Running it is cheap, but the large costs of construction and decommissioning that bookend a plant's lifespan mean you need a really, really long and mostly trouble-free operating life for the overall amortized costs to look good. At least with conventional large-scale plants. There are alternatives [e.g., 1] that might change that aspect of the economics, if they turn out to be feasible (politically and otherwise).
> A United Nations study estimates the final total of premature deaths associated with the disaster will be around 4000, mostly from an estimated 3% increase in cancers which are already common causes of death in the region.
> Predicted future cancer deaths due to accumulated radiation exposures in the population living near Fukushima have ranged in the academic literature from none to hundreds.
> Air pollution causes 200,000 early deaths each year in the U.S. (...) Emissions from road transportation are the most significant contributor, causing 53,000 premature deaths, followed closely by power generation, with 52,000.
> Burning coal has the worst health impact of any source of air pollution in China and caused 366,000 premature deaths in 2013, Chinese and American researchers said on Thursday.
In short, (a year of operating coal plants, without accidents) > (worst nuclear disaster mankind has witnessed), by an order of magnitude (or two).
I like to assess energy sources by the numbers, and by the numbers nuclear power is safe enough (far safer than continuing to burn fossils). By the numbers, new reactor builds are also slow and expensive, with the one notable exception of South Korea's KEPCO. (China and Russia sometimes also get cited as examples of countries that can still do nuclear power "right," but neither is particularly transparent with domestic projects nor particularly inexpensive/quick with projects they offer to build abroad.) Ten years ago Japan and France looked like they did nuclear right also. Then Fukushima tanked the Japanese nuclear industry and the ongoing disaster of EPR construction took France off the list.
Maybe small modular reactors will make nuclear power attractive again. Or maybe even big, expensive, slow reactors will seem relatively attractive some decades from now after national grids are already saturated with as much renewable electricity as they can reasonably use. (Though even that is subject to receding horizons if bulk electricity storage gets cheaper over time.) It's really hard to see anything that will make nuclear power more competitive over the next 10 years in Japan, the Americas, Oceania, or Europe. (South Korea, China, and the Middle East and North Africa -- I expect to see continued if not particularly fast nuclear growth in these regions.)
I had thought that the AP1000 looked like a pretty incrmental, conservative, easy-to-build choice for new reactors. Builds are well behind schedule in both the US and China, and the costs are escalating too. My personal guess is that the 4 reactors now under construction in the US will not make the 2020 deadline to qualify for the new-reactor tax credits that have been available since 2005. My guess is also that all the institutions that got burned building these 4 will dissuade new US orders, so any lessons painfully learned on this first wave will not ease the construction of another wave of reactors; the lesson learned will just be "don't try to build reactors."
China's leadership can plan for the long term because there are no electoral politics nor elections. The same goes for Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Egypt where I also expect to see nuclear growth. In the heyday of France's nuclear build-out, there was something similar offering stability: EDF was a state owned electricity monopoly for all of France, and didn't have to worry about competition or the short term. Since the monopoly ended in 1999 France has only started building one new reactor, the disastrously late and over-budget Flamanville-3. With a monopoly I could imagine this being a painful lesson that nonetheless eases construction of more EPRs. Without a monopoly I think that this expensive education will be wasted, like the skills relearned from the current AP1000 projects will be wasted in the US.
Just add these nuclear industry woes to the very long list of reasons that the world is not on track to stabilize the climate with emissions cuts alone, and will need active carbon dioxide removal measures later this century or sometime in the 22nd, assuming that industrial civilization remains intact.
I just want to that I think it's unlikely new big reactors will have a place in a grid with plenty of renewables. You're going to have a hard time making the ends meet up if you can't sell all the power the reactor produces, and that won't happen as it can't beat the marginal costs of wind turbines or solar panels.
Burning biomass, biogas or some sort of mass storage will be much cheaper.
Regarding the latter, in Denmark the former CTO of Siemens Wind Power has devised a plan for heated stone storage. So you heat the stone with electricity to around 600 degrees C and can thus use the heat to drive a turbine later. Last I heard another company in Denmark recently got EU funding to build a demonstration plant. (Not saying this will be the future, just putting it out there for people who think the only alternatives are hydro and chemical batteries.)
I'm not against nuclear power, but the U.S. was a pioneer in this tech and it still required massive support from the weapons industry to even get as much implementation as it has. I don't believe this is solely on either the tech or the anti-nuke power movement, but rather has to do with how large and distributed the U.S. is geographically, which makes each plant being a custom build job in many places with not enough nearby consumers to give any savings from scale.
Add to that, the fact that you have so many levels of government approval before you can break ground, and the high initial cost to build a plant, and you're basically left with a system that can only gain traction with some organisation like the military pushing it through.
Thorium reactors have too much going on inside the reactor, and a radioactive chemical plant outside it. The history of nuclear reactors indicates that plants with anything complex going on inside run into problems. Sodium reactors have sodium fires. Helium reactors leak. Pebble bed reactors jam. Boring old water reactors are about all that can be made to work for decades.
Running a radioactive chemical plant usually results in a toxic waste site. All three US reprocessing plants are now major toxic waste sites.
Researching thorium all the way to production will cost a lot of money. For the same money, we could do a lot of research into new storage ideas and solar thermal, which thus far has been disappointing in production, but does make storage easier.
So strange you're downvoted when you're correct. Why spend billions on a nuclear plant that'll take a decade to build when you can deploy solar, wind, and battery storage at a lower cost and a tenth the time?
The economics simply do not work for nuclear, and I'd expect all nuclear generators in the US decommissioned by 2030.
Nuclear is still the future, just maybe not the immediate future... Unless we have a massive breakthrough in transmission and storage. I see it as gap between solar and wind to meet emergencies and peak loads.
Given how expensive nuclear is, running it for emergencies and peak loads is not a good economic plan. Given that concrete generates a lot of carbon, you're better off using natural gas peaker plants.
It's far better used for primary generation than as a "peaker" plant.
The optimal energy infrastructure, IMHO, is to use nuclear for baseline needs, then in times of low electrical demand use it for splitting out hydrogen for fuel cell vehicle use and industry.
[+] [-] asitdhal|9 years ago|reply
But, if a war breaks out and someone bombs a nuclear reactor, it will be messy to clean up the mess.
[+] [-] _delirium|9 years ago|reply
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_modular_reactor
[+] [-] yongjik|9 years ago|reply
Still will be environmentally cleaner than a coal plant with no war breaking out and nobody bombing it.
...Even when we add the war itself to the nuke side.
(...Well, unless we do have a nuclear war. Then all bets are off.)
Edit: What, do I look flippant? Here are statistics:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_due_to_the_Chernobyl_di...
> A United Nations study estimates the final total of premature deaths associated with the disaster will be around 4000, mostly from an estimated 3% increase in cancers which are already common causes of death in the region.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa...
> Predicted future cancer deaths due to accumulated radiation exposures in the population living near Fukushima have ranged in the academic literature from none to hundreds.
Compare this with:
http://news.mit.edu/2013/study-air-pollution-causes-200000-e...
> Air pollution causes 200,000 early deaths each year in the U.S. (...) Emissions from road transportation are the most significant contributor, causing 53,000 premature deaths, followed closely by power generation, with 52,000.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/18/world/asia/china-coal-hea...
> Burning coal has the worst health impact of any source of air pollution in China and caused 366,000 premature deaths in 2013, Chinese and American researchers said on Thursday.
In short, (a year of operating coal plants, without accidents) > (worst nuclear disaster mankind has witnessed), by an order of magnitude (or two).
[+] [-] Spooky23|9 years ago|reply
That's not even including the costs associated with decommissioning that eventually get dumped on the taxpayer indefinitely.
[+] [-] marze|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] teslaberry|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] philipkglass|9 years ago|reply
France's fame as a country that did nuclear right is also a bit tainted by recent revelations of problems with component quality and forged quality control reports: http://www.powermag.com/frances-nuclear-storm-many-power-pla...
I should probably also mention falsified nuclear documentation in South Korea that surfaced a few years ago, in fairness to France: http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS-Indictments_for_South_K...
Maybe small modular reactors will make nuclear power attractive again. Or maybe even big, expensive, slow reactors will seem relatively attractive some decades from now after national grids are already saturated with as much renewable electricity as they can reasonably use. (Though even that is subject to receding horizons if bulk electricity storage gets cheaper over time.) It's really hard to see anything that will make nuclear power more competitive over the next 10 years in Japan, the Americas, Oceania, or Europe. (South Korea, China, and the Middle East and North Africa -- I expect to see continued if not particularly fast nuclear growth in these regions.)
I had thought that the AP1000 looked like a pretty incrmental, conservative, easy-to-build choice for new reactors. Builds are well behind schedule in both the US and China, and the costs are escalating too. My personal guess is that the 4 reactors now under construction in the US will not make the 2020 deadline to qualify for the new-reactor tax credits that have been available since 2005. My guess is also that all the institutions that got burned building these 4 will dissuade new US orders, so any lessons painfully learned on this first wave will not ease the construction of another wave of reactors; the lesson learned will just be "don't try to build reactors."
China's leadership can plan for the long term because there are no electoral politics nor elections. The same goes for Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Egypt where I also expect to see nuclear growth. In the heyday of France's nuclear build-out, there was something similar offering stability: EDF was a state owned electricity monopoly for all of France, and didn't have to worry about competition or the short term. Since the monopoly ended in 1999 France has only started building one new reactor, the disastrously late and over-budget Flamanville-3. With a monopoly I could imagine this being a painful lesson that nonetheless eases construction of more EPRs. Without a monopoly I think that this expensive education will be wasted, like the skills relearned from the current AP1000 projects will be wasted in the US.
Just add these nuclear industry woes to the very long list of reasons that the world is not on track to stabilize the climate with emissions cuts alone, and will need active carbon dioxide removal measures later this century or sometime in the 22nd, assuming that industrial civilization remains intact.
[+] [-] olau|9 years ago|reply
I just want to that I think it's unlikely new big reactors will have a place in a grid with plenty of renewables. You're going to have a hard time making the ends meet up if you can't sell all the power the reactor produces, and that won't happen as it can't beat the marginal costs of wind turbines or solar panels.
Burning biomass, biogas or some sort of mass storage will be much cheaper.
Regarding the latter, in Denmark the former CTO of Siemens Wind Power has devised a plan for heated stone storage. So you heat the stone with electricity to around 600 degrees C and can thus use the heat to drive a turbine later. Last I heard another company in Denmark recently got EU funding to build a demonstration plant. (Not saying this will be the future, just putting it out there for people who think the only alternatives are hydro and chemical batteries.)
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] nikdaheratik|9 years ago|reply
Add to that, the fact that you have so many levels of government approval before you can break ground, and the high initial cost to build a plant, and you're basically left with a system that can only gain traction with some organisation like the military pushing it through.
[+] [-] velodrome|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Animats|9 years ago|reply
Running a radioactive chemical plant usually results in a toxic waste site. All three US reprocessing plants are now major toxic waste sites.
[+] [-] greglindahl|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] intrasight|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] toomuchtodo|9 years ago|reply
The economics simply do not work for nuclear, and I'd expect all nuclear generators in the US decommissioned by 2030.
[+] [-] exabrial|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marze|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] greglindahl|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DrScump|9 years ago|reply
The optimal energy infrastructure, IMHO, is to use nuclear for baseline needs, then in times of low electrical demand use it for splitting out hydrogen for fuel cell vehicle use and industry.
[+] [-] teslaberry|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]