America's much hyped "reactor renaissance" is facing a quadruple bypass. In actual new construction, proposed projects and overseas sales, soaring costs are killing new nukes. And the old ones are leaking like Dark Age relics on the brink of disaster.
As renewables plummet in cost, and private financing stays nil, the nuclear industry is desperate to gouge billions from Congress for loan guarantees to build new reactors. Thus far, citizen activism has stopped them. But the industry is pouring all it has into this fall's short session, yet again demanding massive new subsides to stay on life support.
Here's a lab report:
Soaring costs at Vogtle, the US's one active new reactor project, have stuck Georgia ratepayers with $108 million in unplanned overcharges ... and that's just for starters at a site where actual construction has barely begun. Vogtle's builders are hiking rates by nearly 3x as much as the original $1.30/month promised when it first agreed to soak ratepayers for the plant -- in advance. This new hike was opposed by the PSC's own staff, which blasted the whole deal for being shrouded in secrecy.
Currently calculated to cost a sure-to-soar $14.5 billion, the Vogtle project got $8.33 billion in federal loan guarantees from Obama in February. Citizen/taxpayer groups have since sued to see the details, which the administration is keeping secret. Georgia Power, which is building Vogtle, has already asked for another $1 billion rate increase.
Such soaring rates and slipping schedules defined the first generation of "too cheap to meter" reactors, which almost without exception came in years late and billions over budget. Costs of the two original Vogtle reactors jumped by 1,263% -- from an original $660 million budget to nearly $9 billion -- forcing up statewide rates more than 12%. Construction was promised for 7 years, but actually took 16.
The French giant AREVA's "new generation" projects in Finland and Flamanville, France, have also soared hugely over budget and behind schedule. So there's every indication the new generation of reactors will be as catastrophically behind schedule and over budget as the first.
John Rowe, the CEO of Exelon, America's top reactor owner (17 in 3 states), says low gas prices could delay construction of new merchant nukes in the US by a "decade, maybe two." Merchant power plants sell electricity into open competitive markets.
Because atomic energy can't compete with natural gas or renewables and efficiency, Exelon has withdrawn its application to build two reactors in Victoria County, Texas. "We haven't totally abandoned" the project, says Rowe. But "it's very unlikely we would do it for a long time."
American reactor component makers are angry with India for a passing new law requiring the industry to assume substantial liability for a catastrophe they might cause.
The horrifying aftermath of Bhopal, where Union Carbide killed thousands of local citizens with a lethal gas emission for which they have not been held fully accountable, still weighs heavily in India. But the atomic industry will not tread where it's held liable for the true costs of its potential disasters. In the US, liability is capped at around $11 billion, even though the financial damage from a full-scale catastrophe could easily soar into the trillions. Minimum estimates from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, which occurred in a remote, impoverished area, have exceeded $500 billion. By recent estimates the death toll is 985,000 and still counting.
On behalf of US corporations, the Obama Administration is demanding the Indian liability requirements be lifted. Especially in the wake of BP's Deepwater Horizon catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, it is a stunning admission that even after fifty years, reactor technology cannot be held accountable for its technical vulnerabilities, here or abroad.
America's aging fleet of first generation reactors is leaking profusely. Indian Point, north of Manhattan, has suffered seven unplanned shut-downs in two years.
In recent months serious emissions of tritium and other radioactive substances into the air and water have been found at Vermont Yankee, Indian Point, New Jersey's Oyster Creek and many more. Ohio's infamous Davis-Besse, where boric acid ate virtually all the way through a reactor pressure vessel, has sprung some two dozen leaks which cannot be explained by its owner, First Energy. In Vermont, leaks from pipes the operators said did not exist have seeped contaminated water into the Connecticut River. As reactor owners petition to extend operating licenses for decades to come, the rickety, embrittled old plants become increasingly dangerous.
According to official records, the nuclear industry has spent at least $645 million in the past decade lobbying for taxpayer handouts. It got $18.5 billion in loan guarantees from the Bush Administration in 2005. Obama has asked for some $36 billion more. But so far a national grassroots movement has kept that from happening. The industry is demanding more from Congress, and will continue to do so as long as legislators need cash to run their campaigns.
But it is now clearer than ever that atomic energy cannot compete, that new construction means new rate hikes, that delays and cost overruns will always outstrip the industry's initial public assurances, and that after a half-century this technology still can't face the prospect of full liability for the disasters it might impose ... or even for the "minor" radiation it constantly emits.
Will this finally kill the much hyped "renaissance" of a Dark Age technology defined by quadruple failures in human health, global ecology, sound finance and increasingly shaky performance?
That will depend on the power of citizen activism. Nuclear power can't survive without protection from accident liability. Nor can new plants be built without huge public subsidies.
The longer those are stopped, the more likely a Solartopian transition to the only sources that can sustain us: increased efficiency and the green-powered birth of the Age of Renewables.
Kuwait to announce launch of nuclear program this year
TEPCO to boost renewable energy, expand overseas
IAEA Can't Confirm All Iran's Nuclear Activity Is Peaceful
Letters: Nuclear energy isn't the 'green' answer
Poll: Germans oppose nuclear power extension
UK's Cable voices support for nuclear future
Utilities May Build U.S. Gas-Fired Plants, Duke Says
http://www.ne.doe.gov/
http://www.scientificamerican.com/report.cfm?id=nuclear-future
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/nuclear-faq.html
http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/PressReleases/2004/prn200405.html
http://www.world-nuclear.org/
http://web.mit.edu/nuclearpower/”
The tide is now turning, thanks in large part to the arguments about global warming (though of course there are many other good reasons to build civilian nuclear plants). I think the Sierra Club will be the next eco org to speak out in favor of nuclear power. And in any case, our allies in some regions are going all-in on nuclear power so that they can continue exporting oil and gas to US. We ARE funding a huge nuclear expansion. Just not at home - yet.
In its 2003 Annual Energy Outlook, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) projects that production from new nuclear power plants would not be cost-competitive with other power sources until after 2025"
MIT "Insurmountable Risks": http://www.ieer.org/sdafiles/14-2.pdf http://www.huffingtonpost.com/users/profile/research?action=profile
MIT study concludes.
Nuclear power is not ready
"The nuclear
power option will only be exercised, however, if
the technology demonstrates better economics,
improved safety, successful waste management,
and low proliferation risk, and if public policies
place a significant value on electricity production
that does not produce CO2. Our study identifies
the issues facing nuclear power and what
might be done to overcome them."
http://web.mit.edu/nuclearpower/pdf/nuclearpower-full.pdf
World Nuclear is a paid nuclear industry advertising and pr agency.
http://www.nrcan-rncan.gc.ca/media/newcom/2009/2009123-1a-eng.pdf
Investment Summary
Nukes need a 25$/ton carbon tax to compete with fossil electricity...
http://www.fastcompany.com/1689493/mit-report-there-is-plenty-of-uranium-for-nuclear-power
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which published the study, says that "it would be a mistake to exclude" nuclear power from the energy mix of the future!
http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/09/to-triple-world-nuclear-power.html
Pretty clear where MIT stands!
I think you may have misinterpreted what they said or you're deliberately misquoting them.
"The WNA website serves as the world’s leading information source on nuclear energy and the global industry that produces it. In cyberspace today, there is no close competitor. Some 120 WNA information papers, frequently updated, appear prominently on Google searches, with the result that a WNA webpage is downloaded every 7 seconds by users inside and outside the industry. Stated simply, when nuclear questions are asked on the internet, WNA is the unparalleled supplier of reliable answers. The WNA Public Information Service is the world’s “base-load” generator of comprehensive, accurate information on nuclear energy"
I have found them to have timely accurate information, verifiable through diverse sources.
What will happen is this new natural gas "boom" brought to us by fracking, will destroy communities,watersheds, and air.. Fracking is loved by the international banking hegemony, because it feeds their paradigm of scarcity. 6 million gallons of fresh water per well, 12-15% recovery of that water(admitted by the gas companies), the rest is left in the earth to bust methane into wells and "float" into aquifers. Then recovered water that is mixed with toxins will be put in swamps, fields, or processing plants that will not even clean the water properly as it is then flushed into streams and rivers. They build pits were these well pads are built to hold this water, giant multi-million gallons chemical pools and they leak.Then, compressors stations and thousands of miles of pipeline(carrying a combustible, not electricity, are pumped through backyards, behind schools, parks, forests, waiting to leak). The benzene and other extreme toxins from compressors stations will destroy your immune system.
This gas will be everywhere they can pull a bit of gas out of the ground, and when you can drill miles into the earth, everywhere has gas that is recoverable, doesn't matter if it is really profitable because it will be subsidized to death, because the bankers will make us supply dependent.
TVA is building nukes in less than 3 years for less than $3/Gw, selling the power for less than 5 cents a kwh and replacing coal with it . Google it and learn
75% American public support for nukes despite $billions in antinuke propaganda from Big Oil and its wholely owned sub Big Green.
Uses no more water any other coal, gas, or solar CSP.
By far the the greenest, cleanest, most renewable, less resource using and an order of magnitude less costly than the deadly not so renewable product, which kills three million a year by indefinately delayed the phaseout of coal.
New 500 Mw nuke waste burner. First of five to be built for 2020.
http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/india%5Cs-first-fast-breeder-reactor-to-be-delayed/385625/
New 500 Mw nuke waste burner. First of five to be built for 2020.
http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/india%5Cs-first-fast-breeder-reactor-to-be-delayed/385625/
1. Cost nuclear is currently THE low cost producer of electricity, cheaper than coal, natural gas, wind or solar.
2. Danger - The safest way to produce electricity according to OSHA safer than banking!
3. Very small volume of waste which has never caused an injury or envoronmental hazard in the US over the last 40 years! Which will be used to power Generation IV reactors for centuries to come!
Your arguments are full of hot air! No-one will listen to your chicken little arguments no matter how often you repeat them!
I am what is known as a Nuclear Professional, specifically an Instrument and Control Technician. I calibrate and maintain the instrumentation and control systems used to safely operate a nuclear power plant. I am responsible for the health and safety of the public, including my own family. I take my job very seriously, I am not a paid spokesperson, my views and opinions are my own.
Yeah, I followed the link to its source, and I found that the information there was being misrepresented in argument here to say exactly the opposite of what it actually said.
I already was careful about some sources here - particularly ones prone to see Armageddon around every corner - because I had caught some of them exaggerating beyond the dreams of a hyperbola.
After finding that misrepresentation, I have had little time for such exaggerations, and that poster's credibility with me is limited.
Debunking takes a little bit of effort, so it's nice to spread the load.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nuclear-weapons-and-pollution-linked-to-65-million-deaths-609008.html
coal ash not deadly like nuke http://www.acaa-usa.org/
http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0952-4746/18/1/005
Cancer: http://www.tapcanada.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/tap_fact_sheet1.pdf
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12938722 France has very high radiation type cancers rates.
http://www.greens.org/s-r/50/50-12.html TMI deaths
http://www.ki4u.com/three_mile_island.htm
http://wapedia.mobi/en/Ernest_J._Sternglass
http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Iraq/andre/ISRI-95-03.pdf
proliferation via reactors.
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=nuclear%20waste%20dumping%20worldwide&hl=en&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl
waste dumps all over the world.
For instance, here is a map of nuclear waste dump sites in Georgia Bay and off the coast of southern British Columbia.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=8899147
great world polutionmapstoo.
http://maps.grida.no/region/global/page/46
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4312553.stm Somali nuke waste dumping
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster_effects#Controversy_over_human_health_effects
trillion dollar nuke industry trying to white wash Chernobyl, but still multiple studies show over a million excess deaths.
Nuclear power and weapons cause the death of 65M people.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nuclear-weapons-and-pollution-linked-to-65-million-deaths-609008.html
Let's research something.
Has the 'headline' study in your resposted rant any support? Has it been debunked? You know, this one:
'Nuclear power and weapons cause the death of 65M people.'
Why, YES! It has! In fact, it has even been debunked here, in a response to you:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/Steve41/obamas-second-chance-on-c_b_525567_44534979.html
From the link:
'A critical examination of the ECRR report has been undertaken by NRPB staff. The cited epidemiological studies have been investigated in detail by NRPB staff and previously by other experts; their conclusions are generally different from those reached by ECRR. The methodology proposed by ECRR for estimating radiation risks from internal emitters is arbitrary and does not have a sound scientific basis. Furthermore, there are many misrepresentations of ICRP, misunderstandings, inconsistencies and unsubstantiated claims in the ECRR report. The ECRR report therefore provides no scientific basis for changing protection standards.'
Is it your hope that enough repetitions will make your assertion true?
Tell me: if your first argument looks like an untruth that has already been debunked here, why should I (or anyone) bother with the rest?
Chenrnobyl killed 32 folks according to WHO peer reviewed science published in a reputable journal.
http://atomicinsights.blogspot.com/2010/09/chernobyl-consequences-myths-and-fables.html
A comparison of Chernobyl to TMI actually makes clear that US utility reactors were vastly superior in terms of safety, and since then, both the existing reactor fleet and reactor designs have both gotten safer.
You're arguing against building the Hindenberg when we are talking about 747s. No one, including me, is arguing that we should build more Hindenburgs.
Save money, cut the deficit, employ everyone, cut energy dependence:
Immediately order energy retrofits for all gov buildings.
Rooftop PV Solar, Offshore wind, and Waste Bio char, can supply the worlds energy and fuel needs: cleanly, safely, Forever, within 12 years and cheaper in the long run 2-6 cents now, and 26$ per barrel bio oils.
http://www.ecobusinesslinks.com/solar_panels.htm
about 1$ per Wp solar panels, new.
install solar plants for about $1.30 per watt, compared with an industry average of about $1.75, according to Hardy." http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=a7K1FZoNgJ0w
Wind: “between two and six cents today, depending on location.12 Wind power approaches competitiveness with conventional generation at this price point. “
http://www.repp.org/articles/static/1/binaries/wind%20issue%20brief_FINAL.pdf
http://www.css.cornell.edu/faculty/lehmann/publ/BiofBioproBioref%203,%20547-562,%202009%20Laird.pdf
26$ per barrel bio oil from waste bio char.
unfortunaly,
http://www.facebook.com/notes/steven-chu/why-we-need-more-nuclear-power/336162546856
Proof Chu is in love with nukes. He uses the idiotic argument that since we have 20% nukes but only 3% solar and wind, we can't do solar and wind!
Chu's official report uses 8 year old unreferenced costs for green energy, and future bs costs for nukes and clean coal.
Solar, Wind, and biofuels can provide only a tiny portion of the worlds energy needs at an enormous cost.
Research's solar and wind costs are not real. He just makes them up. He has no idea what the cost of retrofiting all those buildings is or what the per kwh potential savings are.
Real wind cost.
Cape Wind is 24 cents a kwh going to 34 over 15 years - approved tariff
Arcadia Solar just built largest solar plant in the US is 50 cents a kwh at Florida Powers Rate of Return on Investment.
Biofuels from waste biomass producing waste biochar can produce almost no energy after the waste stream is properly processed for compost and recyclables. Whats left releases deadly Dioxins and Furons when burned.
even incinerators no put out less dioxins than you average barbecue 1000 times less than before.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/4033.php
Every hour, more energy from sunlight strikes the Earth than is consumed on the planet in a year, that is 365 * 24 = about 9k times our energy needs, no throw in the 75% is water, and the 40% best case solar panels and you have
ONLY 800 times the energy needs of the world.
similar for wind and waste bio char....
source: Ex Naval nuclear power plant operator.
Still that is 3 times the cost in China for the same nuke. We can build better airplanes cheaper than the Chinese in the most highly regulated industry on earth. We should be able to compete on nukes after America's major cost and delay factor the NRC is upgraded to an OECD standard regulator like Canada's CNSC. We invented the damn things after all.
Once I took a more open minded view of the arguments nuclear won hands down as being safer and more reliable and offers the most potential of providing clean baseload power for future generations. I think solar and nuclear are very compatible - nuclear providing baseload and eliminating coal and solar providing peaking power and reducing gas use. I also favor developing the next generation of molten salt designs and fortunately there has already been in the US and globally a huge investment that can be leveraged.
Sen. Lamar Alexander has an educated and progressive view of the potential of nuclear technology, but I would never vote for him.
I agree with you. It's time for broadsides on this topic.
What I would like to know is "Why does this site run articles from only one side of the debate?"
supposedly they are supposed to attempt "containment" by 2017, by shipping the tons and tons of radioactive dirt to Utah. what that will accomplish is unclear, to say the least. The disaster was totally covered up but included numerous partial meltdowns, incineration of radioactive material/waste and massive soil and water contamination which has been spreading for over 50 years.
when people start gabbling about nukes, i feel like saying that they need to go camp at Santa Susana until 2017 or their premature death, whichever is sooner, and advocate these planet-killing nightmares from there. Denial ain't just a river in egypt, its dozens of contaminated underground rivers in Los Angeles County!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/16/steven-chu-unaware-that-n_n_464355.html
I have been working with nuclear power for 30 yrs, I would be glad to have a new Nuclear power plant or used fuel storage facility in my community. My family and I live in a home within 10 miles of a nuclear power plant. I understand the risks involved and I’m completely comfortable with a plant "in my backyard". I have confidence that our kids will be smart enough to treat the nuclear "waste" as a valuable resource, or at least handle it safely.
If the cavemen thought their children would be too stupid to use fire safely, where would we be now?
Nuclear power has the smallest environmental impact of any current energy production method per unit of energy produced. One fuel pellet about the size of a pencil eraser produces the same energy as burning 1 ton of coal, and if reprocessed most of what’s left can be reclaimed. Nuclear power is our best option for reliable, environmentally friendly base-load electrical power.
http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/india%5Cs-first-fast-breeder-reactor-to-be-delayed/385625/
The Global Nuclear Industry's order books are filled out to 2022. Kuwait just today announced 4 reactors to be built by 2022.
I can't imagine an industry that has 12 years worth of firm orders being 'desperate'.
The US is the worst market in the world because we have the cheapest coal in the world. Nuclear can't compete against $12/ton Wyoming coal. It's quite competitive against $100/ton Chinese or European coal.
The rationale is simple: if you take the cheapest per-kWh carbon-producting electricity generation tech (ACC Natural gas) and the cheapest carbon-neutral tech (biomass, e.g., trees), and divide the difference by the CO2 released per kWh, you get an easy number: $78/tonne.
I like round numbers, though, and I have no sympathy for carbon prodcers.
Of course, we need more renewables. Let's build as many as we can. But, renewables cannot do it alone. In fact, nuclear energy and renewables are complementary not competitors, and a combination of the two is probably the best way of removing greenhouse gases from our electricity sector.
Harvey is a professional antinuclear activist, so there is no use in trying to convince him. But others who read this may be more open to considering the notion that nuclear energy has many benefits, and provides clean, safe and affordable electricity.
Table I-3. Reference Reactor Lifetime Carbon Dioxide Footprint
Source activity Duration(years) Total Emissions (metric Tons)
Construction Equipment 7 35000
Construction Workforce 7 150000
Plant Operations 40 190000
Operations Workforce 40 130000
Uranium Fuel Cycle 40 17000000
Decommissioning Equipment 10 18000
Decommissioning Workforce 10 17000
SAFSTOR Workforce 40 13000
Total 18000000 metric tons
Draft Environmental Impact
Statement for Combined Licenses
(COLs) for Levy Nuclear Plant, Units 1 and 2, AP 1000,PEF page L-1, August 2010.
If it wanted to make a point every piece of equipment used by nuke plants could be powered by nuke energy.
In any even then it uses less than wind or solar.
Instead, it must be taxpayer subsidized from cradle to grave.
The taxpayers fund the building of the nuke, they pay to insure it, they pay in the event of a disaster, they pay for the overpriced power generated, and then they get to pay for the decommissioning, because the company will not have set aside enough money for that. The only thing the taxpayers/ratepayers don't get in on, is the profits.
Why Republicans support this socialist business model is beyond me.
Currently nuke power costs less than 2 cents a kwh and receives no current subsidy. 75% public support for nukes,Chernobyl has nothing to do with modern reactors, the cancers are caused by coal builds.