Cost Increase Ants Spoiling The Nuclear Picnic
by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 04.29.08
The notion of nuclear energy saving the earth's climate is so romantic. We simply must open our parasols. With light cascading down from openings in the forest canopy, illuminating the possibilities, it is just so exciting to think on a neglected technology saving the planet.
Not so fast! Like ants at the climate-action picnic, costs increases are eating away at that bucolic vision. Stainless steel ants: very expensive to keep in control. Concrete ants: gone wild. Copper motor coil ants: hugely expensive. Even the engineering ants are charging more, in spite of design outsourcing. Getting so bad, it is, even the nuclear pandering-most politicians may end up going for renewables.
How do we know it's getting serious? The preliminary engineering cost estimates are Top Secret.
The estimated cost of new nuclear power plants has tripled in the past few years, with projections now hitting $6 billion to $9 billion per reactor. Cost estimates are expected to continue escalating. Soaring costs make the prospect of new nuclear power even harder to sell to a public that will ultimately pay for new plants through rate increases.
Nuclear critics are homing in on the staggering costs to lobby their case. It helps the opponents to have a dollar figure to object to, but electric utilities are reluctant to cooperate. Nuclear opponents are trying to force Duke Energy of Charlotte to disclose the projected cost of a proposed nuclear plant in Cherokee County, S.C., that would serve the Carolinas.
See also: Nuclear Energy - Screwing US Taxpayers Behind The Scenes
Via::The News Observer, "Cost of nuclear plant fuels battle./, Price of new plants in North and South Carolina would be ammunition for opponents -- if utilities didn't hold info close" Image credit::"How Stuff Works," The dome-shaped containment building at the Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant near Raleigh, NC. AND This Distracted Globe, Picnic at Hanging Rock
Whenever I hear people suggesting to go nuclear, I always wonder: how finite is nuclear fuel?
Nuclear power: the most complicated, expensive and dangerous method ever devised to boil water.
Oh, and uranium is a limited natural resource, whose extraction is tremendously disruptive and gives miners lung cancer, while it's tailing heaps pollute thousands of miles of waterways and landscape.
The problems of nukes are limitless, unlike the electricity they might produce.
Geothermal Power Plants = cheap, renewable, better base load power than nuclear, less pollution, low footprint, plethora of heat extraction methods, energy generation already bests coal energy production costs, much infrastructure to piggy back on.....good way to produce hydrogen that nobody EVER thinks about. Geothermal blows photovoltaics and wind out of the water!
We wouldn't run out of uranium for the foreseeable future. Long before we would, we'd switch to thorium plants, which are more expensive but less radioactive.
The problems with nuclear power are threefold: 1) private insurance refuses to cover them, so operators MUST get cozy with government, 2) the waste issue is not and probably will not be resolved, and 3) the cost is HIGHER (yes, higher, once insurance and increased building costs are factored in) than renewables.
I say, drop all subsidies in the energy generation sphere, implement a cost-of-carbon tax, and watch renewables take over even faster than they are already.
jon you post the same exact thing every nuclear thread that comes along and you have yet to show us any credible evidence backing up your claims.
If you are anti-nuclear, then you are PRO COAL. Shame on you, Treehugger for your pro-coal stance, the most polluted method of energy production ever invented.
And since when did a Treehugger worry about costs when it comes to clean energy? (and Jon, modern nuclear plants do not need uranium like they did 40 years ago). Most people's knowledge of nuclear (and apparently the author as well), are only familiar with 1970's nuclear tech, and therefore are totally ignorant about all the beneficial changes even in the 1980's. That's where all the fear comes from, the idea that ALL nuclear plants are Chernobyl.
As I have said previously, the US stance on nuclear energy will be sad when our energy production is more polluted and costly than even China in 20 years. We're once again in this subject way behind the rest of the world...
@Bram
"It is estimated that 4.7 million tonnes of uranium ore reserves are economically viable, while 35 million tonnes are classed as mineral resources (reasonable prospects for eventual economic extraction). An additional 4.6 billion tonnes of uranium are estimated to be in sea water (Japanese scientists in the 1980s showed that extraction of uranium from sea water using ion exchangers was feasible)."
-Wikipedia
Thanks! Just yesterday I urged you all to give less optimistic coverage to nukes. Quick turnaround, folks!
Also, check out the article on nukes in the latest Nation.
Perhaps if the US used the Canadian or French models of pre-approved plant designs. France’s cost of producing this nuclear power is only about 3 Euro cents per kWhr. One of the reasons that the French have been so successful is standardization of plant designs. Nuclear Plant Standardization is something Canada also does, but which the U.S seems incapable of doing. Indeed, the French have been so successful at implementing nuclear power using standardized designs, that electricity is now France’s fourth largest export product.