Nuclear Power is too expensive

[QuantumPion]

Nuclear power is too expensive in the sense that it is an enormous capital expenditure for a private corporation. One that involves a substantial amount of monetary risk for shareholders. The current climate now is that it is a far safer investment to build cheap natural gas plants then put all your eggs in one basket with new nuclear plants.

Once the plant is built and online, it is very competitive operating cost and is generally a cash-cow for the company. My idea was that the government should have used that trillion dollar stimulus to build a couple hundred new nuclear plants around the country. Once they are built and operational, sell them back to the private companies to operate at a profit.

 

[rcpratt]

Nuclear power is too expensive in the sense that it is an enormous capital expenditure for a private corporation. One that involves a substantial amount of monetary risk for shareholders. The current climate now is that it is a far safer investment to build cheap natural gas plants then put all your eggs in one basket with new nuclear plants.

Once the plant is built and online, it is very competitive operating cost and is generally a cash-cow for the company. My idea was that the government should have used that trillion dollar stimulus to build a couple hundred new nuclear plants around the country. Once they are built and operational, sell them back to the private companies to operate at a profit.

Dear god, the government is incompetent enough at licensing the plants, I can't imagine them trying to actually build one.

 

[William Gaatjes]

A TED talk by Bill Gates on a new kind of nuclear reactor. It reduces the amount of radioactive waste to by 99%.

I am so proud to carry the same name : William (means protection according to some...).


Terra power : The traveling wave reactor.

http://www.terrapower.com/home.aspx

 

[QuantumPion]

Dear god, the government is incompetent enough at licensing the plants, I can't imagine them trying to actually build one.

You don't have to, they've done it before.

 

[piasabird]

The dams in the midwest were built by the government. Well, more or less. Nuclear power might make more sense in areas that are not in a flood plain or an earthquake zone. After the problems we have seen in Japan, it makes you question the safety of any nuclear power plant. We have a lot of older nuclear power plants in the USA that probably need to be reengineered, to be safe.

 

[Darwin333]

Who has a working thorium reactor?

We did back in the 60s.

 

[BoberFett]

The dams in the midwest were built by the government. Well, more or less. Nuclear power might make more sense in areas that are not in a flood plain or an earthquake zone. After the problems we have seen in Japan, it makes you question the safety of any nuclear power plant. We have a lot of older nuclear power plants in the USA that probably need to be reengineered, to be safe.

Of course dams built by the government are perfectly safe.

 

[Darwin333]

Nuclear power is too expensive in the sense that it is an enormous capital expenditure for a private corporation. One that involves a substantial amount of monetary risk for shareholders. The current climate now is that it is a far safer investment to build cheap natural gas plants then put all your eggs in one basket with new nuclear plants.

Once the plant is built and online, it is very competitive operating cost and is generally a cash-cow for the company. My idea was that the government should have used that trillion dollar stimulus to build a couple hundred new nuclear plants around the country. Once they are built and operational, sell them back to the private companies to operate at a profit.

While I can understand why you would want that, I think the entirety of the stimulus package should have been spent on a new "smart" grid to replace our existing and crumbling 40 year old grid. It would allow things like distributed energy production to actually matter, reduce line loss (think leaky water hose), as well as reducing consumption while not impacting lifestyle. The project is simply to expensive and massive for the private sector to realistically take on except in very small chunks.

As far as nuclear plants, give the private sector low cost loans/grants and permits and they will build them.

 

[Darwin333]

Of course dams built by the government are perfectly safe.

That is akin to using Chernobyl as a benchmark for nuclear safety.

We need to have a reasonable and rational conversation, stuff like that from either side does nothing to help.

 

[QuantumPion]

While I can understand why you would want that, I think the entirety of the stimulus package should have been spent on a new "smart" grid to replace our existing and crumbling 40 year old grid. It would allow things like distributed energy production to actually matter, reduce line loss (think leaky water hose), as well as reducing consumption while not impacting lifestyle. The project is simply to expensive and massive for the private sector to realistically take on except in very small chunks.

As far as nuclear plants, give the private sector low cost loans/grants and permits and they will build them.

The current grid is not crumbling. The reason for any of its local shortcomings is due to a) ratepayers not willing to pay higher rates to pay for infrastructure and b) environmentalist litigation. Stimulus spending on grid infrastructure would help with a) but it's not a trillion dollar project.

They could have spent the stimulus on solar panels for residential housing. I'm not really in favor of that but it would still be better than throwing the money down a hole.

 

[Darwin333]

The current grid is not crumbling. The reason for any of its local shortcomings is due to a) ratepayers not willing to pay higher rates to pay for infrastructure and b) environmentalist litigation. Stimulus spending on grid infrastructure would help with a) but it's not a trillion dollar project.

They could have spent the stimulus on solar panels for residential housing. I'm not really in favor of that but it would still be better than throwing the money down a hole.

What was it that took out most of the Northeasts power grid again? When was our grid built again? Has technology improved since then? How exactly does the power company take generation offline with all of the new solar panels producing power again? What kind of line losses do we currently have?

I own a solar business, a new grid would be much more beneficial to our country than the .gov paying to put solar on every roof. With a new grid that solar actually works to solve our problem, without a new grid it simply helps the end consumer.

 

[Howard]

Dear god, the government is incompetent enough at licensing the plants, I can't imagine them trying to actually build one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor

 

[Modelworks]

It might be costly to build but I doubt many understand how much power a nuclear plant produces. Most think you can just build a gas plant in place of one and get the same amount of power but consider this.

The company's five reactors at four sites generated more than 35.1 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2008, surpassing the previous record of 35 billion kilowatt-hours set in 2003. The total generation from the company's nuclear plants in 2008 is equal to the annual usage of nearly 2.5 million households. Last year, Progress Energy's nuclear plants generated 46 percent of the energy provided to customers in the Carolinas service territory and 18 percent of the energy provided to customers in Florida.

2.5 million households provided power from just a handful of plants. Imagine how many gas and coal plants could be closed with more reactors and how much cleaner the air would be.

SOUTHPORT, N.C., March 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Operators at CP&L's Brunswick Nuclear Plant shut down and disconnected one of the facility's two units from the electric grid Friday, March 1 at 10:14 p.m. to begin a scheduled refueling and maintenance outage.
Taking Brunswick Unit 1 out of service officially ended the plant's world record for the continuous operation of a light-water nuclear reactor. The unit operated safely and reliably for 707 days, 5 hours, and 39 minutes since the completion of its last refueling outage March 24, 2000.
"The performance of Unit 1 demonstrates that it is possible to continuously operate a light-water reactor throughout a two-year fuel cycle," said Jack Keenan, vice president of the Brunswick Nuclear Plant.

707 days of continuous power output. That shows that if the companies doing the job do it right nuclear is safe.

 

[Zorkorist]

What was it that took out most of the Northeasts power grid again? When was our grid built again? Has technology improved since then? How exactly does the power company take generation offline with all of the new solar panels producing power again? What kind of line losses do we currently have?

I own a solar business, a new grid would be much more beneficial to our country than the .gov paying to put solar on every roof. With a new grid that solar actually works to solve our problem, without a new grid it simply helps the end consumer.

Asking us, the people, to redesign a power grid so that you solar folks can save money, is beaurocratic at the minimum.

Solar is a piss ant of a technology, and while it can provide power without the grid, so can a battery, or a generator, etc.

Real progress in power, is almost DEFINED by Nuclear Power, the clean, safe, and powerful energy.

-John

 

[Zorkorist]

And I'll say again, the only reason it is costly to build, is Government Regulation = People's fears, and both have been found unfounded, by the latest tragedy in Japan.

-John

 

[DisgruntledVirus]

Asking us, the people, to redesign a power grid so that you solar folks can save money, is beaurocratic at the minimum.

Solar is a piss ant of a technology, and while it can provide power without the grid, so can a battery, or a generator, etc.

Real progress in power, is almost DEFINED by Nuclear Power, the clean, safe, and powerful energy.

-John

All energy sources (Nuclear, renewables, coal, LNG, etc) would benefit from an investment/upgrade to the grid.

 

[QuantumPion]

What was it that took out most of the Northeasts power grid again?

A combination of sysop errors, computer errors, and trees falling on power lines.

When was our grid built again? Has technology improved since then?

The electrical distribution grid is not a single structure that was all built at the same time. Lines are built, expanded, and upgraded as needed.

How exactly does the power company take generation offline with all of the new solar panels producing power again? What kind of line losses do we currently have?

The same way they balance the grid now - load following. However the extremely low reliability and capacity factor of renewables makes load following more difficult. There is no way to upgrade the grid to alleviate this problem short of installing backup generators or batteries for every single home. This is the nature and main weakness of renewable energy.

I own a solar business, a new grid would be much more beneficial to our country than the .gov paying to put solar on every roof. With a new grid that solar actually works to solve our problem, without a new grid it simply helps the end consumer.

No. This is the same fallacy regarding the "cash for clunkers" program. Giving everyone solar panels on their roofs would at least be producing new generating capacity. Throwing money at unneeded infrastructure improvements is a waste.