Furthermore, although the thick steel vessel containing the nuclear reactor is encased in a shell of 1.2-meter-thick concrete, that shell is itself surrounded by a building that is open to the sky. Should the concrete containment vessel begin to heat up during a meltdown, natural convection would pull cooling air inside.
The NRC initially rejected that open-air building for a lack of structural strength. The U.S. regulator argued that it would not withstand a severe shock such as an earthquake or airplane impact because it was initially planned to be built from prefabricated concrete and steel modules to save money.
The NRC approved a modified design (pdf) in December that employs more steel reinforcement, among other changes. Nevertheless, NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko voted against approving the license for the two reactors at Vogtle today unless they incorporated a "binding obligation that these plants will have implemented the lessons learned from the Fukushima accident before they operate." The commission also required more inspection and testing of the explosive-opened valves that would allow venting in case of an accident.
Already, the Shaw Group facility in Lake Charles, La., a nuclear equipment supplier, has begun churning out gear for the new nuclear power plants. A "mini skyscraper," in the words of Westinghouse CEO Aris Candris, has been built at Vogtle to allow for final assembly of the modules that will reach the site by truck or rail. "Both sites are as ready as you can be," he adds. "Rebar is sitting outside the hole ready to go."
A global revival of interest in nuclear power technology remains underway, despite the April 2011 meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi in Japan. China is already building four AP1000s and more than 20 other reactors currently—and many other countries are considering new plant construction, from the Czech Republic to India.
But in the U.S., even just to maintain the current fleet of 104 reactors, which provide 20 percent of the nation's electricity supply, would require building as many replacement reactors by 2030. In fact, nuclear power production may shrink in the U.S. before it grows. Aging reactors, even with life extensions of another two decades, will begin to drop off the grid in coming years. "Twenty years is the blink of an eye for 100 gigawatts. The time is now to begin to deploy new nuclear," says David Christian, CEO of Virginia-based utility Dominion Generation, although his company has no plans to do so before the end of the decade. "We're in danger of missing that window."
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Add CommentIt will be interesting to see if this is a trend or anomaly.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFYI: Those who would like to get a general sense of what nuclear workers are up to day-to-day and during an emergency would find my free novel "Rad Decision" very useful. I've worked in the US nuclear industry for many years, and portray both good and bad. Just google the title or see my website. No sponsors, no advertising. Reviews at the home page or Amazon have been generally postive. The reactor portrayed is similar in design to Fukushima, and the climactic event is as well. (While this design is not that of the newer reactor described above, most of the basics are the same. A car is still a car.)
Yup a model T is a car and so is a toyota prius. More in common in those two than a ancient 50's design BWR and a state of the art PWR.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am an Electrician who has been working Nukes for the past few months... Currently I am in Florida and I have heard alot about these stations...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe real reason that these new units are being built is their location.. They are ALL in poor sections of the country and their labor is cheaper than anywhere else... usually $6-$12 an hr cheaper than most other plants that we work at. I mean there was NO mention in this article that Calvert Cliffs in the Wash DC area was THE FIRST plant that was granted approval for a new reactor. However Constellation who at the time a few years ago, owns part of Plant Vogel and decided to put the money down in Georgia... (the difference in Labor cost just for Electricans is DC=$41 an hr and Vogel is $24 an hr...not including benefits)
The idea the article mentions of storing water above the unit to instantly cool the reactor is interesting. I have been told that this is FROZEN water... Huge Blocks the size of your bedroom.. My thoughts is what happens if the refrigation system fails and the Ice melts when it is not wanted... And who knows if that Ice will be enough to stop an actual meltdown.. The Engineering in these places goes way overboard for any other type of industrial plant...
I read about 15 years ago of an new type of reactor that was designed at some college... It was completely different. It didnt require conventional coooling. It was sort of a lottery ball machine. The Uranium was not stored in rods. it was stored in Many small balls, like the core of a tennis ball. The outer casing was made of carbon which dispersed the heat more efficently... Has anyone ever heard of this design? and what has become of it?
James
Over 8 billion in loan guarantess! Ha...the odds of these being built on budget and on schedule...ZILCH. the odds of a couple of them NEVER generating electricity....GOOD.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFrozen water above the reactors, sounds too simple minded to work!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhere's the proof that this would even be enough to cool the reactor. Fukushima pumped water from the sea for weeks, to cool it enough.
Who pays for the storage and where is it located?
Why isn't this information included in the article?
Another poorly written article.
w
Hope it never works and a disaster is avoided.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOur national debt is about 3,000 dollars per person.
Do the math for your self.
That's a real a big deal.
Really, the 4 units under constuction now are 75% complete on time and on schedule. All Candu's built since 2007 have been on time an on shedule built in 4 years or less. In any case the loan guarantee is just the industries own money held in DOE funds being lent back to it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnother infomercial from Big Oil's stenographer Biello dutifully reproducing copy here at Sciam.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBig Oil has Obama in fact all our politicians all bought and paid for, and Big Media paid to extol the virtues of cheap domestic gas now at $3 mcf. What is never mentioned, is that that gas is only a $2 mcf LNG ride to a $15 mcf world market. Despite investment paybacks under 18 months and rates of return on LNG investment approaching 75% per annum, Big Oil here is openly dumping gas to shut out nuclear. Big Oil is using Australia which has banned nuclear power to supply world markets with massive $100B LNG investments.
Do we throw those utility executives and regulators in a prison when that gas plant justified by $3 gas quadruples rates when it starts paying the current $15 international tariff?
Here's a reality check for Biello
SCANA tell's its new nuclear cost is 7.6 cents a kwh. Because of its high borrowing costs that is almost double what efficient public power producer TVA would pay for the same high capital cost install.
"Why Nuclear?” If you look at the chart at the top right of the slide below, SCANA provided their all-in cost estimates for nuclear ($76/MWh), natural gas ($81/MWh), coal ($117/MWh), offshore wind
($292/MWh) and solar ($437/MWh). For them, “new nuclear continues to be the low cost alternativ"
http://www.scana.com/NR/rdonlyres/94A681F0-6304-46A9-932E-8F7224FC052E/0/SCANA2011AnalystDayPresentation.pdf
Here's Stephen Byrne, executive vice president of South Carolina Electricity and Gas, explaining why a utility executive would opt to build a new nuclear power plant.
“We choose nuclear over other energy alternatives for four main reasons. First, the need for baseload power. The new units will help meet state regulatory reserve margin requirements. Second, cost. Nuclear is competitive with other baseload options when evaluated over its 40-year design life. Third is fuel diversity, adding units 2 and 3 [at V.C. Summer] will increase the share of nuclear in our fuel portfolio from approximately 11 percent to approximately 30 percent…Fourth is its low greenhouse gas emissions.”
There is no reason for nuclear plant to take so long to build and the Repugs have promised to kick Obama's ass until it happens. When these same units are built all around the world in 4 years or less there is no reason for them to take longer here. What possible excuse can there be to delay the construction of an already approved plant on and existing nuke site or to replace an old coal plant.
Hmm lets get this right the a couple of reactors designed in 1980's and certified in 1992 are going to be built and thats the best they can do.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhile the older reactor from 1970 will finish completion.
40 year old reactors a long with the newest with is almost 20 years old !!!
20 years old, man nuclear technology sucks if the best they can do is 20 year old technology.
I did note it takes 15 years to certify designs, though you can guarantee thats probably wrong.
I'm for nuclear energy and I hope more plants will be built. But I doubt the so-called passive safety features of this plant. It will not work in case of meltdown. Cooling the core requires an enormous amount of water. Since water will flow by gravity, you need a man-made lake at a higher elevation than the plant as source of water.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe natural convection cooling will not work. In a meltdown, there's so much heat to melt steel. To dissipate the heat to the atmosphere, you need to force air to the containment vessel to accelerate heat transfer. You need power to do that. Natural air flow is too slow to provide effective air cooling. Just look at the old Volkswagen Beetle. It uses a fan to cool its small engine. A big nuclear reactor needs a big fan.
Finally, the plant should be able to withstand an earthquake and an aircraft impact. This will increase construction cost but that's the price of safety.
Bop: "Our national debt is about 3,000 dollars per person.'
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBop, if you are an American ther per capita debt is currently about $48,000 (minus entitlements, etc.)
These 'billions and billions' in spending announced each day by Obama for various plans are BORROWED dollars
Nope. Actually the ancient CANDU's have a passive cooling system, you can pull the plug on all power to a CANDU and shutdown rods held by electromagnets will drop into the core, and natural convection currents will maintain temperature just by thermosyphoning. It's not rocket science you just have to get rid of a few megawatts of heat. Probably a thousand ways to do that.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe GE BWR's at Fukushima were planned by design engineers to have steam driven turbine cooling pumps, which would have functioned after total loss of power, if the core is hot, there will be steam, steam will run the pumps, but bean counters decided it would be an unnecessary added expense, and the idiotic Japanese regulator was to busy complaining about mickey-mouse, and stupid unimportant details that it ignored the more important problems. Typical of bloated bureaucracies. The NRC did the same at TMI. The Japanese Moronic Regulator actually was the CAUSE of the Hydrogen explosions at Fukushima by not allowing venting of mildly contaminated gas, instead insisted it be contained so it would blow up and ALL be released to the environment. And of course the mindless bureaucrats also ignored the need for hydrogen ignitors as are commonly used in US Nuke plants.
So what you need in a Regulator is a slim, efficient, no-nonsense team of really smart engineers who go to the core of potential problems and not a bunch of politically appointed nit-pickers who are basically incompetent at doing anything useful. And the last thing on Earth you want is to have a regulator with the top guy being a total incompetent with ZERO qualifications and 100% politically appointed. That's what happened in the hurricane Katrina fiasco with a horse lawyer appointed by Bush. And that's what has happened at Fukushima and that's what happened at Chernobyl. And the NRC is run by some guy who was almost a physicist and the only job he's ever had is as a political hack working for the rabidly anti-nuclear nutcase - Ed Markey and the champion of boondoggles none other than Harry Ried. You put politically appointed, zero-qualifications hacks in charge of regulators and understand why you have a stifling, expensive, ineffective regulator that focuses on mickey-mouse details while ignoring more important potential problems. The NRC is dysfunctional and needs to be shutdown, replaced by a new competent agency, that both encourages Nuclear Development and focuses on cost-effective, maximum efficient public health and safety. And a regulator that knows what comparative risk assessment is.
Pebble Bed reactors have been implemented in China, but not on a large scale as far as I know. I'm not sure how they compare to the AP1000 design.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"bwbd" Actually the ancient CANDU's have a passive cooling system, you can pull the plug on all power to a CANDU and shutdown rods held by electromagnets will drop into the core, and natural convection currents will maintain temperature just by thermosyphoning.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe real reason that CANDU are 'passive safe' is because they use natural uranium at 0.7% U235 and so have much lower energy DENSITY than the light water US style reactors. It is easier to cool since the accumulated fission products do not generate as much energy per unit of volume.
The AR1000's 'achiles heel' is that the tanks above the reactor are of limited volume. They are a stopgap measure of a few days duration. Fukishima didn't restore power for weeks..
Did the CANDU ever prevented a meltdown without power in a real accident? I agree the safety features will operate. But will it be effective?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA 1,000 MW plant will have a decay heat of 60 MW. To get rid of that heat by water cooling, you need a flow rate of over 1,000 m^3 per hour. That's two-and-a-half olympic-size swimming pools every hour. You'll ran out of water. You need a recirculating cooling system with pumps.
Correction: That's an olympic-size swimming pool every two-and-a-half hours. Still a lot of water!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat about the multi-billion dollar refurbishments CANDU reactors require after 5 - 10 years of operation to function properly and economically? How come you don't mention the $5B heavy water plant required for a region to have CANDU reactors? Why do you fail to mention that EACH reactor needs $1.5B in heavy water before it can fire up?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOh, and you're delusional if you think the nuclear waste fund is the same as the loan guarantee program. Considering that we are farther away from a nuclear waste solution now than in the 1970s, what gives you the idea that this money should be used to make our waste problem WORSE?
Plus, the government picks up their liability insurance tab, meaning a Fukushima-style disaster will take money DIRECTLY out of your pocket through higher taxes or increased borrowing. Finally, how many billion$ per year does liability insurance for large industrial facilities like nuclear reactors cost? I don't know exactly, but it has to be similar to oil refineries and their liability insurance bill is fairly high. I bet seth doesn't include these subsidies in his nuclear fantasies.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere's Bill Johnson, CEO of Progress Energy:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Nuclear can't compete today."
So we need a price on carbon for nuclear plants to get built. Since the Repuglicans killed Cap-and-Trade in the Senate a few years ago, why are you counting on them to "kick Obama's ass" until plants get built? They are the ones that destroyed the best chance for a nuclear revival in the country for probably 10 - 20 years.
Oh well, renewable energy is getting so cheap so fast that most of the new demand and a good deal of the carbon reductions necessary can be achieved before a nuclear plant can even get its operating license.
I see the strength of the new energy business ( LENR, Low Energy Nuclear Reaction) growing to the point where they are no longer afraid to call it what it is, cold fusion, and go up against the likes of MIT and NASA with real practical working devices. Maybe theory will follow but let's not wait. The (E)cat is out of the bag. It is time to get this out into the mainstream.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBy the time that nuclear plant is producing power, if it ever does, the price will be closer to $50 billion of the tax payers money. The $14 billion is what it is going to cost to provide the fossil fuel for it each year and people’s electric bills are going to skyrocket. It will need at least $2 billion a year in federal incentives just to keep its doors open like the oil, coal, and natural gas is already getting.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy would that plant produce 25,000 jobs world wide? Why isn’t that plant producing those 25,000 jobs for America; don’t we need jobs?
Nuclear is a very bad idea that always produce very bad results.
"In fact, the only reason utilities in Georgia and South Carolina are building the new reactors is because the governments in those states have allowed them to pre-charge customers for their cost. Southern Co. is already charging customers $3.73 per month for the reactors' construction, expected to cost roughly $14 billion, and may receive a more than $8-billion loan guarantee from the federal government."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo let me get this straight...Charging customers for plants that aren't even operational, and might NEVER become operational given the nuclear industry's dismal track record of ACTUALLY FINISHING these plants, is fine with these state governments, but getting a feed-in tariff for renewable energy is off the table? Seriously, at least a feed-in tariff is going towards electricity that is ACTUALLY GENERATED instead of getting sucked into a massive project that could end up failing, taking all those wasted dollars with it.
A slight misunderstanding in the article. The passive safety measures are not to kick in ‘in the case of a meltdown’ like at Fukushima. They kick in in case of residual heat cooling systems loss. That is what happened at Fukushima and is why the core suffered from some melting. The water in the tank on top of the AP1000 will be able to gravity feed the entire cooling necessary for the weeks needed to get to a cold shutdown state. It kicks in before meltdown and stops it from happening.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe E-Cat is a total SUCKER TRAP. Probably another Big Oil financed Bait-and-switch SCAM to misdirect energy, effort and capital from REAL alternatives to fossil fuels. Although there seems to be some evidence that there may be some small LENR in some materials, but were talking milliwatts here not the megawatts Rossi claims.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisE-Cat TOTALLY debunked here:
http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2011/12/the_nuclear_physics_of_why_we.php
I would love it if it was for real, but it ain't, so forget it.
"...A 1,000 MW plant will have a decay heat of 60 MW. To get rid of that heat by water cooling, you need a flow rate of over 1,000 m^3 per hour. ... You'll ran out of water. You need a recirculating cooling system with pumps..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI get decay heat is 0.4% after 24 hrs = 0.4%X3600MW = 14.4 MW. After one week 0.2% = 7.2 MW. Evaporative cooling with an Olympic sized swimming pool of water would be about 40 days or more.
You could thermosyphon or use steam turbine powered pumps or gravity feed if there is an elevated water supply, i.e. river nearby. Diesel generators are OK, just make sure you install them well above high water contrary to what was done in Fukushima. And plan seems to be to have an emergency cooling/containment system that can be airdropped anywhere in the world, with a trained crew to operate it. Similar idea being developed to contain Oil Well blowouts, like the Deepwater Horizon blowout.
Sorry, I'm using a 100M X 50M X 3M deep pool of water that would be about 5 or 6 Olympic sized swimming pools for over a month of evaporative cooling.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"I read about 15 years ago of an new type of reactor that was designed at some college... It was completely different. It didnt require conventional coooling. It was sort of a lottery ball machine. The Uranium was not stored in rods. it was stored in Many small balls, like the core of a tennis ball. The outer casing was made of carbon which dispersed the heat more efficently... Has anyone ever heard of this design? and what has become of it?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou're thinking of a pebble bed reactor. They were the next big thing in reactor design a while back, but recent simulations have shown that they may have serious safety problems including higher heat production than expected and dust generation that can carry radioactive products well away from the intended locations within the reactors. There may also be some risks associated with fire if oxygen gets in (they would normally be run in an atmosphere purged of oxygen) and there are questions about cooling in a critical event.
I've been watching for the AP1000 design to start production. GE has intended it to be highly standardized so that any competent machine shop can produce parts for any location. This is intended to reduce costs by removing the customization so common in older reactor designs. It also is intended to shorten the construction process by allowing existing shops to contract to multiple sites without having to change tooling. I hope that the idea manages to hold.
@brynn217
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm sorry, but you are wrong about Calvert Cliffs Unit 3 and about the ice stored above the reactor. Please get your facts straight before you post.
The chosen reactor design for the Calvert Cliffs project is the Areva US EPR. This design has not been certified yet and so no Combined Operating License (permit) could have been issued. The design needs to be certified first under the new regulations 10CFR part 52.
As far as the ice stored above the reactor for the AP1000, sorry, but wrong again. The tank above the reactor is a large tank of water that gradually releases water into the reactor vessel. The release allows water to flow down with gravity, so no pumps are required. It takes 72 hours for the tank to empty, so after 72 hours, pumps will be required to refill the tank, but by this time, the reactor will be in cold shutdown and onsite emergency power will have been restored.
There are plant with ice containment systems, but the AP1000 is not one of them.
By the way, if the plants at Fukushima had been AP1000's, the reactors would have survived the earthquake and tsunami. Even if there was a loss of offsite power and the EDGs had been lost, the reactor does not require power to take the reactor to cold shutdown.
Finally. The risks of nuclear power are far less than oil or coal, for many reasons. Obviously not ideal as solar or wind/waves but better than what we have.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisKey thing in the article: the utility companies are being permitted to precharge their customers for this. Not a bad deal. I'm gonna fix y'alls computers and make 'em twicet as fast and thricet as energy efficient. Be done in 10-12 year. Now, meantime, y'all send me only 35 cent a month.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDo we have a place to store the waste? No. But lets use Texas and Alabama.
Will it be safe? No. But maybe we'll be lucky.
"Key thing in the article: the utility companies are being permitted to precharge their customers for this."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA solar power plant receives huge subsidies which are paid for by the consumer. The only difference is that for the solar plant, the subsidies per kWh are hugely higher. Although the consumers may be precharged, they will eventually get value for money. Operating nuclear power stations in the US are among the lowest cost sources of electricity.
The solar equivalent of 1000 MW nuclear power station is 4–5000 MW of solar farms +1000 MW of backup and then you still have the problem is that, on some days, it produces 4000 MW when only 1000 MW is needed and the system has to find some way of using absorbing the surplus. This too adds to the cost. As the German System has shown, it is not easy.
A recent report on Fukushima shows that no one has suffered directly from radiation. This is not surprising because the radiation levels have been below natural radiation levels in France and Iran. But the disaster has killed people: many have died heatstroke because the unnecessary shutdown of other nuclear stations restricted the amount of power available for air conditioning.
According to Prof Wade Allison at radiationandreason.com radiation levels of 200 times the regulated level do absolutely no harm and may, in fact, reduce the likelihood of getting cancer in later life. There is a lot of information supporting this view. If it was incorporated into the regulations, the problems of nuclear power and, in particular, the problems of long-term waste storage would be massively reduced.
45000 MW of solar farms is a typo. It was supposed to be 4000 to 5000 MW
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisworked on unit 1 & 2 in the early 70s also the first re fuel of unit 1 welder / steamfitter
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn my lifetime I hope to see domestic nuclear generators the size of small refrigerators that can power a single family home for decades, installed in the garage, sold at Home Depot, hardware stores and the Internet (like Amazon). This would solve the energy problem for homeowners once and for all, eliminating electric bills and making electric heating attractive (to eliminate the use of natural gas).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf Ecat and LENR is a sucker trap then NASA, MIT, SPAWAR (Navy research lab), DIA and dozens of big science labs world wide including CERN have all fallen in. Hard to believe. See: EnergyIndependence-Rob.blogspot.com for more on this.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou can order an Ecat now, ~$600 upon delivery, 10kW heat output the size of a dehumidifier or box of paper. At Ecat.com. Factory being built now to produce 1,000,000 units/yr. Next year at HD. Direct replacement for your average home heating boiler. $40 for fuel with 6 months running time. See: HTTP://EnergyIndependence-Rob.blogspot.com for more.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWOW I just heard someone say nuclear power is safer than other methods.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI guarantee youre not aware of the disposal of nuclear waste in "private" locations that are sold to these places to dump. They are then forgotton about, all mention erased from records. THIS DOES HAPPEN, I know its happened in Australia and if its happened there its happened other places.
Nows lets assume companies come along and frak the ground for gas. You can bet that not only do they release the gas they want, but get gases they dont want and leaks in containment facilities they never even new were nearby.
Mark my words nuclear contamination is coming soon to your doorstep.
Fraking is very very bad, makes the area unstable and earthquake prone, which I even said before fraking got out of control, no one listened then either.
"Operating nuclear power stations in the US are among the lowest cost sources of electricity."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSure, since their enormous costs are paid off with the ratepayers and taxpayers having already taking the multi-billion dollar hits. A mansion is cheap to live in once it's paid off, right???
Too bad NEW nuclear power is some of the MOST expensive generation sources:
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/04/06/207833/does-nuclear-power-have-a-negative-learning-curve/
"Before 2007, price estimates of $4000/kw for new U.S. nukes were common, but by October 2007 Moody’s Investors Service report, “New Nuclear Generation in the United States,” concluded, “Moody’s believes the all-in cost of a nuclear generating facility could come in at between $5,000 – $6,000/kw.” That same month, Florida Power and Light, “a leader in nuclear power generation,” presented its detailed cost estimate for new nukes to the Florida Public Service Commission. It concluded that two units totaling 2,200 megawatts would cost from $5,500 to $8,100 per kilowatt “” $12 billion to $18 billion total! In 2008, Progress Energy informed state regulators that the twin 1,100-megawatt plants it intended to build in Florida would cost $14 billion, which “triples estimates the utility offered little more than a year ago.” That would be more than $6,400 a kilowatt. (And that didn’t even count the 200-mile $3 billion transmission system utility needs, which would bring the price up to a staggering $7,700 a kilowatt)."
Ole Sault is at it again. With his laughable claim of a BS and MS in engineering, he continues to spew his many times debunked horsepucky on nuke power in his effort to retain his stupidest commenter on Sciam title.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisActually the taxpayers took no hits on the current fleet. Some investors did however with their losses caused 100% by the total control of the NRC by Carter appointed Greenpeace types in the seventies. Current NRC chairman and certified greenie nitwit is a great example of those types.
See how the NRC put the shaft to American nuclear without any real safety improvements here in a paper by well known respected nuclear power expert Bernard L. Cohen, DSc,Professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of Pittsburgh
http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter9.html
Typical of the moronic spew from Sault is his constant reposting of the nonsensical link from low info Climate and Nuclear Denier Joe Romm which details a nuclear analysis by a fella with a Sociology diploma. I suspect this is Sault's real discipline as well.
Here are SCANA's real numbers for a real nuke at VC Summer in North Carolina built by an extremely inefficient American private utility now under way in S Carolina at twice the cost of the exact same units in China.
"Why Nuclear?” If you look at the chart at the top right of the slide below, SCANA provided their all-in cost estimates for nuclear ($76/MWh), natural gas ($81/MWh), coal ($117/MWh), offshore wind
($292/MWh) and solar ($437/MWh). For them, “new nuclear continues to be the low cost alternativ"
http://www.scana.com/NR/rdonlyres/94A681F0-6304-46A9-932E-8F7224FC052E/0/SCANA2011AnalystDayPresentation.pdf
Because of the high cost of capital at SCANA, public powers TVA's LCOE is a little more than half on Nuclear
For nuclear costs at the mature end of the learning year we have costs of less than 3 cents a kwh after the first score of Candu's were built. Here is an example of units 26 and 27 of Candu technology.all on time in 4 years and on budget at $2B/Gw or less than 3 cents a kwh.- the cheapest reactor available anywhere outside China. The last one was completed in 2007 in Europe.
Google cnnc 168 candu
Transmission costs are irrelevant to nuke projects as the lines have to built regardless of the generation type chosen. They are relevant to solar/ wind as these sources require transmission facilities to be many times overbuild to allow for high peak/average ratios.
Note that the Candu refurb lifetime is 25 - 30 years and heavy water is not even measurable as a cost factor.
The "...NASA, MIT, SPAWAR (Navy research lab), DIA.." have all been debunked here:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://nextbigfuture.com/search/label/rossi
Read the comments. If you can REALLY defend the E-Cat they would just LOVE you to participate in the thrashing the E-Cat SCAM gets every-time an article is published. Please volunteer to be "cannon fodder".
Yup the PWR design first showed up in the sixties as did the color TV. Are you saying that today's color tv is anything more than distantly related to today's model? No?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThen why are you saying today's PWR designed over the last 6 years is more than distantly related to the ancient design.
"...ven count the 200-mile $3 billion transmission system utility needs..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat is a bogus number. Modern Power transmission costs run about $0.85 per kw-km, so 2200MW, 200 mile would be $600M, not $3B. That number would have to be a complete upgrade of Florida's Power Transmission system, most likely to accommodate intermittent sources Wind(mostly) & Solar. With Wind usually located in remote regions far from the large Load Centers and requiring Transmission lines sized to carry Peak Power, but only carrying on avg 25-35% of Peak Power, that effectively triples the cost of Wind Power transmission.
By Gosh Sault is a stupid one. No matter how many times he is corrected he spew's the same claptrap.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"What about the multi-billion dollar refurbishments CANDU reactors require after 5 - 10 years of operation to function properly and economically?"
Name one that was refurbished in less than 20 years - typically 25 to 30 years. Cost of refurb now that the technique is perfected its about $750M/Gw which is peanuts on a new reactor when finance costs are rolled in.
One heavy water plant built 50 years ago supplies all PHWR's in the world.
" Why do you fail to mention that EACH reactor needs $1.5B in heavy water before it can fire up? " Er because it doesn't. You just made that one up.
"..Oh, and you're delusional if you think the nuclear waste fund is the same as the loan guarantee program. Considering that we are farther away from a nuclear waste solution now than in the 1970s, what gives you the idea that this money should be used to make our waste problem WORSE? "
Actually the Blue Ribbon Commission tells us we have no waste disposal problem with the football field worth of today's waste. The Swede's and Finn's are very happy with their Yucca mountain stopped in the US by mindless politics. The nuke industry wants it's money back but in the meantime the DOE is lending it out to Georgia.
" Plus, the government picks up their liability insurance tab, meaning a Fukushima-style disaster will take money DIRECTLY out of your pocket through higher taxes or increased borrowing. "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReally the oil industries version of Price Anderson is limited to $75M a spill. Since a Fukushima disaster is less likely than an asteroid strike in the US, there is no taxpayer involvement.
Finally, how many billion$ per year does liability insurance for large industrial facilities like nuclear reactors cost?
The nuke industry self insures with a $15B fund for an accident less likely than a asteroid strike.
Once again no subsidies.
I think you just read the very first thing on that one website to confirm your preconceived 'knowledge' that LENR and Rossi are a hoax. Keep reading. Or just Google LENR and any one of the other organizations acronyms that I mentioned before.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"...totaling 2,200 megawatts ... $5,500 to $8,100 per kilowatt..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo even if you were right about your maximal cost for a First-of-A-kind Nuclear Plant in the USA, that would be $8.1k/kwpk or $9k per kwavg at a CF of 90%. Compare with latest Wind, the cheapest onshore(offshore is 50-100% more expensive) @ $2.16k per kwpk, according to the NREL. At USA avg 30% CF, that's $7.1k per kwavg.
Now that doesn't include the cost of the UNAVOIDABLE 100% backup Fossil Fuel Power plants. It also doesn't include the triple or more oversized long distance transmission costs of the wind, or the grid stabilization costs (i.e. flywheels or fast response batteries), or the cycling inefficiencies, reduced operating efficiency and reduced life costs on the shadowing power plants, or the INEVITABLE overbuild/overproduction effects of any significant Wind Grid Penetration, or other hidden subsidies, like substantial manufacturer subsidies, free decommissioning subsidy, free land use subsidy. Just the shadowing/backup NG power plant/NG-infrastucture is >$3k per kw, so rock bottom minimum $10k per kwavg for Wind.
Regarding the overproduction/overbuild effect even if you have 10% grid penetration of Wind, commonly Wind is high in Spring/Fall/night/wknd when utility demand is lowest. So wind can easily max at 40% of avg grid output when grid demand falls to 40% or less. Add Solar to that and it gets even worse. So now you must shutdown all your fossil fuel power plants, spill ALL your Hydro, dump your Nuclear and you still may have excess power in any region, which will have to be thrown away. That all adds substantially to the REAL cost of Wind Energy and to a lesser extent Solar Energy. And that is even at a mickey mouse 10% Wind Energy penetration - it gets much worse at a serious level of grid penetration - a real winner that is.
And the Wind Turbines might hopefully last 20 yrs, whereas the GenIII Nuclear plants are being designed for 60-80yrs operation, likely will last for 100 yrs.
Now your maximal cost for new FOAK GenIII NPPs is with ZERO supply chain built, ZERO learning curve cost reductions, NO factory construction, NO assembly line production, NO newer & better tech like the dirt cheap DMSR (denatured-molten-salt-reactor), by David Leblanc.
And the Nuclear CAN ACTUALLY TOTALLY replace all Electricity Generated emissions and more including building & process heat, desalination and synthetic fuels, vs the Wind can only at best (and that is VERY optimistic), replace 20-30% of Electricity Generated emissions. Some solution that is.
" Here's Bill Johnson, CEO of Progress Energy:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Nuclear can't compete today." "
You note the Progress Energy is owned by Big Oil. They love selling gas to idiots. Oddly SCANA TVA and hundreds of utilities world wide building nukes think he is an idiot.
"..So we need a price on carbon for nuclear plants to get built."
Be nice but SCANA TVA and hundreds of utilities world wide building nukes disagree that carbon taxes are needed.
"Since the Repuglicans killed Cap-and-Trade in the Senate a few years ago, why are you counting on them to "kick Obama's ass" until plants get built? "
Repug's like nukes and have stated many times that they don't believe it should take any longer to built nukes in the US than overseas. That time frame is major cost factor for private nukers in the US.
"Oh well, renewable energy is getting so cheap so fast that most of the new demand and a good deal of the carbon reductions necessary can be achieved before a nuclear plant can even get its operating license."
Ya like Cape Wind - what 20 years and still looking . The cost of renewable energy currently starting at ten times nuclear has bottomed out with the current Chinese dumping. Nowhere to go but up.
When the current filthy GHG spewing gas backup which currently provides close to 100% of the renewable scams energy is replaced with green storage the cost will rise by another buck a kwh.
Latest - a proven fraud using the ground wire as an energy source to fool investigators.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"...think you just read the very first thing on that one website to confirm your preconceived 'knowledge' that LENR..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo, I didn't. I've followed the Rossi SCAM right from the beginning, and at first I was believing, but I've read enough, and I mean loads, for and against that I'm now 98% convinced that it is a SCAM. Just read the comments, from some very bright people, that do a much better job than I can at debunking the E-CAT. And, please join in the conversion, they will welcome your comments.
" By the time that nuclear plant is producing power, if it ever does, the price will be closer to $50 billion of the tax payers money. The $14 billion is what it is going to cost to provide the fossil fuel for it each year and peoples electric bills are going to skyrocket. It will need at least $2 billion a year in federal incentives just to keep its doors open like the oil, coal, and natural gas is already getting.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy would that plant produce 25,000 jobs world wide? Why isnt that plant producing those 25,000 jobs for America; dont we need jobs?
Nuclear is a very bad idea that always produce very bad results. "
You are second only to Sault for the thickest title. You have been asked many times to back up your insane numbers. Nothing yet.
Stop making things up out of blue sky and posting them here.
See my earlier posts for linked debunkings.
" So let me get this straight...Charging customers for plants that aren't even operational, and might NEVER become operational given the nuclear industry's dismal track record of ACTUALLY FINISHING these plants, is fine with these state governments, but getting a feed-in tariff for renewable energy is off the table? Seriously, at least a feed-in tariff is going towards electricity that is ACTUALLY GENERATED instead of getting sucked into a massive project that could end up failing, taking all those wasted dollars with it. "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisActually close to a billion in not so renewable subsidies already down the drain.
There is zero chance of the nuke project failing so the prepayment is a great deal for the taxpayer.
Since not so renewables cost at least ten times nuclear every dime spent is waste of taxpayer funds.
" thing in the article: the utility companies are being permitted to precharge their customers for this. Not a bad deal. "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisActually a great deal for the ratepayer in the long run.
"Do we have a place to store the waste? No. But lets use Texas and Alabama."
Yup we do . Onsite until burned in Gen IV reactors. Yucca is still available after Big Oil ends its payoffs to Harry Reid.
"Will it be safe? No. But maybe we'll be lucky."
Yup safest form of power there is, Not a soul killed.
"Just read the comments, from some very bright people, that do a much better job than I can..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOK, I have, and here is just one from NASA's top scientist:
http://technologygateway.nasa.gov/media/CC/lenr/lenr.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBlKc0TaqPs
" ... Just read the comments, from some very bright people, that do a much better job than I can..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOK, I have, and here is just one from NASA's top scientist:
http://technologygateway.nasa.gov/media/CC/lenr/lenr.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBlKc0TaqPs
So many comments in, and while pebble bed reactors have been mentioned, there is one approach that this forum seems ignorant of.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf we really want to have super-safe, cheap, and very clean reactors, we should be looking at high-temperature efficient systems- liquid fueled designs like the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR).
Of course, we'll have to R&D the system some, but there is very good reason to believe that this is the proper nuclear course, picking up the baton from some 40 years ago and properly finishing the job. If you haven't yet been sold on a sustainable future of cheap and abundant energy from thorium, now is the time to find out about it. The movement is starting to gain a bit of traction with the goal of pushing our nation head-first into an international competition of energy development, the Thorium Race. I hear that the Chinese are already putting $100 million annually into this project, topping the visitor list at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
This is the real deal; the way we're going to make significant progress towards sustainability and energy security. There is very good reason to believe that scaled-down 100MW reactors can power the shipping industry (a huge contributor to global emissions), that the transportation sector should move to electricity and ammonia (a form of the proposed hydrogen economy), and that more expensive legacy carbon-based fuels like DME, methanol, and synthetic gasoline will have a small role.
The simplified chemistry of ammonia, though toxic, appears to offer the best way to maintain our expectations for freedom of travel, while being of minimal cost, minimal environmental impact, and very economically practical when produced by proposed LFTR fuel factories. It is perhaps less attractive than DME (dimethyl ether) in terms of safety (its transportation risk profile is similar to gasoline), toxicity (DME isn't) and energy density, ammonia's (NH3) cheap and simple synthesis via nitrogen (78% of atmosphere by volume) and water more than make up for that. Of course, for that to be realized, two major developments are needed: cheap nuclear ammonia (via LFTR and solid-state converters) and affordable high performance direct-ammonia fuel cells.
No, the technology is not here yet, but knowing where we are going is half the task of getting there.
Give your head a shake, man. Have you ever considered the implications of what you are claiming? If NASA knew the E-Cat was for real, the Feds would know it is for real and that would SHAKE THE WORLD. Obama would be called to the White House for an emergency meeting. The UN would convene. The Oil price would drop $50/barrel in ONE DAY. They would have to cut down a couple forests to make all the Pink Slips that would be handed out, Utility Worker - don't need them, Oil - good bye job, NG - they might as well give the stuff away. Coal - who needs that. Middle East, OPEC and other countries for which Oil exports are their only sustenance, TOTAL ECONOMIC collapse, starvation, riots, government overthrow. Goodbye, Royal Family in Saudi Arabia. Of course, after the REVOLUTION, and the blood is wiped up off the floor, the World would be a much better place - but you can see why there are a 100 million reasons why Vested Interests ain't going to sit back and let THAT happen.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf Rossi REALLY had invented the E-Cat, the first you would here about it is a news story on page 3 of some Italian newspaper that a esoteric researcher was killed stepping in front of a truck, while intoxicated. "Foul play is not suspected". End-of-story.
If Rossi REALLY had done what he claims, the smartest thing he could do is build a dozen units, have them delivered on the same day to a dozen different professors, each with impeccable integrity, and a dozen different universities, each with a faultless reputation, in a dozen different countries. Post a complete set of schematics, and all engineering drawings on a hundred different websites and file sharing sites and write a book, "How I Andrea Rossi, of Milan, Italy, Created the Revolution, that changed the world Forever". And get a room at the best hotel in Italy, a case of his favorite Vino, and sit back and watch the Sheet hit the fan.
I'm also a big fan of LFTR. But one should realize that Nuclear Energy is an entire CLASS of energy, just like the Renewable Energy is a Class and Fossil Fuels is a Class of Energy. We don't have ONE type of Renewable Energy or ONE type of Fossil Fuel burning Energy Source. Indeed, Nuclear is a MUCH BIGGER class of Energy than either Fossil Fuels or Renewable Energy. We need a crash program to develop ALL types of Nuclear: Pebble Bed, Denatured Uranium Molten Salt, LFTR, GenIII LWR's & PWR's, Small & Medium sized Factory Built LWR's like the mPower & Nuscale, Barge Built Reactors, Submersible Reactors, Small Modular Reactors, Fast Liquid Metal Reactors, Hydride Reactors, PHWRs like the ACANDU, the Travelling Wave Reactor, Accelerator Driven Sub-Critical Reactors, Fusion-Fission Hybrids, the Focus Fusion and Polywell Fusion as well at the traditional ITER Tokamak Fusion. Build a commercial version of everything, if possible, and then sort out which are of most economic value. The R&D cost of all of the above would be TRIVIAL compared to the Cost of Energy and the URGENCY of our need for viable, new energy sources. The cash could easily be but a portion of what is blown right now on NUTTY SCAMS, like most Wind, Solar, Geothermal, Tidal & River Turbines, AgroFuels, Carbon Capture and the Hydrogen Economy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs for Ammonia, great to make with Nuclear Hydrogen & Electricity for the chemical industry, but as a transportation fuel, no way - forget it. It is a horrendously toxic, noxious gas and doesn't work in ICEngines. A crazy fuel. Why not just use Methanol instead? The World's #1 Expert on Fuels, the Nobel Prize Winning Chemist, George Olah, has concluded that we can replace Fossil Fuels with the Methanol Economy, and has written a book of the same name. You can make Methanol, dirt cheap, with Nuclear Hydrogen, Nuclear Electricity plus Biomass/Flue gas/Geo-CO2/Atmospheric CO2 totally Carbon Neutral. Easy to store as a liquid at room temperature. Burns more efficiently than any known fuel in an ICEngine. More efficiently than a diesel, with very low emissions. Works great in Fuel Cells. Extremely Safe - the safest of all fuels, except possibly Ethanol. Made from Biomass it will transfer 100% of Biomass carbon to Methanol carbon, unlike the 20% in Ethanol production. Burning Biomass for heat & power, like Greenies support, is an incredibly STUPID waste of Carbon compared to converting Biomass into Methanol for 10 cents a liter.
I agree with you. LFTRs are much more promising than the LWRs we're trying to build today. At least the LFTR fuel cycle wasn't developed in the ManhattanPproject and it is MUCH harder to make weapons with it (not impossible, but nearly so) than the plutonium-producing LWR fuel cycle. The $58B in loan guarantees, the waste disposal fund and the Price Anderson Act subsidies for LWRs could be of MUCH better use developing and supporting LFTRs.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisKeep in mind that the LFTR is a threat to the existing nuclear industry's business model, so it will be extremely difficult to re-direct the government supports it enjoys to more productive technologies.
" The $58B in loan guarantees, the waste disposal fund and the Price Anderson Act subsidies for LWRs "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOnce again the prize for the stupidest most ignorant poster on SCIAM. You know folks this idiot claims to have a BS and MS in engineering. This is typical of the troll.
6 reactors are under construction in the US and 60 others worldwide. Only two in the have loan guarantees worth $8B provided out of the over $80B the nuclear industry is already owed by the DOE for funds it has collected from them and will never pay out.
A simple Google search would tell the nit in his usual no information spew that the DOE collects a .1 cent a kwh toll for nuclear waste - a fund now up to $35B and unlikely to ever be spent as the waste is fuel for Gen IV reactors like India's new 500Mw unit first of 5 to 2020.
Actually the industry carries far higher indemnity/insurance then does any other industrial energy facility in America. Big Oil for example is limited to legislatively limited $75M per spill. With the worst imaginable nuke accident caused by criminal activity in an fragile ancient 50's designed reactor leaving no dead and the long term damage limited to the reactor itself Fuku shows us how small the potential liability is.
On the other hand, it would be impossible to build wind/solar plant if the families of the thousands of citizens murdered every year by deadly fine particulate air polluting radioactive gas spewing fracked natural gas plant required to backup wind/solar at 100% nameplate, could sue.
Given that a single terrorist with a shoulder fired missile could wipe out many American cities in a nuclear bomb sized LNG storage or tanker explosion, while the zero death meltdown risk in a modern nuke reactor is now certified by the NRC at 1 such accident in every 5 million years of plant operation, nuclear is far safer insurance bet than any alternatives.
In fact rather than receiving subsidy the nuke industry is $80B in the black subsidizing the federal government with funds that will never be used.
Not so renewables get $10's of billions in subsidy yet to this point have produced little or no energy and have no prospect of ever doing so even at almost a hundred times the cost of nuclear.
"That is what happened at Fukushima and is why the core suffered from some melting. The water in the tank on top of the AP1000 will be able to gravity feed the entire cooling necessary for the weeks needed to get to a cold shutdown state."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn Fukushima, they pumped seawater for weeks and still radioactive materials escaped. That amount of water cannot be contained in a tank without recirculation and pumps. Even if nuclear reaction stopped, you have to deal with decay heat which continue for a year or more.
The first hour of a nuclear accident is critical. It usually determines whether radioactive materials can be contained or not because decay heat is highest during the first hour, which is about 6% or 60 MW for a 1,000 MW plant. You need a lot of water during that critical stage. If you manage 24 hours without radioactive leakage, you're pretty safe. Your numbers are post 24-hour scenario.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo telling what satisfying the incessant demands of the anti-nuclear sycophants costs. Despite acres of documents and answering all of the questions above, and the clear safety record of even old technology, new plants will be opposed simply because they are nuclear.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo biggie -- it'll all be obsolete when fusion is real. And it will be sooner or later.
How sad. So many rooftops could have been covered with consumer owned solar for this cost...... So many electric cars charged with solar.... So many houses with a near $0 electric bill after ROI.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWrong.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Solar PV/Gas backup scam getting almost all its energy from the gas backup is 25 times the cost of nuclear per kwh.
Concerning the pebble bed reactor :
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGermany started to build a protype pebble bed reactor in 1966.
In the 70-years one power station was built with this reactor type in order to test it as a commercial utility.
The problem was, that due to many revolutionary new untested techniques there were a lot of problems (not related to the basic design principles) so that within a test period of 4 years the reactor was only 420 days on the German grid.
Due to the Tchernobyl shock the development of this reactor line was finally stopped.
In a way I consider this one of the biggest technical misjudgements of that time.
This reactor type is intrinsically fail safe versus a meltdown (this was in various steps tested) .
It used Helium gas as a coolant, and Helium does not have any radioactove isotopes.
Due to the higher operating temperature it had a higher thermal efficiency.
It was a thermal breeder reactor. As the pebbles did not have water as a moderator (the carbon graphit around the pebbles performed the moderator function) , it worked with fast neutrons so that the Uran238 in the pebbles was partially converted to Plutonium, which was then also used in the 'burning' cycle.
As far as I know all the patents for this radically new design are now in China.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSeeing as I can now buy PV panels for $.50/wt, $.5k/kw at sunelec.com among others and about to produce 2 different 2kw wind generators for under $2k/kw, PWR nukes are obsolete.
This means you can for under $6k, 2kw of solar and 2kw of wind. This in an average area makes 8kwhrs of solar and 5 to 45kwhrs from wind.
Nuke fanatics are just delusional if they think homeowners will not go that way especially if they build PWR's. I'm in Progress' Fla nuke area and it presently costs $.02kwhr for electricity we won't likely ever get. And going up each yr.
Vs RE which is dropping like a rock. Deal with it.
Fact is the AP1000 isn't worth anything because by thetime the Fla ones get built far less expensive, safer nukes like the new SMR's.
But even there even if they are cheap the power cost from the utilities will be far higher. So the only real cost effective solution is each home, building making their own power.
And my Harley size trike and 2 seat sportwagon EV gets 600 and 250mpg equivalent in either cost/mile or enertgy/mile. While the big auto ones are expensive, they don'y have to be and my EV sportwagon can be mass produced for under $12k, 80 mph and 100 mile range on lead batteries I drive every day. So think of me as you fill up.
Sure – here in northern Germany I can place a small wind generator in my garden (provided the guys in town responsible for the building rules let me do it), and invest 10 K Euros for 2 kw .
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe problem is – these 2 kw are only delivered about 19% per year. 81% of the time during the year I have to look for alternatives. So – I invest another 10 k Euro for solar modules – but alas – the efficiency is even lower – in northern Germany they work only about 8 – 10% of the time during the year..
So I start investing in all kinds of storage technologies to get my kitchen stove working at night with no wind.
While I might get along with these kinds of make-shift stuff (probably my wife would not), it is quite different for large manufacturing enterprises.
One example : Germany produces per year 6 million tons of Chlorine.
The production of one ton requires 2700 kwh .
That is – the 6 million tons require 16,2 billion kwh..
This is more kwh than all solar modules throughout our country produce to-day – and this is just for the chlorine production..
And the production runs 24 hrs per day 7 days per week.
I just cannot see how these power requirements can be provided by wind or solar in industrialized countries like the US or Germany.
Charging customers for plants that aren't even operational, and might NEVER become operational given the nuclear industry's dismal track record of ACTUALLY FINISHING these plants
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this========
The reason nuclear plants are costly, delayed, canceled is because ignorant, pandering politicians and 'activists' delay, block, get the outlawed...
Loan guarantees, and prepayments are essential, when the project can be terminated by Govt or other things beyond the backer's control..
The entity capable of blocking the project (Govt) ...for no reason but a political change of wind... SHOULD have to back the loan?
the utility companies are being permitted to precharge their customers for [nuclear plant construction]
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this----------
The reason nuclear plants are costly, delayed, canceled.. is because Govt delays, cancels them... when political winds change...
Why shouldn't Govt, and 'the people' prepay or back the loans for the construction?
Why should shareholders of the utility be bankrupted when Govt reneges, goes back on their commitment, pulls the license?
WOW I just heard someone say nuclear power is safer than other methods.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this====
Not a single civilian has been harmed/killed by Nuclear power in Japan, Britain, France, or the US.
Meanwhile dozens die installing/maintaining windmills, thousands die from cancer causing chemicals in solar cells, over 30,000 Americans die PER YEAR from coal particulate pollution.
Because of the high cost of capital at SCANA, public powers TVA's LCOE is a little more than half on Nuclear
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this=======
So, TVA sucking off of taxpayers, using their money is free?
The problem is massive unnecessary costs, delays, blocks caused by Govt regulator/politicians inane stupidity