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To Slow Global Warming, We Need Nuclear Power (Op-Ed)

nytimes.com

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Re: To Slow Global Warming, We Need Nuclear Power (Op-Ed)

#221

Post by Twisell »

afterburner wrote: post #187
niels_olson wrote: post #3

My undergrad is in Physics and I took engineering classes in Rickover Hall. I was stationed on a nuclear ship. Even after deploying for the Fukushima disaster, I am a fan of nuclear power. But I have a hard time justifying new investment in an era where solar is competitively priced. The downside of solar is approximately 0 compared to the downside of a reactor accident. I'll even allow for the high, high likelihood…

Don't even bother talking about political capital. Nuclear is a worse option because it is overpriced, period. It's not just the downsides that are subsidized by the government, the actual running cost is hidden behind reams of bureaucracy, hidden program budgets, optimistic amortizations, and underestimated decommissioning costs. And even then the reactors still manage to go massively over budget with the initial co…

Except people also forget that renewables' are also highly subsidized. You can't use a double standard here.

And cost should anyway be the least of concern as global warming costs will be higher no matter what if we fail to control it.

Re: To Slow Global Warming, We Need Nuclear Power (Op-Ed)

#222

Post by sdoering »

paulddraper wrote: post #189
cma wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear waste storage is subsidized and nuclear liability is too (capped near $12billion; plausible accident scenarios can go over $1trillion).

Nuclear waste storage is only a problem because we want it to be a problem. Once we actually need alternative energy, we'll figure out that out real quick.

Yeah. Because we didn't already have 60+ years of time with actual smart people trying to find a solution.

I am all in for nuclear and much more so for doing ground work and heavily investing in research on nuclear recyclability. But doing the math this will not get as anywhere.

We would non the less need to add 1GW of power to the grid nearly every day to fulfill projected demand over the next generation. So this would mean to add ~1 plant every day somewhere on this planet.

I am not sure on how much nuclear fuel would be needed to even do this. Then estimate the costs - and the amount of storage needed for the radwaste (not only the fuel, but also the material plants are build of and such.

So even being pro nuclear the math tells me, that this is at best a in between solution to buy us some more time until we figure out a better, longterm solution.

And no - I do not believe in the fusion singularity to come in my lifetime.

Re: To Slow Global Warming, We Need Nuclear Power (Op-Ed)

#223

Post by bluthru »

niels_olson wrote: post #3

My undergrad is in Physics and I took engineering classes in Rickover Hall. I was stationed on a nuclear ship. Even after deploying for the Fukushima disaster, I am a fan of nuclear power. But I have a hard time justifying new investment in an era where solar is competitively priced. The downside of solar is approximately 0 compared to the downside of a reactor accident. I'll even allow for the high, high likelihood…

>I'll even allow for the high, high likelihood that more people will die installing roof-top solar than will ever die in the lifetime of all nuclear reactors combined.

And this could be virtually zero with proper safety harnesses. (Amateurs almost always neglect them.)

Re: To Slow Global Warming, We Need Nuclear Power (Op-Ed)

#224

Post by paulddraper »

afterburner wrote: post #198
paulddraper wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most estimates are inflated. From 2002 to 2008 UCS's estimate for a nuclear plant went from $2 to $8 million, for no real reason. Actual, real-life plants (like from the 60s) have much lower costs than recent estimates have claimed (adjusted for inflation).

I wouldn't want a plant from the 60s, and I would wonder how costs were hidden back then, and how much subsequent safety overhauls cost.

> I wouldn't want a plant from the 60s

Me neither. Unfortunately, that's all we have, since we're not building any more :(

Re: To Slow Global Warming, We Need Nuclear Power (Op-Ed)

#225

Post by Qwertious »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #175
niels_olson wrote: post #3

My undergrad is in Physics and I took engineering classes in Rickover Hall. I was stationed on a nuclear ship. Even after deploying for the Fukushima disaster, I am a fan of nuclear power. But I have a hard time justifying new investment in an era where solar is competitively priced. The downside of solar is approximately 0 compared to the downside of a reactor accident. I'll even allow for the high, high likelihood…

And the interesting thing is that no nuclear plant built starting today would have any of the issues that hit Fukishima, Chernobyl, or Three Mile Island. Both because the material safety is better today, and we better understand how to engineer these to passively fail safe rather than have safety systems that can themselves fail. But the political will is hard to muster. And even though something like the traveling w…

"No matter how detailed your design, or solid your physics and mathematics, they cannot win an argument with someone who is simply afraid of the concept."

Yes, politics muddy the water rather badly for fission. Let me offer a much more rational drawback: Time.

Nuclear plants take a decade to build (on paper; in reality they miss deadlines constantly and you're lucky if it's done within 20 years). A PV solar farm takes more like 2 years to build. Per Swanson's law, you can expect the price to halve by the time a nuclear plant with today's technology is built. Nuclear plants of today's tech are competing with the solar plants of (today + 8years)'s tech.

More importantly, you don't get the return on investment until after the plant is built, So the same money that was dropped into a 10-year project needs to be a lot more profitable than a series of 2-year solar farm projects that bring in more money to be invested constantly.

Hell, by the time we build our nuclear plant, battery tech might well have matured enough to make PV a cheap baseload power source. That makes nuclear even more financially risky.

Re: To Slow Global Warming, We Need Nuclear Power (Op-Ed)

#226

Post by paulddraper »

sdoering wrote: post #222
paulddraper wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear waste storage is only a problem because we want it to be a problem. Once we actually need alternative energy, we'll figure out that out real quick.

Yeah. Because we didn't already have 60+ years of time with actual smart people trying to find a solution. I am all in for nuclear and much more so for doing ground work and heavily investing in research on nuclear recyclability. But doing the math this will not get as anywhere. We would non the less need to add 1GW of power to the grid nearly every day to fulfill projected demand over the next generation. So this wo…

> Yeah. Because we didn't already have 60+ years of time with actual smart people trying to find a solution.

My point is that it's an artificial problem, not a technical problem.

Re: To Slow Global Warming, We Need Nuclear Power (Op-Ed)

#227

Post by lukealization »

hguant wrote: post #178
beders wrote: post #152

Just to remind the nuclear fans here: cost of Chernobyl: estimated around 201b euros, cost of lives: between 4000 and several hundred thousands indirectly, the area is a radioactive wasteland for centuries to come, the reactor still needs additional protection. The effects are still measurable all over Europe, resettlement of thousands of people. That is ONE reactor gone wrong. Why anyone would build another one when…

> That is ONE reactor gone wrong. That is ONE reactor that was of a design many years out of date at the time of the failure, a failure where the people at the controls turned off the safety controls, then turned off the back up safety controls, then intentionally put the reactor in an unsafe state. France gets 76% of its power from nuclear energy and has never gone above 4 on the INES scale, with an average clean up…

> That is ONE reactor that was of a design many years out of date at the time of the failure, a failure where the people at the controls turned off the safety controls, then turned off the back up safety controls, then intentionally put the reactor in an unsafe state.

Yes, reality exists. The existence of reality and all the flaws that come with it is another argument of many against nuclear fission.

Re: To Slow Global Warming, We Need Nuclear Power (Op-Ed)

#228

Post by divanvisagie »

m_mueller wrote: post #81
ianai wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar, afaik, requires a natural gas installation, too, for off hours.

Not with enough batteries or hydroelectric storage.

How many greenhouse gasses are created from manufacturing batteries?

Re: To Slow Global Warming, We Need Nuclear Power (Op-Ed)

#229

Post by amorphid »

niels_olson wrote: post #3

My undergrad is in Physics and I took engineering classes in Rickover Hall. I was stationed on a nuclear ship. Even after deploying for the Fukushima disaster, I am a fan of nuclear power. But I have a hard time justifying new investment in an era where solar is competitively priced. The downside of solar is approximately 0 compared to the downside of a reactor accident. I'll even allow for the high, high likelihood…

In the USA, I recently met a random nuclear power plant worker at a bar. They claimed that many currently operational nuclear plants have trouble remaining competitive in today's market. Apparently expanding or refurbishing an operational plant to extend it's useful life also requires a cost prohibitive retrofit to make it comply with current nuclear codes. For example, a plant opened in 1972 might still be running on 45 year old building codes that mandate the ability to withstand a 5.2 magnitude earthquake, and current building codes mandate withstanding a 7.something quake (guessing what old and new regulation might be).

Can someone comment on whether the above claim sounds true? Is it common for the true price of a nuclear plant to significantly exceed the costs of initial constructon plus normal operational costs? If yes, what are thoses costs and how do they compare to the estimated total cost?

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