Why Are So Many Redditors Obsessed With Uncompetitive Nuclear Energy?

[kristopher]

The comments are a wonderful sampling of the problem. This was written during the fallout from the Reddit Science editor's decision to recognize climate change deniers as trolls and ban them from that forum.

Published with permission under Creative Commons licensing
Originally published by CleanTechnica
http://cleantechnica.com/2013/12/27/many-redditors-obsessed-uncompetitive-nuclear-energy/

Why Are So Many Redditors Obsessed With Uncompetitive Nuclear Energy?


I’m not a big reddit user, but I like the site and find it quite useful at times. Of course, reddit is humongous and the users span the social spectrum. Furthermore, there are hundreds if not thousands of subreddits, each with their own unique subculture. However, time and time again, I see a highly unrepresentative sample of nuclear enthusiasts over there, or in the comments of our posts when someone submits one of our stories to reddit and it does quite well there.

Nuclear supporters are far outnumbered by solar power supporters amongst the general population. Within the overall energy world, the general consensus is that solar power will grow tremendously around the world; nuclear power… not so much. Yet, on the /Energy subreddit, a popular solar or wind power story is sure to get swarmed by nuclear enthusiasts. Actually, it’s rare to even see a solar or wind story do well there despite the massive growth of these industries around the world. Renewable energy stories submitted there have a history of being immediately downvoted by redditors who simply don’t want to hear any positive news about renewable energy.

Interestingly, in the sidebar of the /Energy subreddit, where it’s routine to post links to related subreddits, there’s a link to /Renewable but not a link to the much, much larger /RenewableEnergy subreddit. And, above that, there are links to two nuclear subreddits + a subreddit that includes nuclear energy: /NuclearPower, /ThoriumReactor, and /HardEnergy. /HardEnergy, which covers fossil fuels and nuclear, is the top subreddit included there, despite having hardly over 1,000 readers (a small number for a subreddit, especially an overarching subreddit).

The /Energy subreddit isn’t the only one where the prejudice seems to be widespread. I’ve noticed it on the /Technology subreddit (to a lesser extent), and elsewhere. Recently, Elon Musk tweeted one of my solar energy stories (yes, bit of a nice surprise for me), and someone subsequently posted it to the /Futurology subreddit, one that I’d never even heard of but has quite a following. Sure enough, the same thing as always happened in the comments of the original post as well as on the /Futurology post to some extent.

The comments from the nuclear enthusiasts are almost always the same. They attack irrelevant matters related to solar energy. They make mistakes in their overall conclusions. They don’t seem to understand why solar power is growing so fast and why even Shell thinks there’s a good chance it will dominate the entire energy industry by the end of the century. They don’t seem to get that solar costs have fallen tremendously and are projected to keep falling, while nuclear is going in the other direction. They don’t seem to understand why there are massive campaigns against solar and wind funded by fossil fuel and utility industries. Or maybe the do?…

The cynic would likely conclude that many of these fanatics are indeed paid by the nuclear industry to spread misinformation and attack renewables on major sites like reddit. Such campaigns by various industries have been uncovered in the past. Frankly, I don’t think that’s the case with the majority of the nuclear commenters, and wouldn’t even contend that it’s happening at all. Rather, I think people who have worked in the nuclear industry and people who have been mesmerized by the idea of insane amounts of cheap energy from supernatural nuclear (you know, the “too cheap to meter” stuff) have simply been too enclosed in a nuclear-enthusiast bubble for too long and simply don’t have a good sense for where the energy world is today. (emphasis added - k)


The bottom line for nuclear is that it’s far too expensive, hugely unpopular amongst the masses, and poses large financial and environmental risks. It is only really pushed through by corrupt or very confused governments. The private market won’t touch it and projects have no chance where legislation doesn’t ensure profit and put the financial risk of the projects on taxpayers or ratepayers. The following graph and quote from one of the commenters on my solar story (in reply to some of the nuclear enthusiasts) captures the financial absurdity quite well:

It compares the guaranteed pricing for the planned Hinkley Point C nuke in the UK with the current feed-in tariff for large scale solar in Germany. One gets less than 10 Eurocent/kWh for 20 years without inflation correction, the other gets 10,6 Eurocent/kWh for 35 years with inflation correction (plus free 3rd party liability insurance provided by the British People, plus cover for the long term disposal of the waste). Guess which is which. BTW, wind power is even cheaper than large scale solar. New nuclear is not cheap anymore!

Now you will say “but what about at night or when it rains”. The last thing we need then is a base load power plant that can meet above costs only if it runs 8000+ hours per year, regardless of demand.

The summary of the graph above from the website where it was first posted is also quite good (translated from German):

The details of the proposed UK new nuclear power station Hinkley C were announced in October 2013. The nuclear power plant to power with a fixed payment of 92.5 lbs / MWh (10.9 ct / kWh) are paid in the base year 2012 with full compensation for inflation. Thus, the nuclear power plant would be more than twice as expensive as photovoltaic systems in Germany.

The UK story is a long one, but what it’s showing is that nuclear energy is a complete ripoff in the medium to long term.
But the nuclear enthusiasts don’t seem get this no matter how many ways you explain it to them. I’ve been in numerous comment threads trying to illuminate them, but you can debunk the pro-nuclear/anti-renewable myths repeatedly and they just keep coming back, even by the same commenters.

So, the question remains, why is such a small portion of the population so obsessed with nuclear energy despite the fact that it’s no longer competitive? And why are they so opposed to the rapid growth of solar power? I’m not sure, but I can tell you that it certainly gets old.



Update: Interestingly, this article didn’t go big on reddit yet still somehow attracted a huge swarm of nuclear-obsessed commenters. How would that be possible if such people weren’t coordinating in order to swarm any major anti-nuclear posts? The amount of old, repeatedly debunked misinformation posted in the comments of this article swelled tremendously as a result. So, rather than wasting my time dealing with it all yet again, I’m going to recommend a handful of articles not previously included in this piece. If you genuinely want to learn more about the energy sector and how it relates to nuclear, I recommend these pieces:
http://cleantechnica.com/2013/06/26/iea-renewables-will-exceed-natural-gas-and-nuclear-by-2016/

http://cleantechnica.com/2013/06/06/1-billion-dollar-nuclear-plant-dropped-in-iowa/

http://cleantechnica.com/2013/10/30/hinkley-c-nuclear-power-plant-get-twice-rate-solar-pv-uk-government/

http://cleantechnica.com/2013/11/07/germany-solar-pv-report-must-read-energy-reporter/

http://cleantechnica.com/2013/11/09/nuclear-energy-verdict-disappointing/

http://cleantechnica.com/2013/11/09/uk-nuclear-price-uk-wind-energy-price/

http://planetsave.com/2013/11/22/fukushima-daiichi-warning-world/

http://cleantechnica.com/2013/09/25/france-tax-conventional-power-accelerate-shift-renewables/

http://cleantechnica.com/2013/03/11/coal-plants-out-of-style-in-germay/

http://cleantechnica.com/2013/02/05/debunking-common-myths-about-nuclear-coal-power-in-germany-this-time-repeated-by-the-guardian/

http://cleantechnica.com/2013/02/14/renewables-deploy-fast/

http://cleantechnica.com/70-80-99-9-100-renewables-study-central/

http://cleantechnica.com/2013/08/12/intermittency-of-wind-and-solar-is-it-only-intermittently-a-problem/

http://cleantechnica.com/2012/01/03/baseload-power-gets-in-the-way/

http://zacharyshahan.com/about-renewable-energy/

http://cleantechnica.com/2012/03/02/clean-energy-is-needed-now-climate-scientists-climate-economists-say/

http://zacharyshahan.com/shell-sees-solar-becoming-1-source-of-energy-but-its-forecast-is-still-biased/

http://cleantechnica.com/2013/02/28/mini-nuclear-reactors-earn-golden-fleece-award-for-government-waste/

http://cleantechnica.com/2013/02/19/solar-power-cheaper-than-nuclear-in-cloudy-old-england/

http://cleantechnica.com/2013/02/16/macquarie-group-rooftop-solar-is-unstoppable/

http://cleantechnica.com/2013/03/30/shale-gas-wont-kill-solar-wind-renewable-growth-unstoppable-citigroup-study/

http://cleantechnica.com/2013/11/27/cost-nuclear-still-unknown-cost-solar/

http://cleantechnica.com/2012/11/08/nuclear-waste-storage-facilities-intolerable/

http://cleantechnica.com/2012/11/19/how-much-does-nuclear-waste-processing-cost-the-uk/

http://cleantechnica.com/2012/11/07/high-nuclear-power-outages-in-2012-driven-by-global-warming-fueled-sandy-flooding-repair/

http://cleantechnica.com/2012/10/30/nuclear-energys-us-exit/

http://cleantechnica.com/2012/09/24/23-nuclear-plants-vulnerable-to-tsunamis/

http://cleantechnica.com/2012/09/14/benefits-of-thorium-are-overstated-uk-report-finds/

http://cleantechnica.com/2012/06/15/7-arguments-against-nuclear-power/

http://cleantechnica.com/2012/05/14/nearly-1-billion-in-vogtle-nuclear-reactor-overruns-so-far-whos-surprised/

http://cleantechnica.com/2012/03/13/nuclear-economic-risks/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2012/03/29/exelons-nuclear-guy-no-new-nukes/

http://cleantechnica.com/2012/04/16/nuclear-sunset-the-last-straw-of-the-nuclear-lobby/



Originally published By CleanTechnica
http://cleantechnica.com/2013/12/27/many-redditors-obsessed-uncompetitive-nuclear-energy/

[bananas]

1. "Recently, Elon Musk tweeted one of my solar energy stories"

Posted in Good Reads:
"Elon Musk: This is why I think solar power will be the primary long term solution"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/101681372

[PamW]

2. Only a handful of Reddit users are scientists..

Like DU, only a handful of Reddit users are scientists that understand the ultimate LIMITS to solar / wind and other renewables as espoused by none less than the National Academy of Sciences.

Climate scientist Dr. James Hansen says it best:

http://seekerblog.com/2011/08/02/james-hansen-on-the-kool-aid-easter-bunny-and-tooth-fairy/

Can renewable energies provide all of society’s energy needs in the foreseeable future? It is conceivable in a few places, such as New Zealand and Norway. But suggesting that renewables will let us phase rapidly off fossil fuels in the United States, China, India, or the world as a whole is almost the equivalent of believing in the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy.

I'm not going to debate this with the scientifically ignorant troupe; they just have to learn to accept scientific fact.

Renewables won't cut it.

The good thing about science is that it is true, whether or not you believe in it.
--Neil deGrasse Tyson

PamW

[4dsc]

3. The bottom line for nuclear is that it’s far too expensive,

This is all you need to know about nuclear power to make an intelligent decision.

[PamW]

4. It doesn't have to be...

The reason for the expense of nuclear power is the obstructionism due to the anti-nukes.

Before the anti-nukes began holding up nuclear power plants with lawsuits; nuclear power was quite reasonably priced.

For example, Michigan's Palisades Nuclear Power Plant, still in operation; was built for $149 million in the early '70s:

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

Numerous scientific studies have concluded that the high construction costs of the past were due to the 2-step licensing process and the delays due to lawsuits. Utilities used to get a license to construct the plant, they would then borrow the money, build the plant, and then have to apply for an operating license. The anti-nukes would hold up that license with frivolous lawsuits that would delay the operation. The carrying costs were added to the loan, and costs spiraled.

That didn't happen with Palisades; so it is the counter-example and shows that nuclear power can be built safely and in a cost-effective manner if the anti-nukes don't interfere.

PamW

[Iterate]

5. So just sit down and shut up, is that right?

That seems a strangely authoritarian stance for a largely activist and democratic website. But maybe it helps explain why that industry has tended to insinuate itself in times and places where economic and political power is concentrated.

[PamW]

11. NOT at all.

NOT at all. They can make their case ahead of time, when the NRC is considering granting the COL license.

However, the cases made by the anti-nukes are pretty LAME and devoid of scientific content. When the NRC and the Courts dismiss these WORTHLESS protest; then the anti-nukes need to accept that they LOST.

The anti-nukes like the one depicted above are going to have a more difficult time protesting at DOE weapons facilities. The DOE / NNSA got really upset that the protestors that broke into the Oak Ridge Uranium Facility and were in the "kill zone" weren't immediately shot by the guards.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/07/justice/nun-nuclear-breach-charges/index.html

http://www.inquisitr.com/655373/nun-convicted-83-year-old-with-two-others-broke-into-oak-ridge-nuclear-weapons-facility/

http://disinfo.com/2013/05/83-year-old-nun-receives-20-year-prison-sentence-for-civil-disobedience-at-oak-ridge-nuclear-facility/

83-Year-Old Nun Receives 20-Year Prison Sentence For Civil Disobedience At Oak Ridge Nuclear Facility

We won't have to worry about her anymore.

The guards at DOE facilities in the future aren't going to be so lenient; they learned their lessons. If protestors attempt to run the gate, or get too near a weapons facility, they are going to be shot on sight; no questions asked. There are signs posted that the guards can use deadly force; and now they will.

Still, there are probably going to be some morons that attempt to test that system. May they rest in peace. when they do.

PamW

[Iterate]

13. You don't seem to mind the idea of shooting protestors on sight.

And you suggest that anyone who gets near is a moron. Do I have that right?

I'm pretty sure the guy in the picture wasn't near Oak Ridge. It seems excessive.

[PamW]

15. You've never seen these facilities.

You've never seen the facilities.

There are signs all over the place that say the guards can shoot unauthorized people.

These facilities have small armies of guards.

So yes - anyone that gets too close would pretty much have to be a moron.

With such ample warning; if the protestors cross the line to the zones where they have been told they will be shot; and they willing go there to make their "point"; then I have ABSOLUTELY NO RESERVATIONS of having the guards shoot / kill them on sight.

PamW

[cprise]

16. So every added nuke plant is an expansion of martial law.

Thanks for clarifying that for us.

[PamW]

20. MISUNDERSTANDING!!

cprise evidently doesn't understand that the "shoot on sight" only applies at nuclear WEAPONS facilities.

Nobody is adding nuclear weapons facilities.

There's no "shoot on sight" at nuclear power facilities. There's no need since the protestors aren't a danger at a nuclear power plant.

It's at the WEAPONS facilities, like Oak Ridge Y-12 National Security Complex, or Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore, or Sandia National Laboratories, the nuclear WEAPONS laboratories; where they have the "shoot on sight" orders.

I have absolutely no qualms about having these nuclear weapons facilities declared "out of bounds" with regard to the general populace, and see no restriction on civil liberties on having these facilities off limits. It's like military bases. Does the fact that you can't roam the nuclear submarine bases in Washington or Georgia at will somehow an afront to your civil liberties?

Of course not. You have no business at a nuclear submarine base.

Other than that; live your life and avail yourself of your civil liberties to the fullest.

Those excluded facilities are there to PROTECT your civil liberties and our Constitutional system, after all.

PamW

[kristopher]

49. Yes, cprise, you misunderstand ...

... how essential an authoritarian regime is to happiness.

[Iterate]

18. I'm wondering how close is too close.

Admin offices? front gate? What about other locations, like storage and reprocessing plants? Still dangerous. And what about rail shipments?

Are those places now (or do you think they should be) shoot-on-sight for anyone protesting? Or rather, should I ask, which ones should be shoot-on-sight?

[PamW]

21. Nuclear weapons facilities.

It's for the nuclear WEAPONS facilities.

As to the limit; beyond the fence is "out of bounds"

If you don't circumvent the security that is meant to keep you out; like fences; you don't have a problem.

If you don't climb over fences or run past the guards at the checkpoint; then you are 100% safe.

It's when you climb over fences and dodge the guards; then don't cry when you get shot / killed; deservedly so.

PamW

[Iterate]

23. That would include the gate at many, many military bases.

For that matter, the guy in the picture wasn't near one. You seem to be backpedaling.

[Iterate]

37. You stated clearly that democratic and judicial processes are not to your liking,

that they should be limited to favor you an industry which by any measure needs oversight, and when you see a picture of a protestor (which you admit you cannot identify) you immediately post about supposed threats to to national security, adding the horrifying notion that all non-violent protestors engaged in civil disobedience should be shot on sight (your fellow citizens, you know, neighbors) if they trespass an arbitrary boundary. Including old nuns, who by your measure are a threat, but was merely imprisoned for what is likely the rest of her life.

"shot and discarded". I'd hoped that phrase would have become an historical anachronism by now.

Btw, it was a not protest over the shipment of weapons grade material, but you would have to call it weaponizable. So I suppose it would still fit your criteria.

[cprise]

17. News crew detained for filming nuke plant from public beach...

http://www.10news.com/news/investigations/san-onofre-security-and-state-parks-police-detain-team-10-crew-and-demand-video-shot-on-public-property-be-deleted-060513

We are all supposed to avert our eyes from the actuality of nuclear power... it is only to be adored indirectly, its facsimiles dancing in our eyes like so many cheerful 1950s cartoons.

It is indeed all about concentration of wealth and power; about expansion of a militarized police state. And there is no better way for authoritarians to terrify the population about terrorism, inducing us to hand over all power to the corporatist state.

[PamW]

22. The restrictions are POSTED

If their are signs posted that say not to film; then don't film.

If there are fences and gates; don't circumvent them.

I don't understand this nonsense that when someone DISOBEYS what the laws require them to do; and then they PRETEND to be innocent.

If the sign says not to film and you film; then you are DISOBEYING the laws, and you aren't innocent. By definition.

PamW

[cprise]

29. Ergo the technology isn't safe

The difference in wording here is absolutely... CUTE:

Southern California Edison:

The security officer indicated that it was his preference that they cease filming and delete the video.

10 News:

A San Onofre employee dressed in SWAT gear said the video must be deleted.

[PamW]

35. ILLOGICALLY drawn conclusion...

There's plenty of SAFE technologies that require security.

Aviation is safe. However, if you hang around the perimeter of an airport, filming and charting the activities of the security forces; then the security forces can be excused for thinking you are up to something.

Filming the security is something that terrorists might do in planning an attack.

Just because an airport could be vulnerable to a terrorist attack doesn't mean aviation isn't safe.

The laws give the security forces the legal ammunition they need to prevent terrorists from "scouting" the facility.

The news crew could be imposters. The security forces can't assure that the news crew is legit.

So I'm glad they have the ammunition to tell them to destroy the video.

There's no reason to allow the filming when the crew could be terrorist scouts.

If the news crew thinks that there is something wrong at the facility; then they can inform the NRC's resident inspectors and let them check it out.

PamW

[cprise]

43. Um, no.

There's plenty of SAFE technologies that require security.

Aviation is safe. However, if you hang around the perimeter of an airport, filming and charting the activities of the security forces; then the security forces can be excused for thinking you are up to something.

Very much "no". Aviation is safe for entirely different reasons than nuclear is considered "safe" by some. A passenger jet falling out of the sky has far more limited repercussions than a bad nuclear reactor-related conflict.

Anyway, the type of venue you chose for comparison is pretty unfortunate -- though apt -- as many airports are border-crossings where individual rights are routinely suppressed.

[kristopher]

48. That is a good thing to an authoritarian mindset

until it happens to them.

[caraher]

6. You mean this Palisades plant?

First, at least try to inflation-adjust your figures. The $149 million figure on Wikipedia comes with a "citation needed" note (perhaps you could supply them one?). A better index of construction costs may be EIA figures, which peg construction cost at $630 million in 2007 dollars for the 800 MW station. Note that Michigan's other power station that started operating before TMI, Donald C. Cook, cost $3.4 billion for just over 2 GW of capacity. If Cook had cost the same per MW as Palisades it would still have cost around $1.5 billion in 2007 dollars. And there's no particular reason to take, as typical for the era, the unsourced construction cost figure for one plant. (I have no evidence that the cost for Cook is typical, either; it was just the first plant I ran across in looking up the real cost of Palisades, and it might be an instructive comparison as both power stations are in the same state and entered operation in the 1970s.)

All this leaves aside decommissioning costs, of course.

Meanwhile, the bloom may be off the Palisades rose (unfortunately due, if only in part, to the rise of "cheap" natural gas):

Mark Cooper, senior fellow for economic analysis at the Institute for Energy and the Environment at Vermont Law School, examined 11 risk factors that might lead to reactors being shut down early and found 38 of the country's 104 reactors had four or more risk factors.

Palisades had six, including cost, age, long-term shut down and multiple safety risks. Other Michigan reactors on the list included the Enrico Fermi Generating Station in Frenchtown Charter Township and the Donald C. Cook Generating Station near Bridgman, each of which had five risk factors.

<snip>

Across the U.S., a number of factors, including the declining cost of natural gas, increased operating costs for nuclear plants and the expense of safety retro-fits, are leading to an increased likelihood of early retirements, Cooper said.

Lower cost-alternatives are squeezing the cash margins of older reactors, such as Palisades, "to the point where they no longer cover the cost of nuclear operation. In the mid-term, things get worse because the older reactors get, the less viable they become," he wrote.

In any event, imagining that there will be some magical rollback in safety regulations and an end to lawsuits filed by opponents to new nuclear plants is as delusional as pretending nuclear power is stupid because nuclear plants have efficiencies constrained by thermodynamics. You make decisions with the regulatory and legal environment you have, as well as the goodwill you have (or have not) earned with the public. The cost is not what it would be absent the rules. When, one week before Fukushima, I heard a talk by Bob Budnitz touting a bright future for nuclear, he spoke with pride about the present safety culture of US nuclear plants, rather than grousing about over-regulation (though I'd expect he'd consider much anti-nuclear litigation frivolous). He also most definitely felt it was a bad idea to roll things back to the way the industry operated in the late '60s (indeed, the whole thrust of his talk was that by every measure he discussed, there have enormous strides taken regarding safety, especially since 1979). We're simply never going back to a time where "trust us, we're experts" will suffice.

[PamW]

8. 100% WRONG

Last edited Thu Jan 2, 2014, 02:36 PM - Edit history (3)

caraher states
You make decisions with the regulatory and legal environment you have,

NO - you can CHANGE the regulations / law and we ALREADY DID.

Because the obstructionist anti-nukes abused the old 2-step licensing process; the laws were changed.

We now have a "Combined License" law. The anti-nukes can raise their objections before the plant is built.

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

However, once the combined license is granted the utility can build the plant; and when done can now IMMEDIATELY begin operation of the plant since they will be in possession of an operations license. The anti-nukes don't get an UNDESERVED second "bite at the apple". They have their say before the COL is granted, and once the NRC and Courts rule against them; they can NOT go to Court to obstruct a legally licensed plant.

As experience is gained; safety gets better - no surprise there. It happened with aviation, and is happening with nuclear power.

I point to Palisades since it may be the SINGLE case where the bonehead anti-nukes didn't interfere.

I don't have any problem with legitimate objections; but the bonehead anti-science "boogeyman" objections of the anti-nukes doesn't really deserve the Court time and legal basis. If you have science-based, reality-based objections; that is fine; but not the STUPID objections of the anti-nukes that were eventually dismissed as BASELESS; but only after wasting time and money.

If you've ever read the NRC dockets; you'd know the type of really boneheaded crap that some of the anti-nuke bleat about. Some nincompoops have been bamboozled into "thinking" ( for lack of a more accurate word ) that nuclear power plants are going to blow-up like bombs, or that they will fall like a house of cards at the slightest quake, or that they are proliferation risks. NONE of that crap had ANY grounding in science; but it takes the Courts years to dismiss this flotsam from the mental defectives. Perhaps the legal profession should impose a scientific IQ test before people get to make claims with a scientific basis.

Now in the ultimate display of hypocrisy and dishonesty; the anti-nukes complain about high cost that THEY caused.

If you cause the problem; you don't get to complain about it.

The cost comparison between gas and nuclear is really LAME. It's apples and oranges because nuclear is low GHG, and gas still emits GHG. It may be only about half the emission per unit energy as coal; but if we went totally gas; we would still have a GHG problem.

So please don't make LAME comparisons in favor of a fossil fuel that we ALL would like to phase out. Fossil fuels are the enemy; and gas is a fossil fuel. So I wouldn't be cheering for a fossil fuel over nuclear.

Decommission is also a favorite "red herring" for the UNINFORMED anti-nukes. The NRC requires that a nuclear power plant operator put away decommissioning funds into an escrow account:

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

A number of nuclear power plants have been dismantled; Big Rock Point Nuclear Power Plant, Maine Yankee Nuclear Power Plant, Trojan Nuclear Power Plant. Go to the Wikipedia article for any of these; and click on the coordinates at the upper right corner and click on through to Google Earth or Bing Aerial. You will see a satellite / aerial view of the nuclear power plant site. Guess what? No nuclear power plant. Uninformed anti-nukes have been touting decommissioning as some impossibly complex task. The engineers that designed the plants weren't stupid. They designed the plants to be ultimately dismantled. Why do some people "think" that scientists / engineers are all idiots? I keep hearing all these baseless claims that the scientists / engineers didn't consider what to do with waste, or didn't think about decommissioning. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The Laws of Physics don't just pick on the nuclear power plants. The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics doesn't constrain just thermal power plants, but practically everything with a temperature above absolute zero. The 2nd Law doesn't just constrain the steam turbines in power plants but the wind turbines that are out in the wind. They are TURBINES, for Heaven sake. If you don't know how the 2nd Law constrains them; then you don't know anything about the 2nd Law. The non-scientists may have heard of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics; but they sure don't know how to use / apply it.

PamW

[caraher]

10. You're deliberately missing the point

Sure, regulations can change and have changed. But they do so in response to something. All you have backing a big change in the process is a wish that everyone would simply accept the purported counsel of your legendary "SCIENTISTS" and that just isn't going to happen, particularly if the industry follows your example of public education.

It's absurd to imagine Palisades is a unique case of non-interference. There are older reactors; was there some bizarre "dead zone" in time and space that let Palisades slip by? Cost figures for earlier reactors are, not surprisingly, comparable. The two oldest currently operating reactors are at Oyster Creek and Nine Mile Point, both beginning operations in 1969. Per EIA, their respective construction costs in 2007 dollars were $488 million for a 615 MW plant and $805 million for a 630 MW facility. Surely these also came into being in a similar environment. A moment or two of casual googling was all it took to reveal these properly-sourced figures, which give a much better idea of the actual cost of the first wave of reactors than your unsourced, evidently not-adjusted-for-inflation value for Palisades. You can certainly still argue that the costs of later facilities were inflated by obstruction tactics, but you should at least get your baseline value correct.

Your rant about decommissioning is clearly an argument you're having with voices inside your head. I did not claim decommissioning was impossible, or not planned for. I simply observed that the construction cost you cite does not include the decommissioning cost, which is in no way contradicted by your discussion of the funding mechanism for decommissioning. While decommissioning is not an "up front" cost it is a nontrivial cost nonetheless, and should at least be mentioned in any honest discussion of the economics of nuclear power.

[PamW]

14. Reading comprehension problem??

Where did I say I wanted some change in regulations? You've claimed that I wanted to go back to the '60s or whatever and looser regulations. Where did I say that? I certainly don't see where I've advocated laxer regulations.

At some level; you have to trust the scientists / engineers when it comes to nuclear power, aviation, medicine, automobiles...there's always going to be something that you aren't expert in. That's when you need to trust the experts.

NOT absurd at all concerning Palisades. The Palisades plant was licensed when society's mal-contents were busy protesting the Vietnam War; so they didn't have time for nuclear power.

Using your figures above; we should be able to build nuclear power plants for about $1 billion per gigawatt; assuming linear scaling which is not a good assumption. Some parts of the plant don't scale linearly with power. But a billion per gigawatt should be conservative and not bad. It's all these nuts saying that nuclear power plants should cost $25 billion per gigawatt that are out to lunch.

You made a statement about decommission; as if that was some problem. If left unfettered, the plant earns its decommissioning funds during its lifetime; and the NRC requires that the money be put away for it. So money isn't the problem. Some anti-nukes "think" that there is no way to disassemble a plant; and that is off course WRONG.

I cited the non-inflation adjusted value because I assumed people could do the time-costing themselves. I didn't want to get into a meaningless argument about what the proper inflation adjustment should be. I just wanted to draw a contrast between the $149 million that Palisades cost ( official NRC number ), and the cost of plants that were built just a few years later when the anti-nukes NEEDLESSLY inflated the costs due to their obstructionist tactics.

The New York / New Jersey area as well as California seem to attract scientifically ignorant mal-contents, and Oyster Creek, Nine Mile Point, Diablo Canyon, Rancho Seco, and San Onofre were built in that environment.

The Midwest seems to have some more intelligent and enlightened people, so Consumer's Power and Detroit Edison as well as Commonwealth Edison in Illinois were able to bring nuclear power plants online without all the obstructionism.

After all, the Commonwealth Edison area of Chicago and Northern Illinois has almost the same fraction of nuclear power as does France. There's almost a dozen reactors in northern Illinois.

PamW


PamW

[kristopher]

19. I think this table informs the discussion.

As for the influence of antinuclear sentiment, it's difficult to argue that in the face of three different indicators.
The first is the performance of Flamanville ($4B>$11B) with similar numbers for Olkiluoto in Finland. These can hardly be attributed to cost increases associated with either regulatory uncertainty or antinuclear sentiment. Defenders of nuclear counter these examples by pointing to Asian construction projects that have come in at much lower costs. The problem with that is the difference in the level of transparency in the cost accounting for these projects. The turnkey project in Finland is particularly well documented, while the information on costs out of China and Korea are best described as sketchy.

The second indicator is a similar pattern of cost escalation in modern coal plants.

Cost Estimates for Proposed Coal-Fired Power Plants
As recently as 2005, companies were saying that proposed coal-fired power plants would cost as little as $1,500/kW to $1,800/kW. However, the estimated construction costs of new coal plants have risen significantly since then.
The following examples illustrate the cost increases that proposed projects experienced in the past two or three years:
• Duke Energy Carolinas’ summer 2006 cost estimate for the two unit Cliffside Project was approximately $2 billion. In the fall of 2006, Duke announced that the cost of the project had increased by approximately 47 percent ($1 billion). After the project had been downsized because the North Carolina Utilities Commission refused to grant a permit for two units, Duke announced that the cost of the remaining single unit would be about $1.53 billion, not including financing costs. In late May 2007, Duke announced that the cost of building the single Cliffside unit had increased by yet another 20 percent. As a result, the estimate cost of the one unit that Duke is building at Cliffside is now $1.8 billion exclusive of financing costs. Thus, the single Cliffside unit is now expected to cost almost as much as Duke estimated for a two unit plant only two years ago in the summer of 2006.

http://www.synapse-energy.com/Downloads/SynapsePaper.2008-07.0.Coal-Plant-Construction-Costs.A0021.pdf

There is a comparison graph between coal and nuclear floating around somewhere. I seem to recall it was very helpful.

Third is the poor cost forecasts being made as part of a disreputable sales approach by and for utilities. That is visible in the table above, and it is also evident when looking at the progression of cost estimates for the current round of planning in nuclear beginning back in 2000. The predictions in the 2003 MIT evaluation give a point of departure for discussion on that aspect of the problem.

Finally and separate there is a real problem with data trimming in this area. Key elements of costs important to legitimate comparisons between nuclear and renewables are externalized in most discussions - financing comes to mind.

See:
"Climate Change, Nuclear Economics, and Conflicts of Interest,"
Science and Engineering Ethics, 17 5-107.
http://www3.nd.edu/~kshrader/pubs/ksf-2011-climate-change-econ-conflicts-interest-see.pdf

And

Business Risks and Costs of New Nuclear Power Craig A. Severance
http://www.nirs.org/neconomics/nuclearcosts2009.pdf

[FBaggins]

26. It informs another one even better

So in roughly one decade, there were 75 starts for nuclear plants (presumably reactors - not plants)?

Tell me again how much more rapidly renewables can be deployed than nuclear?

[kristopher]

36. Not at all.

The point of the argument isn't how rapidly you can begin construction, but how long construction takes. Dedicating the same amount of resources to wind/solar as you would to nuclear results in a huge advantage for renewables in the amount of carbon reductions achieved.

However, most experienced nuclear operators, like Florida Power and Light, say US new-nuclear-plant-construction time is 12 years (Herbst and Hopley 2007), not the 5 years assumed by the MIT authors. Likewise, the US National Academy of Sciences estimates at least 11 years (Smith 2007). The average UK-nuclear- plant-construction time is 11 years (House of Commons Energy Select Committee 1990); in France, 14 years (International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) 2007); in Japan, 17 years (Stoett 2003); in Eastern Europe, 15 years (Bunyard 2006; International Energy Agency (IEA) 2001). Nuclear proponents admit that building the latest US reactors took 23 years (Herbst and Hopley 2007).

Shrader Frechette
Climate Change, Nuclear Economics, and Conflicts of Interest
(Link above)

[cprise]

24. Those decommissioning funds assume constant expansion

Which is why they're doing such a bad job of actually funding them.

The French nuclear industry was a fluke, and now even its decommissioning funds are about to get raided to pay for the UK Tories' thirst for concentrated wealth and power.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/12/16/uk-areva-hinkleypoint-funds-idUKBRE9BF0KS20131216

[FBaggins]

27. Where did you get the idea that they're having trouble funding them?

Plant owners have to report regularly on the status of their decomissioning fund. Have you seen reports of large shortfalls?

The French nuclear industry was a fluke, and now even its decommissioning funds are about to get raided to pay for the UK Tories' thirst for concentrated wealth and power.

The French nuclear industry is essentially one government-owned company... so they have a single fund. And it most certainly isn't getting "raided" any more than Social Security is "raided" by investing in government bonds. What they're doing is investing some of the assets in the fund into the new build. Not at all the same thing.

[cprise]

32. Such an investment would be a huge mistake

(...and that's not even referring to the debacle of using decommissioning funds to add to the overall decommission liability.)

Besides, the French have been trying to privatize that sector for years.

[FBaggins]

34. Why?

The UK has taken most of the risk out of the investment. It's almost certain to provide a higher rate of return than the fund is earning now (thus improving the stability of their decomissioning fund).


using decommissioning funds to add to the overall decommission liability

That's incorrect. As has been pointed out, plants fund the liability as part of the price of the electricity that they sell. The stability of their liability funding would only be impacted to the extent that the new plant contributed less each month to the fund than is necessary to fund the new incremental liability - and there's no evidence that this is the case. If anything, the newer designs should be cheaper (on a per kWh basis) than their existing plants.

[PamW]

30. WHAT????

The ONLY case I'm aware of where the decommissioning fund didn't cover the cost is Rancho Seco.

Of course, that's because the owners, the citizens of Sacramento didn't allow the plant to run long enough to earn the money.

If one leaves the plant to operate profitably, and put money in the escrow fund; then it will have sufficient funds; there's no need for some constant expansion assumption.

The funds are required to be conservatively invested.

So if one were to buy an index fund to index for inflation; the fund should compensate for inflation, and the plant's profits are responsible for building up the fund.

PamW

[cprise]

42. "conservatively invested" = sit on ratepayer money until more nuke projects are OK'd

That's a laugh.

So if one were to buy an index fund to index for inflation; the fund should compensate for inflation, and the plant's profits are responsible for building up the fund.

So you wouldn't mind seeing nuclear trust funds that invest in wind and solar?

[kristopher]

38. There have been problems with decommissioning funds

The NRC found some serious issues with Exelon, which is remarkable since the GAO concludes that NRC oversight is, shall we say, less than rigorous.

[FBaggins]

7. Why is the author obsessed with dishonestly comparing apples to oranges?

It isn't valid to compare the UK CFD price to the German FIT. The first is both a maximum and minimum and represents the total compensation to the generator... while the FIT is a minimum and doesn't represent what the generator gets paid (they still get to sell the electricity for whatever the market will bear... the FIT is on top of that).

Since the author pretends to compare the cost of nuclear to that of solar/wind... one is forced to wonder why he didn't just compare the CFD for nuclear in the UK to the CFD set for the renewable alternatives.

The answer, of course, is clear. The author doesn't use that comparison because it doesn't support his thesis. The CFD for renewables is higher (often MUCH higher) than that for nuclear power... and even at those higher prices, the concern is that renewable installations will collapse because they aren't high enough.

He then goes on to claim (again falsely) that nuclear power is "hugely unpopular amongst the masses"... when YouGov polling in the UK showed only 20% thought that the UK should have less nuclear power than they presently produce (Oct 2012). The most recent poll I've seen deals specifically with the deal for the new Hinkley reactors... with only 30% disapproving (hardly "hugely unpopular&quot . http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/category/economy

More on the "hugely unpopular" nonsense:

LibDemVoice.org just reported a poll of members (not scientific, since it isn't a random sample of the population... but they are all dues-paying members of the party):

The government has recently signed a deal with French energy company EDF and a Chinese energy firm to build a new nuclear power station in Somerset, the first new nuclear power station in Britain since 1995. Do you support or oppose the decision to build a new nuclear power station?

56% – Support
36% – Oppose
8% – Don’t know

If barely 1/3 of the lib-dems oppose the new plant... it's pretty hard to claim that nuclear power in general is hugely unpopular in the UK. This is probably why we're starting to hear hints that they may go as high as 75 GWs of nuclear power by 2050 (86% of current demand).

[PamW]

9. At least SOMEBODY is listening to the SCIENTISTS!!

At least somebody is listening to the scientists:

http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/03/world/nuclear-energy-climate-change-scientists/index.html

http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/03/world/nuclear-energy-climate-change-scientists-letter/index.html

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/03/climate-scientists-support-nuclear-power

PamW

[kristopher]

12. I expected you to provide a good illustration of the disinformation referred to in the article

Thanks for delivering.

Baggins wrote:

It isn't valid to compare the UK CFD price to the German FIT. The first is both a maximum and minimum and represents the total compensation to the generator... while the FIT is a minimum and doesn't represent what the generator gets paid (they still get to sell the electricity for whatever the market will bear... the FIT is on top of that).

"...the UK CFD price... is both a maximum and minimum and represents the total compensation to the generator"

Sorry, but that isn't true. The strike price for nuclear in the UK is a guaranteed minimum. If they can sell it for more, they are free to do so.

"... the FIT is a minimum and doesn't represent what the generator gets paid (they still get to sell the electricity for whatever the market will bear... the FIT is on top of that"

Again, untrue. The FIT is total compensation to the investor over a 20 year period. It is 'degressive' and is adjusted regularly to compensate for the declining costs of solar systems. The elements that go into setting the FIT are the costs of the system + a small markup for profit. To make it work the utilities are required to purchase all of the output of the systems enrolled. There is no compensation beyond the FIT.

You do ask an interesting question, though. Why didn't he compare the strike price of wind and nuclear in the UK?
I can think of two reasons off the top of my head. The first is that offshore wind is an emerging industry that isn't close to reaching maturity. For example, the number of ships available to install turbines is very limited and as a consequence the price for their services is extremely high. That is the same situation with much of the supply chain that is unique to offshore wind.
Second is the fact that the Conservatives in the UK are every bit as guilty as their US counterparts when it comes to enacting legislation in bad faith. There is a great deal of criticism that the opposition to UK (and EU) targets for renewable penetration is designed to deliberately discourage investment in the offshore sector, thus ensuring that cost reductions will be impossible to achieve. Without those cost reductions to look forward to, the strike price isn't an incentive at all - it is a policy designed to fail; thereby bolstering the Conservative's claims that nuclear is the only option.

Future of UK offshore wind power in 'serious doubt'
The government has done too little to attract wind turbine manufacturers to set up in the UK, a thinktank study has found
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/jul/09/future-uk-offshore-wind-power

[FBaggins]

25. Nope

Sorry, but that isn't true. The strike price for nuclear in the UK is a guaranteed minimum. If they can sell it for more, they are free to do so.

Nope. Flat wrong. If the market price for electricity exceeds the strike price, EDF has to refund the difference.

The strike price works the other way as well - EDF has to refund the difference if the price of electricity is above £92.50/Mwh. For example, if the wholesale price is £110/Mwh, then it has to refund £18.50/Mwh. Again, this money goes back to bill payers, not to the government.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22772441

You do ask an interesting question, though. Why didn't he compare the strike price of wind and nuclear in the UK?
I can think of two reasons off the top of my head. The first is that offshore wind is an emerging industry that isn't close to reaching maturity.

Certainly true... but not directly relevant. Since 1) I didn't limit the discussion to offshore wind and 2) a claim that things will be cheaper at some point in the future does not impact a claim that nuclear is more expensive now.

Second is the fact that the Conservatives in the UK are every bit as guilty as their US counterparts when it comes to enacting legislation in bad faith.


Again... that's great spin... but not relevant. A particular price has been set and it clearly isn't considered to be high enough to encourage renewables. You're free to believe whatever you want about why they did that, but it doesn't change the fact that the price they set for renewables is higher (to MUCH higher) than the price they set for nuclear... and it still isn't high enough. So he can't claim that nuclear is more expensive.

Without those cost reductions to look forward to, the strike price isn't an incentive at all -

And that's just what I said at the time.

[kristopher]

40. Yep

Still trying to obfuscate and hide from accurate analysis? Assuming the BBC reference is true about the (and I quote most reporting) "guaranteed minimum price"; it doesn't even apply to the false claim You made about the validity of the chart. There is a cost escalator built in, and the slope accurately reflects its amount.

The cost of solar is as graphed. If a critical comment were to be made, it would be that the representation for solar doesn't include the regular decreases in the amount of the FIT; instead showing only contracts that would be signed this year and 22 years from now.

Lastly, subsidies have a purpose. They are intended to help establish emerging and socially desirable technologies. The problem with fossil fuels is largely a result of the persistence of subsidies when the actual need is to not only eliminate subsidies but to bring into the cost equation the externalized costs they force on the world. Your attitude replicates that. There is no indication that future cost reductions in the price of nuclear will be achieved; so there is no way to look at their use for the 60 year old nuclear industry except as corrupt political patronage.

You might not think that's relevant, but it is.

[NNadir]

28. This may seem mysterious to people who can't compare numbers, like say, the price of electricity...

...in France and in Germany. Generally this set includes the entire set of badly educated fossil fuel apologists who run around trying to foist the failed, expensive, and largely useless wind and solar garbage on humanity even as the collapse of the planetary atmosphere accelerates to new levels, continually citing one another as if there was one among them who was less stupid than the other.

However many people can tell the difference between electricity prices in Germany and France, for instance listed on this table:

http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index.php/Electricity_and_natural_gas_price_statistics

Regrettably, as six million people die each year from air pollution - lives that might be saved were it not for the fear and ignorance of the anti-nuke cults - we have a subset of moral cripples who advance a silly "economic" claim that nuclear energy is not competitive, even though world wide, nuclear energy is the world's largest, by far, source of safe, climate change gas free energy.

If the "renewables will save us" cults really were reality based, they might try to figure out how it is, that after 50 years of cheering, after soaking up hundreds of billions of euros, hundreds of billions of dollars, trillions of yen and yuan, the solar industry, for example, is incapable of producing even 1 of the roughly 540 exajoules of energy humanity is consuming each year.

This would be more rational than continually attacking - from a position of abysmal ignorance, coupled with a healthy dollop of selective attention bordering on delusional - a form of energy that has functioned for more than half a century, having saved 1.84 million lives, and prevented the dumping of 64 billion tons of dangerous fossil fuel waste according to the most read paper in 2013 in the scientific journal Environmental Science and Technology

http://pubs.acs.org/action/showMostReadArticles?topArticlesType=recent&journalCode=esthag

Many things that are not mysterious to educated people seem mysterious to the uneducated and the unenlightened. Unfortunately for anti-nukes, most people can do math, and figure out, for instance, what the electricity prices in France (nuclear) and Germany (fossil fuel/wind/solar) are.

[PamW]

31. RIGHT ON!! as always...

For all the blather from the renewables crowd; renewables produce a trivial percentage of our electric demand.

The renewables crowd always touts the "percentage change" that renewables are making.

Sorry; but "percentage change" doesn't keep your lights on; gigawatt-hours do.

The renewables numbers look impressive because they started / are such a low percentage.

When the denominator of the percentage change fraction is near zero; the percentage change looks impressive.

However, if you are 0.1% of the total, and you want to be 50%; then the percentage change you need to realize is 50,000%.

Suddenly those 100%, 200% or whatever percentages don't look too impressive.

Legitimate scientists, like Hansen and his colleagues, the National Academy of Science and scientists in general know the LIMITS on what can be done with renewables. They know that the heavy lifting in a low GHG system will have to be done by nuclear power.

However, I don't think the majority of so-called environmentalists are really driven by the science. They are driven by their politics.

The legitimate environmentalists that one sees in "Pandora's Promise", like Michael Schumacher, Richard Rhodes, Stewart Brand, and Gweneth Cravens see that the last few decades of environmentalism have fallen short of the mark needed. If the next few decades yield similar results; the fossil fuel industry will have won.

The so-called "environmentalists" ( who are really politicians and not environmentalists ) are opposing the only technology that can actually defeat the fossil fuel industry.

The generations of the future that have to live with the consequences of climate change failure will CURSE these so-called environmentalists for their obstructionism.

PamW

[kristopher]

39. Compare numbers for paid off, ready to retire plants with the costs of new infrastructure?

You Can compare those numbers, but any person with a lick of sense knows the comparison is meaningless.

Nuclear power's broken promises means EDF deal is a delusional dream
The cost of nuclear energy has tripled in just five years, while the cost of renewable energy is falling fast, making the UK government's deal a truly terrible one

Energy efficiency is cheapest and the cost of renewable energy is falling. In contrast, gas prices have risen by 50% in five years and the cost of nuclear energy has trebled since 2008. Yet the UK government today staked a large part of the nation's energy future on the latter, by agreeing a deal with EDF which might lead to them building a new nuclear power station. Ministers have not backed the favourite, or even a speedy but erratic outsider: they have backed a horse running in reverse.

The 60-year history of the nuclear industry is one unblemished by promises kept. From "too cheap to meter" to safe as houses, every pledge has been broken. When the UK government once again fell for the renewed vows of the nuclear industry in 2008, they were promised reactors would cost £2.8bn to build. Today's deal shows the cost is now £8bn. They were promised electricity for £31-42 per megawatt-hour: today's price is £92.50/MWh.

The trashed guarantees stack up as steadily as the toxic waste pile that already costs billions a year to store. In 2007, David Cameron said: "The problems of nuclear waste have to be dealt with to make any new investment possible." In January 2013, Cumbria, the only place in the running for a permanent disposal site rejected the idea.

The government pledge that the private sector would build the new reactors has collapsed too: EDF is owned by the French state and can only move ahead itself with about 40% of the money stumped up by China.

The final crushed commitment comes from the 2010 coalition agreement: New nuclear power stations "will receive no public subsidy". If forcing energy consumers to pay roughly £38bn above the current cost of electricity is not a subsidy, what is? If a government package of insurance against accidents and loan guarantees is not a subsidy, what is?

This farrago of fictions matters...

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/damian-carrington-blog/2013/oct/21/nuclear-power-energy-edf-deal

[NNadir]

41. Um, solar energy is "free?" How come...

...our anti-nukes, conservative assholes, keep citing that very, very, very, very, very stupid right wing cold warrior - that would be the shit head Lewis Strauss, who among other things, ran a witch hunt against Robert Oppenheimer with this silly "too cheap to meter" shit?

My theory about why anti-nukes quote this scientifically illiterate right wing syndic so much is that he hated science and scientists as much as he did - with the possible exception of Teller.

So why all this talk about "too cheap to meter?" From where I sit, the solar and wind industry throughout the world are robbing the poor blind by driving their energy prices through the roof, this while appealing to tiresome bourgeois rhetoric about $137,500 electric cars for rich brats with no compassion for the poor.

To wit: http://www.democraticunderground.com/112758407

These are the same people who cavil endlessly about the possibility that someone, anyone, died from radiation in Japan's earthquake, while meanwhile the number of people who died from air pollution in the last 20 years, at a rate of more than 6 million per year, who died from air pollution is roughly equal to the entire Japanese population, every man, woman, and child in the country.

That's right. The population of Japan is about 127,000,000 people, roughly the same as the number of people who died from air pollution in the last twenty years, while anti-nukes kept stealing money to run their solar and wind scam, neither of which, combined, in the last ten years has produced as much energy as nuclear energy produced in the last two years, this while anti-nukes burned coal, gas, and oil to share with us their paranoid fantasies about how Fukushima's reactors - but not the earthquake that killed 20,000 people independent of the reactors - were the end of the world.

Source: The Lancet, Volume 380, Issue 9859, Pages 2224 - 2260, 15 December 2012, "A comparative risk assessment of burden of disease and injury attributable to 67 risk factors and risk factor clusters in 21 regions, 1990—2010: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010"

Nowhere in that Lancet paper, by the way, prepared by scientific, health and medical experts around the world is nuclear energy cited as a major cause of death on this planet, although the paper covers 1/3 of the more than half a century of nuclear operations.

So why all this "too cheap to meter" talk?

Is this to distract attention from the electricity prices in that coal burning hellhole Germany with it's vast wasteful subsidies to the wind and solar window dressing?

Or is simply just one more demonstration of the fact that anti-nukes are incapable of comprehending numbers, like the clearly stated and unambiguous prices of electricity in France and Germany, and for that matter, that offshore North Sea oil and gas drilling hellhole in Denmark, where they "Drill, baby, Drill?"

http://www.ens.dk/en/oil-gas

The solar scam has been running for 50 years, still unable to produce a single exajoule out of the 540 humanity uses. I'm not young any more, but I would probably need half the fingers in New York City over the last half century to match the number of times someone has claimed that solar energy is, um, free.

Is it?

There is no one, zero people in the vast circle of dumb anti-nukes who cut and paste each other's bull all over the internet, burning, predictably, coal, gas and oil to do so, who can think and obviously none who can comprehend simple numbers, including the prices of French and German and Danish electricity.

How much you wanna bet though, that we'll see ever more cut and paste crap from the circle of ignorance yet.

[kristopher]

44. Amazing. 642 words and not a cogent, relevant thought in the lot.

[NNadir]

45. What? No cut and paste?

I have never accused an anti-nuke of knowing how to read.

They can't count very well either, at least rationally. For instance, there's an anti-nuke here, on this very website, who remarks that the death of more than 120 million people in the last 20 years from air pollution, as reported by one of the most prestigious medical/scientific journals in the world is "not relevant.

No surprise really. These "let them eat cake" bourgeois brats are not only mindless, they're heartless. They argue that the killing should go on indefinitely so they can cavil endlessly, burning coal, gas and oil, that someone might have died from radiation at Fukushima.

Bastards.

[kristopher]

46. The coal-nuclear-tar sands industry has caused the problem you speak of....

...so I guess another example of their minions swarming the internets trying to distract from the solution is relevant after all. Damn fine job of illustrating the point of the OP in fact.

Nuclear Technology & Canadian Oil Sands: Integration of Nuclear Power with In-Situ Oil Extraction
A.E. FINAN, K. MIU, A.C. KADAK
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering 77 Massachusetts Avenue, 24-105 Cambridge, MA 02139-4307

Abstract - This report analyzes the technical aspects and the economics of utilizing nuclear reactors to provide the energy needed for a Canadian oil sands extraction facility using Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) technology. The energy from the nuclear reactor would replace the energy supplied by natural gas, which is currently burned at these facilities. There are a number of concerns surrounding the continued use of natural gas, including carbon dioxide emissions and increasing gas prices. Three scenarios for the use of the reactor are analyzed 1) using the reactor to produce only the steam needed for the SAGD process; (2) using the reactor to produce steam as well as electricity for the oil sands facility; and (3) using the reactor to produce steam, electricity, and hydrogen for upgrading the bitumen from the oil sands to syncrude, a material similar to conventional crude oil. Three reactor designs were down-selected from available options to meet the expected mission demands and siting requirements. These include the Canadian ACR- 700, Westinghouse’s AP 600 and the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR). The report shows that nuclear energy would be feasible, practical, and economical for use at an oil sands facility. Nuclear energy is two to three times cheaper than natural gas for each of the three scenarios analyzed. Also, by using nuclear energy instead of natural gas, a plant producing 100,000 barrels of bitumen per day would prevent up to 100 megatonnes of CO2 per year from being released into the atmosphere.

http://web.mit.edu/pebble-bed/papers1_files/OilSands.pdf

Alberta Tar Sands
Nuclear Power in Canada Appendix 2
(Updated February 2010)
In Canada, notably northern Alberta, there is major production of synthetic crude oil from bitumen extracted from tar sands. Alberta's tar sands are one of the largest hydrocarbon deposits in the world. Production from them is expected to grow strongly, but may limited by the amount of greenhouse gases emitted during extraction and upgrading of the bitumen. Open pit strip mining remains the main extraction method, but two in situ techniques are likely to be used more in future: cyclic steam stimulation (CSS) and steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD). These methods inject steam into the formation to heat the bitumen, allowing it to flow and be pumped to the surface.

<snip>

Nuclear power could make steam and electricity and use some of the electricity for high-temperature electrolysis for hydrogen production. (Heavy water and oxygen could be valuable by-products of electrolysis.) The steam supply needs to be semi portable as tar sand extraction proceeds, so relatively small reactors which could be moved every decade or so may be needed. One problem related to the provision of steam for mining is that a nuclear plant is a long-life fixture, and mining of tar sands proceeds across the landscape, giving rise to very long steam transmission lines and consequent loss of efficiency.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Country-Profiles/Countries-A-F/Appendices/Nuclear-Power-in-Canada-Appendix-2--Alberta-Tar-Sands/


If you want to learn about climate science, look to climate scientists, I always say. But if you want to learn about climate policy and energy technology, well, you might try looking elsewhere. - J. Romm

Climatologist Myles Allen Says We’re ‘Doomed’ If We Keep Burning Carbon, Then Embraces Dubious Silver Bullet
BY JOE ROMM ON MAY 29, 2013 AT 7:33 PM
Why carbon capture and storage isn’t “the solution” to our climate problems

If you want to learn about climate science, look to climate scientists, I always say. But if you want to learn about climate policy and energy technology, well, you might try looking elsewhere.
A case in point is British climate scientist, Myles Allen. He noted in the Daily Mail On Sunday (MoS) that “we’re doomed to disastrous warming” if we keep burning carbon — even if a recent paper he coauthored about a low climate sensitivity turns out to be true. But then he went on to argue that the only solution — and he does mean only solution — is to mandate that companies capture and store the carbon they release.


Actual caption in MoS: “Futile: Subsidising windfarms, like Whitelee on the outskirts of Glasgow, is a pointless policy, argues Professor Allen.”


Allen’s policy discussion is precisely the kind of nonsense you’d expect in the Mail, whose climate coverage is so atavastic, it makes the Wall Street Journal editorial page look like Climate Central. It is simply head-exploding that any serious climate scientist would publish a piece in publication discredited by so many climate scientists.

Back in 2010, two top climate scientists and the National Snow and Ice Data Center accused the Daily Mail of misquoting and misrepresenting them or their work. Last year, the UK’s Met Office, part of its Defence Ministry, took the unusual step of releasing a statement utterly debunking David Rose’s assertions in the paper as “entirely misleading” — and pointing out that they spoke to Rose before the piece came out but he chose to ignore what they had to say.

And so we’re subjected to this cranium-destroying headline and sub-head:

Why I think we’re wasting billions on global warming, by top British climate scientist
The MoS has campaigned tirelessly against the folly of Britain’s eco-obsessed energy policy. Now comes a game-changing intervention…. from an expert respected by the green fanatics themselves

Ahh, those green fanatics. How much wiser our climate policy would be if not for their obsession with clean energy policy!! Seriously....

More at http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/05/29/2066701/climatologist-myles-allen-says-were-doomed-if-we-keep-burning-carbon-then-embraces-dubious-silver-bullet/

[kristopher]

47. Xpost GD: KRUGMAN: 'We can’t have REAL debates, because the cockroaches and zombies get in the way'

KRUGMAN: 'We can’t have REAL debates, because the cockroaches and zombies get in the way'

Paul Krugman - New York Times Blog
January 2, 2014, 1:39 pm
Bodyguard of Zombies, Counterattack by Cockroaches

… Today’s right wing never gives up on a politically convenient argument, no matter how thoroughly it may have been refuted by analysis and evidence. It may downplay that argument for a while — though often even that doesn’t happen — but it always comes back.

Inequality is a clear though not at all unique example. Consider three arguments one might make against 21st-century populism:

1. Inequality isn’t increasing.
2. OK, inequality is increasing, but it’s not a problem.
3. OK, it would be nice to have lower inequality, but any proposed solutions would do more harm than good.

Which of these arguments does the right choose, when making its stand? The answer is, all three. Argument 1 faded away briefly when the CBO published its landmark study documenting the rise of the one percent, but as we’ve just seen, it’s back (this is an illustration of the concept of cockroach ideas.) Argument 2 doesn’t stand up under scrutiny, but it just keeps being made anyway — it’s a zombie. But meanwhile, argument 3 is made against anyone like, say, the new mayor of New York who proposes even the slightest effort to equalize opportunity.

This kind of thing flummoxes many people, who imagine that we’re having a real debate. It makes perfect sense, however, once you realize that the other side here isn’t engaged in good-faith argument, just looking for anything that comes to hand, with no regard for consistency…

I’d love to be having real debates on these issues. But we aren’t having and can’t have such debates, because the cockroaches and zombies get in the way.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/02/bodyguard-of-zombies-counterattack-by-cockroaches/?_r=0
via:
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2014/01/03/friday-morning-open-thread-chill-tundra/

Originally post by kpete at http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024270393

[kristopher]

50. And we all know how hard it is to get rid of cockroaches.