Al Gore is a member of the Kleiner Perkins VC firm.

Florida Power & Light’s estimates for next generation nukes are substantially higher than you suppose.

“FPL notified the NRC it plans to apply in 2009 for permission to build two of Toshiba Corp’s Westinghouse 1,100 MW AP1000 reactors at Turkey Point. FPL however is also considering General Electric Hitachi’s 1,550 MW Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor (ESBWR) technology.”

“In filings with state regulators, FPL has said two AP1000 reactors and possible needed transmission upgrades could cost $12 billion-$18 billion while two of the larger GE reactors could cost $16.5 billion-$24.3 billion.”

http://www.reuters.com/ article/ rbssUtilitiesElectric/ idUSN1344614220081013

And while their designs are inherently safer, the construction of new next generation reactor plants will be anything but simple and are sure to experience cost over-runs beyond the $24.3 billion limit of FPL’s estimates.

First, the key problem is that coal is so incredibly cheap, even with recent price increases. This has to mean that any increased load will be responded to by increasing the coal fired production. The installed capacity is there to do this, especially at night. This is when electricity is cheap and it is the time cars would naturally be available to charge. Big surprise: the rates for night time charging are very low.

According to their plan, GM does not exactly say they are going to build an electric Hummer, but it looks like they will come close. This plan is still on their website at: http://fastlane.gmblogs.com/PDF/presentation-sm.pdf

This plan shows clearly that they intend to help out with the oil dependency problem by shifting to the grid. It also alludes to environmental benefits, but when read carefully, the only environmental benefit will be to reduce smog in cities. This is not a bad thing, but the deception is that they then fail to discuss the CO2 problem, which using the grid does very little to improve.

At the same time they show complete understanding of electricity as a carrier of energy, so they know full well that there is a fuel usage consequence of electricity usage.

There is an incredible opportunity to influence the outcome in connection with the bail out of the industry. Along with the money authorization, there can be an imposition of a phased in, but strict, fuel economy standard, where the use of electricity is accounted for in terms of the heat energy needed to produce that electricity.

“I like nuclear power, but it is just too expensive”.. How disingenuous can you get ?

Nuclear power is cheap, it is cheaper than coal, wind or CSP. All these recent hoopla about high construction costs for nuclear, is when they are compared against natural gas. (The very references given by the above blogger IANVS are from a natural gas promoter). Natural gas plants have low construction costs and thus are cheaper to start with (but this advantage disappears rapidly due to high fuel prices).

As a scientist, you know the importance of not taking anything at face-value. We should always question “why” something is expensive or “why” it is cheap. Anti-nukes don’t take the trouble of explaining why nuclear costs are going high. It is because of the increase in steel and concrete prices.

Nuclear power needs 40 metric tons of steel and 190 cubic metres of concrete to produce 1 MW of power. The corresponding requirements for coal are 98 metric tons of steel and 160 cubic meters of concrete. Wind power needs a lot more : 460 tons of steel and 870 cubic meters of concrete. All this recent increase in construction costs is due to raw material prices. Coal and wind power plants will be much more affected by increasing costs of steel and concrete; nuclear power maintains its cost advantage.

In fact, much of the delay in the construction of nuclear plants is due to bureaucratic overhead. Japan doesn’t have such overhead, and was able to install the ABWR nuclear plants in record time of 4 years. The power industry in USA is in a dire need to eliminate the deregulation boondangles and private utilities. Electricity is a natural monopoly, and it is in public interest to have it run by public utilities. When these issues are streamlined, nuclear plants will be up and running in no time (and will be distinctly cheaper).. It has already been done in France. We have proof.

Generation 3 or Generation 3+ reactors are not complicated. In fact, they are simpler than the earlier versions. They are passively safe, and thus have eliminated the need for several active safety monitoring systems. It is only logical that they will be cheaper.

Suffice it to say new nukes stateside ain’t gonna be cheap noway nohow.

“Duke Energy Carolinas has raised the expected construction costs of its proposed Lee Nuclear Station to $11 billion, excluding financing costs. That’s roughly twice the company’s original estimates. Based on the financing costs for Duke’s new coal-powered unit at Cliffside Steam Station, financing expenses would increase the nuclear plant’s price to more than $14 billion.”

“The cost estimates for Duke’s proposed nuclear plant in Gaffney, S.C., have proved controversial. Three years ago, Duke gave an estimate of $4 billion to $6 billion for the two 1,117-megawatt reactors it proposed to build. Duke had not updated those figures until now. Opponents of the project have noted that nearly identical plants proposed in Florida will cost as much as $17.8 billion.”

http://www.bizjournals.com/ triad/ stories/ 2008/ 11/ 03/ daily21.html

And I’m sure some of your more verbose posters here are closely following EPRI’s projects to add solar energy to fossil-fueled electric power plants in Arizona & Nevada, reducing fuel costs and plant emissions.

http://pepei.pennnet.com/ display_article/ 344878/ 6/ ARTCL/ none/ none/ 1/ EPRI-to-evaluate-adding-solar-thermal-energy-to-fossil-power-plants/

This article from Power Engineering appears to support your nuclear plant cost thesis.

Nuclear New Build Cost Visibility and Predictability

“Early cost estimates are significant and increasing. For example, SCE&G’s EPC contract with Westinghouse and Shaw Group, which is one of the first contracts to be completed and publicly documented, puts its portion of the project at around $4,400/kW. Southern Co. is estimating the cost for two AP1000 1,100 MW reactors at its Vogtle site to be in the $2,500 to $3,500/kW range. More recently Constellation, a partner in UniStar’s venture, came out with $4,500 to $6,000/kW estimate reflecting “added security and safety features of the USEPR model,” as well as rising costs of concrete, steel and other key materials. Good reasons exist for the steep and rising costs of next generation nuclear power plants. Constructing multibillion dollar, highly complex, first-of-a-kind infrastructure projects with long construction cycles involves tremendous risks and uncertainties.”

“According to PowerAdvocate’s Capital Cost Indices tool for tracking cost changes, the cost of construction for utility facilities, including combined and simple cycle, wind and coal plants, as well as transmission lines and environmental retrofit scrubber projects have shown increases between 70 percent and 106 percent since 2000. As indicated in Figure 1, nuclear power plants show an even higher run up in costs—125 percent since 2000. Most of the increase has taken place since 2005.”

“As first of a kind, multi-billion dollar capital projects with long construction cycles, the next build of nuclear plants face significant risks and uncertainties.”

http://pepei.pennnet.com/ display_article/ 342995/ 6/ ARTCL/ none/ none/ 1/ Nuclear-New-Build-Cost-Visibility-and-Predictability/

Olivine weathering:

ftp://ftp.geog.uu.nl/ pub/ posters/ 2008/ Let_the_earth_help_us_to_save_the_earth-Schuiling_June2008.pdf
http://www.ecn.nl/ docs/ library/ report/ 2003/ c03016.pdf

“Rocks Could Be Harnessed To Sponge Vast Amounts Of Carbon Dioxide From Air”:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/ releases/ 2008/ 11/ 081105180813.htm

1. Proliferation and Procrastination:

Coal-fired plants, like “peaceful” nuclear plants, are potential WMDs.
A “peaceful” Coal-fired plant would deploy CCS — carbon capture & sequestration. But today, CCS is, quite literally, *_VAPORWARE_*.

How long might it take, before CCS research can offer a verdict on CCS feasibility? Answer = many years. And what happens in the meantime? Answer = proliferation of Coal-fired plants worldwide, since the USA will have “given permission” to China, India, etc, to build coal plants, excused by the “green figleaf” that future CCS-retrofit will provide a technological fix.

What are the dynamics of global procrastination — of “playing chicken” with extinction? The Japanese whaling industry’s “Research Exemption” from limits on depleting that finite environmental “source” is a perfect analogy to what’s likely to happen when China, India, and many other nations, have an even greater short-term motivation to deplete a finite environmental atmospheric “sink”.

2. Opportunity Cost:

Obviously, whatever *money* is spent on CCS R&D cannot be spent on R&D for other aspects of a new energy economy. But probably the more crucial measure of opportunity cost is *TIME*. It seems likely that CCS pilot projects started Jan. 20, 2009 won’t provide any realistic verdict for at least 10 years. … _TEN_YEARS_, before we know the outcome of rolling the dice on CCS! Ten years, during which worldwide Proliferation of Coal-based WMDs has occurred, means we would then have a far larger WMD “bomb” to disarm! (Even if CCS becomes feasible.)

We already are deep in ENVIRONMENTAL DEBT. We cannot risk another 10 years of ENVIRO DEFICIT FINANCING, because the global climate system is not going to offer us a future “EZ-payment plan” for buying back our outstanding CO2 debt.

3. Verification:

As with “peaceful” development of nuclear power, to quote Ronald Reagan, our policy must be, “Trust, but *verify*”! Laboriously, we’ve kinda/sorta learned how to verify nuclear facilities. That’s largely because radioactive decay products have distinct “signatures” we can detect. OK, let’s assume USA research indicates that a *particular* type of CCS is feasible. But how do we detect whether a particular underground (or worse, _undersea_) storage site in China is geologically suitable for CCS, that no leakage is occurring, and that there is no significant risk of a cataclysmic CO2 “blowout”?

Would nations have an incentive to cheat on their CCS “leakage quotas”? If you’re at all concerned about how players will “game the system” under Cap & Trade, then you should be horrified at the prospects for gaming CCS.