> it seems the real reason, as in all things, is economics
The economics might be different if we paid for the real cost of carbon-based energy, instead of imposing that cost on the world as an externality.
The economics might be different if we paid for the real cost of carbon-based energy, instead of imposing that cost on the world as an externality.
I find myself in conflict with people a lot regarding nuclear online. I used to be one of those LFTR reactor guys but the facts are that nuclear reactors are always some newer, untested design that will require new untested innovations. On the other hand solar has an easily predicted, easily met roadmap to cheap power with existing tech. We know for a fact that solar can power the entire world's needs cheaply for many decades to come, but we are just guessing that the same can be done with nuclear. Why make that bet when we have a sure thing?
Both costs are more or less impossible to establish upfront.
The U.S. effectively estimates zero cost (without looking into the details); that certainly is a bad estimate.
The biggest externality of coal in particular is not carbon emissions but the massive health costs and human suffering.
If fossil fuels were subjected to the same safety requirements as nuclear in terms of preventing public health effects, the cost would increase substantially.
The carbon emissions cause climate change, which causes human suffering at a scale, as I understand it, far beyond that of the pollution you describe (which is also substantial).
While the dust and radioactivity released by coal plants kills hundreds of thousands of people now, and we can't meaningfully offset it by trading quotas - it's not like having more kids makes up for killing other people.
But as we all know, replacing coal powered plants with safer things (nuclear, solar, wind, tidal) would cost nothing compared to healthcare costs.
Given that the shutdown of nuclear is extremely expensive, and that decommissioning before the planned lifespan also involves massive payouts to the owners and reduced time to amortise cleanup costs etc., the economics also vastly favour keeping them running.
It also ignores the vast healthcare costs involved in dealing with respiratory illnesses - including for children - as a result of coal. Few people fall over dead with no cost of care for respiratory illnesses.
So if your concern in healthcare spending, that's another reason to at a minimum not shut down nuclear plants until all of the coal plants are gone.
Soon it will be possible to use most of the waste as fuel:
"...Fast reactors can "burn" long lasting nuclear transuranic waste (TRU) waste components (actinides: reactor-grade plutonium and minor actinides), turning liabilities into assets. Another major waste component, fission products (FP), would stabilize at a lower level of radioactivity than the original natural uranium ore it was attained from in two to four centuries, rather than tens of thousands of years"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_fast_reactor
How does coal waste compare to that?
"Coal ash – the waste material left after coal is burned – contains arsenic, mercury, lead, and over a dozen other heavy metals, many of them toxic."
http://www.psr.org/environment-and-health/code-black/coal-as...
"The study found that levels of radioactivity in the ash were up to five times higher than in normal soil,"
https://phys.org/news/2015-09-radioactive-contaminants-coal-...
How much coal waste is produced per year?
"According to the American Coal Ash Association's Coal Combustion Product Production & Use Survey Report, nearly 130 million tons of coal ash was generated in 2014."
But I agree; Coal is not the future. Either.
>...I am not an expert but many seem to consider the increased handling risk related to the toxicity and activity of plutonium and other products,
I agree that nuclear waste needs to be handled carefully.
>...especially considering terrorism, and also the risk for weaponizing the enriched plutonium.
There is very little terrorism risk from nuclear waste. The weight, size and danger of high level waste means it would be beyond the capability of terrorist group to take advantage of it. Other sources of power have much, much more of a risk from terrorism.
>....also the risk for weaponizing the enriched plutonium.
None of the nuclear states got their start by using nuclear waste from a commercial reactor. This wasn't a coincidence - it is much easier to get nuclear fuel by using a special purpose reactor or enriching uranium.
There will be literal mountains of moderately to highly dangerous rubble.
"...Nearly every major river in the Southeast has one or more unlined, leaking pits on its banks filled with water and holding coal ash from power plants. Containing millions of tons of toxin-laden waste, these pits are unlined and have leaked arsenic, mercury, thallium, selenium, and other contaminants into the rivers and the underlying groundwater for decades. "
https://www.southernenvironment.org/cases-and-projects/coal-...
Fine, it'll be an underground mountain :-)
> [...]compared to coal waste[...]Containing millions of tons of toxin-laden waste[...]
Holy shit, I had never even considered ash. It just never crossed my mind somehow. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.
It doesn't make me any less opposed to nuclear energy, but you've given me one more reason to be against coal plants (as if there weren't enough already).
Plus, as you suggest, no-one wants to buy the MOX fuel product because it's more expensive than enriched uranium.
1.) Incredible cost to privately insure a nuclear power plant.
2.) There hasn't been an economy of scale when producing nuclear power plants.
3) Nuclear power technology is running on technology half a century old.
This gives you a couple interesting points to consider:
- Once built, you have reliable baseload power for generations.
- Modernized power plants could be safer, more efficient, and smaller by orders of magnitude.
Demonization of nuclear power prevents improvements to nuclear power. The industry is stuck in the 60's. The real shame is that it's the only technology we have that is really future-friendly: Planetary colonization can't rely on wind, nor solar, and certainly not fossil fuels for power. Nuclear will really be the only option for reliable baseload power to extra-terrestrial colonies.
Many of existing plants were at the time they were built considered to be important for national security (read: nuclear arsenal), which is much of why they're using the fuel they use and have the designs they have.
Civilian nuclear never really materialized in it's own right, which is certainly a shame.
Their study looks at different forms of electricity generation from the perspective of 'costs avoided' (e.g. avoided carbon emissions), net cost of generation (e.g. nameplate vs. actual generation), and total system costs (e.g. grid balancing / stabilising costs). On 'costs avoided', their base-case assumption is a $50 per tonne price on co2 emissions.
The study concludes:
"Assuming that reductions in carbon dioxide emissions are valued at $50 per metric ton and the price of natural gas is not much greater than $16 per million Btu, the net benefits of new nuclear, hydro, and natural gas combined cycle plants far outweigh the net benefits of new wind or solar plants. Wind and solar power are very costly from a social perspective because of their very high capacity cost, their very low capacity factors, and their lack of reliability.
For example, adjusting U.S. solar and wind capacity factors to take account of lack of reliability, we estimate that it would take 7.30 MW of solar capacity, costing roughly four times as much per MW to produce the same electrical output with the same degree of reliability as a baseload gas combined cycle plant. It requires an investment of approximately $29 million in utility-scale solar capacity to produce the same output with the same reliability as a $1 million investment in gas combined cycle. Reductions in the price of solar photovoltaic panels have reduced costs for utility-scale solar plants, but photovoltaic panels account for only a fraction of the cost of a solar plant. Thus such price reductions are unlikely to make solar power competitive with other electricity technologies without government subsidies.
Wind plants are far more economical in reducing emissions than solar plants, but much less economical than hydro, nuclear and gas combined cycle plants. Wind plants can operate at a capacity factor of 30 percent or more and cost about twice as much per MW to build as a gas combined cycle plant. Taking account of the lack of wind reliability, it takes an investment of approximately $10 million in wind plants to produce the same amount of electricity with the same reliability as a $1 million investment in gas combined cycle plants."
And here are my calculations on German solar and wind capacity factors (they're awful): https://gist.github.com/anonymous/f1a6d064890d67fbfc98d66dbd...
Not that anyone here will care about any of this. This issue has pretty much become a matter of blind religious fear & faith.
So if anything, they're equally terrible in that regard.
That isn't true. There are externalities for both, but the externalities for carbon are far greater. The above statement is like saying: No houses are free to buy; therefore all houses are equally costly.
That's rather sweeping, don't you think? If anything, my statement might be an oversimplification. But untrue? I wouldn't be surprised if they were of a similar order of magnitude. Like houses (Michael Jackson's mansion and similar outliers excluded).
> the externalities for carbon are far greater
Do you have numbers to back that up? (I don't).
But keep in mind that it's not yet clear how expensive it will be to de-construct reactors and store nuclear waste for millenia. Just that it's going to be very, very expensive. And probably footed by the taxpayer.