-
Want to remove ads? Register an account and login to see fewer ads, and become a Supporting Member to remove almost all ads.
Prediction: Coal has fallen. Nuclear is next then Oil.
- Thread starter nwdiver
- Start date
-
- Tags
- Energy Environment Policy
That's my tax money being wasted on those ancient disasters waiting to happen.
The one good thing about it is that the subsidy will be recalculated administratively every two years. As the prices for 100% renewable electricity on the open market are aggressively forced down by solar and batteries, it's going to become obvious to the Public Service Commission that they have to end the subsidies.
According to the article, the plan may be struck down by the courts anyway, though.
Looking more closely, they seem to have set up a system where they're locked into making unnecessary payments to the nuke operators even if renewables penetration hits 100% and is undercutting everything else on price. This was worse in the draft proposal. Thankfully, in response to strenuous complaints, they will reevaluate this at the end of 2022; based on current trends, solar will have *completely displaced* nuclear and fossil fuels by then, likely a year earlier.
Until then, it's a tax of of $0.008/kwh on anyone who uses grid power... and as such it's a direct benefit to Tesla's battery-and-solar business.
So on the whole I guess I'm not too bothered, given that they'll almost certainly shut down in 2022. Actually, even with the subsidies, they'll find themselves uneconomic before that, I expect, and may shut down earlier and default on the contract.
Last edited:
adiggs
Well-Known Member
A general observation - you've been particularly good about including some of your own commentary with articles that you link @nwdiver. Posts with a link and no additional comments leaving me wondering what the point is.
In this case, I assume that you saw something that seemed relevant and useful information, but have no particular stand on the decision or direction being taken.
For my part, I try to separate energy decisions (whether its consumption for the car, or production as is the case here), into two different decisions. One is relative to the financial cost of the decision (here - subsidizing a particular power source to the tune of ~$7B over 12 years - thanks @neroden!).
The other is relative to the environment - in this case, continuing availability of a carbon free power source that is already operating, while also continuing to take on the added risk of spent fuel storage and "something bad" happening.
Clearly the two different vectors are not independent - they do interact to some degree. I find that keeping them separate helps with clear communication, as conversations frequently start with the environmental benefits of a choice, but end on the financial without any separation - implying that we can make quality financial decisions today that fully incorporate environmental effects.
I would be personally happier living in a world without nuclear power plants as they currently perform, but I'd also be happier living in a world where my recent joke that SoCal weather is coming to the Willamette valley (Oregon) would stop being such an accurate statement of reality.
This looks to me like an extraordinarily expensive means for maintaining immediately available, low/no carbon energy production. In the context of >400 ppm carbon and rising, that sounds like a good idea. Even if the financial cost also looks high, it appears to be within the capability of the rate base to pay for it (as opposed to if the cost were 700B over 12 years, or if the effective cost were the end of civilization due to turning the earth into Venus).
I'm hoping, as neroden commented in his post, that the every other year adjustment helps New York avoid some of this subsidized expense, due to the amazing wave of cheap renewables that get built and brought online.
Honestly I would probably have actively supported a 2-year or even 4-year contract with a definite shutdown date -- like Diablo Canyon -- because solar probably can't be deployed fast enough to displace all fossils and nukes within 4 years. But with a 12-year contract like this, I think the state's ratepayers end up losing out. The pricing adjustment built into the contract will help starting in 2022, but unfortunately even if 100% of New York's electricity is produced by renewables, they're still planning to mail a subsidy (albeit reduced) to the nukes unless 950% of New York's electricity is produced by renewables. A subsidy which looks like it's up to 2 cents per kwh generated by 2022.
I am pretty sure the nukes in NY will be shut down anyway before the 12 years are up, unless they melt down first and poison the Great Lakes forever. With the gratuitous subsidy, they can probably compete with solar, barely -- until they have to be repaired. The problem is that they're *ancient* and all the parts are wearing out. It will be manifestly uneconomic to repair them. The problem is that the sort of irresponsible crooks who buy 40-year-old nuclear plants are likely to attempt to squeeze a few dollars out of them by keeping them operating without replacing the broken parts -- which vastly increases the risk that they'll blow up. Nine Mile Point 1 is the oldest nuke in the United States and should have been shut down *years* ago. (Maybe it'll get shut down due to the fish kills, since it uses once-through cooling with no tower.)
It looks like even with the subsidy and even without major unexpected costs, they go bust when wholesale prices hit $35/MWh, which for daytime power should be about 6-10 years -- based strictly on utility-scale solar. The effects of other interactions in the energy markets are likely to make it happen in less than 10 years.
The plants will be shut down and the contract will be revoked, but Andrew Cuomo will be out of office by then.
I am pretty sure the nukes in NY will be shut down anyway before the 12 years are up, unless they melt down first and poison the Great Lakes forever. With the gratuitous subsidy, they can probably compete with solar, barely -- until they have to be repaired. The problem is that they're *ancient* and all the parts are wearing out. It will be manifestly uneconomic to repair them. The problem is that the sort of irresponsible crooks who buy 40-year-old nuclear plants are likely to attempt to squeeze a few dollars out of them by keeping them operating without replacing the broken parts -- which vastly increases the risk that they'll blow up. Nine Mile Point 1 is the oldest nuke in the United States and should have been shut down *years* ago. (Maybe it'll get shut down due to the fish kills, since it uses once-through cooling with no tower.)
It looks like even with the subsidy and even without major unexpected costs, they go bust when wholesale prices hit $35/MWh, which for daytime power should be about 6-10 years -- based strictly on utility-scale solar. The effects of other interactions in the energy markets are likely to make it happen in less than 10 years.
The plants will be shut down and the contract will be revoked, but Andrew Cuomo will be out of office by then.
Last edited:
The most interesting thing here is the abusive and stupid mechanism they've come up with to subsidize the nukes: a tax on every kwh delivered by a utility. The only way to avoid the "nuke tax" is behind-the-meter: usage reductions, solar, batteries. Like any other tax which is artificially imposed on metered delivery (but not related to the cost of delivery), it's an added incentive to do rooftop solar rather than utility solar. NY has implemented several of these in the last decade including one just for the state's general fund, but this is the largest ever, and it looks like it'll average 0.7 cents/kwh. I would expect the utility (transmission & distribution) companies to start fighting against this kind of market distortion, since it is directly harming their business.
The NY deal isn't terrible. IMO it's right in the middle of acceptable nuclear subsidies. $500M/yr to save those four nuclear units comes out to ~$0.018/kWh... not bad. The initial proposal that Exelon was pushing for was far worse. They wanted $7B guaranteed through 2029.... with this deal it's revised every 2 years so if renewables grow quickly enough NY can cutoff the payments and retire the units. Conspicuously absent from the deal was Indian Point... so I guess that means it's going away.
We can keep nuclear alive with subsides but at what point is it no longer worth it? It's rather subjective. I would argue that anything up to ~$0.04/kWh is probably worth it... beyond that it's time to sign the DNR and start shopping for hospice.
We can keep nuclear alive with subsides but at what point is it no longer worth it? It's rather subjective. I would argue that anything up to ~$0.04/kWh is probably worth it... beyond that it's time to sign the DNR and start shopping for hospice.
No, it's not terrible. If it were (a) paid for out of income tax and (b) designed to go away entirely once fossil fuels are out of the market, I'd be fine with it. Paying for it out of utility rates is a weird market distortion which is going to be beneficial for rooftop solar companies and not so great for utility solar companies. I guess it's good for SCTY? :shrug:
It escalates to much more than that; it ends up averaging $1 billion/year, according to what I've read.
Yes, it was much worse.
I think that is the most important thing. Unfortunately, not all of the deal is revised every two years. There's still a payment even if renewables exceed 100% of electricity consumption in NY. I consider this to be poor design; I would have written in a get-out clause when renewables hit 100%. The nuclear companies aren't expecting that to happen so they wouldn't have complained about including the clause.
Not an expert; haven't looked at the deal even cursorily; but can't resist commenting anyway: politically, there's undoubtedly a heckuva large difference between paying for this thing out of income tax versus utility rates. Which way do YOU think would be a flaming political football?
Thanks,
Alan
Well, utility rates mean practically everyone gets soaked, with the poorest being hurt the most, while our progressive income tax means it's paid for by the people who can afford to pay for it. Which do YOU think would be more of a hot potato?
That depends on the degree to which our state government is controlled by a small group of ultra-rich vs. being controlled by the people, surely? Perhaps we can conclude something from this?
You are thinking logically rather than politically.
The income tax rate is highly visible and highly sensitive. Crunching the numbers to figure out who's getting screwed is only done by technocrats, a few special interest groups, etc. I think you get my point: enacting a change to the income tax rate is a highly visible action that will garner a huge amount of attention and controversy. Enacting a change to a utility rate, with a bunch of conditions about what happens and when, can still be controversial but is usually an order of magnitude(*) less controversial than adjusting the income tax rate.
The fact that you could easily persuade me that the utility rate change is regressive and that there are even other problems with the deal doesn't change the fact that most people don't care.
I wouldn't even frame this particular issue in the we're-getting-screwed-by-the-1% paradigm. I think it's what the political powers figure that they can do without a lot of fuss and with some set of advantages/disadvantages. I'd look at it more as politics than as an exercise of power by an oligarchy or kleptocracy. But that's just my own personal ill-informed opinion.
Alan
(*)I'm employing the political "order of magnitude" unit, which is highly elastic and bears no discernible relation with the mathematical concept that sneaks by under the same name.
Correct. They perform the reverse steam conversion reaction, essentially.
The problem with this approach is miserable efficiency. You have to burn methane in a classic heat cycle to get electricity back and that gives you at most around 40% of energy back (and that's a fundamental limit, nothing we can do about it). When compounded with the inefficiency of methane formation, you get at most around 20% round-trip efficiency.
For comparison, hydroaccumulating power plants have more than 90% efficiency. In fact, a startup company in Colorado is trying to do the same using old rails cars loaded with concrete instead of water.
adiggs
Well-Known Member
I expected that the round trip efficiency would be miserable for making methane, and then burning it to turn it back into electricity. So it's not a very good solution when the fundamental paradigm is that we produce as much electricity as we consume, but not much more.
As renewables start overbuilding though, in order to enable more and more of the day to be fully renewable, that will create larger and larger peak times where we're overproducing electricity. That extra electricity is carbon free and financially free. In that situation, we need large scale processes that can be turned off and on to consume the electricity in a mildly useful fashion, and taking 100 units of "waste" (overproduction) electricity to get back 20 units of electricity at a point in time that is far removed from the overproduction period is highly useful. By far away in time, I'm thinking seasonal shift of excess electricity.
Maybe building big enough battery packs to store electricity for seasons is reasonable - I tend to think that's further out for many reasons, where those batteries are incredibly useful for time shifting within and across days.
Clearly - you would only do this with "waste" power.
I read about the (a) outfit doing the gravity storage of energy using rail cars. That's another good use of the excess electricity - if you can do enough of it, it might be particularly good for time shifting on the scale of weeks. I realize seasons would also work, but for the company building that project, that's a long time to wait for the cars to come back down and get paid.
The downside I see - and this isn't a reason not to do it - is that it's a reasonably large consumer of land. You also need some pretty good hills available (bigger than you'd want to construct). So you do that where you can, and it's part of the mix of things you do.
As renewables start overbuilding though, in order to enable more and more of the day to be fully renewable, that will create larger and larger peak times where we're overproducing electricity. That extra electricity is carbon free and financially free. In that situation, we need large scale processes that can be turned off and on to consume the electricity in a mildly useful fashion, and taking 100 units of "waste" (overproduction) electricity to get back 20 units of electricity at a point in time that is far removed from the overproduction period is highly useful. By far away in time, I'm thinking seasonal shift of excess electricity.
Maybe building big enough battery packs to store electricity for seasons is reasonable - I tend to think that's further out for many reasons, where those batteries are incredibly useful for time shifting within and across days.
Clearly - you would only do this with "waste" power.
I read about the (a) outfit doing the gravity storage of energy using rail cars. That's another good use of the excess electricity - if you can do enough of it, it might be particularly good for time shifting on the scale of weeks. I realize seasons would also work, but for the company building that project, that's a long time to wait for the cars to come back down and get paid.
The downside I see - and this isn't a reason not to do it - is that it's a reasonably large consumer of land. You also need some pretty good hills available (bigger than you'd want to construct). So you do that where you can, and it's part of the mix of things you do.
Germany is planning to use electrolizers to get hydrogen that can be used in fuel cells later or as a feedstock for various industrial processes (including methane synthesis). It's as good a way to utilize "free" electricity as any other scalable method.
The problem here is that you still need to _massively_ (many times) overbuild to avoid troughs in energy production, which can last for several days across wide geographic areas so they easily overwhelm any realistic storage. So all realistic renewable transition plans require having fossil fuel backups for much of the demand.
So back to nuclear. It's pretty much the only real technology that can reliably and cheaply provide the way around it. So simply comparing the price of nuclear electricity with solar electricity is grossly misleading.
The problem here is that you still need to _massively_ (many times) overbuild to avoid troughs in energy production, which can last for several days across wide geographic areas so they easily overwhelm any realistic storage. So all realistic renewable transition plans require having fossil fuel backups for much of the demand.
So back to nuclear. It's pretty much the only real technology that can reliably and cheaply provide the way around it. So simply comparing the price of nuclear electricity with solar electricity is grossly misleading.
How much overbuilding are we talking about here? Considering how expensive nuclear is, would having 3x of solar over-capacity still be cheaper than nuclear? How about 2x + batteries?
David_Cary's (north carolina) data showed that he needed 7x during the coldest month of the year. So if he had 2x panels, his system would produce excess power for 8 months of the year, and short 2-3. A system that was 33% efficient at storing excess electricity for seasonal use would've covered his winter shortfall.
If he had 3x panels, then an even less efficient storage system would've done the job. Mais non?
David_Cary's (north carolina) data showed that he needed 7x during the coldest month of the year. So if he had 2x panels, his system would produce excess power for 8 months of the year, and short 2-3. A system that was 33% efficient at storing excess electricity for seasonal use would've covered his winter shortfall.
If he had 3x panels, then an even less efficient storage system would've done the job. Mais non?
Bullshit. Nuclear power is in the middle of the pack - it's more expensive than coal and hydro, but less expensive than natural gas (in Europe) and oil.
And reactors can be built within 5 years if they are not built in the US. China right now has 25 (twenty five) new reactors being built, for example.
Nuclear is NOT expensive....
And we're talking about many times (5x or so) more overbuilding to guarantee with more than 99% probability that there won't be blackouts within a 10 year period (for Germany). Also keep in mind, that for the wind power the duty factor is just about 20% as it is.
So batteries absolutely do not help here. We're talking about grid-scale multi-day storage (so at least tens kWh*hr per household), not just smoothing of transient spikes.
You can't really store that much energy for many months. This requires a HUGE amount of storage, no batteries come close.
And that's for the US which has a very favorable situation - lots of wind and good insolation on most of the territory. It's much worse for Europe.
My personal conclusion is that nuclear power is absolutely inevitable if you want to eliminate CO2 emissions.
Interesting that you cherry pick European natural gas prices. You know as well as I do that the main source of natural gas used to be Russia via Ukraine, before hostilities closed that pipeline.
Oh, by the way, what is going to be done with the nuclear waste problem, and the fact that Chinese contractors have a tendency to cut corners in order to pad profits?
Similar threads
