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Nuclear power gets new push in U.S., winning converts (2022)

nytimes.com

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Re: Nuclear power gets new push in U.S., winning converts (2022)

#31

Post by ViewTrick1002 »

crhulls wrote: post #21
wolverine876 wrote: post #13

Public financial and in-kind support for nuclear power is transferring wealth from taxpayers to large corporations. Nuclear might be worth it to reduce climate change (a discussion for a different subthread) but let's be careful of corporate welfare. At least, find a way for that wealth transfer to reach the public, not the shareholders.

I see this comment regularly. I also see the complete opposite comment regularly (that even the unsubsidized fully loaded cost with current technology is far cheaper than anything else). It is usually stated as fact with no backup. I’m open to being swayed either way by evidence. Do you have a link that represents the data that leads you to this conclusion? And ditto for those who disagree with you. Otherwise it’s ju…

Take Hinkley Point C, a Nth of a kind nuclear powerplant under construction in the UK.

After much turmoil the government negotiated a fixed strike price for £127/MWh = $160/MWh for 35 years after construction.

That is simply insane costs to pay for electricity. Those costs are expected and is why the only projects that ever gets going have government backing.

On top of this we subsidize the accident insurance. In the US it called the Price Anderson act, each nuclear plant pays a miniscule insurance premium compared to the Fukushima accident cost.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93Anderson_Nuclear...

Re: Nuclear power gets new push in U.S., winning converts (2022)

#32

Post by toomuchtodo »

nikhilsimha wrote: post #24
TradingPlaces wrote: post #20

Nukes are expensive and take forever to build. This ship sailed 40 years ago.

France?

Coasting on old nuclear. They’ve been importing renewables from Germany due to reduced capacity factor. The fleet is a money pit.

https://www.rechargenews.com/energy-transition/embattled-edf...

https://www.france24.com/en/france/20230105-how-france-s-pri...

Re: Nuclear power gets new push in U.S., winning converts (2022)

#33

Post by pedrocr »

nikhilsimha wrote: post #24
TradingPlaces wrote: post #20

Nukes are expensive and take forever to build. This ship sailed 40 years ago.

France?

According to this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Fran...

the last time France put a new nuclear reactor online was over 20 years ago.

There was probably a window where we could have powered our grids with nuclear and done well with that versus the alternatives. A bunch of factors, including lobbying by fossil fuel interests, meant that didn't happen. These days that same lobbying and other factors are fighting against solar+wind+hydro but hopefully this time it's unstoppable. The fact that solar and wind are distributed and don't have extreme tail risks helps a lot. Nuclear was too easy to stop because of the extremely complex projects and very unlikely but very high magnitude risks.

Re: Nuclear power gets new push in U.S., winning converts (2022)

#34

Post by ViewTrick1002 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #28
crhulls wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this comment regularly. I also see the complete opposite comment regularly (that even the unsubsidized fully loaded cost with current technology is far cheaper than anything else). It is usually stated as fact with no backup. I’m open to being swayed either way by evidence. Do you have a link that represents the data that leads you to this conclusion? And ditto for those who disagree with you. Otherwise it’s ju…

> usually stated as fact with no backup It usually comes down to two factors. One, the time horizon over which we observe and discount the levelised cost of energy (unsubsidised) relative to the plant’s lifetime. Nukes’ long lives mean their tremendous capital costs’ amortisation matters. In this, the anti-nuke tends to fudge its numbers. Two, the degree to which we believe the Nth model will be cheaper than the 1st.…

> One, the time horizon over which we observe and discount the levelised cost of energy (unsubsidised) relative to the plant’s lifetime. Nukes’ long lives mean their tremendous capital costs’ amortisation matters. In this, the anti-nuke tends to fudge its numbers.

What long economic payback time means is that the risks are huge. A 15 year construction and 40 year payback time and we are in the 1960s. A 60 year payback time and it's 1940s and the second world war is raging. How reasonable is it for Churchill, FDR and Stalin to predict energy investments that they only expect to get returns on in the 2020s?

All while competing solutions are already eating nuclear energy's lunch.

Trying to use long amortization is simply a crutch by people who do not understand basic economics. You can extend the amortization for renewables power plants with similar effects.

The chosen 20 years are simply because it is more economically efficient to replace them early, because what we expect to have available in 20 years are so much better that the economic efficiency gains are worth it.

Engineering a renewable plant for 40 or 60 years is trivial, it simply is not worth it.

A read for you is: "Understanding the Time Value of Money"

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/03/082703.asp

Re: Nuclear power gets new push in U.S., winning converts (2022)

#35

Post by Krasnol »

> Thomas Mundy, chief commercial officer for NuScale Power, said his company’s product could be built and put into use in about three years, a fraction of the time it takes to build larger reactor units.

Funny somebody dug this out from 2022 when the news are so disastrous:

> Investors Sue NuScale (SMR) for Concealing True Cost of Flagship Nuclear Reactor Project-Hagens Berman

https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2023/12/06/279194...

> Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) and NuScale Power Agree to Terminate the Carbon Free Power Project (CFPP)

https://www.nuscalepower.com/en/news/press-releases/2023/uam...

Maybe greenwashing isn't enough to cover up the fact that nuclear is not a good way to go about energy in the future.

Re: Nuclear power gets new push in U.S., winning converts (2022)

#36

Post by JumpCrisscross »

nikhilsimha wrote: post #24
TradingPlaces wrote: post #20

Nukes are expensive and take forever to build. This ship sailed 40 years ago.

France?

Or China, which built an AP1000 in nine years [1], about as long as it takes us to NEPA a transmission line [2]. Given about half of that was waiting for a reactor-coolant pump, it can likely be done in 5.

[1] https://spectrum.ieee.org/a-double-first-in-china-for-advanc...

[2] https://www.utilitydive.com/news/transmission-clean-energy-s...

Re: Nuclear power gets new push in U.S., winning converts (2022)

#37

Post by wolverine876 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #28
crhulls wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this comment regularly. I also see the complete opposite comment regularly (that even the unsubsidized fully loaded cost with current technology is far cheaper than anything else). It is usually stated as fact with no backup. I’m open to being swayed either way by evidence. Do you have a link that represents the data that leads you to this conclusion? And ditto for those who disagree with you. Otherwise it’s ju…

> usually stated as fact with no backup It usually comes down to two factors. One, the time horizon over which we observe and discount the levelised cost of energy (unsubsidised) relative to the plant’s lifetime. Nukes’ long lives mean their tremendous capital costs’ amortisation matters. In this, the anti-nuke tends to fudge its numbers. Two, the degree to which we believe the Nth model will be cheaper than the 1st.…

> China has built four, one in just four years, in two roughly-parallel series. So the anti-nukes’ too-slow argument is bunk. But the pro-nuke team needs a learning curve barely demonstrated in another country to continue.

We have much more evidence of contruction being too slow (if that's what you mean); why is one example from the other side more convincing? Also, China is not directly comparable, being able to undemocratically externalize the welfare of residents, construction workers, and operators.

Also, the last sentence seems to agree that the evidence is weak ?

> the anti-nukes ... the pro-nuke

Maybe there are also people who just care about getting the best outcome, aren't on a team that has drawn a predetermined conclusion, and are working with the data.

Re: Nuclear power gets new push in U.S., winning converts (2022)

#38

Post by mpweiher »

TradingPlaces wrote: post #20

Nukes are expensive and take forever to build. This ship sailed 40 years ago.

Time:

Nuclear power plants take an average of 7.5 years to build. Consistently for the last 40-50 years.

https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/nuclear-constructi...

https://www.statista.com/statistics/712841/median-constructi...

France nuclearized its entire grid in 20 years, from the early 70s to the early 90s. They've been producing largely CO2 free, cheap electricity ever since.

Germany has been trying to achieve low carbon electricity for 20 years so far while at the same tine getting out of nuclear (yes, it doesn't make sense). We're supposedly half way done, have the 2nd most expensive electricity in the EU and also the 2nd dirtiest electricity in the EU. The government went to such extremes to hide the costs of the energy crisis on off-budget vehicles that the constitutional court had to step in.

Cost:

"LCOE of less than $30/MWhre for 40-60 years" even for the "expensive" US Westinghouse AP1000

https://web.mit.edu/kshirvan/www/research/ANP193%20TR%20CANE...

Sailed:

22 countries just pledged to triple nuclear capacity by 2050 (yes, that's quite a ways away), including the US, Japan, Ukraine, France, Canada, Poland, South Korea etc. India, China and Russia did not sign, but are also expanding.

Apart from representing 5 of the G7, the vast majority of world GDP and also the majority of the population, the list importantly also includes a number of countries that until as recently as two years ago were getting out of nuclear, either significantly or entirely. Poland currently has no nuclear plants and has just ordered 24 small reactors to be installed at 6 sites.

etc.

Re: Nuclear power gets new push in U.S., winning converts (2022)

#39

Post by bryanlarsen »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #6
pydry wrote: post #4

It isnt challenges in meeting clean energy goals that motivates politicians from both sides to give nuclear power an extra push, its the industrial and skill requirements of the nuclear-military industrial complex: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S22146... If clean energy were the goal, costs and speed of construction would dictate only solar, wind and storage (pumped/hydrogen/battery) be built.…

Yes, there are links between civilian and military nuclear. (That’s almost an argument for nuclear power, since the military spending is a sunk cost.) Gen III+ reactors, which China is competently constructing, get past many of those problems. > only solar, wind and storage (pumped/hydrogen/battery) Solar and wind, yes. Only solar and wind, hilariously no. Solar and wind + storage, in the long run, is currently not c…

> Solar and wind + storage, in the long run, is currently not cost competitive in most markets.

That's not even close to being true. Uruguay is 100% wind + storage. 90% - 98% from wind, with 2% - 10% from hydro.

The US has two advantages that Uruguay doesn't: a continental sized energy grid and a mix of wind & solar. Plus the advantage of building it out in the 2020s rather than the 2010s when both solar and batteries are an order of magnitude cheaper than they were when Uruguay was building out.

California has solar + storage projects that are supplying power for 4c/kWh. That's cost competitive.

Re: Nuclear power gets new push in U.S., winning converts (2022)

#40

Post by JumpCrisscross »

ViewTrick1002 wrote: post #34
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> usually stated as fact with no backup It usually comes down to two factors. One, the time horizon over which we observe and discount the levelised cost of energy (unsubsidised) relative to the plant’s lifetime. Nukes’ long lives mean their tremendous capital costs’ amortisation matters. In this, the anti-nuke tends to fudge its numbers. Two, the degree to which we believe the Nth model will be cheaper than the 1st.…

> One, the time horizon over which we observe and discount the levelised cost of energy (unsubsidised) relative to the plant’s lifetime. Nukes’ long lives mean their tremendous capital costs’ amortisation matters. In this, the anti-nuke tends to fudge its numbers. What long economic payback time means is that the risks are huge. A 15 year construction and 40 year payback time and we are in the 1960s. A 60 year paybac…

> A 15 year construction and 40 year payback time and we are in the 1960s

Don’t do that. China built its first AP1000s in 9 years, including waiting approximately half that time for a coolant pump. We take about that long to NEPA a transmission line. The problem is very obviously permitting.

> can extend the amortization for renewables power plants with similar effects

No, you can’t, because they aren’t being built to actually last that long. Nukes are.

> what we expect to have available in 20 years are so much better that the economic efficiency gains are worth it

You’re confusing technological progress with the time value of money. The former is unpredictable, particularly between two technologies progressing at different frontiers.

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