Comments on: What do you get when you buy a nuke? You get a lot of delays and rate increases….

By: Joffan

Joffan — Thu, 07 May 2009 18:36:31 +0000

Joe Romm is so concerned about the climate crisis that he thinks credit ratings for utilities are more important, and we shouldn’t do anything that might cost money (=resources and effort).

Wake up, folks. The climate crisis needs every solution we can throw at it. It is a classic blocking tactic on climate change to talk about wait-and-see and gather-more-evidence, and yet here is Romm saying we should delay acting on nuclear power until we’ve done everything else. The climate deniers have taught Joe well, I guess, in how to irrationally oppose desparately needed action.

Sad.

By: Pangolin

Pangolin — Wed, 06 May 2009 19:03:19 +0000

Hey, that’s not fair. At Rancho Seco near Sacramento California we got a convenient place to put a field of solar panels, a wildlife refuge AND a big gloaming ruin that will cost us millions of dollars a year for well, forever. In Bodega California they got the “hole in the head” where PG&E started excavating for a nuclear power plant a literal stones throw from the massive San Andreas earthquake fault. (Tomales Bay IS the fault line) Finally, at Diablo Canyon PG&E had the ability to turn the reactor off for “maintenance” just in time for Enron to blackmail the state of California.

Ok, so most of that doesn’t count as a positive.

While I detest and abhor the idea of a pressurized water reactor being built anywhere in the world I still think there is a small, very small, space for nukes. Specifically I believe that we need to build a proof-of-concept, full sized, molten-salt reactor that proves or disproves the concept that nuclear waste can be burned as fuel rather than sequestered in really old rocks.

The idiot idea of sequestering nuclear waste at Yucca mountain, not far from a semi-dormant volcano was political rather than scientific. Nuclear waste has to go into old, boring rock rather than young, hot rocks. Old boring rocks are on the East Coast or Gulf coast of the US. The only use for a new nuclear power plant is to burn the waste from the old nuclear power plants. As such it would be a guaranteed money loser.

By: David Bradish

David Bradish — Wed, 06 May 2009 16:52:35 +0000

For a different point of view on Romm's post, everyone may be interested to read this response.

By: Chris Winter

Chris Winter — Wed, 06 May 2009 14:49:12 +0000

Bob Wright, You’re off by a factor of 100 in that last step. It works out to $0.0074 per kwh.

By: Rhonda Roff

Rhonda Roff — Wed, 06 May 2009 13:59:05 +0000

Dear Mr. Wright, I believe you are wrong. Many older nukes are becoming dangerous as they fail mechanically even during the first 30 years of operation. Repairs are very expensive, decommissioning moreso, accidents and damaged DNA….priceless.

By: Bob Wright

Bob Wright — Wed, 06 May 2009 09:14:00 +0000

Suppose pProgress operates these guys at 98% up tiome for 100 years:

1100MW x2 x 1000KW/MW x .98 x 24 hrs x 365 days x 100 years =

1.89E12 KW-Hours. $1.4E10/1.89E12 = 75 cents/KW-hour

Not 75 cents/rate payer, but 75 cents period.

So with the colossal amount of power this station will produce over a possible extended to 100 years life makes the costs really operations, maintennce and fuel. The financial risk is probably mostly in the first 30 years until its “paid off”. That’s one reason why utilities and the NRC are extending the lifetimes of most 1960-80s era nukes to 60 years.

By: MiGrant

MiGrant — Wed, 06 May 2009 03:18:51 +0000

Too cheap to meter, baby!

By: paulm

paulm — Wed, 06 May 2009 01:04:15 +0000

You should file all nuke solutions under humor, Joe.

By: paulm

paulm — Wed, 06 May 2009 01:02:11 +0000

So I just heard about a new angle to price Nuclear against renewable, specifically, wind – the future cost per unit. Basically for wind this falls and for nukes it rises, by large amounts.

A ponzi scheme again, right. You wont be able to sell this if analyzed correctly.

By: James Newberry

James Newberry — Wed, 06 May 2009 00:16:11 +0000

The tragedy of fissioning yet more radioactive materials, that represent permanent poisonous debt, is only possible due to the corruption of congress by our laws that do not prohibit corporatism – that is multi-million dollar corporate lobbying. During the Bush crony years Congress established multi-billion dollar nuclear loan guarantees that make this bankrupt and dead US industry feasible again. It is a Ponzi scheme guaranteed by taxpayers. You could establish all kinds of solar and end-use improvements for $8 per watt equivalent. (Maybe the J. Bush governorship left a trail of corruption in the state to go along with his Global Warming brother’s corruption of the country.)

Furthermore, if we don’t want coal without proven “carbon capture and storage” why, after half a century, do we allow nukes with no feasible “storage” in sight much less actual storage operation? (Answer: there is no solution, because it is not “waste.”)

P.S. RE The Economics of Coal and Nuclear. Fraud, corruption and impoverishment.