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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)

#81

Post by Krasnol »

mpweiher wrote: post #75
tedivm wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just looking at deaths doesn't really tell the whole story. There aren't a lot of towns that have had to be evacuated and abandoned due to solar industry accidents.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure 1975 Chinese Dam fails 150K deaths 4.6 million homes destroyed 11 million people displaced Number of countries getting out of hydro: 0 ( in words: zero ) Japan and Ukraine are both among the countries that signed the “tripling nuclear by 2050” pledge. My guess would be that they have the best information on the risks of nuclear.

You can still build new homes on that land once it's dry. It's not contaminated with radioactivity. Imagine one of the old French reactors "going nuclear" right in the middle of dense populated Europe.

It looks like a derailment and OPs argument still stands, imho. The only thing is that you can add results of radiation throughout generations, where people develop mutations and/or die early. None of those cases are in the handy graphic from above, which only counts immediate deaths.

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

#82

Post by ViewTrick1002 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #74
ViewTrick1002 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Have you ever held a senior role in finance or banking? If you’re going to go ad hominem, don’t bring a rubber duck to a battleship. Why aren't you answering the point? Is it that hard to substantiate your claims that a 60 year amortization + 15 year construction = 75 years is reasonable. > Data sorely lacking. (Outside hydro.) You mean like the data available on economic nuclear energy? :) > Oof, no, it’s not. Ser…

> Is it that hard to substantiate your claims that a 60 year amortization + 15 year construction = 75 years is reasonable What do you mean reasonable? It’s real. We amortise over long time horizons in project finance all the time. Also, look up residual value. (And dams.) And yes, I’m contesting both 60 and 15; they’re 80 and 10 and could be 80 and 5 with permitting reform. And within that latter envelope, it works w…

> What do you mean reasonable? It’s real. We amortise over long time horizons in project finance all the time. Also, look up residual value. (And dams.)

Residual value for nuclear power plants are negative. The plant is EOL and now it is time to decommission the entire site.

Now you try to equate nuclear power with infrastructure, even though we have cheaper alternatives which the public don't even have to finance. Sounds reasonable?

For the private industry a typical expected discount rate is 10-15% above the risk free return rate to account for known and unknown risks.

Apply this to nuclear investment. For the money being returned year 60, in percentage, what is the risk?

Please calculate it, don't try to suggest different methods of "delaying gratification", that is simply trying to talk around the subject because you know the answer.

The risk premium for the expected returns year 60 are ludicrous which is why no one suggests it.

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

#83

Post by ViewTrick1002 »

mpweiher wrote: post #79
ViewTrick1002 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nuclear power plants take an average of 7.5 years to build. Consistently for the last 40-50 years. Citing numbers from the 70s does nothing to further your argument. We can take a look at all plants we have attempted to construct in the west the past 20 years. - Virgil C. Summer: Contract: 2008. Cancelled 2017 - Vogtle Contract 2008, first reactor done 2023, second 2024(??) - Watts Bar: Construction start 1972, can…

You need to read the actual article: construction times have not gotten longer. No matter how much you cherry-pick examples. As confirmed by the data from Statistia: plants completed in 2022 were completed in, drumroll, 7.5 years.

I love how all nuclear construction in the west the past 20 years is "cherry picked".

Your bias in trying to frame nuclear in a positive light is simply astounding.

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

#84

Post by fexatious »

ViewTrick1002 wrote: post #31
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…

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…

That's about $0.16/KWh which is the average electricity rate across the whole US and significantly less than the price in the Northeast. I haven't dug into whether that's apples to apples - whether the country average is (generation + delivery) or just generation, while the rate bing paid to the plant is presumably just generation. But either way just the cost of electricity generation ignoring delivery on my bill is quite a bit higher than that.

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

#85

Post by peterfirefly »

Krasnol wrote: post #81
mpweiher wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure 1975 Chinese Dam fails 150K deaths 4.6 million homes destroyed 11 million people displaced Number of countries getting out of hydro: 0 ( in words: zero ) Japan and Ukraine are both among the countries that signed the “tripling nuclear by 2050” pledge. My guess would be that they have the best information on the risks of nuclear.

You can still build new homes on that land once it's dry. It's not contaminated with radioactivity. Imagine one of the old French reactors "going nuclear" right in the middle of dense populated Europe. It looks like a derailment and OPs argument still stands, imho. The only thing is that you can add results of radiation throughout generations, where people develop mutations and/or die early. None of those cases are i…

Chernobyl was a very special case. The reactor had no containment vessel -- we don't build that kind of reactors anymore (and the "old French reactors" do have containment vessels).

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

Your "results of radiation throughout generations" line doesn't really make sense. Don't go into the exclusion zone around Chernobyl. That's it.

You don't get much radiation from other nuclear power plants and certainly not "throughout generations". You do from radon gas in the basement in some parts of the world, you do from coal smoke (a tiny bit), and you do if you live in an area with a high background radiation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramsar,_Iran#Radioactivity

And what else? Yes, the evacuation around Fukushima. They panicked and evacuated far too many :(

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

#86

Post by peterfirefly »

analognoise wrote: post #76
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why is one example from the other side more convincing Because it’s a Gen III+ design. > the last sentence seems to agree that the evidence is weak It’s a new design. > 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 Very few people who have done this conclude we should go all in on a single solution. Nuclear, natural gas…

Why do you need natural gas in that mix at all?

We don't need it -- or wind and solar -- if we have enough nuclear. We are very far from having enough nuclear.

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

#87

Post by Manuel_D »

Krasnol wrote: post #81
mpweiher wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure 1975 Chinese Dam fails 150K deaths 4.6 million homes destroyed 11 million people displaced Number of countries getting out of hydro: 0 ( in words: zero ) Japan and Ukraine are both among the countries that signed the “tripling nuclear by 2050” pledge. My guess would be that they have the best information on the risks of nuclear.

You can still build new homes on that land once it's dry. It's not contaminated with radioactivity. Imagine one of the old French reactors "going nuclear" right in the middle of dense populated Europe. It looks like a derailment and OPs argument still stands, imho. The only thing is that you can add results of radiation throughout generations, where people develop mutations and/or die early. None of those cases are i…

Nuclear contamination can be rehabilitated. In fact, in 2022 all of the Fukushima exclusion zone was lifted as cleanup was completed. Chernobyl wasn't rehabilitated because Pripyat's sole reason for existing was to support the nuclear plant. So rehabilitation would be a waste of money.

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

#88

Post by peterfirefly »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #39
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 batterie…

Uruguay has dams in the mountains for its hydro. The country can choose how much electricity to generate from them to compensate for low winds. That's only viable with mountains + valleys + sufficiently low population density (206th in the world).

It's not something that generalizes to the entire lower 48 (but it will work fine in parts of California).

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

#89

Post by peterfirefly »

wolverine876 wrote: post #47
thelastgallon wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we start with corporate welfare of fossil fuel companies? Fossil fuel companies take in welfare of trillions of dollars per year and cause 10 million deaths/year from air pollution. Deaths per TWH is negligible from nuclear or renewables, compared to fossil fuels.[1-5] And then ethanol subsidies. 40m acres are subsidies to grow corn for ethanol, which is a net energy loss. [6,7] 1) https://e360.yale.edu/digest/fo…

I'm not sure I understand. Of course we should cut corporate welfare to fossil fuel companies. Does that somehow mean we should supply it to nuclear power companies?

It matters for cost comparisons.

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

#90

Post by mpweiher »

ViewTrick1002 wrote: post #83
mpweiher wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to read the actual article: construction times have not gotten longer. No matter how much you cherry-pick examples. As confirmed by the data from Statistia: plants completed in 2022 were completed in, drumroll, 7.5 years.

I love how all nuclear construction in the west the past 20 years is "cherry picked". Your bias in trying to frame nuclear in a positive light is simply astounding.

You are citing individual examples that you hand-picked.

I am citing the stats that average over all of this.

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