Nuclear power

[mspohr]

Apparently the drama continues.

Ball back in Southern Company's court:
In its Monday vote, Oglethorpe said it approved continued participation in the nuclear project on the condition that its costs be capped at the current budget estimate, including a recent $2.3 billion increase in costs, and with an additional $800 million to be added to its contingency fund.

Oglethorpe's share of Vogtle's costs is now about $7.25 billion, up from the original cost estimate of $4.2 billion.

That, CEO Mike Smith said, should mean that Southern's investors are responsible for any additional costs at the plant.

"As SNC's owner, Southern Company should be willing to bear further risk of SNC's missed budgets, not our members," Smith said.

Interesting game of chicken...

 

[Brando]

So the costs at least double? So GE getting paid almost double? and GE still goes bankrupt?
As a mere mortal, it seems the corruption is far beyond my imagination. Isn't like this was the first reactor they ever built. (tried to build?)

 

[Merrill]

How much solar and wind could you build for 7.5 billion?

 

[RubberToe]

Ball back in Southern Company's court:
In its Monday vote, Oglethorpe said it approved continued participation in the nuclear project on the condition that its costs be capped at the current budget estimate, including a recent $2.3 billion increase in costs, and with an additional $800 million to be added to its contingency fund.

Oglethorpe's share of Vogtle's costs is now about $7.25 billion, up from the original cost estimate of $4.2 billion.

That, CEO Mike Smith said, should mean that Southern's investors are responsible for any additional costs at the plant.

"As SNC's owner, Southern Company should be willing to bear further risk of SNC's missed budgets, not our members," Smith said.

Interesting game of chicken...

And long overdue for some entity finally "calling the bluff" that there will be no further cost increases. Kudos for Mike Smith for demanding that some other entity be responsible for the undoubted next set of billion $ overruns.

Maybe the Feds will intervene here and pick up the tab for any upcoming new overruns? After all, the Department of Energy was strong arming the participants to vote to finish the reactors or else have to pony up the DOE money that had been lent.

Once the Feds are on the hook for any future cost increases, the thousands working on the project can expect nice fat raises and lots of overtime work at 3x the normal rate.

RT

 

[SageBrush]

nteresting game of chicken...

Oglethorpe are being dicks in refusing to bear their proportional share of any future burden but there is no doubt that additional cost over-runs are possible if not likely. Is the kWh cost (presuming the plant ever gets up and running) still lower than can be bought via PV ?

I presume JEA wants out because their kWh acquisition cost from PV is lower, but investors should get a better rate. At least before cost-over-runs spoil the party.

 

[nwdiver]

LOL; Combined Cycle Gas Plant is being built in Texas for.... $0.94/w! Compare to Vogtle @ $14/w... probably >$15/w. That. IS. INSANE!

Yeah... gas is bad... that's why you build tons of wind for ~$1.20/w. There is ZERO logic in this nuclear nonsense. So with ~$30B you could build 2GW of nuclear generating ~16TWh/yr of clean energy OR 2GW of gas + 23.4GW of wind generating >80TWh/yr. SAME level of reliability... actually higher with wind + gas since the wind does provide some level of capacity if properly dispersed.

Nuclear truly is a scam.

Recap;

$30B of nuclear ~16TWh/yr clean energy & 2GW of capacity

$30B of wind/gas ~80TWh/yr clean energy & >2GW of capacity

 

[SageBrush]

Yeah... gas is bad... that's why you build tons of wind for ~$1.20/w. There is ZERO logic in this nuclear nonsense. So with ~$30B you could build 2GW of nuclear generating ~16TWh/yr of clean energy OR 2GW of gas + 23.4GW of wind generating >80TWh/yr. SAME level of reliability... actually higher with wind + gas since the wind does provide some level of capacity if properly dispersed.

For a proper accounting of the NG plant we need to know O&M fixed charges since the capacity factor will presumably be very low.

Note, I don't have any problem with the general idea of wind+PV providing the lion's share of the energy with NG for backup and battery for grid services. I do think though that the NG plants will have to be government owned to prevent the sorts of market manipulation Australia has suffered.

 

[nwdiver]

For a proper accounting of the NG plant we need to know O&M fixed charges since the capacity factor will presumably be very low.

Note, I don't have any problem with the general idea of wind+PV providing the lion's share of the energy with NG for backup and battery for grid services. I do think though that the NG plants will have to be government owned to prevent the sorts of market manipulation Australia has suffered.

Gas is ~$25/kW/yr vs ~$200/kW/yr for nuclear.

Market manipulation would be very very difficult. There's so much gas out there now and the expansion of wind means that demand isn't going up anytime soon.

 

[ReddyLeaf]

Interesting game of chicken...

I didn’t understand most of the article, so your summary is perfect. Thanks!

 

[mspohr]

I didn’t understand most of the article, so your summary is perfect. Thanks!

Here's an interesting article about some of the behind the scenes maneuvering that took place:
Behind the Great Plant Vogtle Rebellion of 2018

 

[mspohr]

Interesting perspective on Fukushima from TEPCO CEO:
An insider’s perspective on Fukushima and everything that came after

They want to move from fossil fuels to electricity and EVs (which will drop the total energy consumption dramatically but only cause a 15% rise in electricity consumption).
They still have a 20% target for nuclear power but they need to clean up the mess first and "nobody is in the mood" to build new nuclear.

 

[Brando]

How can any sane human think Atomic Reactors are reasonable?
GeoThermal program any where near the reactor program effort would be better, right?
Complete shift to LED lighting? How far along?
Solar, wind, tidal are no doubt good areas to develop.
Centralized Big Power Vs Distributed Power - isn't it obvious which is safer and more resilient?

I think the Japanese government IS in fact paying for the clean up. So color me confused. Perhaps TEPCO taking on clean up costs as a long term debt??

side note: Hanford Clean Up and Fukushima Clean Up are budgeted about the same. $165,000,000,000 vs $150,000,000000.
Anyone expect these project to come in under budget in the next 30 years?

and not to forget Finland 100,000 year clean up plan - the best storage project so far.

 

[Tezlanian]

Nuclear energy for the grid with the resources available on Earth is a farce. There's just not that much fissile material. It should be saved for applications that actually require it rather than producing mundane energy for the grid. The main reason nuclear power plants were invested in to begin with were to mask nuclear weapons programs during the Cold War and beyond. Outside of long lasting cells for space exploration nuclear is nonsense and squandering a very limited resource.

 

[Brando]

WARNING: edits by brando to reflect my bias.
Nuclear energy ... is a farce. ...nuclear power plants were invested in to begin with were to mask [create] nuclear weapons ... nuclear is nonsense and squandering a very limited resource.

And let us not forget the money which is easily well over $5 trillion (closer to 6 trillion?) perhaps double if we include Reactors??
google search: total spent on atomic weapons
And engineering along with all other human efforts etc...
Maintenance alone is about $20 billion per year and add-on clean ups and ...
A very very profitable enterprise.

The human mind can barely begin to imagine what could have been done with that money.

 

[Tezlanian]

Haha. I was incensed by "WARNING: edits by brando to reflect my bias." and quickly changed to

 

[nwdiver]

And let us not forget the money which is easily well over $5 trillion (closer to 6 trillion?) perhaps double if we include Reactors??
google search: total spent on atomic weapons
And engineering along with all other human efforts etc...
Maintenance alone is about $20 billion per year and add-on clean ups and ...
A very very profitable enterprise.

The human mind can barely begin to imagine what could have been done with that money.

To be fair much of that is seen as waste with a little benefit of hindsight. Its hard to argue it was a waste with the information available at the time.... moving forward is a different matter.

 

[mspohr]

The new IPPC report says bad things about nuclear power.
A new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report attacks nuclear power as a key climate solution by promoting the notion that it risks nuclear weapons proliferation, may cause childhood leukemia, and destroys the natural environment.
“Nuclear energy,” write IPCC authors, “can increase the risks of proliferation, have negative environmental effects (e.g., for water use), and have mixed effects for human health when replacing fossil fuels.”

Forbes didn't like this and published this FUD article. (Land intensive... Is that the best you have?)

Attacking Nuclear As Dangerous, New IPCC Climate Change Report Promotes Land-Intensive Renewables

 

[nwdiver]

The new IPPC report says bad things about nuclear power.
A new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report attacks nuclear power as a key climate solution by promoting the notion that it risks nuclear weapons proliferation, may cause childhood leukemia, and destroys the natural environment.
“Nuclear energy,” write IPCC authors, “can increase the risks of proliferation, have negative environmental effects (e.g., for water use), and have mixed effects for human health when replacing fossil fuels.”

Forbes didn't like this and published this FUD article. (Land intensive... Is that the best you have?)

Attacking Nuclear As Dangerous, New IPCC Climate Change Report Promotes Land-Intensive Renewables

These tangents don’t help; Nuclear is too expensive. Period. Simple, understandable and irrefutable.

 

[Brando]

Nuclear is very very profitable - $ 6 trillion and counting.
As @nwdiver says - way too expensive - forget about it. move on.

Atomic might be the last straw. A little late to do much about it now. Stop what you can. hope it helps, hope not too late,

good luck to us all.

 

[mspohr]

Trump administration kills contract for plutonium-to-fuel plant | Reuters

Looks like one nuclear boondoggle is coming to an end (kind of). The plan to convert plutonium from nuclear bombs to a form that could power nuclear power reactors ran up against that familiar foe: It's just too expensive.
The plant is "70% complete" after spending $7.6 billion and would take another $48 billion to complete (some bad math there).
Instead, they're going to bury it in New Mexico which would only cost $20 billion... such a deal.