Should nuclear power plants get the same subsidies and mandates as solar and wind energy?

Question

Nuclear is low CO2, and would be useful in reducing emissions that cause global warming.

Answer 1

It is clear from reading the answers so far that there many have unjustified preconceptions.



For instance, the assertion that renewables have a zero decommissioning cost. Where did that come from? Also that renewables don't pollute.



To achieve zero decommissioning cost I presume that you just leave them to rot when their useful life is over. How else could it be zero? Could there be a way of selling it for scrap and covering the costs that way, perhaps? The bit on the top of the pole weighs as much as an army tank so it must be worth something.



People too easily forget the scale of the problem. They see a wind turbine and a nuclear power station as being somehow equivalent. They both generate electricity after all. However, a nuclear power station might generate 2GW while a wind turbine will probably not be rated at more than 6MW. Of course, that 6MW will only be available for at best 25% of the time.



One power station therefore is equivalent to 2000/(6 * 25%) or about 1300 wind turbines which will have 4000 non-biodegradeable carbon-fibre blades to get rid of.



If the US consumes about 100 Quadrillion BTU per year and the life of a wind turbine is 30 years then over 200,000 turbine blades will need to be decommissioned every year when they start wearing out - or just over 600 per day.



(OK, you won't be using wind turbines exclusively but there will be something that will wear out so needs to be accounted for.)



The current situation is that Joe Public understands something of nuclear power station decommissioning costs but not of renewables decommissioning costs. So he presumes it will be zero.



As for subsidies, I think they should be minimised. They are open to all kinds of abuse and if the idea is any good then they should be able to stand up by themselves. Perhaps any subsidy should be based on expected energy output over a year? That would put the money where it was most effective.



Loan guarantees might be better but as we have seen in the US, that can be abused as well by letting the taxpayer pick up the tab. Perhaps we should learn to "start small" and work up to the bigger projects. We seem to want everything at once these days and that gives the financial scoundrels too great a scope, in my view.

Answer 2

Do you mean on top of the current funding for Nuclear, subsidies which in the U.S. in 2013 where ~1.6 billion dollars or 2010 when the amount was 1.9 billion dollars or in 2007 1.2 billion.

This is for an established industry with the average age of U.S. reactors now 35 years old the last new reactor was built in 1996.

Solar and wind are new industries with growing interest only in the last decade or so and improvement in solar in only the last 5-6 years making them cheaper. Sadly due to the U.S. being slow on their feet to recognise the value of solar (probably because of the same old BS stories, deniers try to spread here) many U.S. based companies that had started to build solar closed and much of the worlds supply now comes from China.



As for this comment

"The current situation is that Joe Public understands something of nuclear power station decommissioning costs but not of renewables decommissioning costs. So he presumes it will be zero."

Sorry I'm not sure I see the comparison your picture shows a wind turbine which is readily reusable most of the tower is steel and aluminium with a concrete base of modest size.

The costs associated with decommissioning a nuclear reactor vary but a mean figure seems to be about half a billion dollars (per reactor)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_decommissioning

The reactor core can't be recycled neither can the concrete used in the fuel and water storage tanks which is all buried as radioactive waste. Then there's the even more radioactive waste of the spent fuel itself, which on a global scale still has no real long term storage which is going to last anywhere near as long as the material itself is going to remain dangerously radioactive.

Compare that to your wind turbine tower which can easily be cut up and sold to any scrap yard, without the 100,000 year waiting period of the nuclear waste.

Answer 3

Nuclear power is low CO2 and it should stay part of the energy mix as we move toward the long-term goal of 100% renewable energy. However it already has its share of subsidies--the nuclear power industry essentially couldn't survive if it needed to pay for its own insurance, so the United States chooses to indemnify nuclear power plants past the first $12.6 billion dollars, so that the American taxpayers--not the nuclear industry or their insurance companies--are on the hook for anything past that.



While in most fields that may be adequate insurance, in the nuclear industry the damages from meltdowns can be enormous. The cost of the Fukushima disaster cleanup would already have exceeded that limit, and by the time the full cleanup is done the costs are expected to be 10 to 20 times that limit. This is, without a doubt, a large subsidy. The industry could buy insurance to cover a larger figure, but then the industry would not be profitable.



There are other sorts of compensation that act like subsidies. Take, for example, the San Onofre generating station, which had two operating reactors that were shut down in January, 2012. The reactors were shut down because of a radiation leak that was traced to excessive wear on tubes in the steam generators. This was a surprise, because they had been recently replaced and the expected life was many decades, not a year or two. After investigation it was determined that this was due to engineering errors in the design. These would normally have been caught in a design review, but the operator (Southern California Edison) convinced the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that the design review was unnecessary because this was a replacement of a previously licensed design. Since the steam tubes were not operable as designed, SCE suggested that keep the faulty tubes, but run the plant differently than it was originally designed, so that the steam tubes did not wear out so fast. The NRC rejected this idea, and rather than replace the faulty steam tubes with ones that were actually designed correctly, SCE decided to shut down the plant decades before planned. Shutting down the plant costs billions of dollars that SCE did not want to pay, so a Southern California Edison executive had a secret meeting in POLAND with the head of the California Public Utilities Commission--a supposed consumer watchdog agency--and they agreed on a deal that would have saddled customers with a bill of several billions of dollars for Southern California Edison's mistakes. Of course these sorts of shenanigans are illegal, you can't hold meetings like this in private, much less in foreign countries, but it is typical for the nuclear industry.



As of this writing there may be radioactive tritium leaking from the Indian Point nuclear power plant in New York--nobody's really sure whether the leak has stopped or not.



In a perfect world there would be no Fukushimas, no San Onofres, no Three Mile Islands or Indian Points, but the reality is that there are. Sometimes it's because of the poor state of current knowledge at the time of design (Fukushima) and sometimes it's due to malfeasance (San Onofre). But whatever the cause, there are inherent risks associated with nuclear power that the industry refuses to deal with, so they get taxpayers or ratepayers to pay for them instead. That's subsidy by any other name.



EDIT: Raisin Caine thinks that because I point out that nuclear power already gets subsidies that I should defend Solyndra. Why? Solyndra was clearly a financial disaster and I have no interest in defending it. But the question was about whether nuclear power should get subsidies--and I pointed out that they already do in a big way. I'm not advocating shutting down nuclear power plants, but neither do I want to encourage a non-renewable energy source that isn't profitable without government subsidies. Not only that, I can't imagine any solar or wind power disaster that will ever make an area uninhabitable for decades or centuries, but that's easy to do with nuclear. Nuclear is at best a risky short-term solution and one that wouldn't exist without subsidies. Why encourage it with more subsidies?

Answer 4

You are repeating a misconception.



Nuclear may replace coal as both are base load type of power plants but it cannot replace the natural gas peaking type of power plant. For this it would need some form of large scale grid storage. We can produce Concentrated Solar thermal power plants with heat storage for about half the initial cost of a similar sized nuclear power plant. It will contribute to grid storage, have no cost for its fuel, and avoid the 15% additional cost (over the higher construction cost) that is required to decommission a nuclear power plant. Sadly nuclear power doesn't make economic sense and it probably never did considering the guarantees that the government makes for cleaning up accidents and nuclear waste.



Nuclear power is a very different form of power plant than renewable energy like wind, photovoltaic, geothermal or hydroelectric. Each presents its own types of challenges in the marketplace.

Answer 5

In the US, we have a bunch of Mafioso called trial lawyers who have paid for politicians, mostly Democrats, to ensure their extortions get paid. The cost of paying for this extortion makes nuclear much more expensive than it would be otherwise. If we fixed the tort laws, nuclear could compete on a more level playing field. I would prefer that we don't have the government decide who to pay for providing "alternatives". Too often those alternatives end up in the campaign coffers of the politicians.

Answer 6

No. And I don't believe that any type of energy should receive subsidies or tax breaks...etc. from Taxpayers. Let the free market determine the winners.....and the losers.

Answer 7

Nuclear power has its problems in the US that have nothing to do with subsidies. Its major problem are NIMBYs (Not in my back yard).



The "environmentalists" have done a GREAT job LYING to the public for so long that they have every scare to death about nuclear power and nuclear waste. People like S there talking about clean-up after disasters AS IF there has been a disaster since 1979. The number of deaths in the US from nuclear power radiation poisoning sits at a whopping 0. That is right ZERO.



What occurs is simple. A nuclear power plant investor invests in the property and start building. Then the environmentalists spring into action scaring the people around the plant with doomsday tales that have NEVER COME TRUE. These LIARS hold protests to shut down construction and get the local governments to rezone the land. The end result is that the nuclear power plants do not get built and the investors lose a crap ton of money.



That is what enivronMENTALists actually do. It is not that they do not care, it is that they are ignorant. Like S, they spout the crap being told to them without ever taking the time to RESEARCH.



These people have single-handedly stopped new nuclear power construction int eh US and MADE the US into one of the largest emitters of CO2.



NOW they want to LIE some more. Breath on the wind talks stupidity about the cost of nuclear power being more expensive than solar. That is a fallacy.



http://energyrealityproject.com/lets-run-the-numbers-nuclear-energy-vs-wind-and-solar/





These enviroNUTs unfortunately are willing to swallow crap without even asking why it tastes so bad. If they STOPPED and THOUGHT, the "problems" that they invent in their mind would actually have readily available solutions.



Edit:

Somw reality deniers have stated that nuclear power is unclean and the fuel soruices will be exhausted soon:



https://www.oecd-nea.org/nea-news/2002/20-2-Nuclear_fuel_resources.pdf



Note the fuel sources will last an EXTREMELY long time in the 10s of thousands of years.



The idea of nuclear power being unclean is laughable with the exception of nuclear waste. Nuclear waste can be massively reduced if we allow ourselves to reuse spent fuel cells as they do in France. That's right ladies and gentlemen, the enviros strike again by making laws to NOT reuse spent fuel rods in the US and increasing the nuclear waste.



I love how they pretend to care about the environment.



Edit:

Note James "logic". He is saying that since he can show ONE in the 100 nuclear pwoer plants currently in use in teh US is costing more than expected, ALL of them are bad. THAT IS HIS LOGIC.



Lets apply his logic to solar. Solyndra went bankrupt and cost the tax payer millions, thus solar power is bad and we should never use it???



OF COURSE this is not true. James KNOWS his logic fails. He KNOWS you can't look at 1% of the solar power companies and determine the effectiveness of all solar power companies, ESPECIALLY when you choose the 1% so as to pick either the worst or best case scenario.





Once again, I have no idea why I have to explain SIMPLE logic to someone who knows he is wrong. And I REALLY do not get why I have to defend nuclear power, when these alarmunists should be praising it.



This is why they are not really environmentalists, but alarmunists. The ONLY option they give is govt regressive taxation plans. AS IF communism has been a god-send to the environment. Guess they are not awar of USSR, North Korea and Chinese history of environmentalism.

Answer 8

1

Answer 9

No - they get different, and much larger ones. Check out how many EPA "superfund" sites are due to groundwater contamination and misdisposal of uranium mine tailings. You're paying for that, along with the miner's medical problems, not the mining companies.

Answer 10

No. Nuclear power doesn't need subsidies. It just needs a stop to the over regulation. For example, Diablo Canyon out in California. It had a 600% cost overrun caused directly by environmentalists. These environmentalists rented hippies and freaks right out of the streets of San Francisco to picket, demonstrate, lay down on the roads to impede vital construction workers and supplies. Also they initiated changes in the specifications to the project on a daily basis, and stalled construction through the court system. All these actions were extremely costly and unnecessary. California has a law that prohibits power companies from adding to the customer's bills, the cost of projects like these, until it comes on line. Finally they powered up the plant for a short time, then shut it down so they could pass the expense on to the customers. Then California had a great power shortage so bad that they had to get Enron to sell them power. Enron soaked California. Now Enron has an executive or two in prison for actions initiated by environmentalists. I am not condoning Enron's actions, But let us put the real blame where it belongs.



Today Diablo Canyon is working and providing cost efficient power. They didn't need subsidies even with the atrocious and needless added expenses. The consumers are picking up the tab because this cost overrun is low enough.



Today, California has 4 other nuclear plants that the greenies have shut down. They say they are old and dangerous. Well, my son fished right along side of them and we were not worried. Now why did these power plants shut down? It was clearly expressed:



Quote by Paul Ehrlich, professor, Stanford University: "We contend that the position of the nuclear promoters is preposterous beyond the wildest imaginings of most nuclear opponents, primarily because one of the purported “benefits” of nuclear power, the availability of cheap and abundant energy, is in fact a liability."



Ha! Ha! Only a evil lowlife would consider cheap and abundant power a 'liability'. But that is who we have pulling the strings of our political types.



Now as to Wind Energy, they certainly need help, for it has never been efficient or self sustaining. I remember in the early 80s where there were privately owned wind farm coops. They all went bellies up in a very short time. Well, a few years later they thought they had solved all the economic problems and restarted Altamont Pass. Again within 9 months there were over half of the generators shut down because they needed expensive maintenance.



Another problem these wind turbines kill animals, especially the highly protected Golden Eagle.



http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/feds-nix-eagle-penalties-california-wind-farm-n142151



Well if you are a farmer and a Golden Eagle gets caught in your fense and dies, you can be sent to prison. But as you can see from the above link the Saviors, who control the courts, say it is OK if that eagle dies by one of their own projects. Imagine that! Back in the 70's a multimillion dollar project was scraped due to a hysteric theoretical endangerment to the snail darter. Here you have a tangible definite danger to a 'protected' species and that is OK, only because it is not cheap energy. Expensive energy is not a liability according to Paul Ehrlich and his greenie followers.



As to the economic impact of windmills, they are atrociously expensive. One hidden cost that is not often brought out is that, out of necessity a fossil fueled energy plant has to run on standby at 60% power consumption. All that is passed on to the consumer and they still need subsidies for the windmills.



No, Solar and Wind need subsidies, but nuclear power is cheap and efficient, so much so that the it upset the greenies. and you know that it must be beneficial to mankind if the greenies hate it.

Answer 11

Save yourself by Saving environment

Answer 12

No. They don't need subsidies. They need government to allow more to be built.

Answer 13

No way. Still loads of other by products from the process.

Answer 14

If the only purpose were curbing global warming, maybe. However, nuclear energy is neither clean nor renewable. The others are.

Answer 15

Nucleat power plants pollute seriously, it is not encouraged by all governments, of course don't have subsidies and mandates.

Answer 16

Nuclear power plants emit H2O. That is the main greenhouse gas.

Answer 17

I don't think nuclear power plants would be very happy to receive less incentives.

Answer 18

it gets more. taxpayers get stuck with disposing of waste and cleanup after disasters

Answer 19

that would mean getting less taxpayer help.

Answer 20

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Answer 21

No

Answer 22

Y