By Larry Kummer. From the Fabius Maximus website. With enhancements by Anthony Watts
Summary: After decades of promises about its potential, the window of opportunity is closing for nuclear power. Hated by the Left despite its carbon-free generation of electricity, their opposition plus decades of utilities’ screw-ups have weakened it. New energy tech — renewables and fracking — appears to be finishing it off.
For example, Rancho Seco Nuclear generating station:
The plant operated from April 1975 to June 1989 but had a lifetime capacity average of only 39%; it was closed by public vote on 7 June 1989 after multiple referenda that resulted from a long record of multiple annual shut-downs, cost over-runs, mismanagement, multiple accidents that included radioactive steam releases, re-starts after unresolved automatic shut-downs, and regular rate increases that included a 92% increase over one 3 year span.[5]
Operation of the recreational area was assumed by SMUD in 1992. In cooperation with the Nature Conservancy, SMUD dedicated in June 2006 the Howard Ranch Nature Trail, a seven-mile (11 km) long trail that follows riparian and marsh habitat along Rancho Seco Lake and the adjoining Howard Ranch that once belonged to the owner of the famous racehorse Seabiscuit.
All power generating equipment has been removed from the plant and the now-empty cooling towers remain a prominent part of the local landscape. Also scattered throughout the area around the plant are abandoned air raid sirens that at one time would have warned people of a radioactivity release from the station. Additions to SMUD’s Rancho Seco property have included massive solar installations and, more recently, the natural gas-fired Cosumnes Power Plant, brought online in 2006. – source: WikiPedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rancho_Seco_Nuclear_Generating_Station
The prediction of “too cheap to meter” electrical power
Articles about nuclear power often start with a myth, as does this oddly named article by Michael Rose at the HuffPo: “The top ten myths of nuclear power“: “Nuclear power was sold in the US as being “too cheap too meter.” The quote is accurate. The statement is false. Here is the famous quote.
“Transmutation of the elements – unlimited power, ability to investigate the working of living cells by tracer atoms, the secret of photosynthesis about to be uncovered – these and a host of other results all in 15 short years. It is not too much to expect that our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter – will know of great periodic regional famines in the world only as matters of history – will travel effortlessly over the seas and under them and through the air with a minimum of danger and at great speeds – and will experience a lifespan far longer than ours, as disease yields and man comes to understand what causes him to age. This is the forecast for an age of peace.”
— Lewis Strauss, Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, in a speech at the Founder Day Dinner of the National Association of Science Writers, 16 September 1954.
His audience included some impressive people, including 5 Nobel Prize winners. At the head table with him. Strauss is sixth from left. Glenn Seaborg is first on left (1951 Nobel for Chemistry, chairman of the AEC from 1961 to 1971). Albert Szent-Gyorgyi (1937 Nobel for Medicine) is third from the left. Irving Langmuir (1932 Nobel for Chemistry) is sixth from the right. Edward C. Kendall (1959 Nobel for Medicine) is fourth from the right.
The website of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission tells the story. Strauss’ optimism was not shared by many other experts at the time. This article gives more quotes by contemporary experts who were far more cautious about the future of nuclear power. Many of these look prescient today. There is no reason to consider Strauss’ statement the benchmark against which to compare the history of nuclear power.
Events have not followed Strauss’ prediction. But late does not mean wrong. Who knows what energy sources await us in the future.
Flash forward to 2017
“It is estimated that nuclear power will provide more than one-quarter of this country’s electrical production by 1985, and over half by the year 2000.”
— President Richard Nixon’s special message to Congress on 18 April 1973. Despite the claims, Nixon’s Project Independence did not propose building 1,000 nuclear power plants by 2000. Today nukes generates 20% of America’s electricity.
Nuclear power is dying in the United States. By now the causes are obvious. High among them are…
- Incompetent government licensing. Until recently, in the US companies received construction permits based on incomplete plans. Then applied for an operating license, often leading to rebuilding and long delays.
- Incompetent construction by firms with little experience on project so large and complex.
- Too many accidents (in the US and around the world).
- Every-changing government policy, often highly adverse.
- Development of cheaper and more flexible energy sources.
Things looked dark in 2016 for nuclear power in America
“Most operating coal plants were built prior to 1980, and a significant portion of U.S. hydroelectric capacity is even older — the oldest hydro plant still operating was built in 1891. Most of the natural gas fleet and almost all wind and solar capacity has been built since 2000.” Most nukes were built in the 1970s. {EIA, February 2017.}
“The US keeps shutting down nuclear power plants and replacing them with coal or gas.”
By Brad Plumer at VOX, November 2016.
“America’s largest source of zero-carbon power is in serious trouble …nuclear power, which still provides about 19% of the nation’s electricity. Since 2013, the United States has lost five nuclear power plants, retired before the end of their natural lifespan for economic reasons: Crystal River in Florida, Kewaunee in Wisconsin, San Onofre in California, Vermont Yankee, and, just at the end of October, Fort Calhoun in Nebraska. They’ve generally fallen victim to cheap natural gas, unfavorable market policies, and/or local opposition.
“That’s a huge chunk of emissions-free power — gone. Those five plants alone produced nearly as much electricity as all of America’s solar panels last year. That’s not a knock on solar at all; it just shows the scale of what’s being lost here. And, according to a new analysis by the Energy Information Administration, when those reactors get retired, utilities usually end up replacing the lost electricity by burning more coal or natural gas. We’re basically taking a step backward on climate change …
“The details behind each reactor closure differ. Crystal River needed billion-dollar repairs to its containment wall that didn’t make financial sense for its owner when electricity prices were so low due to cheap natural gas. San Onofre also needed costly repairs and probably could’ve survived if it had been allowed to operate at part-capacity, but regulatory delays made it unprofitable for the utility to keep the plant open.
“But the big picture is pretty simple. There are lots of reactors around the country that are already built and technically capable of providing carbon-free electricity for years to come, but are getting crushed by circumstance. Unless we decide to change energy policies so as to properly value nuclear’s carbon-free contribution (and see here for ideas on that score), those plants will keep vanishing, largely replaced by fossil fuels.
“So what does that future look like? A new report by Whitney Herndon and John Larsen of the Rhodium Group notes that 24 gigawatts of nuclear power are at risk of being retired between now and 2030 without major policy changes. That includes seven reactors currently scheduled to be shut down, like the two large units at California’s Diablo Canyon, as well as others that could face financial woes in the coming years.
“If all these plants close, the Rhodium Group estimates, about 75% of that lost power will likely be replaced by natural gas, and greenhouse-gas emissions will be higher than they otherwise would be.”
See this typically excellent backgrouder in the NYT: “The Murky Future of Nuclear Power in the United States” by Diane Cardwell, February 2017. It quickly proved far too optimistic.
The news in 2017 has been even worse for nuclear power.
“Cuomo Confirms Deal to Close Indian Point Nuclear Plant.”
By Patrick McGeehan in the NYT, January 2017.
“Mr. Cuomo announced on Monday that the state had reached an agreement with the plant’s operator, Entergy, to shut it down by April 2021. …In his State of the State address in Lower Manhattan, Mr. Cuomo characterized the deal as a hard bargain he had driven to rid the region of a ‘ticking time bomb’ less than 30 miles from Midtown. He said the state would bear no costs in the shutdown or decommissioning of the plant’s two operating nuclear reactors. ‘I have personally been trying to close it down for 15 years,’ said Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat. He added that the proposed closing ‘eliminates a major risk, provides welcome relief, and New Yorkers can sleep a little better.’ …
“Bill Mohl, the president of Entergy Wholesale Commodities, said …said the company had spent $200 million over the past decade battling New York State over the renewal of licenses to operate the reactors. The state’s attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, and Riverkeeper, a nonprofit environmental group, joined the governor’s office in challenging the renewals and permits that Entergy needed to keep the Indian Point running.”
“In another sign of the end of nuclear power, shutdown looms for Three Mile Island.”
By Michael Hiltzik at the LAT, May 2017.
“Exelon, announced Tuesday that it will permanently shut down the unit in September 2019. Exelon said a week ago that the plant hasn’t been profitable in five years. The company will take a charge of as much as $110 million this year related to the operation and planned shutdown. …nuclear power hasn’t received favorable treatment as a renewable energy source in the state’s energy policy as have solar, wind and hydro power. …Three Mile Island is licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to operate through 2034, so the shutdown would come 15 years early.
“Still, the company had to acknowledge that nuclear power just isn’t competitive with other renewables or with natural gas generating plants. Three Mile Island was unable to sell its output into the regional electric grid in recent power auctions. “TMI remains economically challenged as a result of continued low wholesale power prices and the lack of federal or Pennsylvania energy policies that value zero-emissions nuclear energy,” Exelon says.
“That underscores a chronic malady of American nukes — they’re too hard to operate and simply not competitive. It’s that mismatch of cost that helps account for recent shutdown decisions such as the pending closure in California of Pacific Gas & Electric’s Diablo Canyon nuclear plant and the 2013 abandonment of San Onofre by Southern California Edison after a botched upgrade.”
In July the project to build two reactors in South Carolina was abandoned. The NYT tells the story. Here’s the bottom line…
“Originally scheduled to come online by 2018, the V.C. Summer nuclear project in South Carolina had been plagued by disputes with regulators and numerous construction problems. This year, utility officials estimated that the reactors would not begin generating electricity before 2021 and could cost as much as $25 billion — more than twice the initial $11.5 billion estimate.”
Some good news for nukes: “Georgia gives Southern Co go-ahead to finish nuclear power project” — Approval to finish the 2 reactors at Plant Vogtle, years behind schedule and 35% over budget. These might be the last two built in the US for a long time.
Enthusiasm for nuclear power fading around the world
Enthusiasm for nuclear power is fading even in nations with more rational regulatory regimes and more competent construction and electric utility companies.
“Industry Meltdown: Is the Era of Nuclear Power Coming to an End?”
By Fred Pearce at Yale Environment 360, May 2017.
“From Europe to Japan to the U.S., nuclear power is in retreat, as plants are being shuttered, governments move toward renewables, and key companies face financial troubles. Even some of the industry’s biggest boosters believe nuclear is on the way out.”
“Is the nuclear power industry in its death throes? Even some nuclear enthusiasts believe so. With the exception of China, most nations are moving away from nuclear — existing power plants across the United States are being shut early; new reactor designs are falling foul of regulators, and public support remains in free fall. Now come the bankruptcies.
“In an astonishing hammer blow to a global industry in late March, Pittsburgh-based Westinghouse — the original developer of the workhorse of the global nuclear industry, the pressurized-water reactor (PWR), and for many decades the world’s largest provider of nuclear technology — filed for bankruptcy after hitting big problems with its latest reactor design, the AP1000. Largely as a result, its parent company, the Japanese nuclear engineering giant Toshiba, is also in dire financial straits and admits there is “substantial doubt” about its ability to continue as a going concern.
“Meanwhile, France’s state-owned Électricité de France (EDF), Europe’s biggest builder and operator of nuclear power plants, is deep in debt thanks to its own technical missteps and could become a victim of the economic and energy policies of incoming President Emmanuel Macron.
“Those three companies account for more than half of all nuclear power generation worldwide. Their ‘looming insolvency … has set off a chain reaction of events that threatens the existence of nuclear power in the West,’ says Michael Shellenberger, president of the pro-nuclear NGO, Environmental Progress. ‘The nuclear industry as we have known it is coming to an end,’ says Ted Nordhaus of the Breakthrough Institute, a California eco-modernist think tank that advocates for nuclear power. …
“Meanwhile across the country, utilities are shutting existing plants from California to Wisconsin to Vermont, often long before the end of their design life, because they cannot compete with cheap fracked gas or, increasingly, with wind and solar power. Six power reactors have shut since 2012, and plans have been announced to close seven others. This is no short-term trend. While gas and renewables get cheaper, the price of nuclear power only rises. This is in large part to meet safety concerns linked to past reactor disasters like Chernobyl and Fukushima and to post-9/11 security worries, and also a result of utilities factoring in the costs of decommissioning their aging reactors.
“Westinghouse’s downfall was partly caused by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission wanting, as Gregory Jaczko, its chairman from 2009 to 2012, put it, ‘to ensure [the AP1000 design] could withstand damage from an aircraft impact without significant release of radioactive materials.’ A 9/11 clause, in other words.
“The fallout from the meltdowns at Japan’s Fukushima plant following the 2011 tsunami has had an even more chilling effect than regulatory actions. …After the accident, Japan — which at the time relied on nuclear power for 30% of its electricity — shut all its 48 operational nuclear reactors for safety checks. Six years on, only five are back online. In many parts of the country, local politicians are refusing point-blank to allow resumption. …
“Fukushima also proved to be the tipping point in Germany’s long-running and bitter nuclear debate. The accident persuaded the conservative and previously pro-nuclear Chancellor Angela Merkel to call time. Within weeks of the accident, she set a deadline of 2022 for shutting down the country’s reactors, which at the time generated 22% of German electricity. The finality of Germany’s decision was confirmed when engineering giants such as Siemens announced their exit from the reactor-building business.
“France has long been Europe’s most enthusiastic nuclear nation. But it too is getting cold feet. In the wake of Fukushima, President Francois Hollande committed to cutting nuclear’s share of energy generation from 75% to 50% by 2025, with the gap to be filled by renewables. …The majority of France’s power reactors — mostly of Westinghouse PWR design, and built by EDF — were commissioned in the 1970s. Their average age is now well past 30 years. Their 40-year design lives could be extended if a safety review due next year finds in their favor. But large-scale construction to replace them seems increasingly unlikely. EDF’s latest power-plant design …has been beset by teething troubles. The prototype, being built at Flamanville in northern France, is six years behind schedule, and its cost has tripled to more than $10 billion. …
“Late last year, the International Atomic Energy Agency, a United Nations body, said Asia had become the “driver” of global nuclear development. …South Korea has 25 working reactors delivering power. China is constructing new reactors at the rate of eight a year. And both countries are increasingly eyeing the export opportunities created by the collapse of the old order in the U.S., France and Japan. …A beaten and bankrupt industry built on high-cost, bespoke construction could be ripe for annexation by companies that have learned to mass-produce reactors based on old Westinghouse PWR designs and that have replaced nuclear scientists with engineers and experimentation with replication. …
“But the invasion still may not come. Even in South Korea, nuclear companies are operating in the face of a political headwind, blowing from across the Sea of Japan. Wary of public concerns after Fukushima, South Korea’s newly elected president Moon Jae-in called during campaigning for a switch in the country’s energy mix from nuclear to renewables.”
Looking back at some who accurately predicted the future?
The Next Big Future website provides reminders to skeptically read exciting articles about new technology.
- “Nuclear power will be added faster than wind power“, August 2008.
- “Breeder Reactors, Uranium from Phosphate and Near Term Thorium usage“, September 2008
On the other hand, experts’ analysis are more reliable, as seen in the bottom line from “The Future of Nuclear Power“, an interdisciplinary MIT study published in June 2003.
“The nuclear option should be retained precisely because it is an important carbon-free source of power. …But the prospects for nuclear energy as an option are limited, the report finds, by four unresolved problems: high relative costs; perceived adverse safety, environmental, and health effects; potential security risks stemming from proliferation; and unresolved challenges in long-term management of nuclear wastes.”
Also see this presentation by a realistic voice during the last boom, by Paul L. Joskow (Professor of Economics, MIT): “The Economics of Investment in New Nuclear Power Plants in the US“, 12 April 2005, Twelve years later this looks brilliant.
- “Nuclear industry has a poor historical record on construction cost estimation, realization and time to build.
- Few recent plants built and limited information on recent actual construction cost experience.
- Nuclear industry has put forward very optimistic construction cost estimates but there is no experience to verify them.
- Nobody has ever {overestimated} the construction cost of a nuclear power plant at the pre-construction stage.”
Conclusions
Nuclear power looks like a dying technology for the foreseeable future. Cost overruns, accidents, incompetence — the nuclear industry died mostly from self-inflicted wounds.
For more information
Here are two recent books by James Mahaffey. He has a doctorate in nuclear engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and three decades experience in the industry.
- Atomic Accidents: A History of Nuclear Meltdowns and Disasters: From the Ozark Mountains to Fukushima
(2015).
- Atomic Adventures: Secret Islands, Forgotten N-Rays, and Isotopic Murder: A Journey into the Wild World of Nuclear Science
(2017).
(2015).
(2017).ISee all posts about energy sources, and especially these…
- Fusion energy, too risky a bet for America (we prefer to rely on war),
- Lessons from the hysteria about peak oil (2005-2013).
- Stratfor gives us good news, showing when renewables will replace fossil fuels.
- Good news: here’s why we won’t run out of minerals (including oil).
Think again! Ha ha
Onr reason for decline of nuclear power industry is “Every-changing government policy, often highly adverse.” You say that, but you never explain how it got that way. It so happens that there is a strong anti-nuclear movement among environmentaslists to whom environmentally inclined administrators are sympathetic with. Tghere is aq constants stream of demonstrations coming out nof this political movement. They resort to illegak, even criminal, devices in pursuit of this goal. Unfortunately, your paperer’s policy nis to shield their actions. Here is an example. On Long Island the electric utility LilCo had a nuclear bpower station being built at Shorehabut the environmemtalists had a constasnt series of protests and court actions going to stop the. TRhey finally got a court bnorder to stop the construction but it was too late: yje plant was already built and vready to go on line. Here is where the bpolitical pull of the environmenralists came I. They got the stateof New Uork to order the complete new station to be be dismantlewd and jubked. Building such a nuclear plantr and them dismantling is not cheap. Who pays for it? Lilco is no more. And the state of New Yotl ordered that the vrate payers of Long Island must poay the remaining cost. TRhis is what I have been doing for the lasy yen years. The sta irdered that a vpewrcentage of this cost must be added to every monthlyy electricity bill of all Long IUslanders. This is why our electricity bills are among the highest in the nation. And what did you, environmentalists gain? You get a minus zero that the New York Times and other sympathetic media keep a secret.
Absolutely. There has been a huge campaign against nuclear by environmentalists and by governments – its easy to make anything uneconomic by putting a man with a red flag in front of it…
http://vps.templar.co.uk/Cartoons%20and%20Politics/red-clegg-flag.jpg
The real questions is why? Who gains from destroying a cheap nuclear power option? Conventional gas that’s who.
If you look at the reality, rather than the perception, we have a technology – nuclear power – capable of undercutting gas and coal in terms of electricity production, and together with the rise of electrical almost everything, that represents a larger and larger slice of the power market.
Eco warriors constantly tell us that Big Oil is manipulating political and social and economic realities in order to maximise profits. What they fail to admit is that they are, in fact, Big Oil’s agents.
Renewable energy is no threat to fossil,. On the contrary it increases the need for gas to balance, as coal is less suitable.
Nuclear energy very much is a threat.
Environmentalism has been the tool of the gas companies ever since Al Gore got the brief from Enron.
The only question is whether or not they succeed in wiping nuclear out in the West. Elsewhere it is booming of course.
In the UK it looks set for a resurgence as soon as we can break free of an EU which has essentially decided it will be nuclear free.
So all those nuclear plants in France are not in the EEC?
Strange, very strange.
Most USA homes have lethal, highly dangerous wires throughout, with only minimal protection against people sticking wrong things into the electricity they carry by request.
Yet, nuclear power, the cause of far fewer deaths, gets a rough ride.
People have strange views on domestic safety, most are uneducated and ignorant about both home electricity and nuclear power.
Yet, they can vote. Geoff
And a lot of houses have methane piped into them, and the failure of a few safety devices, plus electric devices sparking, and an instant fuel-air explosive. It does happen, but the rate is so low, the risk is quite reasonable.
Most of the claims on the hazards of nuclear depend on innumeracy combined with deliberate deception..
Each time you take the car out on the road there is a significant probability that you will not return, except in a hearse or an ambulance . But we cannot live without them .
And how many thousands are killed in the US by legally held handguns? Is it more or less than those killed in nuclear accidents in the US over the last 70 years?
mikewaite on December 24, 2017 at 12:51 am
You had me until the canard about “deaths by legally held handguns”. Far fewer than death by bathtub. And the bathtub deaths are almost never the bad guy trying to rob/kill you.
1,000 die from stair falls
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/790609.stm
Make sure to subtract out all the people who deserved to die by dint of being engaged in some criminal pursuit.
Meth cookers and people making hash oil with volatiles would probably find some other way to do themselves in.
Fort Calhoun,
Good plant, good record,
A sad situation when a plant with another 20 years of life left is shuttered due to NRC overhead, both in costs and lost opportunity, and the
politics of crony capitalism.
Would pay for itself in summer AC demand alone.
The politics and the players behind this plant’s shutdown stink.
Is this why Hillary gave/sold 20% of the uranium in the US to Russia? She knew we were too stupid to actually keep using nuclear, so sell it to a communist country that the media hates and Russia is not fond of the US. Guess that goes along with England reportedly buying natural gas from Russia because fracking is out in the UK. We freely supply the world with ways to degrade and destroy the US in every conceivable way. You’d almost think politicians elected therein hated the US and Europe.
” You’d almost think politicians elected therein hated the US and Europe.”
Or they are corrupt and on the take from Russian & Middle East energy suppliers who want to ban our energy production so we have to buy from them.
UK buys almost NO gas from Russia. The EU – Germany – does.
We (UK) buy it from Norway and Qatar.
The countries that buy Russian gas are the most affected by anti-nuclear propaganda…
“UK buys almost NO gas from Russia.”
Sorry, but as a result of phenomenally poor energy planning involving over-dependence on ‘Unreliables’ and effectively zero gas supply redundancy combined with supply faults, we do now!
Russia to send first Arctic gas cargo to Britain in the wake of supply crisis
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/12/13/russia-send-first-arctic-gas-cargo-britain-wake-supply-crisis/
You’d
almostthink politicians elected therein hated the US and Europe.Fixed.
It seems to be mostly in the US, Japan, England, and bits of Europe that the nuclear industry is on the ropes. In the countries that will lead the future, like China, Korea, and Russia, they understand the real problems and look for real solutions. They value plentiful, 24/7 sustainable power from low-resources energy sources. In the UK, Margaret Thatcher used the bogus CO2 Warming Theory, falsely, to push Nuclear Power without working on the solutions to nuclear-power problems, in her political struggle to destroy the Coal Unions. She did manage to destroy the power of the Unions, but she let loose the greater evil of false but rampant CO2 CAGW Theory on both sides of the Atlantic. Because of eager political support on both sides of the Atlantic and in Europe for CAGW fairy tales, peoples’ whole manufacturing, transport, health and happiness is being put at risk for a proven rubbish of a hypothesis that does not stand up to the most rudimentary analysis. Coal is still King and the thing that is dying is peoples’ belief in the CAGW fairy tale, and Nuclear Power that hung on its coat-tails in the West. The next thing for the population to turn against en-masse is the Mediaeval bird-chomping Wind-Turbines and bird-frying Solar Schemes and unreliable solar schemes that rely on Coal/Gas Power back-up 24/7.
“In the countries that will lead the future, like China, Korea, and Russia, they understand the real problems and look for real solutions. ” In the countries that will RULE and DESTROY the future is the proper term. You are describing a return to midieval times with dictators turning people into slaves everywhere. Yet you make it sound like Utopia. You are a truly scary person…..
Let’s put some numbers on that. There are 57 power reactors being built around the world today. 20 in China, 7 in Russia, and 6 in India. Source: http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/facts-and-figures/world-nuclear-power-reactors-and-uranium-requireme.aspx
Some years ago, one of the public criticisms of the nuclear industry in the UK was that it carried the burden of forever-changing governments forever changing their minds about which reactor designs to adopt. All this was on top of the forever-changing political, economic, and military, imperatives that the industry was being asked to meet.
What and where is the endgame? Trying to be optimistic, perhaps it will be when the energy issue finally comes to absolute first place in the queue of issues that politicians have to deal with. Then, and probably only then, they may opt for quick build modular reactors which can be both made, and licensed, quickly. Before then, it would need politicians willing to face down the poll-bearers telling them that there is ~10% of the electorate often up for grabs to the politician willing to make silly green promises. The funding of environmental pressure groups is probably where CNN could find real Russian interference in Western democracies, should they ever wish to take the trouble to actually research the matter.
Will the new reactors be made by companies based in the US or Japan, or, more likely in my opinion, companies based in Russia and China?
It may end up like high-end space ship launches which use the Russians with their cheap-and-cheerful technology. The US, by excessive health&safety regulation, and other petty governmental bureaucracy, had almost managed to kill the goose that laid the golden technological egg. Only recently is the US attempting to encourage industry to claw back lost time and money in economic launches[*]. I’d guess the nuclear industry is probably set back another two decades or more.
[*The saddest thing of all is seeing NASA lose sight and funding for its real mission, only to go off on wild goose chases involving climate and carbon dioxide.]
Rolls Royce make nice small ones. (Every company worth its salt should have its own reactor and Spitfire)
If the West wants to keep it’s urban sheeple in I-bollocks and washing machines, there is no other way BUT nuclear or fossil.
Whether the west dies of stupidity or finally embraces nuclear power, remains to be seen: Or perhaps the plan is simply to chop power to the large metropolises and let the people die. Nothing would surprise me.
This article is yet another projection based on a flawed model. A model that was past its sell by date 5 years ago when it become evident that renewables are a pointless dead end.
You make “letting the metropolises die” sound like a bad thing.
the nuclear industry died mostly from self-inflicted wounds.
Drawing conclusions from recent short term events results in some very silly statements. Things like ice free arctic, children not knowing what snow is, electricity being too cheap to meter and the nuclear industry having died.
“the nuclear industry died mostly from self-inflicted wounds.”
If you look at recent attempts to build nuclear plants, the above statement seems to be true. South Carolina and Georgia projects looked almost like serious attempts to screw everything up.
Is it possible to build a nuclear plant today without ridiculous delays and cost overruns? Surely regulation is not to blame for all of this. Why can’t engineers and construction managers manage a large project? Are there recent examples of successful projects in the U.S.? Or has the toxic combination of politics, over-regulation and an incompetent big-project construction industry simply made it impossible?
It didn’t die, its just on pause. Right now natural gas is plentiful and cheap, the plants are comparatively quick to build, and there’s little to no irrational fear of them.
But freezing in the dark tends to erase irrational fears of something that might happen. Since no one is freezing in the dark right now, there’s nothing to overcome the irrational fears. At some point in time economics are likely to change. Resources run out, or the idiots trying to kill off fossil fuels entirely get their way. Enough people freeing in the dark, or starving because they can’t get food fresh food at a reasonable price, and the emotional response to current misery NOW swamps the irrational fear of something that might happen later, the people demand warmth and food. So the politicians start fast tracking projects, deregulating, new players seeing a chance to profit buy up existing technology or develop new tech and go to market with it, the badly run projects become case studies on how not to do things so that new projects are more effectively managed, and poof! there’s a vibrant nuclear industry again.
Which is why calling it dead is just drivel. Technology changes, politics change, economics change, and right now those things don’t favour nuclear. When they do, nuclear will be back with a vengeance and this article will seem as silly as predicting that children won’t know what snow is.
Not much concerned about nuclear energy dying out.
Leaves more room for atmospheric CO2 enhancement technologies.
France will have big issues on its hand over the next several years, what to do with old nuclear power plants!
I see a large surge in COAL and GAS in the near future, once this idiotic anti-science CO2 hatred gets relegated to the porcelain and flushed to where it belongs.
To bloggers commenting here,
There is a large gap between quoting what you believe to be correct in the writings of other people, and having been a participant at the time in question and adequately senior to know what was really going on.
So please pay most attention to the comments of people closest to the action at material times.
Geoff.
How do we know who is closest to the action at material times and who has the knowledge? This is a blog, where people have “stage names”, one name and sometimes both. There’s no way to know who is and is not qualified without a pedigreee on everyone who comments.
Many bloggers state present or past direct involvement. Not many are obviously fabricated. Part of the present nuclear contention arises from false names spreading propaganda, hence I prefer genuine names. Geoff.
That is true Geoff but incomplete. There is also the risk of vested interests. Stating ones “seniority” is important for transparency and disclosure of such interests.
And they would be….?
Yea well ok…
Bill Gates and his company TerraPower. Would they be close to the action?
From Terrapower website:
———————————-
Bellevue, Wash., October 2, 2017 –
TerraPower, LLC signed a joint venture with China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) to form the Global Innovation Nuclear Energy Technology Co., Ltd. This agreement represents a significant milestone for TerraPower and CNNC’s affiliate, China Tianjin TWR Investment Company (“CTTIC”), in ongoing discussions made possible under policies and agreements for cooperation by the governments of the United States and China.
The two companies plan to work together to complete the Traveling Wave Reactor (TWR) design and commercialize the TWR technology.
——————————–
Antinuclear and CAGW hubris will be the nemesis of democracy.
They ARE the “nemisis” of civilization. They “will be” the demise of civilization.
Yes I should have prefaced that with “the consequences of …”
India will be joining the nuclear club in a big way because they have lots of fissionable resources (mostly thoriium) compared to any of the other energy options. With the closer ties India is making with Israel, you’ll have the three major components of development: (1) an overwhelming need and (2) a technology base renowned for science, technology and engineering and (3) huge financial motivation.
Sadly, it means the Western Democracies will simply squander billions whistling along while Asia simply runs away.
(2) a technology base renowned for science, technology and engineering ??? Please explain.
They have nuclear weapons, a Space Industry plus a lot of Science projects.
A rather superficial and ignorant article which equates “nuclear power” with light water reactor
and even so, paints a rather exaggerated negative portrait of that still viable technology. The article obviously is clueless as to why nuclear power suddenly became expensive, especially in locales where there is lots of renewable generation. Utilities forced to buy renewable, when available,
do not buy nuclear plant output, which immediately increases the cost of the output in an almost linear fashion, since the nuclear fuel costs are a small portion of the cost of production, and couldn’t be saved in any event. THAT is the reason some nuclearplants have been operating in the red for the past several years. The operators then threatened to shut down the plants and force the grid to operate with unreliable renewable power. The state then subsidized the nuclear plants to make them profitable again. Traditional light water nuclear plants are designed to operate as baseload plants, meaning at (or above) their stated capacities. Many nuclear plants in this country operate at 110% of capacity. While powered up, every nuclear plant should operate at least at 100% capacity. The reported capacities of nuclear palnts , which are roughly 90-94% , incorporate down times for refueling, schedueld for thetime of year (Spring, FAll) when the plant’s power is not required. Here in South Carolina, we produce 60% of our power thru 7 nuclear plants and the generation cost the previous quarter for nuclear power was less than 4 cents per kWhr.
The only failure in niuclear construction over the past several years, in which over 100 nuclear plants are being built world-wide, has been in the good old, “can’t even manufacture steel anymore” U.S. The 4 Westinghouse reactors being constructed in Georgia and SOuth CArolina experienced cost overruns – mainy due to the lack of U.S.stel manufacturing capability – in particular Chicago Bridge was an utter failure, even after being bought out by Westinghouse to correct their operations. Russia, China and South Korea have been contracting and building nuclear plants everywhere and guarantee a build cost, usually around $5 to $6 billion USD. The failure of American nuclear is not the failure of nuclear – it is the failure of American nuclear – which hadn’t built any reactors for decades and decades. The American nuclear power construction industry can’t be dying , since it hasn’t been alive. You have to be alivein order to die, as they say.
The article fumbled that one ad also its biggest stupidity is equating light water reactor desing with”nuclear design.’ Right now there are at least a dozen companies (and two nations, China , India) worldwide designing nuclear power plants and NONE of them are designing traditional, conventional light water reactors. They are instead designing small modular molten salt reactors. They are cheap and easy to build (in factories) (cost less than half the cost of a $5 billion
conventional reactor) do not require bodies of nearby water for cooling,do not requie extensive site preparation, can be located ANYWHERE – even in city buildings, do not require highly trained operators, or many of them, do not require refueling shutdowns, are NOT baseload but are mid load generators, meaning they don’t require auxillary mid aload generators like conventional reactors. Are highly proliferation resistant, are impossible to melt down or explode or throw emisions into the environment to any appreciable extent, can produce power cheaper than any other power generation technology – roughly 3 cents per kWhr. THIS is what is going to kill conventional light water reactor nuclear power. It will also wipe out renewables in all likelihood.
Since you’re in SC, FWIW, the Oconee plant has a neat operation where they use nuke power to pump Lake Jocassee H2O up to the Bad River reservoir at night when electrical demand is low. Then hydro gen during the day. I’ve heard that reservoir drops 100′ in a day. I knew a guy who worked as an intern on that construction project. He showed me some pictures he took inside the penstock. I didn’t gaze at it long enough to be able to accurately describe the dimensions now, but I remember huge dump trucks looking like Tonka toys inside that thing. It was amazing.
Bad Creek, not river. Aerial of reservoir
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Salem,+SC+29676/@35.0103135,-83.0243271,4952m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x8858f96e1c8c9b03:0x574a05466ad817d8!8m2!3d34.8898161!4d-82.9765364
Tragedy of all this is that you can run a typical Nuke plant for about 18 months on a pickup truck load of fuel pellets. I worked this industry from 1988 to 1994 as a field service tech for Babcock & Wilcox doing steam generator maintenance during refueling outages and saw first hand what was involved.
IMHO the major costs associated with these plants are the volumes of “Government Regulations” written for them by the NRC. Yeah, another example of “I’m from the Goobermit and I’m here to help!”
Although some of these plants have had their problems with minor accidents over time, not ONE person has died from any of the accidents in the USA to date, including the infamous TMI meltdown!!
Having said all that, I’d have one of these in my back yard if I could because working in them like I did I got a much better understanding of them!
No deaths in US commercial reactor operations. A good record.
In 1961 there was a military training reactor accident resulting in 3 fatalities.
The USA is undergoing a renaissance in oil & gas extraction brought on by advances in fracking tight formations. This will not last forever, but it will have a negative impact on new nuclear generation.
Solar and wind are probably here to stay as much of the cost of electricity has moved away from cost of generation and onto things like “delivery charges”, “infrastructure”, “debt reduction” and good old “taxes”.
When we run out of fossil fuel (more accurately when the cost of extraction exceeds that of using competing technologies like nuclear) there will be change back to nuclear because 8 billion people cannot live with intermittent forms of energy generation. But for now politicians can afford to make stupid decisions because it doesn’t cost much to get a new gas plant online.
I think offshore nuclear power is good idea:
“Research for the future
In the field of research, MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) is currently developing a small offshore nuclear power plant (OFNP) which would be located at a minimum distance of 12 km from the coast. The plant combines two established and proven technologies: the nuclear reactor and the offshore oil platform. It would be placed on deep waters far from coastal populations, and would only be connected to land by an underwater energy transmission line. By placing the platform on an area with a depth of at least 100 meters, the sea water absorbs the movements of the sea floor and protects the plant from earthquakes and tsunamis. The sea can also be an infinite source of cooling water in case of an emergency.”
http://www.foronuclear.org/en/ask-the-expert/121982-what-is-a-floating-nuclear-power-plant
The technological aspect is important, but I think it works best in terms political problems with nuclear energy. And for nations not land locked, it could solve their energy needs.
The China and Russian designs seem like they could ok in terms of short term use, but long term goal should be to make them unsinkable and resembling fortress in terms of security threats- and MIT design seems more in that direction..
Or lifetime of them could start with say 50 years, but it could evolve so lifetime is centuries and
couldn’t sink with a battleship [though not including nuclear weapons used against it- which would prohibitive to start off with such requirement, but once market is established, having longer lifetime
design could worth doubling or tripling the construction cost of the ship.
Natural gas is super cheap and USA has 92 years proven supply.
.. And counting
Don’t forget coal. Coal is cheap too, and plentiful.
Reductionist molecular genetics, upon which the linear no threshold (LNT) is based, shipwrecks on the rock of quantum physics, specifically quantum chaos. (The same is true of much of reductionist drug-discovery driven molecular biology, accounting for the odd paradox of exponentially increasing bioscience research investment but simultaneous drying up of new drugs in the pipeline.)
Here’s the cartoons biology of radiation carcinogenesis: an ionizing particle makes a strand break in a cell’s chromasomal DNA. This can initiate neoplastic carcinogenic transformation. Sounds scary? It can’t be good surely. If even a single ionizing particle can do this then LNT must be right – there can be no safe dose?
Here’s the real world: each DNA strand on every chromosome in every cell in every human, is broken at some point every 14 minutes. Then repaired by DNA repair enzymes. There is continuous breaking and repair all the time.
What is causing all this chromatin breaking? Presumably it is something that can be exploitated politically. Is it free radicals from atmospheric pollutants or food additives? Is it the orangeness of Donald Trump’s hair? Is it climate change? Is it denyal of climate change?
No it’s none of these things. It’s just the world – the quantum world, which at atomic and subatomic scales is quantum-chaotic. On this scale our everyday concept of reality breaks down. Particles exist in a cloud of locations simultaneously, not only one. They pop in and out of existence, and forward and back in time. Quantum uncertainty and spontaneous events form a chaotic background to all atomic and molecular scale phenomena. An individual molecular perturbation, of the kind on which molecular biology including radiation biology is so myopically fixated, is of very small significance. Much larger perturbation involving millions of molecules is needed to make a significant difference to a living system. This means – THERE IS A THRESHOLD FOR BIOLOGICAL EFFECTS.
Biologists need to understand the implications of quantum physics and pop their hubris.
A brick thrown into a still pond would make a significant visible splash. The same brick thrown into a raging stormy sea, would not.
Or the the final nightmare in the case of Georgia ratepayers.
Predictions of its a-bortion are premature. The nuclear power industry is viable, and will evolve with the flow and ebb of production and demand.
How many Nuclear Power Plants does Puerto Rico have? And who is building the power lines?
“read my thesis”
Economic advise from someone who brags about saving money by spending twice as much on a car that gets bad mileage.
Should ristvan let go of college thesis? Yes! Should Harvard Law stop writing book energy? Yes!
Being well spoken does not mean that your are not ignorant.
Nuclear Power Learning and Deployment Rates; Disruption and Global Benefits Forgone
Abstract
Source: http://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/10/12/2169
According to this, Chinese and American scientists may have just discovered a method to double the efficiency of solar using nanometer materials.
The disaster in Japan is quite scary for many people. It would be difficult to imagine that many Americans would want a nuclear power plant put in their back yard. Renewables are becoming more price competitive and are clearly the long term solution. Carbon fuels do not have the potential for lasting forever, renewables do.
https://phys.org/news/2017-12-hot-electrons-solar-energy.html
Get back to us with your predictions when battery storage is up to snuff. Until then solar/wind are, and always will be, marginal players, and will never replace hydrocarbons, unless they just entirely disappear.
Solar will never be as energy dense as fossil fuels. And fission is a million times as energy dense as fossil fuels. We have enough thorium to last for many thousands of years. And we already proved we could successfully breed it into fissile U233 in the 60’s and 70’s. Coupled with molten salt reactors which we also successfully developed in the 60’s and 70’s we will soon go to thorium molten salt reactors. No point whatsoever doing grids out of solar not that we have “rediscovered” thorium molten salt reactors. The land and material usage is simply not justifiable with such low energy density.