Comments on: Nuclear Bombshell: $26 Billion cost — $10,800 per kilowatt! — killed Ontario nuclear bid

By: Straight Up

Straight Up — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 23:36:59 +0000

Compare that to the $0.80 /kWh that the new Ontario feed in tariff for residential rooftop PV Solar and these nukes look like a smashing bargain. Question: if we thought $0.20/ kWh was too much to pay for nukes why is it OK to pay 4x as much for solar? Especially when today I am paying $0.10/ kWh on my electric bill.

By: A.G.

A.G. — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:13:12 +0000

Yes, the initial capital cost numbers for Nuclear are large. But why are we comparing this against solar PV, wind or gas? Nuclear power is meant to replace base load coal (not an intermittent resource like wind/solar). If you compare nuclear to coal with carbon sequestration, I bet you over the life of the assets- 40-50 years, Nuclear beats coal hands down.

By: Craig

Craig — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 03:24:23 +0000

$10,800 in capital cost per KWh sounds like a great job creation program.

Just curious: if you factor in infrastructure to temporarily store the intermittent energy produced by wind or solar, how does the capital cost of those systems compare to nuclear?

By: James Newberry

James Newberry — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 03:40:11 +0000

Atomic fission is a financial ponzi scheme that should not be funded by public treasuries and policies. Any nuclear subsidies in the climate bill, such as in the Clean Energy Bank, should be stricken.

The president has received biased advise from his advisors and switched his position from what he campaigned on. Fission is not clean energy. It is not sustainable energy. It is not even affordable. It is more financial fraud. ($12.8 trillion and counting of new US taxpayer bailouts, ie. transfer of wealth to the rich)

By: djysrv

djysrv — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 23:34:42 +0000

http://djysrv.blogspot.com/ 2009/ 07/ is-aecl-down-for-count.html

Observers of the political turmoil now underway in Ontario over the media reports that AECL bid $26 billion to build two new ACR1000 reactors (2,220 MW) are in good company trying to make sense of these figures.

The news media, notably the Toronto Star, had a field day with the numbers sticking provincial politicians like they were morsels on a shish-ka-bob skewer. The problem with all the fire, smoke, and spit from the grill is that the numbers are undoubtedly wrong and wrongly reported in the news media.

By: PeterW

PeterW — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 00:30:27 +0000

Carl Westinghouse was suppose to be in this process. It was originally three companies bidding. I’m not sure what happen but they were in at the beginning.

By: Carl

Carl — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 16:44:59 +0000

They should have put a RFQ out to Westinghouse and Shaw who will complete the construciton of Westinghouse’s new generation reactor in China on time and on budget.

By: Asteroid Miner

Asteroid Miner — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 04:46:04 +0000

Coal contains: URANIUM, ARSENIC, LEAD, MERCURY, Antimony, Cobalt, Nickel, Copper, Selenium, Barium, Fluorine, Silver, Beryllium, Iron, Sulfur, Boron, Titanium, Cadmium, Magnesium, Thorium, Calcium, Manganese, Vanadium, Chlorine, Aluminum, Chromium, Molybdenum and Zinc. There is so much of these elements in coal that cinders and coal smoke are actually valuable ores. We should be able to get all the uranium and thorium we need to fuel nuclear power plants for centuries by using cinders and smoke as ore.

By: Asteroid Miner

Asteroid Miner — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 04:40:42 +0000

Reference:
OUR NUCLEAR FUTURE:
THE PATH OF SELECTIVE IGNORANCE
by Alex Gabbard
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Oak Ridge, TN
Selections from the 19th Annual Conference
SOUTHERN FUTURE SOCIETY
March 14,15,16, 1996
Nashville, Tennessee
Published by the
SOUTHERN FUTURE SOCIETY
1996
Edited by Jack D. Arters, Ed.D. Conference Director

At a 1000 Megawatt COAL fired power plant:
“Modern electrostatic precipitator plants are capable of operating at greater than 99.5% collection efficiency but can still release 35 lb/year of uranium as just one component in almost 3 million tons of ash vented through stacks. In addition to this radiological species, all the radon in coal is released during combustion. An estimate for average Rn-222 release is about 2 Curies/year for each 1000 MWe coal fired facility.”

By: Asteroid Miner

Asteroid Miner — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 04:35:53 +0000

The truth is, all natural rocks contain most natural elements. Coal is a rock.
The average concentration of uranium in coal is 1 or 2 parts per million. Illinois
coal contains up to 103 parts per million uranium. A 1000 million watt coal
fired power plant burns 4 million tons of coal each year. If you multiply 4
million tons by 1 part per million, you get 4 tons of uranium. Most of that is
U238. About .7% is U235. 4 tons = 8000 pounds. 8000 pounds times .7% =
56 pounds of U235. An average 1000 million watt coal fired power plant puts
out 56 to 112 pounds of U235 every year. There are only 2 places the uranium
can go: Up the stack or into the cinders.