Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

#401

Post by freemint » Sun, May 22, 2022, 9:55 AM UTC

varajelle wrote: post #206

stkdump wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, by how much did Germany increase its carbon output during the nuclear shutdown? Hint: it didn't. It went from 14.8 to 7.7 tons/capita. You can always argue that it could have decreased faster by keeping nuclear plants online. But please don't believe the headlines of opinion makers without looking at the actual data.

In the same period, France went from 10 to 4.2 t/capita (Source: https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/germany?country=DEU~F... )

Germany has a lot of heavy industry.

Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

#402

Post by geysersam » Sun, May 22, 2022, 9:56 AM UTC

himinlomax wrote: post #342

jhgb wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pumped hydro is already maxxed out pretty much everywhere it's possible The Australian National University recently disagreed: https://www.anu.edu.au/news/all-news/anu-finds-530000-potent... . But even very large amounts of pumped hydro storage are probably not the cost optimum -- according to https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001429211... , the optimum lies in the direction of significant overgene…

> The Australian National University recently disagreed This is a worldwide assessment. Look at Northern Europe, and notice the complete lack of dots on the map. > Interestingly enough for Germany, the period less likely to suffer from prolonged lack of wind is winter Want you bet your freezing bottom on it? "Less likely" does not cut it for a vital commodity. Famine, drowning and thirst also occur when a commodity t…

Of course we're not going to bet anything. Everyone here wants to construct a resilient and efficient energy production system. That this is unachievable with a high percentage of wind power in the mix is not obvious.

Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

#403

Post by concordDance » Sun, May 22, 2022, 9:59 AM UTC

JoeyBananas wrote: post #122

It has nothing to do with economics, nuclear energy is stagnant because the industry is a regulatory hell. From eia.gov: Of the 104 operating nuclear power reactors in the United States: The last construction permit for a nuclear power plant was issued in 1978 for Progress Energy Inc.'s Shearon Harris plant, near Raleigh, North Carolina. The last operating license for a nuclear power plant was issued in 1996 to the T…

Indeed. As the article points out, reactors used to be under $2000/kw. The UK electricity wholesale price is currently at £100/MWh, so at current prices your new plant will make back its construction costs (ignoring operating costs for now) in two years of operation.

Regulation has increased the cost of new nuclear sixfold (see Hinkley Point C).

Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

#404

Post by concordDance » Sun, May 22, 2022, 10:03 AM UTC

Maursault wrote: post #161

JoeyBananas wrote: post #122

It has nothing to do with economics, nuclear energy is stagnant because the industry is a regulatory hell. From eia.gov: Of the 104 operating nuclear power reactors in the United States: The last construction permit for a nuclear power plant was issued in 1978 for Progress Energy Inc.'s Shearon Harris plant, near Raleigh, North Carolina. The last operating license for a nuclear power plant was issued in 1996 to the T…

> It has nothing to do with economics Nuclear power is not profitable. It has nothing to do with regulation and everything to do with economics. If nuclear power were profitable, you could not stop it. If nuclear power were profitable, the regulations would change with a quickness, because motivated investors remove any and all roadblocks to their money. If it wasn't for the absurdly bad economics, bad track record p…

> Even if the nuclear industry were entirely unregulated, it still couldn't generate profit.

I recommend doing some simple arithmetic here. This is simply false:

As the article points out, reactors used to be under $2000/kw (this is with some regulation, just not onerous amounts). The UK electricity wholesale price is currently at £100/MWh, so at current prices your new plant in the deregulated world (which will take 5 years to make) will make back its construction costs (ignoring operating costs for now as nuclear is dominated by capital costs) in two years of operation.

That's a damn good rate of return compared to most businesses.

Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

#405

Post by emteycz » Sun, May 22, 2022, 10:06 AM UTC

freemint wrote: post #399

emteycz wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany doesn't have blackouts only thanks to Czech and French nuclear energy ;-)

Trade is not bad?

Trade is not bad. Saying you don't have a use for nuclear and then using it anyways while badmouthing it is bad.

Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

#406

Post by pfdietz » Sun, May 22, 2022, 10:08 AM UTC

cycomanic wrote: post #248

pdonis wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the only future for nuclear is going to be small, cheaper reactors that are quick to construct But even those will be nonstarters unless the regulatory environment is fixed. Nuclear has always been held to much, much stricter standards than any other energy source, for no good reason.

That's a myth. Regulatory requirements for all large scale power generation have to deal with very similar regulatory requirements, which typically scales with size of the project. In fact wind had likely to deal with more restrictions than nuclear (largely to protect the nuclear investments of operators), let's not even talk about certain housing communities not allowing rooftop solar for aesthetic reasons.

Indeed. One of the first big rulings that nuclear fans complained about was that nuclear had to comply with a law that applied generally to all industrial activities, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The AEC had interpreted their responsibilities under this act very narrowly, and lost in court on that when sued.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvert_Cliffs%27_Coordinating...

Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

#407

Post by cycomanic » Sun, May 22, 2022, 10:09 AM UTC

dirkt wrote: post #327

dsnr wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can't convert about 40 million households [1] in a year or two. Who's talking about a year or two? Germany has been pushing for russian gas since the 90's, against all logic.

The logic was "if we depend on each other, Russia isn't going to pull crazy stuff". Which works with rational people (and after Gorbachev and the German reunion, the perception was that Russia is rational), but not with Putin. And you may have noticed that Russia is not cutting off delivery of Russian gas to Germany. Which they would if the damage was unilateral. Also, electrical heating is one of most wasteful and d…

> Also, electrical heating is one of most wasteful and damaging ways to do heating, and Germany has been moving away from electrical heating for this reason for decades now.

Not disagreeing with the rest of the arguments, but electrical heat pumps are actually the most efficient way to heat your home (theoretically you can get about 5 W of heat for every 1W of electricity, for practical ones it's a bit more than 3W IIRC).

That said, it's not trivial to convert old houses to use heat pumps. Cost is one issue, but they typically require better insulation because they don't have the same power that you can get with a gas heater.

Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

#408

Post by nickelpro » Sun, May 22, 2022, 10:09 AM UTC

ncmncm wrote: post #354

sb057 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure about the other regulators, but Jaczko is hardly liked by his colleagues. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Jaczko >A report by Nuclear Regulatory Commission Inspector General Hubert T. Bell accused Jaczko of "strategically" withholding information from his colleagues in an effort to keep plans for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository from advancing. >In October 2011, all the other four NRC co…

The more you know about nukes, the less you like nukes .

Is this a play on the Navy term that calls anyone associated with the nuclear field a "nuke"?

Well I giggled but it's a pretty far off reference for the standard HN audience

Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

#409

Post by kkfx » Sun, May 22, 2022, 10:10 AM UTC

The "industry" is stagnant because it's private, so NOT to deliver a service but to make profits, it's like nation-wide fiber-optic networks in less dense areas, profit is INCOMPATIBLE with quality of the service for all.

Nuclear works only as a way to have a constant (as much as possible) amount of power over time, something for the whole society something that's only viable if done by FULLY public utilities only owned by States who just need to deliver electricity to power anything.

My only hope in this regards is that as much as the crisis bite more and more people realize that the neo-feudal society neoliberals have built is against 99% of the people and so react ERASING the private-public sector confining to States-only public show for ALL essential services like:

- natural resource management

- energy production and supply

- water supply

- health, pharmaceutical sector included

- TLCs

- academia (well founded public research, for the public, powerful and strictly not patentable or obtainable in any exclusive way by the private sector)

- weapons

- basic food production to ensure survival of resident in any area for an undefined period of time

- basic nation-wide logistics

Like it WAS in the very recent past. Of course such changes accompanied with life sentences for most relevant private-sector and public traitors and criminals against humanity not to punish them, that's simply impossible, but to teach others not to never ever try again their criminal path.

Yes, I'm serious, no, I'm not at all "an extremist" from the right or left part of the spectrum.

Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

#410

Post by shakow » Sun, May 22, 2022, 10:12 AM UTC

lispm wrote: post #375

shakow wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what Wiki says, but this here[0] says that right now, Germany is both producing one of the dirtiest electricity in Europe, all while still importing over 1GW. [0] https://app.electricitymap.org/map

Germany has been a large net exporter of electricity for years. 18.9 TWh in 2020. Of that 52.5 TWh were exports and 33.6 TWh were imports. What you may have missed is: Germany is in the middle of Europe surrounded with a bunch of neighbor countries. Most of them are in the European Union which worked for years on building a joint energy market. Thus various electricity exports and imports are NORMAL. Note also that e…

> Germany has been a large net exporter of electricity for years. 18.9 TWh

It does not mean anything if they can't decide when they export it.

Waht matters though, is that most of the time their electricity has an awful carbon footprint w.r.t what the wealthiest country in Europe should afford. All the rest is but mental gymnastics to try to justify that.