subsidies-2022
2) Last year, fuels that drive climate change and pollute the air were underpriced to the tune of $7 trillion. It’s hard to think of a more misguided policy: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-10-16/climat...
4) Air Pollution Kills 10 Million People a Year. Why Do We Accept That as Normal?: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/08/opinion/environment/air-p...
5) https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p...
6) Ethanol is a net energy-loser. According to their calculations, ethanol contains about 76,000 BTUs6per gallon, but producing that ethanol from corn takes about 98,000 BTUs: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2005/07/the-stupidest-fe...
7) https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/acre-corn-grown-ethanol-vs-so...
Extrapolating from Georgia for Gen III+, even just for the U.S., is flawed.
https://web.mit.edu/kshirvan/www/research/ANP193%20TR%20CANE...
[1] Executive Summary
Funny somebody dug this out from 2022 when the news are so disastrous:
> Investors Sue NuScale (SMR) for Concealing True Cost of Flagship Nuclear Reactor Project-Hagens Berman
https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2023/12/06/279194...
> Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) and NuScale Power Agree to Terminate the Carbon Free Power Project (CFPP)
https://www.nuscalepower.com/en/news/press-releases/2023/uam...
Maybe greenwashing isn't enough to cover up the fact that nuclear is not a good way to go about energy in the future.
1. Nuclear for base load
2. Wind and solar with storage for supplemental
3. Carbon capture and storage
Any discussion that tries to exclude one of them is in my mind non-serious and the ultimate form of greenwashing. In practical terms it's not going to be possible to get there without some form of all of the above.
But it can be nice on top for things that can be deferred or that align with availability.
For example, solar seems really sweet for running air-conditioning units in hot/sunny climates.
And you can probably schedule charging your EV for when the wind is blowing.
But stop an aluminum smelter for more than 6 hours and the factory is kaput. And if we're going to heat our homes using electricity, I'd rather not have that be contingent on whether the weather is feeling like it today.
The case for nuclear is built on an every expanding foundation of wishful and magical thinking. All contrary evidence is waved away by conspiracy theoretic dismissal involving regulators and all powerful greens.
The case for renewables is built on wishful thinking. You wrote so yourself: projections into the future of past exponentials, plus needed magical solutions to problems that currently have no reasonable solution.
For a closer look at what happens when wishful thinking and reliance on future magic hits cold harsh reality, look no further than Germany:
Germany went from envy of the world to the worst-performing major developed economy. What happened?
https://apnews.com/article/germany-economy-energy-crisis-rus...
"Germany risks “deindustrialization” as high energy costs and government inaction on other chronic problems threaten to send new factories and high-paying jobs elsewhere, ..."
"“It was mistaken political decisions that primarily developed and influenced these high energy costs. ..."
"A 2011 decision to shut down Germany’s remaining nuclear power plants has been questioned amid worries about electricity prices and shortages. "
"In the meantime, energy-intensive companies are looking to cope with the price shock."
"[Hydrogen for glass production] worked — but only on a small scale, with hydrogen supplied by truck. Mass quantities of hydrogen produced with renewable electricity and delivered by pipeline would be needed and don’t exist yet."
"“The perception of Germany’s underlying strength may also have contributed to the misguided decisions to exit nuclear energy, ban fracking for natural gas and bet on ample natural gas supplies from Russia,”"
Germany Faces $1 Trillion Challenge to Plug Massive Power Gap
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-25/germany-f...
"BASF SE’s plans to cut 2,600 jobs as it faces strains from the energy crisis is a sign of the urgency. The chemical giant’s operations in Germany swung to a loss during the second half, and it’s now closing a number of energy-intensive factories,..."
"“High energy prices are now putting an additional burden on profitability and competitiveness in Europe,”..."
"At the heart of Germany’s dilemma lies political plans to phase out certain energy sources without clearly setting out the path to replace them."
"Germany also needs to figure out how it will generate electricity when wind and sun aren’t available. The government’s plan so far involves readying a fleet of new gas plants that can later run on hydrogen, though it’s struggling to find investors willing to take on such costly projects."
"“Under the current framework conditions, sufficient investment cannot be expected,” ..."
"The size of Germany’s grid will have to double by 2030"
[Narrator: grid transmission lines take longer to build than even the most delayed nuclear power plants]
All nuclear needs is building things we know how to build no worse than we built them in the past. If we apply the same technological wishful thinking you take for granted with renewable to nuclear, than it's not even close.
Despite all that, Germany came out pretty good and no fearmongering will create any of those scenarios: https://www.br.de/nachrichten/wirtschaft/deindustrialisierun...
https://www.fr.de/meinung/deutschland-wirtschaft-konkunktur-...
It's true that Germany is not in a good place to compete in a post-fossil fuel world. Renewable energy is going to be more expensive in Europe than in, say, India. But nuclear can't help without short of near miraculous cost reductions.
Bloomberg is not part of the German "right wing", and also not known for disseminating propaganda. Furthermore, the "right" is just as responsible for the mess as the "left". The current applicable laws were passed during a grand-coalition under Merkel. This is not a party-political issue, but a German issue.
And Pro Tip: if you can't actually counter the facts, trying to denounce is not helpful. Because, as you can't counter the facts, you are admitting that "the right wing" actually has the facts correct.
From the piece you cited as a counter: "Einige Industriebetriebe denken mangels Billig-Gas darüber nach, ihre Werke ins Ausland zu verlagern, zumal der Strom hierzulande auch nicht günstig ist. Es geht um energieintensive Branchen wie Chemie, Papier, Glas oder Baustoffe."
Hmm...companies that need energy are thinking of moving their production elsewhere, because electricity is also not cheap in Germany. Not sure how that makes your point that renewables are "cheaper", when German electricity is more expensive than in other countries. Which it is.
Base load is no issue anymore in a grid which is large enough. There is always wind/sun/water somewhere.
> The US is taking a fresh look at nuclear power. After a dearth of construction, and de-commissioning of working nuclear plants, people are talking, yet again, about it as a source of steady, affordable, carbon-free electricity. But of course, nuclear has its drawbacks, particularly on the financial side, as new plants have been plagued by cost over-runs, contributing to utility bankruptcies. So what would need to happen to get the economics working again? On this episode we speak with Mark Nelson, the founder of Radiant Energy Group, to discuss the state of the industry, the state of the technology, and what it would take to bring nuclear back into the mix.
* https://omny.fm/shows/odd-lots/whats-really-standing-in-the-...
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d084PIspUwk [audio-only]
$122 billion has been spent in the Fukushima clean up to date with no end in sight. Likely this will take decades, maybe a century or more, and when all is said and done, may well cost over $1 trillion.
The Chernobyl absolute exclusion zone is still quite literally 1000 square miles, nearly 40 years later.
Yet the very real examples get hand waved away despite their being multiple catastrophic incidents when we’ve only built less than 700 nuclear power reactors.
https://www.rechargenews.com/energy-transition/embattled-edf...
https://www.france24.com/en/france/20230105-how-france-s-pri...
In 2023, they were net exporting again, like they were in the last 20+ years or so.
But you are right that they had been coasting and were exploiting their nuclear plants without reinvesting.
That has now changed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Fran...
the last time France put a new nuclear reactor online was over 20 years ago.
There was probably a window where we could have powered our grids with nuclear and done well with that versus the alternatives. A bunch of factors, including lobbying by fossil fuel interests, meant that didn't happen. These days that same lobbying and other factors are fighting against solar+wind+hydro but hopefully this time it's unstoppable. The fact that solar and wind are distributed and don't have extreme tail risks helps a lot. Nuclear was too easy to stop because of the extremely complex projects and very unlikely but very high magnitude risks.
Macron calls for nuclear 'renaissance' to end the France's reliance on fossil fuels
https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/02/11/macron-calls-for-n...
This is not just talk
France's Assemblée Nationale adopts 'nuclear acceleration' bill on first reading
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2023/03/21/france-s...
402 votes in favor, 130 against. 75% approval. So broad consensus.
p.s.: Doesn't mean they are stopping renewables entirely. Still doing some off-shore wind that can be brought online relatively quickly.
[1] https://spectrum.ieee.org/a-double-first-in-china-for-advanc...
[2] https://www.utilitydive.com/news/transmission-clean-energy-s...
Wait, we can draw conclusions from France building a different reactor (but only its latest ones, which were most expensive) but not from China building an AP1000?
We can independently verify the plant was built. And we can confirm what Westinghouse was paid. We can’t see other costs incurred, which is why I’m solely citing them for time, not cost.
Nuclear power plants take an average of 7.5 years to build. Consistently for the last 40-50 years.
https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/nuclear-constructi...
https://www.statista.com/statistics/712841/median-constructi...
France nuclearized its entire grid in 20 years, from the early 70s to the early 90s. They've been producing largely CO2 free, cheap electricity ever since.
Germany has been trying to achieve low carbon electricity for 20 years so far while at the same tine getting out of nuclear (yes, it doesn't make sense). We're supposedly half way done, have the 2nd most expensive electricity in the EU and also the 2nd dirtiest electricity in the EU. The government went to such extremes to hide the costs of the energy crisis on off-budget vehicles that the constitutional court had to step in.
Cost:
"LCOE of less than $30/MWhre for 40-60 years" even for the "expensive" US Westinghouse AP1000
https://web.mit.edu/kshirvan/www/research/ANP193%20TR%20CANE...
Sailed:
22 countries just pledged to triple nuclear capacity by 2050 (yes, that's quite a ways away), including the US, Japan, Ukraine, France, Canada, Poland, South Korea etc. India, China and Russia did not sign, but are also expanding.
Apart from representing 5 of the G7, the vast majority of world GDP and also the majority of the population, the list importantly also includes a number of countries that until as recently as two years ago were getting out of nuclear, either significantly or entirely. Poland currently has no nuclear plants and has just ordered 24 small reactors to be installed at 6 sites.
etc.
Citing numbers from the 70s does nothing to further your argument. We can take a look at all plants we have attempted to construct in the west the past 20 years.
- Virgil C. Summer: Contract: 2008. Cancelled 2017
- Vogtle Contract 2008, first reactor done 2023, second 2024(??)
- Watts Bar: Construction start 1972, cancelled 1985. Restarted 2007. Finished 2016.
- Flamanville: Construction start 2007. Hopefully finished 2024.
- Hinkley Point C: Political decision and construction start 2008. Investment decision 2013. Hopefully done by 2028.
- Olkiluoto 3: Construction start 2005. Done 2023
- Hanhikivi: Never passed the phase when they tried to certify a Russian reactor for western safety requirements
- NuScale SMR Cancelled before they even started building.
7.5 years is simply a laughable prospect in 2023.
> "LCOE of less than $30/MWhre for 40-60 years" even for the "expensive" US Westinghouse AP1000
A 60 year payback time + 15 years construction is 75 years. That is like Stalin, FDR and Churchill at the height of the second world war making investments that only pans out in 2023. In the real world, where you spend your own money, that is called insanity.
The risk is huge, and extending the amortization cost like that is simply bad math. You should understand the Time Value of Money and suggesting such amortization times are simply nonsensical.
Understanding the Time Value of Money: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/03/082703.asp
But this is typical nukebro accounting. Finding the lowest possible number in the face of reality and then with the blindfold on repeating it hoping that we can subsidize nuclear enough to make it happen one more time. Just skip seeing the subsidies.
Personally the only number I find interesting is the time from investment decision to in service. Everything else is simply done to muddle the picture because the numbers would get pushback.
No matter how much you cherry-pick examples.
As confirmed by the data from Statistia: plants completed in 2022 were completed in, drumroll, 7.5 years.
Your bias in trying to frame nuclear in a positive light is simply astounding.
I am citing the stats that average over all of this.
"Spain confirms nuclear power phase-out, extends renewable projects deadlines"
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/spain-confirms-nucle...
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S22146...
If clean energy were the goal, costs and speed of construction would dictate only solar, wind and storage (pumped/hydrogen/battery) be built. This is what they mean in the article when they refer to a "cost problem".
> only solar, wind and storage (pumped/hydrogen/battery)
Solar and wind, yes. Only solar and wind, hilariously no. Solar and wind + storage, in the long run, is currently not cost competitive in most markets.
I suppose. That depends how much against the NPT you are and how big a fan of extinction inducing weapons you are I guess.
I wouldnt exactly treat the maintenance and construction of nukes as a sunk cost. It is possible to reduce our collective stocks through diplomacy. We've done it before.
>Solar and wind + storage, in the long run, is currently not cost competitive
It's beaten by solar + wind + natural gas.
Nuclear power doesnt come close to being economically competitive even with the price anderson catastrophe liability cap. It needs to be lavished with subsidies to even exist. For the military, however, cost is rarely an object.
It depends on how realistic you are.
> possible to reduce our collective stocks through diplomacy
Sure. But the world is currently sprinting in the opposite direction, with belligerence proliferating. And coupling an entirely separate coördination problem to the already labyrinthian onr of climate change is conceding the game at the opening.
> it needs to be lavished with subsidies to even exist
Nope. Gen III+ reactors are competitive with solar within a few years.
Then we'd better move with as much speed and strength as possible in the other direction.
That needs a source. Not a single project in the west the past 20 years is even close.
What is it about historic strategic arms limitations treaties that you find so unrealistic exaxtly?
>Nope. Gen III+ reactors are competitive with solar within a few years.
Vaporware is always competitive with reality.
Nothing. Just that they’re about arms reduction, not elimination. You’ll still have a military nuclear sector. Also, there is zero chance this makes headway in the near term; we’re in a phase of great power competition.
> Vaporware is always competitive with reality
We’re dealing with unknowns across the board. For solar and wind, it’s deployment bandwidth and storage. For nuclear, it’s AP100 economies of scale. We aren’t talking SMRs, just as with solar we aren’t talking space-based or whatever.
Then your objections dont make much sense.
>We’re dealing with unknowns across the board.
With respect to solar and wind the costs and build times are very predictable, actually.
We've already had one round of "we can create cheap mini reactors" in the 90s. That vaporware didnt work out so well, but the nuclear-military industrial complex got just as excited about it.
That's not even close to being true. Uruguay is 100% wind + storage. 90% - 98% from wind, with 2% - 10% from hydro.
The US has two advantages that Uruguay doesn't: a continental sized energy grid and a mix of wind & solar. Plus the advantage of building it out in the 2020s rather than the 2010s when both solar and batteries are an order of magnitude cheaper than they were when Uruguay was building out.
California has solar + storage projects that are supplying power for 4c/kWh. That's cost competitive.
Uruguay pays $170/MWh [1]. That’s what power from the first-of-its-kind and hideously-delayed Vogtle nuclear power plants will cost [2].
[1] https://www.global-climatescope.org/markets/uy/
[2] https://www.powermag.com/blog/plant-vogtle-not-a-star-but-a-...
Yes. If you have an adjusted price, I’d be curious.
That said, we can compare the real-world France and Uruguay. On the basis of both price and cost, France runs cheaper.
Obviously there are many other factors at play. But while I love Uruguay and its bold energy vision, they are not an example of wind + storage proving economically viable.
In 2024 renewables are more than an order of magnitude cheaper than renewables were in 2008.
It's not something that generalizes to the entire lower 48 (but it will work fine in parts of California).
The reason people don't want it in their back yard is because disasters are so drastic (even if rare), the waste nearly permanent (and one of the most toxic we produce on earth), and trust in government and corporations to protect our health and safety is at historic lows.
I simply do not trust lobbiests, CEOs and career politicians with the health and safety of my family, and I don't think anyone else should either.