Comments on: Gore, Grove, Pickens – All Have Energy Plans, All Mistakingly Marginalize Nuclear Power Potential

By: Ken

Ken — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 18:29:53 +0000

Okay, that makes more sense. $2 billion to build the plant and half a billion a year to fuel the plant. Of course that is at current prices, between $70 and $150 per ton. The charts look like it is going to only increase. http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/coal/page/coalnews/c... If it takes a 10 years to build a nuclear plant, what is the cost of coal per ton then? It could be that you could be paying a billion dollars a year for coal. As the price of coal increases as it has in the last year, the capital cost of a reactor could look cheap.

By: Rod Adams

Rod Adams — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 17:15:46 +0000

Ken:

A 1 GW coal plant will burn somewhere between 4-5 million tons per year, not 100 million.

By: Ken

Ken — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 15:13:10 +0000

The ratings people are giving for solar panels are peak output ratings in Watts, not Watt hours. What is the power out put at 10 PM, or 7PM or 5PM or 3PM or Noon? How about at 9AM? Is the output of electric power from a photo voltaic linear with illumination or is it a geometric function where it drops off exponentially with a decrease in light, either due to clouds or to a decrease in the incident angle of the light, an unfortunate event that happens on a daily basis? I think it would be great if nanosolar would print the skins of plug-in hybrids and have them recharge in parking lots, but run the grid off solar panels? Even if they dropped the price to a cent it wouldn't work.

The anti-nuke crowd here is re-using obsolete arguments, anyone have anything new? I'm interested in hearing something constructive. I am shocked that no one has brought up Chernobyl yet!

Rod, see if I have this straight, if coal costs $100+ dollars a ton and a 1 GW plant consumes around 100 Million + tons of coal a year, doesn't that mean that the non-capital cost for a new coal plant (capital cost > $2 Billion)per year is less than half the capital cost of a new nuclear station with 2 AP-1000s? I think that $100/ton X 100 million tons = $10 billion. Of course the 10 billion is a recurring and apparently rapidly rising cost whereas the capital cost of the new nuclear reactor is amortized over 60 years. Am I missing something or are my numbers off?

By: D Graham

D Graham — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 09:32:27 +0000

Regarding the economic discussion, the following site may be a worthwhile resource: http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf02.html This is international information so it spans national nuances. I think there are a lot of conflicted politics around this discussion, nuclear industry included. Even "Big Carbon" is now an industry in itself and will present a conflict of interest when it comes to the energy discussion. Why not look at France and their nuclear energy experience and ask these questions of them: What are their economics? What is their experience with safety? What is their experience with storage of nuclear waste? recycling? They have sun and wind in France, how do they use those resources? Why did they choose to use so much nuclear? We need to try to remove the hyperbole from the nuclear discussion (safety, economics, storage) and deal with known facts. We have nearly 50 years of data. What we do know is that America is very far behind in our energy planning and we spend an inordinate amount of time solving our problem, with the trillion dollar meter running, and it appears that we have law-makers that are ineffective. We need to solve the problem (Congress is likely part of the problem). Do you think Congress is trying to solve the problem or appealing to the most politically and economically lucrative lobbyist? If the current Congress won't solve the problem, whom will?

By: Rod Adams

Rod Adams — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 01:04:09 +0000

Chris:

Price-Anderson has never cost taxpayers a dime. The real effect of the legislation is for nuclear plant owners to share risk since they are required to carry a substantial amount of private insurance and to kick into a common pool if there is an accident.

More than 50 years of safe operation gives me a huge depth of confidence that the technology is safe, adequately regulated and poses minimal risk of any financial burden on the rest of us.

Now – can you tell me who is financially liable and paying for the clean up in the Mississippi river caused by the collision between an oil carrying barge and a cargo ship?

By: Chris Knight

Chris Knight — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 21:50:56 +0000

Very good points Jigar,

And this also ignores the socialization of nuclear risk, the Price-Anderson Act of 1957

By: Uncle B

Uncle B — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 13:07:04 +0000

USA has southwestern deserts full of sun, already connected to the power grid used by us all! Solar produces no dangerous waste, and is sustainable, renewable. Nuclear is not renewable! Save Nuclear for Icebreaker ships and submarines, we need it there and can't practically use any other energy source. There is No one answer to the many questions under energy and its shortages, but a serious set of government enforced rules made by discussion with the intelligentsia of the nation need to be put into place before we run off half-cocked and screw up what may be our last chance for civilization as we know it. All energy sources, wind, wave ocean currents, solar, bio, geothermal, must contribute to the end of OPEC's tyrannical hi-jacking of every successful economical achievement of the modern world in the current age. Parasite populations are holding us hostage unfairly by jacking oil prices at will. They need to get productive by their own right and get off the 'oil-fare' roles!

By: Jigar Shah

Jigar Shah — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 12:42:27 +0000

The 1.76 cents/kWh is misleading. This is a fully paid off Nuclear plant working simply on variable costs. Under this definition, a Solar PV plant would cost just 0.6 cents/kWh (O&M and equipment replacement costs).

Even levelized cost of energy seems to be a corrupted way to compare technologies because it does not value peak power, baseload power, and inherent fuel price risk for Nuclear, Coal, Natural Gas, etc.

I would recommend comparing technologies by the net rate increase needed to support them. Progress Energy wants a minimum of a 12% rate increase for 2,234MW of nuclear. To acheive the same amount of solar MWs you would need a 2% rate increase. To acheive the same number of solar MWhs (because solar has a lower capacity factor) you would need a 4% rate increase. To add smart grid technologies, battery storage, and other technologies to make the solar "dispatchable" you would need a total of a 6% rate increase — still far cheaper than the Nuclear Power plant.

This doesn't count other benefits such as a distributed solution like solar PV helps customers fix their own electricity costs where Nuclear is blended into the rate base.

By: Jerry Singh

Jerry Singh — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 12:05:22 +0000

The author is absolutely right about Nuclear energy…but none of the politicians have the courage or intellectual integrity to take an objective and bipartisan position. Today we get more than 85% of energy from Fossil Fuels(Coal, Oil, Gas).We need a holistic approach to move to a sustainable solution in which a third each of our energy needs will come from Fossil, Nuclear and Renewable(Solar, wind, Biomass) energy sources. Even within Fossil fuels we will need to use new sources, such as Tar sands, Shale, Gas hydrates to reduce dependence on conventional oil sources.The transition to this future will take decades, but we need to start moving now!

By: Vinay Gupta

Vinay Gupta — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 10:50:49 +0000

http://nanosolar.com

panel price: thirty cents per watt

capital infrastructure to make panels: sixteen cents a watt

panel lifespan: twenty five years

so, run the numbers, calculate cost per kilowatt hour, and get back to me about this nuclear option of yours, ok?