Wall Street Journal: It's the Economics, Stupid: Nuclear Power's Bogeyman

[bananas]

http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2008/05/12/its-the-economics-stupid-nuclear-powers-bogeyman/?mod=WSJBlog

May 12, 2008, 1:59 pm
It’s the Economics, Stupid: Nuclear Power’s Bogeyman
Posted by Keith Johnson

It turns out nuclear power’s biggest worry isn’t Yucca Mountain, Three Mile Island ghosts, or environmental protesters. It’s economics.

Costs: You ain’t seen nothing yet.

Rebecca Smith reports today in the WSJ (sub reqd.) on the biggest hurdle to the nascent nuclear-energy revival in the U.S.—skyrocketing construction costs. Though all power sectors are affected to different degrees by rising capital costs, nuclear power’s vulnerability puts it in a class by itself. Notes the paper:

<snip>

Over the last five years, cost estimates for new nuclear power plants have been continually revised upward. Even the bean counters can’t keep pace. The paper notes:

Estimates released in recent weeks by experienced nuclear operators — NRG Energy Inc., Progress Energy Inc., Exelon Corp., Southern Co. and FPL Group Inc. — “have blown by our highest estimate” of costs computed just eight months ago, said Jim Hempstead, a senior credit officer at Moody’s Investors Service credit-rating agency in New York.

<snip>

The Congressional Budget Office just finished a rosy-glasses report on nuclear economics. Even while acknowledging that historical costs for nuclear plants always doubled or tripled their initial estimates, the CBO took heart from promises made by manufacturers of next-generation reactors and a single on-time and on-budget project in Japan to project cheaper nuclear construction costs in the future. And if those cost estimates are wrong? From the CBO:

<snip>

[ladjf]

1. Not to mention the danger of radioactive fallout from accident.

(radioactivity lasts for more than 200,000 years)

[class2068]

2. To their discredit

the unmoving resistance from Greens to nuclear power and drilling for the US' 350 year supply of oil and coal does nothing to persuade the voters that we know what we're demanding. When gas passes $5 a gallon and diesel hits $7 a gallon, the public is gonna riot over our policy of crippling ourselves regarding energy.

[depakid]

3. LOL Americans may well riot

but the greens won't be the object of their anger.

[ladjf]

6. Regardless of what the price of gas might get to, one large

nuclear accident in the U.S. could render at least half of the country uninhabitable for at least 200,000 years, plus killing about 10% of the population. And as for the coal,we are already seriously poisoning ourselves with the gases emitted by coal combustion.

So, it's not a matter of how angry people will get over the price of gasoline, it's about taking the pressure off of the oil prices by using feasible renewable energies.

A 15 to 20% renewable energy supply for the U.S.would break the oil monopoly.

And may I add that I don't represent any businesses anywhere and have no profit motive in any way with regard to energy utilization. I simply don't think that it is wise to gamble the possible obliteration of half of the Country simply because we haven't quite geared up to use better alternatives. Wind,tide and geothermal are already financially viable price wise. Solar will be there soon,particularly as oil prices continue to rise.

[jpak]

9. A 350 year supply of oil and coal?????

:rofl:

The only ones holding back sensible energy policies in this country are the pro-oil, pro-coal, pro-nucular republics.

Not the "Greens"

Don't kid yourself.

[Dogmudgeon]

5. More like 45 billion years

Oh, wait, that's ten half-lives for the uranium dust that coal burning and phosphorus fertilizer use put into the air.

Each year, we put ten tons of uranium and thorium dust into the atmosphere per gigawatt for just coal burning alone. Phosphate fertilizer contains 20-200 parts per million of uranium, and our food is grown in it.

Most of the radioiodine released from TMI and Chernobyl has a 20-year half life -- or less. Most of the used nuclear fuel is "hot" for less than 1000 years, and it can be recycled. The technology to recycle it has been relatively poor so far, but we could develop far better processes in less time than it will take to make THE solar breakthrough all of the press releases that are posted here report. (Actually, the processes are already developed, but are not funded, in spite of angry assertions that the nuclear industry gets every dollar it asks for.)

Of course, if we want to avoid nuclear technology, we will have to get working on non-nuclear methods immediately. The government recently announced that we should get about 20% of our base energy from wind by 2028.

Cadmium and arsenic and copper mining, metallurgy, increasing the output of our cement industry tenfold, are all completely without down-sides ... right?

--p!

[ladjf]

7. Can't last 45 billion. The Earth only has somewhere between

500,000 and 1,000,000 years before it is burned to a crisp as the Sun begins to expand as it dies.

[Massacure]

14. Earth will last much longer than 1 million years.

The sun is roughly 4.5 billion years old and will continue to burn at about its current rate for another 5 or 6 billion years, before becoming a red dwarf.

Whether or not humans will make it 500,000 to a million years is another story though...

[ladjf]

16. I meant to say 500 million to a billion years before we get

dwarfed.

[Dogmudgeon]

4. This is an excellent point

The point extends far beyond just the reactor. The first tidal wave of post-peak-oil inflation has started its run-up. While this is leading to some exciting reporting in particular industries (oil, nuclear, fuel ethanol, food), its effects will soon be felt across the board.

If you have money to invest, you may want to plan for the shit to hit the fan in about a year. The double-punch 1970s made the Bush cabal fantastically rich and powerful. Those perversely happy days are here again. I don't look forward to them, but then again, I'm a peasant.

It's a shame that the original story is embargoed to subscribers. It would be interesting to see precisely what makes nuclear energy production so expensive relative to other kinds of energy production, and to heavy industry in general. Our plans to upgrade the nation's infrastructure are going to get a whole lot more expensive as well.

Oil, then food, then heavy industry ... there is a classic progression to this, and the people are the ass-end.

And here you thought you were just posting an anti-nuke story!

--p!

[NNadir]

8. You mean Walmart's got Amory Lovins appointed to the WSJ editorial board?

The big "bugaboo" hasn't seem to have driven the nuclear industry out of business, even though, before he was writing copy for the WSJ, Lovins predicted the "economic demise" of nuclear power 1 brazillion times.

Come to think of it, one brazillion promoters of Arnie Schwartenegger's brazillion solar roofs have also predicted one brazillion deaths of nuclear power on economic grounds.

These are, interestingly enough, the same class of yuppie brats who think that everyone is just flush with money to buy $50,000 worth of solar cells and $50,000 worth of batteries so they can live off grid just like their milkman's ex-girlfriend's cat's vetinarian's secretaries first husband's cousin's step-sister's best friend's boyfriend.

Despite 50 years of predictions of its death for all sorts of reasons by poorly educated dogmatic denialists, nuclear power remains, by far, the world's largest form of climate change gas free energy.

By.

Far.

[jpak]

10. How many nuclear plants have been ordered since 1973???

Where are they??

Where *is* that Big Ol' NEI Nucular Renaissance anyway????

[NNadir]

12. For the entire Bush administration, anti-nuke fundies (the 616 > 860 kind) have been here...

...predicting the "economic death" of nuclear power and the grand solar revolution.

In fact, this bit of chanting was already two decades old when George W. Bush was installed in the oval office.

To wit: The Walmart, oil company owned fundie anti-nuke Amory Lovins wrote in 1976, when everybody on the planet (except for those less than 31 years old) was, well, 31 years old:

Recent research suggests that a largely or wholly solar economy can be constructed in the United States with straightforward soft technologies that are now demonstrated and now economic or nearly economic."

Such a conceptual exercise does not require "exotic" methods such as sea-thermal, hot-dry-rock geothermal, cheap (perhaps organic) photovoltaic, or soIar-thcrmal electric systems. If developed, as some probably will be, these technologies could be convenient, but they are in no way essential for an industrial society operating solely on energy income.

Figure 2 shows a plausible and realistic growth pattern, based on several detailed assessments, for soft technologies given aggressive support. The useful output from these technologies would overtake, starting in the 1990s, the output of nuclear electricity shown in even the most sanguine federal estimates. For illustration...

For illustration...

In fact, the anti-nuke cults are based solely on chanting and wishful thinking and arbitrary attention.

It's not like anybody's against solar electricity. We have had thousands upon thousands of delusional "world's largest solar plants" threads here stretching over almost 8 years. All of a sudden, from the same crowd that couldn't care less about how many people die in dangerous fossil fuel accidents, dangerous fossil fuel terrorism, dangerous fossil fuel war, who couldn't care less about dangerous fossil fuel costs, or dangerous fossil fuel sustainability, we hear that no new nuclear plants have been ordered.

Where?

In fundie land?

France?

In fact, since 1980, nuclear energy production has nearly quadrupled:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/table27.xls

I note that in fundie selective attention there is no attention paid to whether or not the grand renewable fantasy is even keeping up with the increases in dangerous fossil fuel use.

There's all kinds of "nuclear is dead" talk, but no examination of the question of whether renewable energy has ever been living at all.

Since Amory Lovins predicted the economic death of nuclear power in the cult absorbed 70's the energy production of nuclear energy is clear enough.

The increase in nuclear power production since has been 1,941 billion kwh per year.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/table27.xls

Now, it's hardly surprising to find that fundie math now claims that 2625.57 < 684.38!!!!!!!

It's typical of fundie math.

But for the inhabitants not of the ethereal realms of the blessed holy sun god whose verses need daily repetition - the one that greenwashes Royal Dutch Shell, Rio Tinto, Conoco Phillips and the Pentagon - there is something called reality based math.

How much energy is 1,941 billion kwh per year?

It's more than twice as much electricity as is consumed on the entire continent of Africa.

It's equal to the entire electrical consumption of China in 2004.

It's 4 times as much electricity as India consumed in 2005.

(This is notable since fundie anti-nukes are the first to curse China for its Greenhouse gases - this at the same time they are calling for dumping another China's worth of dangerous fossil fuel waste into the atmosphere.)

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/table62.xls

For as long as I've been here, the fundie cults have been announcing that the nuclear industry is dead and that solar electricity was going to be more than a yuppie toy.

These are the same cults that Dick Cheney appealed to with his "mushroom cloud" nonsense, the same crowd that never dares to post a thread on whether oil or coal or dangerous natural gas have accidents, war, terrorism, or waste.

This ignorance would be amusing - except that ignorance kills.


And now, let's have another copy of the "nuclear is dead" God, Amory Lovins, getting a big payoff from the car culture company that is part of a consortium of right wing companies that pays Lovins to Greenwash them, Walmart:



http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid419.php

Hey, if any "renewables will save us" cult members happen to go to a revival at the cult of Amory, please do tell him that I love the fundie yuppie hunting vest, by the way. It's so L.L. Bean. It makes someone go out and kill a bear - or maybe a whole bear species - with 30 billion tons of dangerous fossil fuel waste.

[jpak]

13. So the answer is ZERO...fucking ZERO...

:rofl:

[bananas]

11. Wrong - hydro generates more electricity than nuclear.

They're close, but hydro is bigger.

2004 EIA data:

hydro = 2,759.16 Billion Kilowatthours
nuclear = 2,615.01 Billion Kilowatthours

From http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iea2005/table63.xls

...
9 6.3 World Net Electricity Generation by Type, 2004
10 (Billion Kilowatthours)
11 Conventional Geothermal, Solar, Wind,
12 Country Thermal Hydroelectric Nuclear and Wood and Waste Total
...
250 World Total 10,934.59 2,759.16 2,615.01 341.45 16,650.21

Reading NNadir's posts is like watching Fox News - reading them makes you stupider, because they are so full of wrong information.

[NNadir]

15. Nonsense. Nuclear power is dead. It failed for economic reasons.

It's gone away.

Amory Lovins said so.

Fox news - I mean the Wall Street Journal - said so. I mean you are citing the Rupert Murdoch's new toy, the Wall Street Journal.

Am I citing the Wall Street Journal?

Um.

No.

You are citing the Wall Street Journal. I guess the right wing press and the anti-nuke cults have gotten all cozy since the fundie anti-nukes started screaming for blood because Dickie, Colin, and Condelezza screamed "uranium" and caused people to go off and kill.

I don't read Murdoch media or watch it or give a fuck about its contents. I knew that the Murdoch press consisted mostly of fabrications even before the dumb "uranium! kill! kill!" announcement. Of course, because I am literate about nuclear technology, 500,000 "My Lai Colins" telling lies to the UN could not have convinced me that this uranium matter was remotely serious.

But our anti-nukes...

God bless 'em...

Nuclear energy is the world's largest, by far, form of climate change gas free primary energy.

There are ZERO fundie anti-nukes who can tell the difference between power and energy, nevermind different kinds of energy or even better, the laws of thermodynamics. (On the latter score, one needs to read their balderdash about how efficiency will save us.)

The first nuclear plant in the world - Calder Hall - was used for heating, as were many Soviet reactors, and as is the recently completed Romanian reactor at Cernovoda - a plant that doesn't exist in fundie land.

In fact, a dumb fundie was on this website not so long ago cheering for Russia replacing reactors with coal. It was nauseating, but telling all the same.

In any case, only in fundie land, is hydroelectricity considered scalable. The rest of the planet -which is not so sanguine about handwaving and prayer - is kind of concerned that the world's rivers will go dry.

Almost all of the world's major river systems are under threat from hydroelectricity. Not a drop of the Colorado has made it into Mexico for years, not a drop of the Rio Grande into the Gulf.

It's something that's been in the news lately. I don't know if they read the news at cult meetings - having never been to one - but the world's rivers are under threat because of something called "climate change."

I note that there has been zero fundie attention paid to the deaths at Banqiao, hundreds of thousands of them in a single night - although every fundie can go on for weeks at a time about Chernobyl.

There are ZERO fundies worrying today about the dams in Sichuan province, although every dumb ass fundie was whining and whining about the Japanese earthquake at the nuclear plant - cheering for it in fact.

The same dumb ass fundies have had not a word to say about the Japanese who have died from the dangerous fossil fuels that have replaced that nuclear plant while its being repaired.

Zero.

Zilch.

Don't worry though. It's amazing that you have to write all these "whistling in the dark" posts. Nuclear power is dead. It's gone. It's a failure. It's not happening.

It's an economic failure.

We'll just add this to the fundie announcement that 616 > 860.

http://www.energy.ca.gov/electricity/electricity_generation.html