The Nuclear Power Thread

In summary, the author opposes Germany's plan to phase out nuclear power and argues that the arguements against nuclear power are based primarily on ignorance and emotion. He also argues that nuclear power is a good solution to a number of issues, including air pollution, the waste situation, and the lack of an available alternative fuel. He also notes that the research into nuclear power has been done in the past, and that there are potential solutions to the waste problem.
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  • #422
clancy688 said:
Here's a recent report regarding French nuclear power and the actual costs:

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/N...s_of_French_reactors_best_option-3101124.html



Soooo... 5 cents per kwh. Looking cheap so far, doesn't it? But then look at those 188 billion in research. And add that, too. Nearly tenfolds the price.
Onshore wind energy is not much more expensive (somewhere between 50 and 60 Euros per MWh if I remember correctly... and I'm not so sure if any country boosted its wind energy research with 200 billion bucks).

Cheap energy my ***. Renewables can hardly top that.


Here's the report in French:

http://www.ccomptes.fr/fr/CC/documents/RPT/Rapport_thematique_filiere_electronucleaire.pdf
Wind and nuclear can't be compared kWh to kWh unless Wind includes the costs for backup when the wind does not blow.
 
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  • #423
mheslep said:
Wind and nuclear can't be compared kWh to kWh unless Wind includes the costs for backup when the wind does not blow.

That's allright, as long as you include planned and unplanned outages at NPPs.
 
  • #424
zapperzero said:
That's allright, as long as you include planned and unplanned outages at NPPs.
Planned and unplanned NPP outage is still less than 10% in the US, i.e. over 90% capacity factor.
 
  • #425
mheslep said:
Planned and unplanned NPP outage is still less than 10% in the US, i.e. over 90% capacity factor.

Okay. Just making sure you count it in :). While you're at it, include the costs of load-shedding and of all the gas-fired plants that must be built and maintained while idle because 4000 MW going off-line all at once with zero advance notice is no bloody joke.

Be sure to include the costs of cleanup and permanent storage for spent fuel, as well as insurance... oops. Did I just say that out loud? Hmm. Nuclear is subsidised, everywhere in the world, by legislation which allows NPPs to function without insurance.

So let's add in that subsidy too. So far Fukushima has cost TEPCO 8 billion dollars iirc, and they have barely started paying reparations. All that money eventually comes out of the state budget by the way. What does that do to the cost/KWh of nuke power in Japan?

I won't be nasty and tell you to add in the notional insurance premia that SHOULD have been paid to insure every NPP for such a large sum, because no company in the world would insure an NPP, ever.

Frustratingly enough, I can't get nuke accident insurance for myself and my property either, and I'm not an NPP operator, just a private citizen in a country that owns and operates one. I can get insurance against alien abduction (yes, really), floods, earthquakes up to magnitude 9, a whole range of accidents, diseases and illnesses, whatever. Just no NPP mishaps. The losses from those are, quite literally, incalculable and unpredictable.

To be entirely honest, I'm not of the opinion that wind is a cost-effective alternative now. It may become one, with economies of scale which may or may not happen.

I only see solar thermal and hydropower as viable renewables, for now.

Solar PV is ridiculously expensive still, other techs are in their infancy.
 
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  • #426
zapperzero said:
I won't be nasty and tell you to add in the notional insurance premia that SHOULD have been paid to insure every NPP for such a large sum, because no company in the world would insure an NPP, ever.

Frustratingly enough, I can't get nuke accident insurance for myself and my property either...

I suggest you do some looking into Price Anderson. Try to limit your research to the facts of the law rather than reading the opinions of either anti-nuke or pro-nuke bloggers. Both 'sides' tend to describe the issue in a light that supports their opinions on nuclear power. So, focus on the facts and draw your own conclusions.
 
  • #427
gmax137 said:
I suggest you do some looking into Price Anderson. Try to limit your research to the facts of the law rather than reading the opinions of either anti-nuke or pro-nuke bloggers. Both 'sides' tend to describe the issue in a light that supports their opinions on nuclear power. So, focus on the facts and draw your own conclusions.

Lo and behold, I do NOT live in the US. The situation in my country is as I present it... but feel free to cite law at me or show me a private insurer.
 
  • #428
zapperzero said:
Lo and behold, I do NOT live in the US...
sorry. I thought you had mentioned living in California. I must have had you mixed up with someone else. I don't know anything about the laws outside the US.
 
  • #429
gmax137 said:
sorry. I thought you had mentioned living in California. I must have had you mixed up with someone else. I don't know anything about the laws outside the US.

So tell me about the laws and customs inside the US. Can I build a NPP there and buy insurance for it on the open market? Can I get, say, a house or a car insured against radioactive contamination?
 
  • #430
Price Anderson indemnifies all US operators, where the operators collectively pay for the first $13B, govt. covers anything above. So there should be no market for any private insurance for the operators. France has something similar.
 
  • #431
clancy688 said:
Here's a recent report regarding French nuclear power and the actual costs:

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/N...s_of_French_reactors_best_option-3101124.html



Soooo... 5 cents per kwh. Looking cheap so far, doesn't it? But then look at those 188 billion in research. And add that, too. Nearly tenfolds the price.
Onshore wind energy is not much more expensive (somewhere between 50 and 60 Euros per MWh if I remember correctly... and I'm not so sure if any country boosted its wind energy research with 200 billion bucks).

Cheap energy my ***. Renewables can hardly top that.


Here's the report in French:

http://www.ccomptes.fr/fr/CC/documents/RPT/Rapport_thematique_filiere_electronucleaire.pdf

You did your math wrong. The operating cost for the nuclear plants in France is $11.9 billion, for 407.9 Billion kWh. That works out to operations cost of 2.8 cents per kWh. The YEARLY AMORTIZED cost for the development, deployment and decomissioning will work out to the same order of magnitude, $11.6 Billion, or another 2.6 cents; that's why they have the 6.4 cents pet kWh figure.
Of course, here in the U.S. we are running plants safely to 60 years. No reason the French can't.
 
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  • #432
wizwom said:
The YEARLY AMORTIZED cost for the development, deployment and decomissioning will work out to the same order of magnitude, $11.6 Billion, or another 2.6 cents

That's just wishful thinking coached in numbers and salesman speak. "It's not 15k EUR for this 7.5k EUR car, sir! It's just 5 EUR/day for the next 15 years!".

Where is the cost of final storage? Indeed, where will final storage be?

By the way, you all should be very very scared by this, from the intro to the fine article:
Investing in new nuclear generating capacity or any other form of energy would be too expensive and come online too late, France's state audit office has concluded.

The EROEI of France has dipped below 1, while no-one was looking.
 
  • #433
zapperzero said:
That's just wishful thinking coached in numbers and salesman speak. "It's not 15k EUR for this 7.5k EUR car, sir! It's just 5 EUR/day for the next 15 years!".

Where is the cost of final storage? Indeed, where will final storage be?

By the way, you all should be very very scared by this, from the intro to the fine article:


The EROEI of France has dipped below 1, while no-one was looking.

"disposing of radioactive wastes are estimated to be €79.4 billion ($103.8 billion)" - t doesn't mention where. This is mainly effluent from the reprocessing, the very long half-life fissile material is being actively reprocessed and reused.
As to where - just off the top of my head from a discussion with a French Nuclear engineer last year (which may be VERY off) I believe they were planning a bedrock mine site for sequestering.
 
  • #434
zapperzero said:
That's just wishful thinking coached in numbers and salesman speak. "It's not 15k EUR for this 7.5k EUR car, sir! It's just 5 EUR/day for the next 15 years!".
No - its like saying the car is 7.5K euros, and its paid for with a loan, and costs another 7.5k Euros to run. You are being disingenuous.

zapperzero said:
Where is the cost of final storage? Indeed, where will final storage be?
You seem to have missed it:
The future costs for decommissioning all of France's nuclear facilities (including reactors, research facilities and fuel cycle plants )and disposing of radioactive wastes are estimated to be €79.4 billion ($103.8 billion). The cost of demolishing facilities totals €31.9 billion ($41.7 billion), including €18.4 billion ($24.1 billion) for dismantling EDF's 58 currently operating reactors, the court estimates. The costs of managing used fuel are put at €14.8 billion ($19.3 billion), while waste disposal will cost €28.4 billion ($37.1 billion).

These costs do not include the decommissioning costs already paid, for 8 power plants and the prototype. For the purposes of the article, the construction and decommissioning costs were lumped together for all of these, which worked out to €18 billion ($24 billion).
 
  • #435
wizwom said:
No - its like saying the car is 7.5K euros, and its paid for with a loan, and costs another 7.5k Euros to run. You are being disingenuous.


You seem to have missed it:


These costs do not include the decommissioning costs already paid, for 8 power plants and the prototype. For the purposes of the article, the construction and decommissioning costs were lumped together for all of these, which worked out to €18 billion ($24 billion).

Yes, I missed the part where there is a permanent storage facility in France. Is there? I am only aware of the research facility in Meuse/Haute-Marne, which is due to transition to actual operation as a storage facility, if all goes well, in 2025
 
  • #439
It looks like Gen-IV is quietly disappearing, or actually is being subsumed by the SMR program.
https://smr.inl.gov/ (at the moment, the image on the opening page is that of an SMR (sodium-cooled fast reactor) taken from Gen-IV).

The next big thing is accident tolerant fuel (ATF) in LWRs and other systems.


Meanwhile - "Is Thorium A Magic Bullet For Our Energy Problems?"
http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201205044
 
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  • #440
We've had quite a few guest lecturers on Gen-IV reactor concepts come to MS&T. And at least one professor has modified his classes to try to prepare us for working with HTGR or molten metal cooling and power systems.
 
  • #441
With nuclear there is always a low probability of a major disaster of which we have now had 2 in the last 30 years.

Imagine a worse disaster than the tsunami: How about a massive solar event knocking out off-site power to hundreds of reactors - all cooking off and relying on those diesel generators which may or may not be available. Very low probability, but very high consequences.

...but the fatal blow to nuclear is really the price tag of new plants - which increases every time a new flaw is exposed. A couple of new plants will be built in the US using massive government subsidies form the 2005 energy act, after that it's dead in the US.
 
  • #442
Such a solar event would have no effect on the reactors itself.
 
  • #443
pm35 said:
... A couple of new plants will be built in the US using massive government subsidies form the 2005 energy act...

What exactly are these subsidies? What did they cost the government?
 
  • #444
pm35 said:
With nuclear there is always a low probability of a major disaster of which we have now had 2 in the last 30 years.

Imagine a worse disaster than the tsunami: How about a massive solar event knocking out off-site power to hundreds of reactors - all cooking off and relying on those diesel generators which may or may not be available. Very low probability, but very high consequences.

...but the fatal blow to nuclear is really the price tag of new plants - which increases every time a new flaw is exposed. A couple of new plants will be built in the US using massive government subsidies form the 2005 energy act, after that it's dead in the US.

I just would like to point out that the earthquake near Japan was the biggest it has had in recorded history. wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_earthquakes_in_Japan (I can't link until after 10 posts...) Mining coal, oil, etc kills more under normal working circumstances.

The problem I find with this debate is that there don't seem to be number that can accurately sum all the costs of each individual energy industry so that we can compare them. In the case of Oil and Coal there are health costs, environmental costs (oil sands, CO2 emissions, etc), but everyones ignores that the fossil fuels get massive subsidies: (sorry, I have to type it, W W W dot bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-09/fossil-fuels-got-more-aid-than-clean-energy-iea.html) So I find it extremely disingenuous to say nuclear power can only compete because of subsidies.

If all costs WERE taken into account it might make renewable slightly more competitive (if you balance across all subsidies), but I don't think they're quite there yet. Personally, I'd like to see a little more work in tidal energy.

Also, I read a few pages back someone citing research and development as an additional cost to nuclear power. This makes no sense to me, especially here. Isn't that what we're here for? And isn't all knowledge worth having? R&D is NEVER a waste.

I'm new here, so I may have restated old things, but...well, hello :-D
 
  • #445
Nevertheless, along with the value created by R&D there is also waste and malfeasance and cronyism *in* R&D as in everything else. Since R&D has a cost those that pay for it have every right to trade those costs off against other priorities as they see fit.
 
  • #446
Spinalcold said:
The problem I find with this debate is that there don't seem to be number that can accurately sum all the costs of each individual energy industry so that we can compare them.

The price per kilowatt-hour is known. Nuclear is just a bit more expensive than wind, while combined cycle gas is the cheapest and solar is hugely expensive (3x the others), probably reflecting a tech still in its infancy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#US_Department_of_Energy_estimates
 
  • #447
zapperzero said:
The price per kilowatt-hour is known...
... or estimated in some cases. There's one and only one data point appearing for *new* US advanced nuclear as EIA describes it - the AP1000 reactors at Vogtle, coming online for ~$14 billion per 2.2 GW, and that price is not yet final.
 
  • #448
mheslep said:
... or estimated in some cases. There's one and only one data point appearing for *new* US advanced nuclear as EIA describes it - the AP1000 reactors at Vogtle, coming online for ~$14 billion per 2.2 GW, and that price is not yet final.

I was being charitable.
 
  • #450
zapperzero said:
The price per kilowatt-hour is known. Nuclear is just a bit more expensive than wind, while combined cycle gas is the cheapest and solar is hugely expensive (3x the others), probably reflecting a tech still in its infancy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#US_Department_of_Energy_estimates

You will notice they use a capacity factor of 34 for wind. Actual capacity factors are much lower - more on the order of 25.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor

That correction puts wind at 132.0, not 97.0; right up where we expect it, in the most expensive ways to generate electricity.
 
  • #451
wizwom said:
Actual capacity factors are much lower - more on the order of 25.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor.

The source you cite does not really support your assertion. Perhaps you can find another one.
 
  • #452
zapperzero said:
I was being charitable.
Regarding "Nuclear is just a bit more expensive than wind"? My point was that nuclear might be considerably more expensive than wind for the moment.
 
  • #453
mheslep said:
Regarding "Nuclear is just a bit more expensive than wind"? My point was that nuclear might be considerably more expensive than wind for the moment.

Yes, this is my impression as well. I do not see a rush of investors into nuclear. Perhaps it is perceived as high-risk, post-Fukushima? What usually happens with high-risk ventures is the cost of financing increases.

I am baffled by the evolution of the price of uranium, though, long-term (or what constitutes long term for markets, in any case - the past 15 years). Seems there was a bubble in '05-'07, then a slow meltdown (pun intended).
 
  • #454
Wind is much smaller scale; you can reasonable do one 10 KW rated wind turbine and expect they same payback and profitability as a farm of 100 MW.
Nuclear, because you need licensing and staffing, is decidedly NOT entirely scalable.
Since these costs are fairly constant, there is no reason to go small.

But total lifecycle cost for nuclear is around 6 cents a KWh; for wind it is more like 17.
 
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  • #455
wizwom said:
But total lifecycle cost for nuclear is around 6 cents a KWh; for wind it is more like 17.

Maybe you can source this statement?
 

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