The Harsh Realities of Energy | Hacker News Reader

The Harsh Realities of Energy

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6 pointspeter12312 comments

A transition to nuclear is not fraught with hard technical problems and apprehensions... it is only fraught with apprehensions.

The problem of overcoming those apprehensions is much easier to solve than demanding that the unscalable solutions like wind or solar suddenly start scaling.

Part of what frustrates me about the whole energy discussion is that, frankly, we know the solutions, it's just that they aren't acceptable for non-engineering reasons, mostly irrational fears.

(I'm not saying all fission fears are irrational by definition, but most are irrational. On the internet, this often takes the form of people giving themselves cover by convincing themselves they are citing technical issues, but when it is pointed out that those issues already have solutions, their minds don't change. And most frustrating at all, the reason those solutions aren't acceptable is simply because Nuclear is Bad. Don't tell me about how to process waste or how to better store it, I already know Nuclear is Bad and I don't need to think any more about it...)

(And so help me... if any fusion ever becomes practical and people start complaining about it being nuclear, I think I will have to punch them.)

The problems with nuclear are not so much technical as economic. Moody's Investor Services, hardly an outfit run by hippie freaks, estimates that a new nuclear plant will cost over $5,000 per kilowatt to build--twice as much as solar and four times as much as natural gas. The government is offering massive subsidies to build nuclear plants and power companies still don't want to take the plunge.

Source: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2009/0901.blake.ht...

Even if it is more expensive, I am inclined to think the nuclear power plant is far more friendly to the planet than solar, and if you care about carbon footprints or very-long-term sustainability, it's better than natural gas, too. (I am not too big on the former, but the latter is important. Going big on fission buys us a lot of time to develop fusion, which in the end is the only truly sustainable energy source. When you run out of fusion, you've run out of the Universe.)

However, I've seen tons of analyses of the costs of nuclear, and I'm inclined to think that when push comes to shove, nobody really knows how much they could cost if society wanted them enough to construct them in quantity. How much of the cost of a plant in the US is defending against absolutely inevitable litigation, in a process designed to be used by environmentalists against anything they don't like? How much of the cost is because we refuse to consider any actually modern design, in much the same way we get stuck on refusing to consider how to deal with waste because the problem is perceived to be so big that people's minds just irrationally shut down? How much of the expense is due to compliance with an outdated regulatory regime that hasn't been updated for the properties of pebble bed or other modern designs? Why are China and France able to put them up?

I don't think there's any actual engineering reason that nuclear plants should be more expensive (per watt) than natural gas or coal, even before fuel price spikes. (Which will come again... and again... and again...) A given design, certainly, but across the whole set of safe, modern nuclear designs? I doubt it. Our thinking on this topic is so deeply 1960s (OMG RADIATION!!1!) that we are all but incapable of considering the topic rationally in 2010.

How much of the cost of a plant in the US is defending against absolutely inevitable litigation, in a process designed to be used by environmentalists against anything they don't like?

The Price Anderson Act (and similar later laws) limit the maximum liability of nuclear plant operators. If nuclear power really is as safe as any other kind, then Congress should repeal those limits.

I am talking about endless legal challenges filed before the plant even begins construction. I can't go over all possible nuclear laws, but if there are any laws protecting against that sort of liability they sure aren't working very well. (From what I can see, Price Anderson only affects "nuclear incidents" after a plant is running; if you can show me that's not true, I'm listening.)

I did not read the whole article - just scanned through it (it is long). Firstly, it Focusses on a reactor in Finland and most of those costs are very recent.

Your stats of the above is probably based on this part:

> In October 2007, Moody’s Investor Services piled on with a report projecting that new reactors would cost $5,000 to $6,000 per kilowatt to build, or up to $12 billion per unit. This figure, which was based on actual bids for new reactors in the United States, caused considerable sticker shock.

Current prices for nuclear reactors shot up extremely over the past 5 years. This is because nuclear power became an option for a lot of countries (with global warming fears). The problem with this is that it increased costs significantly.

Being a very specialized field, construction of new nuclear power stations can not just be increased as demand increases. As a good example - there is only one company that can forge a reactor vessel in one step - and it has a backlog of more than 5 years.

See this for an example: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&refer=ho...

This is so true. France produces 70%+ of its electricity from Nuclear Power stations. There has not been a major disaster with that.

And, looking at France's economy, it does not seem infeasible.

The solution to the problems of wealth is not poverty. Cutting back is only ever a short-term solution for resource problems; switching to a more abundant source (or a different resource altogether) is also typically short-term, but has the advantage that wealth can continue to grow at the astounding rates it did over the past 200 years, which means our much wealthier selves or descendants of tomorrow will be better able to solve problems.

Basically, if you can put off hard problems that are essentially technical in nature, do so.

So we cut back, and every other developing country will readily take up the slack. Basically, this is yet another article telling us to all live in teepees. I'm still a firm believer that the solution lies in technology -- in developing more efficient tech, and better ways of generating power to run it.

Check out James Howard Kunstler's book "The Long Emergency". He does a good job of pointing out the serious inadequacies of alternative tech, futility of efficiency (given where we are on the Hubbert curve), and points out that's it's going to be even harder to develop new energy technologies as our current ones fail.

The article does go way overboard, but there are some simple ways in which Americans could (and will) cut back: more people will start commuting via public transportation instead of cars, for instance (or ever just telecommuting.)

Thanks for the link. It's another data point in a line of thinking I'm currently researching. Unlike donw, I don't believe teepees are the answer though ;)

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