Ontario's power glut means possible nuclear plant shutdowns

[kristopher]

Ontario's power glut means possible nuclear plant shutdowns

OTTAWA — For at least eight hours Monday, Ontario is once again forecast to produce more electricity than it consumes, and the recurring glut has one top energy executive warning of temporary nuclear power plant shutdowns.

“We have largely been able to avoid nuclear shutdowns to deal with the (surplus) conditions but this may not be the case in the near future,” Paul Murphy, head of the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO), recently told an industry gathering.

His comment is raising questions about Ontario’s plans to boost nuclear power as the province’s chief source of energy.

Nuclear-generated power supplies about 57 per cent of Ontario’s electricity. Based on the province’s assumption that demand will grow moderately over the long term, multi-billion-dollar projects are contemplated for new reactors and refurbishments of existing ones.

The problem is, unlike wind...

http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Ontario+power+glut+means+possible+nuclear+plant+shutdowns/6105634/story.html

The more renewables are installed the more this becomes an existential problem for coal and nuclear. They are forced to shut down more and more often, meaning that the amount of power they sell is reduced.

Fuel as a portion of their overhead is rather small,and the reduced sales lowers their income by more than it reduces their fuel costs; meaning they have a shortfall which has to be made up by charging more for the power they *are* able to sell.

This increase in cost, in turn, makes renewables more competitive leading to more capacity being installed.

A perfect descending spiral for both coal and nuclear unless governments step in to prop them up with artificially high prices on the electricity they produce.

[Demeter]

1. They talk like this is a problem

Silly rabbits.

[Dead_Parrot]

2. "...step in to prop them up with artificially high prices on the electricity they produce."

What, like the feed in tariffs supplied to wind and solar?

[kristopher]

3. The price for electricity from renewable generation are declining

The price for electricity from coal and nuclear are increasing.

The example in the OP demonstrates how those dynamics are going to manifest themselves.

What that means is that the subsidies for fossil fuel and nuclear are nothing more than corporate welfare that benefits neither the taxpayer nor the consumer. The subsidies for renewables, on the other hand, are having precisely the desired outcome of reducing costs and laying the groundwork for a new , self-sufficient and sustainable energy infrastructure.

Subsidies for Oil, Gas and Nuclear vs. Renewables

Energy sources, from coal to oil and gas to nuclear, have all been subsidized over the last 400 years in the U.S. and elsewhere. By most metrics, renewable energy sources have received far less in subsidies in their early years than any of these other energy sources.

These findings come from a report by Nancy Pfund, Managing Partner, DBL Investors, and Ben Healey, a graduate student at Yale University School of Management and School of Forestry and Environmental Studies .

Pfund said, “All new energy industries -- timber, coal, oil and gas, nuclear -- have received substantial government support at a pivotal time in their early growth, creating millions of jobs and significant economic growth," adding, “Subsidies for these ‘traditional’ energy sources were many, many times what we are spending today on renewables."...

According to the report, as a percentage of inflation-adjusted federal spending, nuclear subsidies accounted for more than one percent of the federal budget over the first 15 years of each subsidies’ life; oil and gas subsidies made up half a percent of the total budget, but renewables have amounted to only about a tenth of a percent.

Oil/Gas 4.86 billion avg /year (1918-2009),

Nuclear $3.50 billion avg /year (1947-1999)

All Renewables $0.37 billion avg /year (1994-2009)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x312860

Link to the study PDF: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=what%20would%20jefferson%20do%3F&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CDUQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fi.bnet.com%2Fblogs%2Fdbl_energy_subsidies_paper.pdf&ei=NogwT67ZKcrIsQL7qfmYBw&usg=AFQjCNF7Tu5WaoYb0fJ5YF_kaYlBQGuUhA).

[Dead_Parrot]

4. So, you're still not addressing the actual energy produced, then?

Why doesn't that surprise me?

[PamW]

5. FUZZY MATH!!!

"nuclear subsidies accounted for more than one percent of the federal budget over the first 15 years ..."
=================

I always have to really LAUGH when kristopher brings this up because it shows you the "fuzzy math" that the anti-nukes use.

The 1% of the Federal budget is the military's nuclear weapons budget.

I really find it funny how the anti-nukes have to resort to a completely unjustified LIE of claiming that the nuclear weapons
budget is somehow a subsidy for commercial nuclear power plants.

Every bit of special nuclear material in the USA's nuclear weapon came from special Government-owned reactors at
Hanford, Washington and Savannah River, SC and NONE of it came from commercial power plants.

Only in the last few years has a SINGLE Government-owned nuclear power plant, Watts-Bar, which is owned by
the Government-owned Tennessee Valley Authority been used to provide Tritium for nuclear weapons.

That was because President Clinton decided it would be cheaper to use a Government-owned power reactor to make Tritium
than build a new reactor just for the production of Tritium. The previous Tritium production reactors at Savannah River were
shut down, the last in 1988. For years, the weapons program made do with what they had on hand. However, Tritium is
radioactive with a 12-year half-life; so eventually there had to be a new source of Tritium; either a new reactor just for producing Tritium, or make us of a power reactor. ONLY Watt-Bar has been modified for the production of Tritium.

As for the privately-owned nuclear power reactors; NONE of them are used to provide materials for the nuclear weapons program.

PamW

[FBaggins]

6. If nuclear bad is so bad, why do its opponents need to engage in this type of activity??

If every single civilian power reactor was shut down tomorrow and the government passed a constitutional amendment forbidding any future ones... how much of this "subsidy" would go away?

Obvious questions that need to be answered... but won't.

There's little doubt, however, that the easy debunking will not change Kris' tactics. This same point will be raised again and again.

[kristopher]

7. So you are claiming that civilian nuclear reactors are not based on military research?

Then perhaps you could share information on the privately funded civilian R&D program that was working parallel to the military program.

[AtheistCrusader]

8. Does a civilian reactor, or a military material prep reactor crank out a completed W88 warhead pit?

No? Then there may be some costs buried elsewhere that have nothing to do with energy production.

[kristopher]

9. Your desperation is showing

The nation threw money at nuclear technology like there was no tomorrow (a situation they may yet be responsible for), and the present civilian reactor fleet is the direct beneficiary of that effort.

We saw a similar scale of effort with the space program. Give renewable energy that kind of support and our energy related problems would be a thing of the past.

[AtheistCrusader]

10. That is a more reasonable statement.

It is a beneficiary. But to assume that 1% of the federal budget actually represents anything like the spend on civilian nuclear power, is clearly not accurate. So 'beneficiary' is a smaller number than 1%, rather than sole beneficiary.

But yes, a 'moon shot' renewables program would be very progressive, and very welcome.

[kristopher]

12. Military spending was not included in the 1%

Nuclear:
In considering how best to quantify nuclear data, we considered multiple sources and decided to use the analysis conducted by lifelong energy analyst and consultant Marshall Goldberg, a resource planner with a broad background in resource and land use policy and impact analysis. In his work, Goldberg includes principally the costs of regulation, civilian R&D, and liability risk-shifting (the Price-Anderson Act), while also taking into account both payments from the government to industry and government receipts from industry— thus coming up with a net annual figure for every year from 1947 to 1990. Although “on-budget” expenditures for the nuclear industry have been enormous, we especially value Goldberg’s analysis because he attempts a rigorous quantification of the “off-budget” value of the Price-Anderson Act of 1957, which “provided federal indemnification of utilities in the event of nuclear accidents, thus removing a substantial (and perhaps insurmount- able) barrier to nuclear power plant development.”29

Congressional testimony at the time of passage confirms the importance of Price-Anderson:

For instance, the Edison Electric Institute noted “We would...like to state unequivocally that in our opinion, no utility company or group of companies will build or operate a reactor until the risk of nuclear accidents is minimized.30

what would jefferson do? - pfund and healey, september 2011, dbl investors, key historical subsidies by sector, pg 22

I should have known better than to accept any premise offered by PamW.

[AtheistCrusader]

15. That is quite a lot more budget than I would have guessed.

I sit corrected.

[PamW]

23. Price-Anderson again

This is another place the anti-nukes get their figures for huge "subsidies" by the Government is because of Price-Anderson.

The sky is the limit for their "estimates" of what they call a subsidy in the name of Price-Anderson.

The problem is it is just NOT TRUE. There has NEVER been a payout by the Government under Price-Anderson.
Even the Three Mile Island accident was ENTIRELY covered by the commercial insurers. The liability cost of TMI
was only a few 10s of millions to pay for the hotels and expenses of the evacuated population.

There was NEVER a payout for health liability because that case was DISMISSED by the Federal Judge:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/readings/tmi.html

As is clear from the preceding discussion, the discrepancies between Defendants, proffer of evidence and that put forth by Plaintiffs in both volume and complexity are vast. The paucity of proof alleged in support of Plaintiffs, case is manifest. The court has searched the record for any and all evidence which construed in a light most favorable to Plaintiffs creates a genuine issue of material fact warranting submission of their claims to a jury. This effort has been in vain.


Additionally, even if the Government pays out under Price-Anderson; it gets REIMBURSED by the nuclear industry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93Anderson_Nuclear_Industries_Indemnity_Act

The Act establishes a no fault insurance-type system in which the first approximately $12.6 billion (as of 2011) is industry-funded as described in the Act....

Some "subsidy" when you have to reimburse the Government.

PamW

[Dead_Parrot]

11. Interesting analogy

How is the US space program these days?

[XemaSab]

17. Gingrich is going to build us a moonbase

[Dead_Parrot]

24. AND HYDROGEN HYPERCARS FOR ALL!

No, wait. That's the other useless git.

[PamW]

22. WRONG WRONG WRONG!!!

The nation threw money at nuclear technology like there was no tomorrow (a situation they may yet be responsible for), and the present civilian reactor fleet is the direct beneficiary of that effort.
======================================

WRONG WRONG WRONG!!! NOT CORRECT in the SLIGHTEST!!!

Kris, you don't really know anything technical about nuclear power.

The military threw lots of money at the production reactors ( which are VERY DIFFERENT in design from power reactors, although they do produce energy ). Hanford reactors were graphite-moderated, Savannah River reactors were heavy water moderated, and commercial reactors are light water moderated. The military also threw lots of money at nuclear WEAPONS research. But nuclear weapons are NOT power reactors, and military production reactors are NOT power reactors.

In a power reactor, the desired product is the energy, which can be converted to electricity for sale.

In a production reactor, energy is an undesired by-product; it's the nuclear material that is the product.

So, in a production reactor, you spend money to get more product plutonium, and LESS energy. You actually SPEND MONEY to LOWER the power, not increase it in the production reactor.

As I showed in another post, the BWR design was TOTALLY a development of General Electric. The PWR design could be said to come from the naval reactors program. However, the small reactors that were designed at Knolls Atomic Power Lab and Bettis Atomic Power Lab for the Navy are NOT suitable for power plants. The actual design of the LARGE reactors even the PWRs that are in power plants were designed / funded by the reactor vendors. Westinghouse / Babcock & Wilcox / Combustion Engineering ALL designed their own large PWR reactors and didn't sponge off the military for those designs.

It's like saying that the Boeing 787, 777, 767, 757, 747, 737, 727, and 707 are all due to military spending because there is a version of the 707 called the KC-135 which is the tanker for the B-52. NO! Boeing funded the R&D of those airliners themselves. The military spent lots of money making their jets invisible to radar. Did that help the commercial airliner industry? NOPE - for safety's sake, you WANT radar to see passenger jets. The military and commercial sectors usually have radically different goals and agendas. Just because the military is spending a lot of money doesn't mean it slops over to help the commercial businesses.

Same thing in the nuclear industy. Kris' "logic" is only that the military was throwing money around; so a bunch of it must have gone to help the commercial sector. WRONG!!!

PamW

[PamW]

20. Do you know where nuclear weapons "pits" came from?

No? Then there may be some costs buried elsewhere that have nothing to do with energy production.
==================================

The "pits" of nuclear weapons start with the making of the plutonium at one of two materials production plants that used to be operated by the AEC, then ERDA, and now DOE. The two production facilities are locate at Hanford, Washington and Savannah River, South Carolina. Both these facilities have reactors to make plutonium and large chemical processing facilities to extract the plutonium. The plutonium was then sent to the Rocky Flats facility in Colorodo to be fashioned into pits. All 3 of these facilities are now shutdown. The USA decided a few decades ago that the USA had made all the plutonium needed for the arsenal. In order to refurbish pits when necessary for the W88; there is a facility located at Los Alamos National Laboratory for that.

The purpose of the facilities was NOT energy production. None of the reactors at Savannah River had a power plant connected to it. They just dumped the heat into the environment as waste heat. Most of the reactors at Hanford were the same way; the heat from those reactors was just dumped into the Columbia River. The one exception was the Hanford "N Reactor" that was commissioned by President Kennedy. It also had a power plant connected to it. Click on the top most picture for an enlarged view of President Kennedy dedicating the facility:

http://www.hanford.gov/page.cfm/NReactor

The last of Hanford’s nine plutonium production reactors to be built was the N Reactor. This reactor was called a dual purpose reactor in that it not only produced plutonium for America’s defense program, but it also generated electricity. It was the only reactor of its kind in the country.

PamW

[AtheistCrusader]

21. Yes, I'm aware of this.

Some of this was also performed at the Pantex plant in Paducah KY, and ORNL.

Kristopher indicates the costs are somewhat more firewalled than you indicate. I have not yet researched further beyond the claim.

[PamW]

30. WRONG Location!!

Some of this was also performed at the Pantex plant in Paducah KY, and ORNL.
=============================================

Sorry but the Pantex plant that actually assembles nuclear weapons is in Amarillo, Texas:

http://www.pantex.com/

Pantex Plant, located 17 miles northeast of Amarillo, Texas, in Carson County, is charged with maintaining the safety, security and reliability of the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile. The facility is managed and operated by B&W Pantex for the U.S. Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration.

The AEC, ERDA, DOE, and now USEC has a plant in Paducah, KY It is a uranium enrichment plant, the ONLY one in the USA:

http://www.usec.com/gaseous-diffusion/paducah-gdp

ORNL is NOT in the nuclear weapons business. Oak Ridge National Laboratory is one of the national labs that falls under the DOE Office of Science. The national laboratories that fall under DOE's National Nuclear Security Agency (NNSA) which is a semi-autonomous organizations within DOE for research into nuclear weapons; are Los Alamos National Lab (LANL), Lawrence Livermore National Lab (LLNL) and Sandia National Lab (SNL). LANL, LLNL, and SNL are the 3 national security laboratories involved in nuclear weapons.

PamW

[AtheistCrusader]

31. Not wrong.

"The only gaseous diffusion plant in operation in the United States is in Paducah, Kentucky. A similar plant is located near in Piketon, Ohio, but it was shut down in March 2001. Both plants are leased to the United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC) from the U.S. Department of Energy and have been regulated by the NRC since March 4, 1997."


It's just farther up the food chain. This is where the fuel cycle starts, ignoring mining, with it's uranium hexaflouride gaseous diffusion process, which produces enriched uranium for civilian and military reactors.

[PamW]

32. You said Pantex was in Paducah

Yes - you were WRONG!!!

Your previous post stated that Pantex was in Paducah, KY. It's not even in KY.

Pantex is NOT in Paducah, KY; it's near Amarillo, TX

If you want to see a summary of the process; check out:

http://www.em.doe.gov/pdfs/pubpdfs/linklegacy_011_030.pdf

The cover is President Kennedy speaking at the dedication of the Hanford N Reactor.

PamW

[AtheistCrusader]

33. Yes, I'm sure the Department of Energy doesn't know where the fuck this plant is.

http://www.em.doe.gov/SiteInfo/paducah.aspx

(HINT: there's more than one, you're talking about the assembly/dissasembly plant, not the diffusion plant)


Edit: I see, I referred to it as the Pantex plant. My bad. Point stands, this paducah facility is ALSO part of the atomic fuel food chain, and feeds both civilian and military material needs.

[PamW]

34. The only disagreement....

Edit: I see, I referred to it as the Pantex plant. My bad. Point stands, this paducah facility is ALSO part of the atomic fuel food chain, and feeds both civilian and military material needs.
==========================

The only disagreement was on Pantex. "Pantex" is the name of a particular production plant - the one and only final assembly / disassembly plant.

The Paducah, Kentucky plant and the Portsmouth, Ohio plant are both gaseous diffusion plants to enrich fuel for reactors.

Actually, the military production reactors don't require enrichment. The reactors at Hanford were graphite-moderated, and the reactors at Savannah river were heavy water moderated. Graphite and heavy water are the ONLY TWO materials that can be used to moderate a reactor that runs on unenriched uranium. The Candian CANDU reactors are heavy water moderated and they run on natural uranium because Canada doesn't have an enrichment plant.

PamW

[kristopher]

38. It is irrelevant since your assertion of fact in post #5 was, yet again, false.

[PamW]

39. BALONEY!!!!

It is irrelevant since your assertion of fact in post #5 was, yet again, false.
======================================

You really "think" ( term used loosely ) that 1% of the Federal budget was subsidies to nuclear power???

I've heard this yarn many times before, and whenever I ask some anti-nuke to point to the line items that are subsidies that make up this 1%; the responses I get always point to the nuclear weapons budget.

I also remember one time when the anti-nuke points to a line-item labeled "nuclear power". However if one reads the text for that line item, the "nuclear power" that it refers to is the purchase of RTGs ( radioisotope thermal generators ) aka "atomic batteries" for use on NASA deep-space probes like Voyager and Cassinni. Sure, the purchase of RTGs for NASA is a subsidy to commercial nuclear power plants.

The anti-nukes also total in any potential payouts by the Government for 2nd-tier Price-Anderson liability; ignoring the fact that the Government is reimbursed. Above all; the Government has NEVER expended dollar ONE on Price-Anderson. The most significant nuclear accident in the USA was Three Mile Island, and it came no where near the expenditure to trigger 2nd-tier liability outlays. ALL the liability for TMI ( hotel bills for evacuees ) was covered by commercial liability insurance, which the anti-nukes claim doesn't exist.

American Nuclear Insurers

http://www.amnucins.com/

American Nuclear Insurers (ANI) is a joint underwriting association created by some of the largest insurance companies in the United States. Our purpose is to pool the financial assets pledged by our member companies to provide the significant amount of property and liability insurance required for nuclear power plants and related facilities throughout the world.

PamW

[kristopher]

41. Your reasoning is faulty and self serving

The citation regarding the 1%, with the specifics of what is included, is given elsewhere in this thread. In the face of that and given that your only refutation is your assertion of antinuclear bias, it is reasonable to conclude you are once again making a claim you know to be false.

As for "payouts" being the determinant of the value of Price Anderson as a subsidy, you are also incorrect. A government subsidy comes in many forms and is not limited to direct outlays. It is anything done by the government on behalf of an industry that enhances the competitive stance of a competitor in a market. Price Anderson falls under D.
Types of modern day subsidies affecting the energy market:

A. Tax Policy
Tax policy includes special exemptions, allowances, deductions, credits, etc., related to the federal tax code.

B. Regulation
This category encompasses federal mandates and government‐funded oversight of, or controls on, businesses employing a specified energy type. Fed- eral regulations are an incentive in the sense that they can contribute to public confidence in, and acceptance of, facilities and devices employing a new or potentially hazardous technology. Federal regulations or mandates also can directly influence the price paid for a particular type of energy.

C. Research and Development
This type of incentive includes federal funding for research, development and demonstration programs.

D. Market Activity
This incentive includes direct federal government involvement in the marketplace.

E. Government Services
This category refers to all services traditionally and historically provided by the federal government without direct charge. Relevant examples include the oil industry and the coal industry. U.S. government policy is to provide ports and inland waterways as free public highways. In ports that handle relatively large ships, the needs of oil tankers represent the primary reason for deepening channels. They are usually the deepest draft vessels that use the port and a larger than‐proportional amount of total dredging costs are allocable to them.

F. Disbursements
This category involves direct financial subsidies such as grants. An example of federal disbursements is subsidies for the construction and operating costs of oil tankers.

-what would jefferson do? - pfund and healey, september 2011 pg. 17

If you think that the public assumption of liability for damages beyond the mandated fund is not a competitive advantage for nuclear, then you should lobby for the elimination of that portion of Price Anderson. If you did, however, it would put you at odds with the rest of the nuclear industry because without it, every nuclear plant in the country would have to close.

[FBaggins]

42. More nonsense of course.

The anti-nuke true believers have lots of different faux "subsidies" that they claim to artificially boost the perceived cost of nuclear. So PamW credited you with the wrong one? Big deal. It doesn't change the fact that the number you were imagining was still a phony figure. You've previously tried other variations on the theme (such as claiming that a penalty on carbon emissions in power plants also counts as a nuclear subsidy).

Here's a scenario followed by a simple question - try hard not to dodge (don't worry... I'm not holding my breath):



Kristopher is driving down the highway south of D.C. when he spots a large tanker truck with a hazmat sign. The driver of the truck is driving safely and the truck is in good condition, but an odd latch failure caused the class 6 hazmat sign to read as if it's class 7 (radioactive). Poor Kris snaps and, thinking it's a truck heading to fuel some reactor, runs it off the road into oncoming traffic, where two heavily loaded trucks swerve to avoid it and make matters worse. The heavy trucks strike key supports on the overpass above (another major highway) and the resulting impact and fire damage causes the highway to collapse and a couple flyovers to need replacement. The chemicals in the hazmat truck spread rapidly with the smoke and scores of people are killed while hundreds are sent to the hospital and tens of thousands are evacuated from the surrounding area. The economic damage climbs into the billions (not counting loss of life) as highway traffic is backed up for months, decontamination of the surrounding countryside is performed, and businesses struggle to recover.

So here's the question in two parts: The amount of auto insurance you carry is regulated. Who ends up paying for the rest of the cleanup and how much of a subsidy is the government giving you by not requiring you to carry billions of dollars in insurance as a prerequisite of obtaining a driver's license?

Note - I have no idea whether hazmat might be banned from the 95/495 interchange. Of course that's irrelevant. The point is that it's easy to think of a scenario where you can do FAR more damage than your insurance will cover. No person (and no company) is required to carry insurance equal to the largest possible damage someone can imagine. "Scoring" an insurance mandate as if not only should one particular type of company should be required to carry that much and anything else is a "subsidy" is ridiculous in the extreme.

[kristopher]

43. What competitive advantage does the liability cap give over alternative distribution systems?

In the case of nuclear the alternative energy systems that nuclear is in economic competition with offer the advantage of not having the risk which is associated with nuclear. To negate that competitive advantage by transferring the cost of that risk to the public is a subsidy.

Your screed is therefore not an accurate parallel.

[FBaggins]

44. None to speak of

Again, the question is predicated on the false notion that a company should have to insure against the worst possible event that they could be deemed responsible for. If anything, PA requires them to carry more insurance than they otherwise would. Companies generally wouldn't carry more insurance than the value of the asset being insured.

Were you going to get around to answering the questions?

[kristopher]

45. That was the answer - your trucking example isn't an accurate parallel

If you add in that the government only exempts hazmat trucks operated by say "Nuclear Waste Industries LLC" and all others have to pay the premium then you would have a somewhat more accurate parallel.

[FBaggins]

47. The accident was your fault... not the hazmat truck.

This is damage that has to be accounted for with your personal auto insurance.

How much does your state require you to carry?

[kristopher]

49. It is still the same thing - "competitive advantage"

What competitive advantage is offered by caps on personal liability?

[FBaggins]

51. None.

Competitive advantage requires that the competition have to cover more than you do.

That isn't the case for nuclear power. Thus no competitive advantage.

[kristopher]

52. That isn't accurate - "avoided costs"

A competitive advantage is embodied in the avoided costs to the nuclear industry. The lack of risk is an advantage for the renewable technologies. This advantage is negated by the nuclear industry's "avoided costs" due to transfer of the risk premium to the public sector.

[FBaggins]

56. In order to be an "avoided" cost it first must be a cost that would otherwise be paid.

There is no basis to claim that these companies would (or should) carry more than the tens of billions of dollars in insurance that they carry... and every reason to think that it would be less than that.

They haven't avoided anything... and therefore have no competitive advantage.

Furthermore, you intuitively know this to be true, or you would have an answer for some very simple questions. How much insurance should a large hydro-power dam carry? Come on... a major dam failure could kill tens of thousands of people and do many billions of dollars in damage. Should they be required to carry that much insurance?

In order to claim that risk is "transfered to the public sector", you must first show that it wouldn't otherwise be there. That simply isn't the case.

[kristopher]

58. If your statement is true then why does the nuclear industry LOVE the Price Anderson Act?

As for your argument by insinuation regarding hydroelectric, if you have valid data to present then present it. You can start with reconciling your first statement about 2/3s of dam being privately owned with your second where you specifically focus on large dams, which are government owned.

[FBaggins]

46. Next question (while you're dodging the first one).

Roughly a third of the hydroelectric dams in the country are privately owned by utilities.

What amount of insurance are they required to carry and how does that compare to the worst-case scenario of a major dam failure?

[kristopher]

48. Why don't you just lay out the information you think is relevant

If you have a specific argument then make it and stop playing games where you argue by insinuation.

[FBaggins]

50. The argument was made clearly... your avoidance is equally clear.

What companies are required to carry enough insurance for the worst event that you can imagine? None. Society always picks up the risk above some level.

You can't base a calculation on the insane assumption that the company you don't like should be required to carry some amount that you imagine is appropriate.

An offshore wind turbine could fail unexpectedly and cause a cruise liner to sink with all hands... or an oil tanker to run aground spilling a couple Exxon-Valdez-size loads of crude into a delicate coastal environment. Does the wind power company carry enough insurance to pay for that? Is the lack of a federal mandate for such insurance constitute a subsidy?

[kristopher]

53. In other words you have no data, just your usual hyperbole.

[FBaggins]

57. Still avoiding? Very well... next question.

How much does society pay for the damge done to the environment by coal-fired generation?

Not having to pay that bill is an incredible competitive advantage over nuclear power. How big is that subsidy?

If the courts someday lay all of those deaths at the feet of the power companies that caused them... what would the class-action damges be? Are the coal companies required to be insured for that amount?

[kristopher]

59. Externalized costs are not the same as a subsidy

A subsidy is active while costs such as pollution from fossil fuels are externalized because of lack of action. They are similar and depending on how it is tallied can be used in the accounting.

Renewables have neither problem.

[PamW]

63. Renewables have to be subsidized...

Renewables have neither problem.
=======================

Renewables just have the problem that without subsidies, they are not profitable.

Definition of subsidy:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/subsidy

: a grant or gift of money: as

a : a sum of money formerly granted by the British Parliament to the crown and raised by special taxation

b : money granted by one state to another

c : a grant by a government to a private person or company to assist an enterprise deemed advantageous to the public

PamW

[kristopher]

64. Costs for renewables are declining, costs for nuclear are rising.

The purpose of a subsidy is to encourage the *development* of a new technology. They are having the desired outcome with renewable energy, but they have been nothing more than corporate welfare for nuclear power.

A more accurate definition of subsidy was given above where I pointed out to you that a government subsidy comes in many forms and is not limited to direct outlays. It is anything done by the government on behalf of an industry that enhances the competitive stance of a competitor in a market.
Types of modern day subsidies affecting the energy market, Price Anderson falls under D:

A. Tax Policy
Tax policy includes special exemptions, allowances, deductions, credits, etc., related to the federal tax code.

B. Regulation
This category encompasses federal mandates and government‐funded oversight of, or controls on, businesses employing a specified energy type. Fed- eral regulations are an incentive in the sense that they can contribute to public confidence in, and acceptance of, facilities and devices employing a new or potentially hazardous technology. Federal regulations or mandates also can directly influence the price paid for a particular type of energy.

C. Research and Development
This type of incentive includes federal funding for research, development and demonstration programs.

D. Market Activity
This incentive includes direct federal government involvement in the marketplace.

E. Government Services
This category refers to all services traditionally and historically provided by the federal government without direct charge. Relevant examples include the oil industry and the coal industry. U.S. government policy is to provide ports and inland waterways as free public highways. In ports that handle relatively large ships, the needs of oil tankers represent the primary reason for deepening channels. They are usually the deepest draft vessels that use the port and a larger than‐proportional amount of total dredging costs are allocable to them.

F. Disbursements
This category involves direct financial subsidies such as grants. An example of federal disbursements is subsidies for the construction and operating costs of oil tankers.

-what would jefferson do? - pfund and healey, september 2011 pg. 17

[kristopher]

60. The argument has no data to support it. See post 58

[PamW]

62. At least nuclear power has the Brookhaven study...

What companies are required to carry enough insurance for the worst event that you can imagine? None. Society always picks up the risk above some level.

You can't base a calculation on the insane assumption that the company you don't like should be required to carry some amount that you imagine is appropriate.
=========================

At least with nuclear power, the amount of required insurance was based on a "worst case" study by scientists at Brookhaven.

In the mid '50s when Congress was writing the laws for licensing nuclear power plants, they asked the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) how bad a nuclear power plant accident could be. The AEC tasked the scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory with calculating a "worst case" nuclear power plant accident. In the Brookhaven study, the scientists assumed that the power plant did NOT have a containment building even though ALL commercial power plants would be required to have a containment building. Additionally, Brookhaven assumed that everything that could go wrong, did; and that anything that could go right, didn't.

The level of liability insurance that nuclear power plant operators are required to obtain from commercial insurers, like American Nuclear Insurers, was established by the Brookhaven study.

The problem was that there were those in Congress that saw the insurance issue as a way of killing off the nascent nuclear power industry at the outset. All they had to do was require an exhorbitant amount of insurance, totally unrelated to the actual potential damages - a lot like requiring a car driver to carry 100s of Billions of dollars of liability insurance; then the cost of insurance would be prohibitive, and the nascent nuclear power industry would be killed.

All the while, these anti-nukes at least CLAIMED that they weren't trying to kill the industry, that they were trying to protect the public. So the authors of the legislation, Representative Charles Price (D-IL) and Clinton Anderson (D-NM) concocted the 2nd tier of Price-Anderson. The 2nd tier provides the protection that the anti-nukes wanted, but the industry didn't have to pay for it up front. They would only have to pay for it if there was an accident by taxing ALL the nuclear power plant operators and not just the one that had the accident, in order to reimburse the Government for any expenditures providing 2nd tier.

That scheme gave the required protection the anti-nukes claim was needed for the average person, but didn't kill the industry with premiums for liability insurance that exceeded what the scientists said would be the worst case. The anti-nukes couldn't publically admit that their true motive was not concern for public safety, but to kill the industry before it got started. That's why we have this two-tiered liability scheme embodied in the Price-Anderson Act.

There are liability limits encoded in law not only for nuclear power plant, but airline travel ( read the back of your paper ticket sometime ), hydroelectric dams.... I don't see people groussing about giving "subsidies" to airlinies.

PamW

[kristopher]

65. Glad you brought that up

USC 2010 subsidies report by Doug Koplow
http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/nuclear_power/nuclear_subsidies_report.pdf

6.1.2. Mandated Liability Coverage Is Small Relative to Potential Damages
Price-Anderson mandates two tiers of coverage for nuclear reactors. The first is a conventional liability insurance policy that provides $375 million in primary coverage per reactor. As of 2008 (with somewhat lower coverage levels than now in effect), the average annual premium for a single-unit reactor site was $400,000; the premiums for a second or third reactor at the same site are discount- ed to reflect a sharing of limits (NRC 2008a). While coverage has increased incrementally over time, these increases are small: on an inflation-adjusted basis, coverage is less than 10 percent higher than the $60 million in primary insurance required under the original act 50 years ago. The lack of useful actuarial data may have justified lower-than-appro- priate limits in the 1950s. However, improved data since that time, as well as the greater sophistication of insurance underwriting, should result in primary insurance policies that are substantially larger than today’s Price-Anderson requirements.

A second tier of coverage under Price-Anderson involves retrospective premiums paid into a common pool by every reactor if any reactor in the country experiences an accident with damages exceeding the primary insurance cap. The retrospective premiums have a gross value of $111.9 million available for damages, with an optional 5 percent surcharge available for legal costs only (bringing the combined total to $117.5 million) (ANI 2010, Holt 2010). Retrospective premium payments are capped at $17.5 million per year per reactor and thus can take seven years or more to be paid in full. Some additional coverage is avail- able via the Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act: if the president declares a nuclear accident an emergency or major disaster, disaster relief could flow to first responders. Stafford Act funds would also come from taxpayers, and thus would be subsidies as well.

...

A simple evaluation of coverage per person, should an accident occur at a reactor located close to a population center, helps to illustrate this point. Table 21 uses as an example a reactor at Calvert Cliffs, located near Washington, DC, and Baltimore, MD. Available coverage, including pooled premiums from all other reactors (as stipu- lated under Price-Anderson), barely tops $1,100 per person in the Baltimore/Washington combined statistical area. This small amount would need to cover not only loss of property from an accident but also morbidity or mortality. The portion paid by Calvert Cliffs to cover the off-site accident risk from its own operations (Tier 1 coverage plus its share of Tier 2) would be a mere $60 per person affected. While the extent of the injuries would vary with the specifics of an accident, the weather at the time, and patterns of local settlement and construction, for a metropolitan area of this size it is clear that the coverage provided by Price-Anderson is not large.
pg 77, 80

Nuclear Power: Still Not Viable without Subsidies

[PamW]

66. Fuzzy math again

Fuzzy math again.

Of course what Kris and his anti-nuclear source have done is to take a large area around a plant.

The Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant is about 45 miles from DC and about 60 miles from Baltimore.
They then ignore that fact that consequences drop off as distance from the plant increases.
In doing so, they have unrealistically postulated an overly large population at risk, which of course
dilutes the coverage.

They also refer to what Calvert Cliff's share of the payment is. Is that at all pertinent? The Price-Anderson coverage has ALL nuclear power plants "chipping in" to cover the cost of an accident at one. Since we have about 100 reactors, with all operators chipping in equally; then the percentage that is paid by the one operator that had the accident will be 1% Why is that a big deal? Who cares what Baltimore Edison's share will be - as long as we have this large pool of insurance.

Would you like it better if only Baltimore Edison had to pay in case of an accident? The company could declare bankruptcy and leave claims unsettled. Do you think that would be better? Clearly it is an ADVANTAGE to have ALL of the operators chipping in, but Kris and his source are belittling that feature of the Price-Anderson coverage.

Price-Anderson also stipulates that Congress can up the amount that the nuclear operators have to chip in, if the original limits are exceeded:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93Anderson_Nuclear_Industries_Indemnity_Act

The Act establishes a no fault insurance-type system in which the first approximately $12.6 billion (as of 2011) is industry-funded as described in the Act. Any claims above the $12.6 billion would be covered by a Congressional mandate to retroactively increase nuclear utility liability or would be covered by the federal government.

PamW

[kristopher]

67. Nope

See post 65 and the source, http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/nuclear_power/nuclear_subsidies_report.pdf

[PamW]

68. I've told you before..

Kris,

I've told you before that I don't accept ANY documentation that comes from UCS.

I've caught them falsifying and lying so many times that nothing they post has any meaning for me.

Find some other source if your information is true. However, if the only source for the information is
UCS; then its a fabricated LIE.

PamW

[kristopher]

69. I don't care what you accept.

Since I've "caught" you doing everything you accuse the UCS of doing, and more.

The Union of Concerned Scientists is a valid source for this type of data and Koplow is a leading expert on subsidies of all kinds.

http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/nuclear_power/nuclear_subsidies_report.pdf

[PamW]

70. Then you will never convince me.

Kris,

If you are antethical to citing unbiased sources; the don't respond to my posts.

Contrary to their name; UCS is NOT a scientific organization. It is an activist organization that was founded to oppose nuclear decades ago.

What do you expect from an organization whose entire existence is for opposing nuclear? You get anti-nuke propaganda.

That's the difference between you and me. You post citations from biased groups that you agree with.

Do you see me doing that? Do you ever see me post anything from NEI? NO!!

I post quoting legitimate scientific sources; like the National Academy of Science and Engineering. My sources don't have an axe to grind.
The are what scholars call "legitimate" sources.

When you learn to debate like a scholar, as I do; then we can talk.

PamW

[kristopher]

71. Pam you make things up out of whole cloth and...

deliberately falsify the content of citations. You've done it numerous times, would you like the links?

[PamW]

72. Sure - I'd like the links

Sure I'd like the links to what you MISTAKENLY "think" are my "mistakes" and "falsifications"

The fact of the mattter is most of what you "think" are my mistakes are due to your own appalling lack of knowledge in science,
and the history of same.

Like recently when you challenged me to show the civillian reactor design program that paralleled the military reactor program.
You didn't think there was a purely civillian program; and you even put one of those falling down laughing smilies in your post #7:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/11275859

That's when I posted a reply that demonstrated there was a civillian program. (Post #19)

So go ahead and post your links and trumpet your scientific ignorance once again.

Showing you to be a fool is like shooting fish in a barrel.

PamW

[PamW]

19. GLADLY!!!

Then perhaps you could share information on the privately funded civilian R&D program that was working parallel to the military program.
==================================

Where do you think the very first Boiling Water Reactor was developed. Do you think it was in a military lab?

NOPE - the first Boiling Water Reactor was developed at General Electric's Vallecitos facility near Sunol, south of Pleasanton, CA.

This is were the Boiling Water Reactor that is the basis of those in BWR power plants was developed. It was not developed in a military lab. It was developed privately by General Electric with their own funds.

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

The ASME - American Society of Mechanical Engineers named the Vallecitos Reactor an engineering landmark:

http://files.asme.org/ASMEORG/Communities/History/Landmarks/5654.pdf\

Quoting from the above:

The Vallecitos Boiliing Water Reactor (VBWR), located near Pleasanton, California was the first privately funded and constructed nuclear power plant to supply power in megawatt amounts to an electric utility grid. The reactor was issued Power Reactor License No. 1 by the US Atomic Energy Commission....


BTW, the production reactors at Hanford and Savannah River were built / operated by DuPont; not GE, Westinghouse, B&W, and Combustion Engineering which are the vendors that make nuclear power plant reactors.

Once again Kris demonstrates that he doesn't know "beans" about the real history of nuclear power. He's only read the biased crap from anti-nuclear organizations. That's why he gets so many facts wrong about nuclear power.

PamW

[PamW]

35. Continuing...

Back in the 1950s and 1960s, the future reactor venders of Westinghouse, General Electric, Babcock & Wilcox, and Combustion Engineering started their own nuclear reactor design and development programs. The firms of Westinghouse, Babcock & Wilcox, and Combustion Engineering were already making fossil-fueled boilers for power plants, and had design and development facilities for those. They founded their reactor design and development efforts at the same facilities as their boiler facilities.

General Electric was different. The main General Electric design and research labs are in Schenectady, New York. However, GE didn't found their new reactor design and development facilities at their main labs. They took another route, and founded an entirely new site in California specifically for nuclear reactor design and development; the Vallecitos Lab.

I drive by the Vallecitos Lab any time I go to San Jose for a concert or whatever. You can see it on Google Earth. Find Pleasanton, California, and just south of Pleasanton, find where Interstate I-680 is joined by Vallecitos Road to the east. Go east on Vallecitos Road until you find a collection of buildings on the north side of the road. You can't miss it - it's the only thing out there.

You will see the containment domes of the 3 nuclear reactors on the site. Two of them, including the above prototype for the Boiling Water Reactor (BWR) are located right next to each other at the east end of the facility. Another reactor inhabits the containment dome seen at the northern most part of the lab.

PamW

[kristopher]

13. All of the replies to the OP are totally off point

The thrust of the OP is that the interplay of economic and technical forces at work in the energy markets dictate a conflict between large scale centralized thermal generation (fossil/nuclear) and renewable generation.

This incompatibility has the result of making it more and more difficult for the large scale systems to operate within their economic niche, meaning steadily increasing prices for their output.

These steadily increasing prices are in stark contrast to the rapidly declining costs associated with the sustainable renewables.

[Dead_Parrot]

14. Or, that too much renewable energy without storage will fuck your grid

The same thing Germany is discovering.

[kristopher]

16. Not the same thing at all.

You'd better be careful, bitterness like that can warp one's personality if it is sustained long enough.

[XemaSab]

18. .

[Dead_Parrot]

25. S'alright

I've got beer for that.

[kristopher]

26. Perhaps the beer is why you don't grasp why you're wrong about the nature of the issue.

The nuclear plant closures in the OP are not related to lack of storage capacity in the grid.

[Dead_Parrot]

27. Yes, they are.

If the renewable resources were producing consistent power, this wouldn't be an issue.

Did you not actually read the article you posted?

“Given the province is theoretically committed to building a new nuclear plant and is considering refurbishment decisions on Bruce B (reactors), the implication is, one, you shouldn’t be adding supply on that scale and, two, if you’re going to add supply, it probably should be supply that you can turn off when you don’t need it,” says Winfield, who also co-chairs the school’s Sustainable Energy Imitative.

Of course, I am making the big assumption here that you are opposed to developing more natural gas. Maybe that's where I'm going wrong, perhaps you could clarify.

[kristopher]

28. The renewables produce what they produce

And it is usable, desirable energy. The fact that is isn't compatible with centralized coal and nuclear is not a drawback to the overall system performance; it is only a negative to coal and nuclear. I realize that is bad news for diehard nuclear proponents such as yourself, but most people are pretty happy about moving to an all renewable and sustainable energy landscape.

[Dead_Parrot]

29. Yes kris, they do produce what they produce...

They also don't produce what they don't produce.

(This is rather zen, isn't it?)

And when they don't produce what they don't produce, people have the choice of a) reading books books by candlelight, b) using stored energy, or c) using something else.

(Stop me if I'm going too fast here)

Since you seem to ruling out storage here, we can cross off (b). I haven't asked the people of Ontario, but I'm guessing (a) is out.
Which leaves us with (c).

Incidentally, in your rush to declare any steady source of power as "incompatible", you've just declared geothermal, wave, and most hydro as dead-end technologies.

Good luck with that.

[kristopher]

36. The nuclear plants have to shut down because they can't sell their electricity

They can't sell their electricity because it isn't an economic choice in the changing grid mix where other sources provide a better value.

Your bizarre attempt at spin isn't going to change anything.

[FBaggins]

40. That's a bunch of smelly bovine byproducts... and you well know it.

We're not talking about closing an operating reactor, we're talking about shutting it off for short periods when more power is generated than demand can accept. There's no way to review that and come away with "it isn't an economic choice".

The reactor is already built. Whatever the ongoing capital costs are will not change if you turn it off for a short period. Fuel costs are essentially unchanged. Payroll costs are unchanged. In short, delivering the electricity costs them no more than not delivering the electricity (in fact, it probably costs them more). So there's simply no way to spin this as an economic decision.

Reality is much simpler. It's the wind generation that, on it's own, was not an economic choice... so nobody was going to build much of it. In order to encourage building it anyway, the government guaranteed them that whatever they produced would be purchased at price that today is well above market price. If there's no demand for what they produce it doesn't matter... because they get paid whether the power is needed or not. In fact, in this case they get paid even when the power they produce is not just worthless... but worth less than nothing.

That's not "economic"... that's precisely the opposite of economic. The proposed solution is actually to pay them to not produce when there is a glut.

The attempt at spin is all yours... and "bizarre" undersells reality.

[kristopher]

54. So you are objecting to the paper using "shut down" instead of "shut off"?

Control Room Supervisor: "Hey Joan, we have to shut it down for about 6 hours."

Joan: "Sorry, can't do that. I can only shut down when we are intending to close the reactor permanently."

:rolf:

The rest of your rant is similarly detached from reality.

[FBaggins]

55. ??? Pretty wild spin there.

The point is that they aren't permanently retiring a reactor. They're ceasing generation for a short period of time. More importantly, the simple fact is that the problem isn't anything like what you described. It's entirely caught up in the fact that someone decided to commit to purchase wind power at an above-market price regardless of whether or not it was needed.

What's your next dodge to avoid dealing with your clear failure?

[kristopher]

61. Wind always sells their output

Without a power purchase agreement they sell into a bidding market where everyone bids their fuel cost, which for wind is zero.

The fact is that the op is describing a dynamic of the energy markets that is working against both coal and nuclear. It is a downward spiral for them since each reduction in the amount they sell means they have to raise their prices on what they DO sell, which decreases their economic competitiveness and causes ever more shut downs.

[kristopher]

73. kick