Comments on: A question on the cost of nuclear power

By: Kragen Sitaker

Kragen Sitaker — Thu, 10 Jun 2004 19:42:46 +0000

At a 3% discount rate, which is not optimistic, the present value of an endless stream of yearly payments is 33 and one third times the yearly payment. But if that logic worked for ten thousand years, we’d all be servants of Phoenician investment bankers. (Thanks to Dave Long for that observation.)

By: Michael Mouse

Michael Mouse — Wed, 09 Jun 2004 17:24:12 +0000

The costs post-decommissioning are a major kicker (as well as the insurance as mentioned already). Sure, it’s not a vast quantity of money, but even at an optimistic discount rate the present value of a stream of payments that lasts 10,000 years is … large.

By: Don

Don — Tue, 08 Jun 2004 06:26:21 +0000

One gauge of the safety of any technology is the willingness of private insurers to cover the liability of the technology. The US nuclear industry externalizes their liability by having a federal subsidy(welfare?) via a cap on liablity for nuclear accidents. This is the only way that they can operate in the US. A viable business model would welcome and include the costs of doing business including paying for their own insurance rather than externalizing it to each taxpayer. A longtime friend actually builds nuclear reactors around the world as a boilermaker by trade. He recounted finding plans for the cooling system on a CANDU reactor in Argentina that were backwards. The engineers kept telling him that he was mistaken. He refused to follow the plans until the head engineer returned to the site from Canada. The head man agreed with my friend that the plans if followed would have drained the reactor of coolant causing a meltdown. So much for failsafe ddesign and implementation. People remain the problem and weak link in this questionable chain.

By: Don

Don — Tue, 08 Jun 2004 06:24:44 +0000

By: Don

Don — Tue, 08 Jun 2004 06:24:25 +0000

By: Robert Lyman

Robert Lyman — Tue, 08 Jun 2004 03:36:50 +0000

TPS12: I didn’t say “need,” I said “want,” along with some explanations of why I want an SUV (Right now I have only an Escort). In principle, I don’t need anything other than bread, protein shakes, multivitamins, water, and air. But I’ll kick like hell if you try to limit me to that. Liberty has some value, you know.

By: Alex Fradera

Alex Fradera — Mon, 07 Jun 2004 19:12:02 +0000

Forget the physicists and go talk to some oceanographers. The methyl hydrates on the ocean bed could provide us with limitless fuel, and the question is not whether but when. I met Richard Corfield a couple of weeks ago and he seems pretty confident that we're talking about safe non-compromised fuel within thirty years.

By: tps12

tps12 — Mon, 07 Jun 2004 17:03:26 +0000

Robert, unless hauling Ikea boxes around is something you do on a daily basis, your claims of “need” sound pretty fishy to me. Sure, it’s more convenient when you actually do need to move big boxes or tow something, but it’s an obvious fact that the vast majority of SUVs in the US are being used for single occupant transportation, a job Ford Escorts do just as well, and at the same time with less pollution and more safely.

By: Greg Hunter

Greg Hunter — Mon, 07 Jun 2004 15:44:27 +0000

It is funny reading. John asks a question and the responses imply there is obviously no legitimate source for the truth about Nuclear. I find the whole discussion fascinating, because it seems that any process that produces power for consumption is never dealt with in any honest manner. It is no government’s interest to admit that the production of power is a nasty business, no matter the source. “There is no free lunch” The interesting question that is being posed to the world, is what happens when the cheap stuff (easy to mine coal, uranium, oil) is gone? The Henry Farrell boys believe the transendency of man and that it will all work out. “A chicken in every pot and an SUV in every driveway”. The ideas they profess lead to an increase in energy costs and a resulting loss in biodiversity. It appears this is not a problem, because these are “plants and animals” and do not warrant the same consideration as a SUV driving human. The argument to fall back on is the Volcanoes produced more pollution than man, while this is true; man was not around to the see the biological changes enacted by the Earth’s filter (plants, aquatic and terrestrial) to deal with the increase in pollution. Man in his wisdom, is creating the pollution and hacking down the filters. There is evidence that plant growth is accelerating in the jungle due to CO2 increases, but the plants are less efficient in CO2 uptake. “There is no free lunch” Since my premise implies that the truth cannot be determined, then one must rely on empirical data. The data suggest that energy costs will increase, and as they do, the investment that has been made to shift to large centers of production in far flung places will cause great conflict as the energy costs to move the product eat up the profits that would be made if they were locally produced. The investment in education, transportation and world stability to deal with the new frontier has not been discussed or initiated. Therefore, there is only one conclusion that can be drawn from this impending energy crunch. WAR for resources or voluntary population reduction. Population reduction can be accomplished by collusion between the great powers. Lets play the future – Assume no war Africa – AIDS will devastate with no issues. China – AIDS again could wipe out the Agricultural Class, while high tech farming replaces labor. India – Same as China. Pakistan – Same as China Middle East – The great powers will arrange to divide the cheap energy amongst themselves, while wiping out the Muslims. Is it to late to pick a different path? Maybe the Luddites were on too something?

By: marky

marky — Mon, 07 Jun 2004 08:38:07 +0000

My information is not expert, and quite out of date, but this is a blog… :) My father was an expert in corrosion science, and had at least one contact who was an expert in the nuclear industry ( in the 70s). I remember this man telling me that the problems of finding the proper plating (cladding?) for materials inside the reactor that would last a reasonable lenghth of time was not solved.

By: dsquared

dsquared — Mon, 07 Jun 2004 07:05:51 +0000

I was lucky enough to have many conversations with rather good physicists and engineers on this subject while I was growing up (the physicists and engineers were supplied by the fact that I grew up in the shadow of two of the UK largest nuclear power plants; the material for conversation was supplied by Sellafield across the way and the drifting clouds from Chernobyl which gave our lamb such a je-ne-sais-quoi quality called “unmarketability”). I more or less share Phill’s assessment above, but would add in the specific context of the UK that there is no way on earth that Wylfa or Trawsfynydd ever came anywhere near to washing their faces comercially, even with the Dinorwic pump storage station near them to smooth out demand.

By: Phill

Phill — Mon, 07 Jun 2004 05:48:52 +0000

Having a degree from a Nuclear Physics lab I guess my opinion is likely to be considered suspect. But anyway. First off, if Nuclear is to get anywhere they have to start off by appologising for a fifty year history of lies and deception. Without exception nuclear programs have been considerably more expensive and less safe than non-nuclear alternatives. You will not find reliable figures on the French nuclear program for the same reason that reliable figures only became available on the British program during privatization. Governments lie when core ideological commitments turn out to be duds. The big problem has been that the ‘fail safe’ nuclear power plants are not. Light water power station designs are all derrived from the Fermi graphite pile design which was originally built to make plutonium. Despite repeated claims to the contrary all the original UK power stations were built with the primary purpose of making plutonium for bombs. The problem was that the later designs were all based on the earlier bomb making designs which are definitely not failsafe. I support research into true failsafe designs, but not because I think it is time to give the nuclear industry a second chance. I think we should research these designs because we need an alternative to the existing nuclear industry that is not as complacent and deceptive. If we are not careful we will end up being suckered into allowing a new generation of Chernobyl/Three Mile island designs to be built. Don’t believe the claims that Three Mile Island was not a major accident, or that Chernobyl could not have happened in the West. Both claims are utter lies told for the same reason Bush told fantasy tales about WMD and Iraqi links to Al Qaeda. The Chernobyl meltdown was due to a design defect of a type that could not be predicted using computer simulation at the time it was built. The computation power required were beyond western computers as well as Soviet ones. Three Mile Island really did come very close to killing tens of thousands. Placing a nuclear plant in such a place was pure negligence. It is probably quite possible to run a nuclear plant safely. The problem is not technical, it is political. Unfortunately we have a crystal clear demonstration in Iraq that the political process in the US and the UK cannot be trusted. Recent news in the US Enron story shows us that there is a severe problem with energy regulation. In this situation it is not unreasonable for people to object to new nuclear power stations. They are neither stupid nor ill-informed to do so. If the US nuclear lobby wants to get anywhere they need to abandon the GOP tactics of agenda denial, smearing their critics with false charges of irrational superstition. There may be a case for new nuclear stations but only after the nuclear industry starts to confess its past misdeeds.

By: John Quiggin

John Quiggin — Mon, 07 Jun 2004 04:48:13 +0000

David, one big concern for me was the idea of the “plutonium economy” based on fast breeder reactors. This seems to be pretty much dead, which is a good thing, but probably implies a resource limit to the extent to which we can rely on nuclear power, even if we are convinced that that this is a good way to go (as noted in the post, I’m open-minded, but not convinced).

By: David Sucher

David Sucher — Mon, 07 Jun 2004 02:58:03 +0000

Ok, you nuke-lovers. Please offer a plausible explanation as to why there is a perceived problem with nuclear power…something which has some hook to it. (An explanation such as “Environmentalists are just plain stupid” is not acceptable.)

By: anon

anon — Mon, 07 Jun 2004 02:01:27 +0000

Brett, hormesis is far from proven. It’s considered a fringe (not crazy, but fringe) opinion among serious researchers.