Obama to announce support for nuclear power

[Wesley_Clark]

You claim opposition is due strictly to ignorance and reactionary anti-science attitudes. However I posted a link showing the cost per KWH of nuclear was around $0.18-0.30, which is far higher than coal.

Wind energy has gone down dramatically in price. So has solar. However it seems nuclear, as of 2010, isn’t really cost effective. So if that is the case, we need more R&D into ways to reduce the cost to make it competitive with other sources.

When we did that with wind (made wind as cheap and cheaper than coal), the amount of installed capacity grew dramatically. We went from 5GW capacity in 2004 up to 35GW capacity in 2009. And we will hit 200GW by the 2020s.

Wind can’t make up all our power, but if it weren’t cost competitive with coal it wouldn’t have grown by 700% in 5 years.

[SenorBeef]

Does your cite on the costs of building nuclear plants factor in the ridiculous delays and lawsuits they have to pay to get them built? Essentially, anti-nuclear hysteria makes nuclear plants extremely expensive to build, and then those same people (not counting you as one of them) turn around and say “look how expensive nuclear is! See, we shouldn’t be building it anyway!”

I’ve read things that suggest that, barring issues with lawsuits and construction delays and redundant certifications on plant designs, the long term cost of nuclear is on par with or lower than coal.

[XT]

@Wesley Clark

Why do you assume people on the left oppose nuclear strictly for stupid reasons?

No, just that most of the REAL reasons people oppose nuclear power are irrational reasons based on fear. There are valid concerns and criticisms of nuclear power, but none of them are show stoppers, or valid reasons for OPPOSITION to wide scale use of nuclear power.

Huge start up costs (I think nuclear has the highest start up cost of any grid energy)

Sure, nuclear power plants are front loaded in cost, no doubt about it. A lot of that cost comes from the anti-nuclear folks who continually put up road blocks and new hurdles that companies attempting to build have to jump through, but even leaving that aside, it’s more expensive to build a nuclear power plant than a coal fired plant. However, on a cost per kilowatt hour basis I think that nuclear plants are quite competitive from what I recall reading in the past, since the fuel costs and refueling infrastructure is so much less over the life of the plant (and even counting the eventual disposal of the spent fuel).

Here’s the thing though. Even if a nuke plant DOES cost more than a coal fired plant (and it does), if you believe that releasing CO2 into the air (as well as all the other nasty stuff coal fired plants release), then there are more factors in a cost to benefit analysis than simple cost. Nothing that is currently available can possibly be ramped up to scale to fill a void that would be left if we were going to take coal fired plants off stream…nothing, that is, except nuclear power. So, one needs to take that into consideration.

New targets for terrorist attacks (both in the nuclear plant and the transportation/storage of the waste)

There are hundreds of nuclear power plants scattered throughout the world already, and yet they haven’t become targets for nuclear power attacks. This is simply a ridiculous assertion…be like saying we should get rid of hydro-electric power plants because they are targets for terrorists who may blow up the dams holding the waters back and flood out everyone down stream. One could use this argument to essentially stop building anything, as just about everything COULD be used for a wide scale terrorist attack.

Dangerous byproducts that need to be stored

Yes, there are dangerous byproducts that need to be stored. So what? If one believes all the hype about AGW/GW/GCC then there are worst things that could happen than the release of nuclear waste. Such a release would be a purely LOCAL environmental disaster. Nasty, to be sure, but we are talking about a low probability event on a local scale vs a (I assume you believe) higher probability event (namely GW) on a global scale. Which is worse?

The possibility of a nuclear accident

Accidents are always possible. A nuclear accident that actually becomes a problem would certainly be a nasty local environmental incident, no two ways about it. Again, though, we are talking about a low probability event that has purely local impact. And the thing is, a coal fired power plant can ALSO have a catastrophic accident (or be attacked on purpose) which would cause a purely local environmental impact that would be fairly nasty and could lead to a lot of deaths. Being irritated would not be a fun way to go…but neither would being blow apart or burned to death. Or drown in a catastrophic collapse of a hydro-electric dam going tits up. Or any number of other low probability but nasty events.

As with all things, it’s all about weighing the cost to benefit ratio, and doing a realistic risk assessment.

-XT

[Leaper]

Here’s a question: I’ve always thought that industry tends to play fast and loose with safety standards, deliberately cutting corners and skating the thin edge of safety in order to preserve profit margins. (IE “when the cost of compliance exceeds the cost of fines and lawsuits, the choice is clear.”)

What could happen with a nuclear power plant that would be any worse or better than conventional plants of various kinds, given this attitude?

[Wesley_Clark]

While researching this I found this ebook written by Bernard Cohen. It had interesting info. I haven’t read the entire book (obviously) but the impression I’m getting is that like SenorBeef said, it is heavy regulation that drives up the cost. If they can build plants in an affordable way while still regulating them rationally, then go for it.

http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/index.html

http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter9.html

Several large nuclear power plants were completed in the early 1970s at a typical cost of $170 million, whereas plants of the same size completed in 1983 cost an average of $1.7 billion, a 10-fold increase. Some plants completed in the late 1980s have cost as much as $5 billion, 30 times what they cost 15 years earlier. Inflation, of course, has played a role, but the consumer price index increased only by a factor of 2.2 between 1973 and 1983, and by just 18% from 1983 to 1988. What caused the remaining large increase? Ask the opponents of nuclear power and they will recite a succession of horror stories, many of them true, about mistakes, inefficiency, sloppiness, and ineptitude. They will create the impression that people who build nuclear plants are a bunch of bungling incompetents. The only thing they won’t explain is how these same “bungling incompetents” managed to build nuclear power plants so efficiently, so rapidly, and so inexpensively in the early 1970s.

http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter10.html

Of course, this conclusion depends heavily on the assumptions of standardized design, streamlined licensing procedures, and no regulatory turbulence. These would reduce construction times to 5-6 years, according to the Department of Energy analysts who developed Table 1, and that fact alone would be responsible for a large fraction of the cost saving. Industry planners are hoping for even shorter construction times, especially after a few of these standardized plants have been built.

In the past, many other analyses have been reported on cost comparisons between nuclear and coal burning, always based on the assumption of reasonable (i.e., non-turbulent) construction practices. This is clearly a very practical question for a utility deciding to build a new power plant. Many utilities seek cost analyses from economics consulting firms, some utilities have their own in-house economists to make estimates, and banking organizations maintain expertise to aid in decisions on investments. From the early 1970s until the early 1980s, all of their reports found that nuclear power was the cheaper of the two. For example, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is the largest electric utility in the United States. Its profits, if any, are turned back to the U.S. Treasury. It maintained a large and active effort for many years in analyzing the relative cost advantages of nuclear versus coal-burning power plants, consistently finding that nuclear power was cheaper. The 1982 analysis by the Energy Information Administration, a branch of the U.S. Department of Energy, was the first to find that coal and nuclear were equal in cost; their previous analyses found nuclear to be cheaper. By 1982, these analyses were mostly discontinued, since it seemed unrealistic for a utility to consider building a nuclear power station, or even to hope that it could be done without regulatory turbulence. Only with the new optimism about the future of nuclear power have these analyses been resumed.

…

In Western Europe, where there has been no regulatory turbulence comparable to that in the United States, most nuclear power plants have been relatively cheap. A 1982 study by the European Economic Community14 estimated that for projects started at that time, electricity from nuclear plants would be less costly than that from coal-fired plants by a factor of 1.7 in France, 1.7 in Italy, 1.3 in Belgium, and 1.4 in Germany. These results are based on only a very slow rise in the price of coal, and do not include scrubbers for removal of sulfur. Scrubbers are usually required on new coal-burning plants in the United States and add very substantially to their cost.

[Rand_Rover]

It’s so sad how a lot of you base your feeling on these loan guarantees on how you feel about nuclear power in general. There’s another element here–whether the government should be subsidizing any form of power production in the first place. There’s no reason to be automatically for government loan guarantees for nuclear power plants just because you are all jazzed about nuclear power. You also need to ask whether this is something the government should be involved with in the first place.

[XT]

@Leaper

What could happen with a nuclear power plant that would be any worse or better than conventional plants of various kinds, given this attitude?

It’s kind of a strawman question, since no one is saying to completely de-regulate the industry and let people do whatever they want. That said, here’s the thing…a nuclear power plant costs literally billions of dollars. While you might THINK that capitalists are all stupid and evil, that’s a significant investment, and one that I’m doubtful even unregulated capitalists are going to cut TOO many corners on. If you think it through you’ll see why…a nuclear power plant that blows up or becomes totally irradiated isn’t going to be producing much power…no power means no profits. No profits means no return on investment. Which, you know, sucks, even for rich and evil capitalists.

The reality though is that we HAVE regulations in place…but the anti-nukes don’t accept that either. They through up additional road blocks that drive up the costs even more, until it’s not economically feasible to even contemplate building a new plant. In addition you can’t even get a new DESIGN through the process at this point, nor do real world testing and development on new designs in the US…which is why all our designs are years out of date or are just theoretical. With modern materials and systems nuclear power plants COULD be built much smaller and more efficiently, using newer and safer technologies. They COULD be…but thus far they haven’t been. At least, they haven’t been in the US. Kind of says something that this isn’t the case in other countries, don’t you think?

-XT

[gonzomax]

Yucca would be filled the day it opened with the waste that exists today. It solves nothing.
Nuclear plants cost a ton to build with huge cost over runs. It is not a financially wise way of supplying energy. They can not get insurance ,so the government would have to be responsible .
If the government builds them and runs them, while actually selling the energy for profit ,I might be more likely to support a nuke or 2. But a for profit energy company should not build a plant with tax payer money. Let the energy companies dig into their piggy banks.

[SenorBeef]

@Rand_Rover

It’s so sad how a lot of you base your feeling on these loan guarantees on how you feel about nuclear power in general.

Are you capable of stating your point without being condescending? Your only conclusion is that anyone who supports this measure hasn’t considered that issue? Not only that, but “it’s sad” because we’re so lost that we just can’t think this through for ourselves. Already within your first two words of your first post in this thread, you’ve lost your target audience (that is, if you intend to sway anyone at all) because you can’t keep your disdain under wraps for even a moment.

Public policy is already heavily involved in the current state of energy generation in the US. The ease with which you can get an injuction against construction of a nuclear plant artificially drives up the cost and hence disincentivizes their construction. You have go to through a lengthy review and approval process for your plans - and basically every nuclear reactor is treated as if it were the first one ever to be built, even if it’s the copy of a successful design. The fact that we freely allow coal plants to pollute without cost whereas nuclear plants have to pay for the waste they create is a policy decision which distorts the market.

If I understand the term “loan guarantee” correctly, the government isn’t paying for this place to be built. They’re creating a situation in which lenders are more likely to lend to the plant. Currently, because of the aforementioned market conditions, no one wants to lend the capital needed to build a plant because concerns that it will be tied up with bullshit for years and never make its budget. This policy is essentially a sign that the government is trying to step in and say “okay, we’re going to try to ease the barriers to building a new plant, many of which we created”. And if this policy is enforced in other ways - no unreasonable injunctions, a streamlined approval process, etc. then it reduces the artificially high cost of building a nuclear power plant, which ends up being strongly in favor of the public good.

[Rand_Rover]

@gonzomax

Yucca would be filled the day it opened with the waste that exists today. It solves nothing.

Cite?

Nuclear plants cost a ton to build with huge cost over runs. It is not a financially wise way of supplying energy.

They are not financially wise investments just because they cost alot? Seems to me there may be more to it than that. Guess it doesn’t seem that way to you.

They can not get insurance ,

Cite?

so the government would have to be responsible .

Why?

If the government builds them and runs them, while actually selling the energy for profit ,I might be more likely to support a nuke or 2.

Wait, you just said up above that it’s impossible to make a profit. ???

But a for profit energy company should not build a plant with tax payer money. Let the energy companies dig into their piggy banks.

Now you’re talking sense. Maybe remember the feeling when you typed these last two sentences and try to replicate it in the future.

[SenorBeef]

@gonzomax

Yucca would be filled the day it opened with the waste that exists today. It solves nothing.

Well, it solves the fact that the very same waste is already sitting in intermediate storage facilities all across the country. You see, it’s not as if this waste simply comes into existance if we approve Yucca Mountain, and therefore if we keep fighting Yucca it magically won’t be a problem! It’s there, and it’s a problem we have to deal with, and Yucca is better than the current solution.

Additionally, Yucca is designed to be expandable and hold more than the current capacity. They haven’t been working on it since it has been in political limbo for a long time.

Nuclear plants cost a ton to build with huge cost over runs.

Yes, mostly because of people like you.

It is not a financially wise way of supplying energy.

Oh, now you’re concerned about the money and profits involved all of the sudden? Screw the environment? When you care about money and when you care about issues changes dramatically depending on your preconception of the issue.

They can not get insurance ,so the government would have to be responsible .
If the government builds them and runs them, while actually selling the energy for profit ,I might be more likely to support a nuke or 2. But a for profit energy company should not build a plant with tax payer money. Let the energy companies dig into their piggy banks.

The taxpayers aren’t building the place, they’re guaranteeing a loan so that banks are willing to shell out the money for nuclear power plants. That isn’t to say it isn’t a form of subsidy - but if everything goes right (especially if the government does their part to keep the ball rolling on this one), the taxpayers won’t pay a cent. This actually gives the government an incentive to get out of the way with all of the costly bullshit red tape involved with the process of building the new plant - if this gets constructed smoothly and on schedule, no tax dollars will be involved.

[Qin_Shi_Huangdi]

About time! Hopefully President Obama will stay firm on this policy despite opposition from the Luddites of his own party. A broad based energy strategy is necessary and nuclear power plants are one aspect.

[sleeping]

@Rand_Rover

There’s another element here–whether the government should be subsidizing any form of power production in the first place. There’s no reason to be automatically for government loan guarantees for nuclear power plants just because you are all jazzed about nuclear power. You also need to ask whether this is something the government should be involved with in the first place.

Well, I’m not against government backing in general–whether through loans guarantees or direct subsidies–but I think this is a valid point w/r/t nuclear power plants. If they’re as safe as their proponents claim, why are the loan guarantees necessary?

As for the overall question of nuclear power, I’m not a huge fan of it, primarily because it creates waste that needs to be sequestered for eons. But, given the current climate change situation, it may be a necessary evil.

But the safety of nuclear power plants can hardly be presumed. Here’s a study published just a couple of months ago that concludes:

In the United States, thyroid cancer incidence (along with liver cancer) is increasing more rapidly than any other malignancy, rising nearly threefold from 1980 to 2006. Improved diagnosis has been proposed by some as the major reason for this change, while others contend that additional factors also account for the increase. Among U.S. states, 2001-2005 age-adjusted thyroid cancer incidence rates vary from 5.4 to 12.8 per 100,000. County-specific incidence data, available for the first time, document that most U.S. counties with the highest thyroid cancer incidence are in a contiguous area of eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and southern New York State. Exposures to radioactive iodine emissions from 16 nuclear power reactors within a 90-mile radius in this area indicate that these emissions are a likely etiological factor in rising thyroid cancer incidence rates.
Geographic variation in U.S. thyroid cancer incidence and a cluster near nuclear reactors in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania.
Mangano JJ.
Int J Health Serv. 2009;39(4):643-61.

[SenorBeef]

@sleeping

If they’re as safe as their proponents claim, why are the loan guarantees necessary?

What does safety have to do with anything? The banks aren’t unwilling to make loans because they’re unsafe and I have no idea where you got the idea.

The banks don’t want to touch the issue because the moment the approval process starts rolling for a new plant, a dozen groups of dedicated asshats will file an injunction to stop the plant from being constructed because like OMG THERE’S RADIATION IN MY BACK YARD WTF. And the approval process for the plans and design will take years to work through, even as I said if it’s based on a proven, reliable reactor. This is not a healthy environment for the investment of large amounts of capital, even if the plants would otherwise be both financially and practically successful without those barriers in the way.

[billfish678]

“In the United States, thyroid cancer incidence (along with liver cancer) is increasing more rapidly than any other malignancy, rising nearly threefold from 1980 to 2006. Improved diagnosis has been proposed by some as the major reason for this change, while others contend that additional factors also account for the increase”

Maybe its all that radioactive crap the COAL plants have been spewing out for years.

[BrainGlutton]

@Chronos

It’s about time. The greenest thing we could do in this country right now is to push fission power, and I’m glad Obama is doing it. Unfortunately, obstruction comes from both ends of the political spectrum on this issue; I just hope that the ignorance fringes aren’t able to stop this.

Why “both ends”? News to me the RW is against nuke power.

[Rand_Rover]

@Curtis LeMay

About time! Hopefully President Obama will stay firm on this policy despite opposition from the Luddites of his own party. A broad based energy strategy is necessary and nuclear power plants are one aspect.

Hmm. I thought you were a conservative. I guess you meant only social conservative and not fiscal conservative?

[sleeping]

@SenorBeef

What does safety have to do with anything? The banks aren’t unwilling to make loans because they’re unsafe and I have no idea where you got the idea.

The banks don’t want to touch the issue because the moment the approval process starts rolling for a new plant, a dozen groups of dedicated asshats will file an injunction to stop the plant from being constructed because like OMG THERE’S RADIATION IN MY BACK YARD WTF. And the approval process for the plans and design will take years to work through, even as I said if it’s based on a proven, reliable reactor. This is not a healthy environment for the investment of large amounts of capital, even if the plants would otherwise be both financially and practically successful without those barriers in the way.

1. It’s far from clear that they are sufficiently safe with respect to emissions.
2. What does that have to do with the loan guarantees? If the bank agrees to the loan, and some protests stymie construction, the money just doesn’t get disbursed. At most, it’s a waste of paperwork for the bank, but certainly not a loss. OTOH, if the plant owners are afraid of enormous lawsuits following an accident, that would explain why they won’t build without government financial backing.

[Der_Trihs]

@gonzomax

Yucca would be filled the day it opened with the waste that exists today. It solves nothing.

It would get the stuff away from where it is now, scattered all over the country in places that weren’t designed for long term waste storage.

@gonzomax

Nuclear plants cost a ton to build with huge cost over runs. It is not a financially wise way of supplying energy.

A problem artificially created by the people who oppose nuclear power, then used to justify that opposition.

@gonzomax

But a for profit energy company should not build a plant with tax payer money. Let the energy companies dig into their piggy banks.

Except the more likely result of that is that they will sit around and not do anything until an energy crisis; or simply build more CO2 producing coal plants. We need more nuclear power plants; if they can’t be made profitably thanks to the anti-nukers, then they should be built by the government or subsidized by it. I don’t really care which as long as they get built.

@Rand Rover

It’s so sad how a lot of you base your feeling on these loan guarantees on how you feel about nuclear power in general. There’s another element here–whether the government should be subsidizing any form of power production in the first place. There’s no reason to be automatically for government loan guarantees for nuclear power plants just because you are all jazzed about nuclear power. You also need to ask whether this is something the government should be involved with in the first place.

Apparently it needs to be unfortunately*. I want nuclear power, because it is the one technology we already have that can produce the energy we need without lots of CO2, and without using a resource that will be soon depleted. I don’t really care if they get built due to profit, loan guarantees, or just outright built and run by the government. Ideally, yes, the energy companies would just build the things on their own; but for a variety of reasons they aren’t.

• And yes, I DO think it is unfortunate. I think that energy production needs to be strongly regulated because it lends itself to monopoly, pollution and extortion; but in general it’s a matter for private industry. Unless that is private industry is unwilling or unable to do what should be done.

[gonzomax]

@SenorBeef

Well, it solves the fact that the very same waste is already sitting in intermediate storage facilities all across the country. You see, it’s not as if this waste simply comes into existance if we approve Yucca Mountain, and therefore if we keep fighting Yucca it magically won’t be a problem! It’s there, and it’s a problem we have to deal with, and Yucca is better than the current solution.

Additionally, Yucca is designed to be expandable and hold more than the current capacity. They haven’t been working on it since it has been in political limbo for a long time.

Yes, mostly because of people like you.

Oh, now you’re concerned about the money and profits involved all of the sudden? Screw the environment? When you care about money and when you care about issues changes dramatically depending on your preconception of the issue.

The taxpayers aren’t building the place, they’re guaranteeing a loan so that banks are willing to shell out the money for nuclear power plants. That isn’t to say it isn’t a form of subsidy - but if everything goes right (especially if the government does their part to keep the ball rolling on this one), the taxpayers won’t pay a cent. This actually gives the government an incentive to get out of the way with all of the costly bullshit red tape involved with the process of building the new plant - if this gets constructed smoothly and on schedule, no tax dollars will be involved.

Yes it is I who make the cost over runs. I am the same person who made them fake welds to get the plant done faster and make more money. I am the one who makes them lie and coverup when things go wrong. Yep ,the power companies and builders have acted in a completely trustworthy and above board manner. I don’t know why I forced them to make safer plants.
The Fermi plant a few miles from my house ,never has been up to full speed. How did I do that. It had a partial meltdown. I guess I did that too.