You try to use the price of old paid-off nuclear plants to argue that new nuclear would be cheap.

That might be your most common lie.

You try to claim that nuclear is reliable by focusing only on the plants which have not failed and not dropped out of service for years at a time.

You constantly avoid the safety issue.

During the short-lived nuclear “renaissance” you were all aglow over how wonderful the future of nuclear energy was going to be.

I pointed out to you that all it would take is one more serious nuclear accident to kill the renaissance and likely drive a lead stake through the heart of nuclear.

Fukushima happened. Now 8% of Japan is contaminated with radioactive cesium.

Over half of Japan’s reactors are now shut down and there is significant public pressure to not restart them. Certainly no more will be built.

Switzerland, Germany and Belgium have decided on a nuclear-free future. Taiwan is close to joining the group.

Even France, the glow-boys favorite country, is now putting their efforts into wind and solar. Public opinion in France has turned against nuclear reactors.

People have figured it out, Rod. The word is out that nuclear is too expensive and too dangerous.

And they know that we have safe, cheaper alternatives.

Why don’t you abandon your dreams of being the captain of a nuclear submarine or whatever it is you fantasize about and
help with the transition to safe, clean, affordable energy?

* Does nuclear power have a negative learning curve? Real escalation in reactor investment costs while solar and wind plummet. “New nukes have gone from too cheap to meter to too expensive to matter for the foreseeable future.” http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/04/06/207833/does-nuclear-power-have-a-negative-learning-curve/

* The real cost of new U.S. nuclear reactors. Federal loan guarantees for nuclear power are a terrible deal for the U.S. taxpayer. http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/op-eds/the-real-cost-of-new-us-nuclear-reactors

> …reliable…

Tell that to the people of Japan.

> …and nearly emission free with an all in production of CO2 that is roughly equal to wind and better than solar…

* Lifecycle CO2 emissions g / kWh: wind = 10, hydroelectricity = 13, solar thermal = 13, solar photovoltaic = 32, biomass = 14 – 41, nuclear = 66, natural gas = 443, coal = 1050. http://i.imgur.com/NIMaW.png + http://www.nirs.org/climate/background/sovacool_nuclear_ghg.pdf + http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0810/full/climate.2008.99.html

There’s a clear pattern forming in your commentary….

What a nonsensical question. Nukes are paid off by a labyrinth system of tax payer subsidies, guaranteed energy prices, loan guarantees from government / tax payer, deferment of true costs, handing off liability to taxpayers, leaving the growing mountain of radioactive waste for someone else in the future to worry about, etc. etc.

Nukes are the classic ‘privatise the profits, socialise the costs’.

P.S. Good to see you’ve restrained yourself from smearing people here as you so often do elsewhere:

* “Is Arnie Gundersen Devious or Dumb? (Or is He Simply a Professional Fear-Monger?)”

* “Unlike JR [Joe Romm], I did not cut my teeth in the energy world at the feet of a guy who never bothered to finish school and thinks that finding a cheap, abundant source of energy would be a bad thing.”

Nukes are more expensive than renewables when full costing is done – and they are getting more expensive while renewables continue to fall in cost.

Nukes are declining globally while renewables are growing exponentially.

Massive investment is going in to renewables – more than fossil power – and practically nothing is going to nukes.

Nuclear: dead man walking.

> French: Starting to see public support for getting off nuclear.

I think they’ve been strongly anti-nuke for quite a long time.

* France includes nuclear power exit among options. Poll shows three quarters of French want full exit. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/08/france-nuclear-idUSLDE7670UN20110708

Same with most of the world. Most people do not want them.

* Citizens across world oppose nuclear power. The debate over nuclear energy is fiendishly complex, but one important factor is public opinion, and people in 24 nations across the world oppose it. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/damian-carrington-blog/2011/jun/23/nuclearpower-nuclear-waste + http://www.ipsos-mori.com/Assets/Docs/Polls/ipsos-global-advisor-nuclear-power-june-2011.pdf

Not true. Germany decreed an end to nuclear by 2022 during the 1990s. That was delayed in 2010 but Fukushima forced Merkel to return to the 2022 deadline.

> While some Germans are divided on the whole renewable energy thing…

There is massive and overwhelming support for renewable energy in Germany.

and there have been millions opposed to it for a variety of reason (nuclear waste lasting almost forever and cost being the two biggest, i think).

Bottom line – your arguments are illogical. Nuclear is affordable, reliable and nearly emission free, with an all in production of CO2 that is roughly equal to wind and better than solar at about 10-30 grams of CO2 per kilowatt hour depending on the technology and who is doing the counting.

The Germans and British haven’t faced each other across the English Channel for several decades. How about changing this to ‘the Other Side of the North Sea’?

“She also believes that Janeway was the best Star Trek Captain.”

Your credibility just went to zero.

Fact is, we need a solution now, not a possible solution for decades in the future.

We need to get very busy and install what we have that works. At the same time we will continue to research other ways to generate electricity and if any of them work we can decide to utilize them if they give us cheaper, safer power.

New nuclear would cost in excess of $0.15/kWh. After the 20 year payoff the price would still be in the neighborhood of $0.05/kWh.

New wind is now approximately $0.05/kWh. After the 20 year payoff the price would be around $0.02/kWh.

New solar is now approximately $0.15/kWh. After the 20 year payoff the price would be around $0.01.kWh.

Folks, meet Rod Adams. He’s a self-admitted nuclear cheerleader. He’ll be glad to tell you that nuclear’s stuff don’t stink.

1. It is dishonest to use the price of power from old, paid off reactors to argue that nuclear power is cheap. Any power from a new nuclear reactor build in the “free world” will be very expensive. At least $0.15/kWh, most likely far higher. And there will be hidden subsidies on top of that price via government loan guarantees and limited liability in which taxpayers assume much of the risk for the reactor owner. New nuclear and new coal = our most expensive power sources.

2. We do not need “always on” electricity right now. We have plenty of dispatchable capacity which allows us to use cheaper, cleaner renewable power when the wind is blowing and the Sun is shining. Later, when wind and solar have exceeded 20% – 30% of our grid supply we can build storage to increase the role intermittent renewables play. Electricity from wind, solar and storage will be cheaper and cleaner than electricity from reactors.

3. Nuclear is priced off the table. To survive it would have to sell its $0.15+/kWh 24/7. Our grids are well-supplied during off-peak hours. That
means that new nuclear would have to sell its nighttime power for a nickle
or less and then need to sell its peak power for double or triple the
fifteen cent break-even price to keep from going bankrupt. Ain’t going to
happen. Natural gas is extremely cheaper and gas peakers will grab the most
expensive hours away from nuclear. The utility companies have publicly
admitted this.

4. The environmental footprint of reactors is vastly greater than the
building which houses the reactor. Mining for nuclear fuel and refining
fuel are very environmentally damaging and have large carbon footprints.

5. That forces outside the construction process slow the rate of
construction is total bull. It takes many years to build a large project
like a reactor. A “five year build” is a myth outside countries in which
you can get shot for not complying. Finnland is now hoping that France can
finish their new reactor in less than 15 years.

6. Very little “formerly pristine” land will be used for wind and solar
installations. Solar will mainly go on top of existing rooftops and over
parking lots. Wind turbines are mostly being installed in farm land and on
ranches. Even many of the desert areas being used are already scared by
off-roaders. The most pristine, the most important lands have been
protected.

7. We cannot build reactors as fast as we can install wind and solar for
multiple reasons. One is the fact that we do not have enough trained and
experienced nuclear engineers and construction specialists to build more
than one or two reactors at a time. It would take a decade or more to
adequately train a new generations.

Wind and solar do not require anything more than normal construction
skills. We are creating thousands and thousands of new good jobs with wind
and solar.

There are not enough available containment domes to build more than one or
two reactors in the US at a time. There is a very limited supply of domes
and the ones yet to be made are pre-sold for a few years into the future.
It would take us many years to construct a plant to forge our own domes.

We’re now cranking wind turbines and solar panels out of highly efficient
factories. That’s brought prices down and prices will continue to fall
making wind and solar our two least expensive ways to produce electricity.
Paid off wind farms and solar arrays will produce electricity at a
fraction of the cost of power from a paid off reactor.

8. We do not have more than a handful of location in the US which would
allow a new nuclear reactor to be constructed. People, in general, have
zero tolerance for a reactor in their backyard.

9. Natural gas will, unfortunately, be a large part of our transition away
from fossil fuels. Natural gas plant are relatively cheap to build, they
are dispatchable, and NG is temporarily cheap. Being dispatchable, gas
turbines can be stopped when wind and solar are providing and then quickly
spun on line when needed. As the price of gas rises storage will begin
taking the place of gas turbines which will fall into a role of deep
backup, remaining idle most of the time. Right now gas peaker plants in
the US run only about 10% of the time. Gas will become a rarely used
“safety net”.

You are also not corret about the cost of nuclear power. It is the cheapest form of power even including coal if you base the cost per kilowatt over the entire life span of a nuclear reactor.

Once agian I ask you to please try to do more reasearch about energy subjects before your post your oppinions.

Thanks in advance,

Jfarmer9

Even 2nd generation nuclear plants are far more reliable and affordable than enormous collection systems that can only produce useful power when the weather is right.

What you call “renewable” I call “unreliable”. They are environmentally damaging, require massive industrial infrastructure development in formerly pristine and uninhabited places, and do not produce a useful product unless tied into an ever expanding grid.

An individual unreliable unit might go up quickly, but it takes thousand of individual units spread over several square miles to produce as much power as a single large nuclear plant. That kind of project takes just as long, if not longer to get approved and installed.

Many of the barriers to nuclear plant development are artificially imposed by competitors. Did you know that the very first large nuclear power plant in the US took just 4 years from the time it was initially funded until it was operating reliably on the grid?

Why does it now take a decade to build a new nuclear plant – because people who sell other forms of energy want it to take as long as possible and cost as much as possible for their competition.

With specific regard to the topic of this article, there is a tremendous amount of Russian gas money involved in German energy politics. Just take a look at the Gazprom employee who was standing next to the German leaders as they cut the ribbon on the new Nord Stream gas pipeline from Russia to Germany at the beginning of November. Germans should recognize the author of the original German nuclear phaseout – former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder.

Requires no fuel.

Creates no hazardous waste.

It can be installed quickly.

It’s becoming cheap.

It is totally sustainable.

There are no 4th generation nuclear reactors. There are fantasies of 4th nuclear reactors. There might be 4th generation nuclear reactors in a couple more decades.

Nuclear is priced off the table. It’s just too damned expensive and it takes too long to bring on line.

It’s hard to see any route for nuclear to be as inexpensive as wind and as inexpensive as solar will soon be. The time-to-build kills nuclear. Long construction times means many years of accumulated interest prior to the start of an income stream.

We need carbon-free energy now, not decades from now. We’ve got the technology in hand to produce all the electricity we would ever want inexpensively and safely.

Whats efficient about renewable power?

4th generation nuclear reactor 80x more efficient than very efficient 3rd generation reactor.

4th generation can use all actinides as a fuel source ie…4th gen. reactors ca use old fuel rods as a fuel source. Thus no long-term “waste” problems.

I am sorry bob that you are not aware of modern physics. I hope you are not upset about me pointing out your misconceptions

Jfarmer9.

French: Storing massive amounts of nuclear waste in their basement with no idea how to get rid of it.

French: Starting to see public support for getting off nuclear.

French: Starting to install solar and wind.

Germany: Moving efficiently to 21st Century energy sources.