Posted on 03/06/2016 2:51:44 AM PST by iowamark
There's a compelling argument that the world ought to be building many more nuclear power plants. We'll need vast amounts of carbon-free energy to stave off global warming. It's not at all clear that renewables can do the job alone. And nuclear is a proven technology, already providing 11 percent of electricity globally.
So what's the catch? Cost. More than safety or waste issues, cost is nuclear's Achilles' heel. Modern-day reactors have become jarringly expensive to build, going for $5 billion to $10 billion a pop. Worse, the price tag seems to be rising in many places. Back in the 1960s, new reactors in the US were one of the cheaper energy sources around. Two decades later, after a series of missteps, costs had increased sixfold — a big reason we stopped building plants.
Ever since, experts have been debating whether or not nuclear's cost problems are an intrinsic flaw that will doom the technology. Nuclear skeptics, such as Joe Romm, argue that soaring costs are inevitable if you try to build massive reactors that need layers of safeguards.
But there's also an optimistic story for nuclear — one that I think is worth hearing out. A recent paper in the journal Energy Policy by Jessica Lovering, Arthur Yip, and Ted Nordhaus of the Breakthrough Institute looked at construction costs for hundreds of reactors built in the US, France, Canada, Japan, German, India, and South Korea between 1960 and 2010. Their data tells a more nuanced story.
Nuclear construction costs in the US did spiral out of control, especially after the Three Mile Island meltdown in 1979. But this wasn't universal. Countries like France, Japan, and Canada kept costs fairly stable during this period. And South Korea actually drove nuclear costs down, at a rate similar to what you see for solar. Studying these countries can offer lessons for how to make nuclear cheaper — so that it can become a useful clean energy resource around the world...
Here's a look at where America's nuclear industry went awry — and how France and South Korea avoided those mishaps.
Sorry, I meant to check excerpt. Full article at:
http://www.vox.com/2016/2/29/11132930/nuclear-power-costs-us-france-korea
When the US decides to go all in on portable Thorium Salt nuclear generators, the energy world will undergo a revolution.
Power a medium sized city with no meltdown risks.
That’s the only green energy source we need consider.
Stopped building nuke plants not because of costs per se, but because of the left’s hue and cry, the left’s regulations - leaving the public to say not in my backyard - all that drove costs too high and America began to side into third world status.
Those other countries keep costs down because their governments did not place such onerous regulations on the power industry - they actually wanted more power. The author barely mentions US regulations and how they were crafted to make nuke plants too expensive - just that other countries somehow managed to keep their costs down - presumably because Americans are incapable unless managed by some (Democrat controlled) government agency.
When the author says,”It’s not at all clear that renewables can do the job alone,” he is giving away his distaste for nukes - it is a fact that renewables (solar, wind, bio, hydro) cannot do the job ever, not ever. As fast as these alternative catch up to fossil, demand increases - a moving target.
That pretty much shut down new power plants in the US (except for military naval use).
The break point was after Three Mile Island when the traitor Jane Fonda and her movie The China Syndrome which popularized hate of nukes.
I was working on a MS in Uranium geochemistry. After a solid and sober look around, and the fact that the Aussies had just discovered the Jabiluka deposit, I jumped ship, dropped out of grad school and went to work in the oil patch.
as a former navy nuke, you are spot on.
These Vox people, had they been alive years ago, would have been marching against nuke plants while brandishing pictures of cooling towers.
When the “green” groups quit filing lawsuits, there’s a possibility.
Three Mile Island knocked out nuke development- that, and the reality that EEOC hires are not equal to a task for which there can be no room for error.
Post of the day Ziravan...
It is a paradigm changer to use an over-worn expression. You want Electric Cars? Not with this grid or mix of plants. The question begs, who gets their 1st aka will India beat us too it.
Sadly, not a bleeping word out of Trump or Cruz on this to make this an National Priority this is the next moon shot, it WILL change the world, a gift to humanity, unless Lockheed's prediction of their Fusion Reactor ( they have said in 10 years ) comes to fruition. And I am not even talking money here, just talking it up, making it a goal, and setting the stage so that the regulatory apparatus doesn't impede it.
You’re one of the few that even mentions Thorium.
I’ve always been surprised that the so-called ‘environmentalists’ have not grabbed onto this and run with it. Not to mention the regulators who ‘hate’ coal so much.
Then again maybe I’m not so surprised...
the business of cost is not really true. The constant change of specifications an re work of that already built is the problem. The antinuke types never ceased to find imagined problems to be solved
I know of one single door that was constructed and rebuilt a total of 5 times and who knows how many more tines after I left the project.
“Sadly, not a bleeping word out of Trump or Cruz on this to make this an National Priority...”
You’re right.
Guess it’s time for We the People to force this into the campaign rhetoric - and eventually a campaign promise.
Statements like this are part of the reason nuclear plants are not being built. TMI, IIRC, did NOT "melt down"! The potential for meltdown was certainly there, but the redundant safety systems worked and the plant shut down before the catastrophe could occur. The "meltdown" narrative was then pushed to the extreme by the usual suspects. President Carter, MSM, and shallow, self-important, know-nothing celebrities like Jane Fonda et al.
Oh, there were more traitors than Fonda involved. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was found from KGB records that the anti-nuclear movement in the US was started and funded by the KGB. Of course, it picked up the usual leftist "useful idiots" along the way and gained a life of its own in the wider environmental movement.
Bert, my favorite story is a TMI backfit exit sign at Comanche Peak. I was called out to inspect the welds on the support for the sign. This was the familiar lighted exit sign with battery backup in a box, maybe, what, 8”x12”x4” or so?
This sign was on the reactor deck at the head of the stairs, obviously to show workers how to get out in case of a power failure. Since it was out in the open, it was hung on a tubesteel support - a baseplate, a vertical leg to get it higher than head high, and a horizontal leg to attach the sign to (looked like a gallows).
Since the sign was not that far from the fuel pool, it was attached to the support with aircraft cable as well as bolts. The support itself, since it also wasn’t that far from the pool, was designed for some worst case scenario postulated accident. 8”x8”x1/2” tubesteel with 1/2” fillet welds all around. The 18”x18”x1” baseplate was attached to the deck with 3/4” Hilti bolts.
The sign probably cost $50; the support probably 100x that. This is what backfit requirements do to cost - and that doesn’t even consider the effect on schedule (which further impacts cost).
I’m sure some NRC attorney signed off on the requirement and an engineer figured it was cheaper to build it than to dispute the necessity. Think how much a car would cost if it was constantly being redesigned as it rolled down the assembly line.
On the need - can you imagine operating personnel not carrying a flashlight with them when working in the plant? What would that have cost in 1990 - $8 for a really fancy one?
As far as I know we no longer have a way to enrich uranium in the USA.... Oak Ridge maybe, but I'm not sure...
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