US nuclear power gets a liability cap of $0.2 billion. The nuclear industry will keep telling us it is safe but it will refuse to shoulder the insurance costs beyond a minimal level. That's the taxpayer's job and the taxpayer's job alone.
And, EVEN INCLUDING that, nuclear is about 3x more expensive than solar and wind.
You could get the price down in a number of ways, but the most obvious one is going to be to skimp on safety.
This isn't Germany's fault. Nuclear is only competitive with lavish subsidies beyond those it already has. The only countries that will really want it are those with nuclear weapons and a desire to keep a nuclear industry running to maintain skills and technology.
It's about nuclear arsenal maintenance at this point, with decarbonization as an excuse.
> It's about nuclear arsenal maintenance at this point, with decarbonization as an excuse.
It's not. Please compare which countries have nuclear weapons and which have nuclear power. North Korea has nuclear weapons, they don't have nuclear power. South Korea is the opposite.
Anyone who claims that nuclear power is a step towards nuclear weapons has no clue about the history of nuclear technology and has no clue how Uranium and Plutonium for nuclear bombs is made.
Hint: It's not made with BWRs or PWRs, that would be way too inefficient and expensive.
When nuclear plants were built in Germany you couldn't get green electricity for $33 / MWh.
>It's not. Please compare which countries have nuclear weapons and which have nuclear power.
This is equally true of everywhere else. It's not about who built them 30 years ago. It's about who still wants to build them.
>Anyone who claims that nuclear power is a step towards nuclear weapons has no clue about the history of nuclear technology and has no clue how Uranium and Plutonium for nuclear bombs is made. Hint: It's not made with BWRs or PWRs, that would be way too inefficient and expensive.
I didn't say that nuclear plants are being built to create plutonium. I said that they were being kept around because of the skills and tech - it's a more or less cost-neutral way of keeping a ready supply of nuclear engineers and a supporting industry.
In the UK it's partly about nuclear submarines, too (which are PWRs).
> I didn't say that nuclear plants are being built to create plutonium. I said that they were being kept around because of the skills and tech - it's a more or less cost-neutral way of keeping a ready supply of nuclear engineers and a supporting industry.
This. Nuclear power doesn't give you nuclear bombs, but it does give you the ability to start building them within months.
> Anyone who claims that nuclear power is a step towards nuclear weapons has no clue about the history of nuclear technology and has no clue how Uranium and Plutonium for nuclear bombs is made.
"Japan was reported in 2012 to have 9 tonnes of plutonium in Japan, enough for more than 1,000 nuclear warheads, and an additional 35 tonnes stored in Europe.[37][38] It has constructed the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant, which could produce further plutonium.[37] Japan has a considerable quantity of highly enriched uranium (HEU), supplied by the U.S. and UK, for use in its research reactors and fast neutron reactor research programs; approximately 1,200 to 1,400 kg of HEU as of 2014.[39] Japan also possesses an indigenous uranium enrichment plant[32][40] which could hypothetically be used to make highly enriched uranium suitable for weapons use."
> Nuclear is only competitive with lavish subsidies beyond those it already has.
Guess which energy source in France receive most subsidies? If the answer was fossil fuels you would be right. If you ask Germany with its massive subsidies for renewable, it is actually renewable followed by fossil fuels. Then its fossil fuels again. The story repeats itself in practically every country in EU. Even Sweden with its very public facing pro-renewable stance spends millions on subsidizes for fossil fuels. In total for 2018, 50 billions euro wast given as subsidies for fossil fuels in EU.
Inquisitive people might ask why all those countries are spending so much subsidizes on fossil fuels, and the answer is pretty simple. Do you want a stable energy grid? You either pay the oil, gas and coal companies to keep the engines warm in case there is a demand spike, or there won't be enough supply when demands go up. Now lets discuss why the need to pay for "reserve energy" has spiked in the last few decades. It has something to do with intermittent energy production.
Here is a suggestion. Lets cut that 50 billions for fossil fuel subsidies to 0. Either pay for nuclear/storage or accept an unstable grid. I am very tired of oil, coal and gas being paid to just keep the engines warm.
And, EVEN INCLUDING that, nuclear is about 3x more expensive than solar and wind.
I'm very suspicious of these claims. First, there's stuff like this: https://energycentral.com/c/ec/germany-solar-and-wind-triple.... Second, the position of most nuclear opponents is not "solar and wind can provide clean energy for everyone at a fraction of the cost", but rather "everyone needs to radically cut back on energy use and alter their lifestyles". I get the same sense as I do from religious conservatives who oppose STD vaccines because they allow people to continue their sinful ways.
Storing it is extremely expensive, at least with any currently available technology.
This is apparent looking at how much energy prices change throughout the day / month based on usage and cost of production, and how predictable those changes are.
If storing energy were cost effective you could make a killing buying low and selling high on the national grid.
This giant (world's largest!) and very expensive thing provides short term-relief against grid outages. The batteries last for ~1 hour and it can still only provide electricity for something like 50k homes.
(It's used for more economically useful things, like stabilizing the grid in emergencies.)
The periods between high and low/zero wind are in the order of 200-300 hours (at least where I live).
> For one common naive case: Storing the energy in Li-Ion batteries in e.g. a Tesla Powerwall: $437/kWh.
How did you come up with that number? Total cost of the battery divided by its capacity?
Since you do not dispose of the battery upon first discharge, the true cost should be amortized across the thousands of cycles it would go through during its lifetime.
Batteries are still far from economical in many situations, but there are many situations where they now make sense. They are also getting cheaper all the time, and as they do, so will the range of applications increase.
> Insanely high compared to the cost of producing it.
Ok, how about you share your numbers on the cost of production for 1kwh.
Your use of "insanely high" leads me to believe you are comparing the capital outlay for batteries, vs operating costs of a power station. It's important to compare like for like.
Texas was 5 minutes away from a total grid failsafe collapse if the grid frequency had continued to drop, and it just happened that pretty much all of North America was undergoing high usage. Uncontrolled energy are not sustainable at scale.
Yup, and everyone says nuclear is safe but that's only technologically speaking. The technology is safe, but it's the human and regulatory aspect that has glaring red flags...
This first link here makes me absolutely furious. There's too much to quote from here, but this succinct excerpt touches on loosening safety tests. It goes into more detail in other parts of the article. The post has numerous example of very concerning issues.
> When valves leaked, more leakage was allowed — up to 20 times the original limit. When rampant cracking caused radioactive leaks from steam generator tubing, an easier test of the tubes was devised, so plants could meet standards.
> The proposal comes as most of the nation’s nuclear power plants, which were designed and built in the 1960s or 1970s, are reaching the end of their original 40- to 50-year operating licenses. Many plant operators have sought licenses to extend the operating life of their plants past the original deadlines, even as experts have warned that aging plants come with heightened concerns about safety.
> The nuclear industry is also pushing the NRC to cut down on safety inspections and rely instead on plants to police themselves. The NRC “is listening” to this advice, the Associated Press reported last month. “Annie Caputo, a former nuclear-energy lobbyist now serving as one of four board members appointed or reappointed by President Donald Trump, told an industry meeting this week that she was ‘open to self-assessments’ by nuclear plant operators, who are proposing that self-reporting by operators take the place of some NRC inspections.”
It really didn't help that USA pretty much stopped all work on NPPs by 1980s, and IIRC (don't ask for link, don't have it now) doesn't allow NPPs on brownfield sites - i.e. you can't remove an old reactor, then build a new more modern one in its place, even if you updated everything to new norms. You have to get a new site, new planning, new acceptance, etc.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/clearing-the-radi...
US nuclear power gets a liability cap of $0.2 billion. The nuclear industry will keep telling us it is safe but it will refuse to shoulder the insurance costs beyond a minimal level. That's the taxpayer's job and the taxpayer's job alone.
And, EVEN INCLUDING that, nuclear is about 3x more expensive than solar and wind.
You could get the price down in a number of ways, but the most obvious one is going to be to skimp on safety.
This isn't Germany's fault. Nuclear is only competitive with lavish subsidies beyond those it already has. The only countries that will really want it are those with nuclear weapons and a desire to keep a nuclear industry running to maintain skills and technology.
It's about nuclear arsenal maintenance at this point, with decarbonization as an excuse.