Cape Cod Wind Farm

[sanglant]

To my knowledge Obama has done nothing of substance to eliminate the problem.

umm, substance,, uuuuhhhhhhhh, Obama i think my head just blewup.

[mellestad]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/16/AR2010021601302.html

?
Lack of money is not the major impediment standing in the way of new nuke plants.  Red tape (eco issues and court challenges) is the real issue.  To my knowledge Obama has done nothing of substance to eliminate the problem.

It's easy to talk big (and loan out other peoples money) when you know nothing is going to come of it.

Ok.  If they don't break ground on any new plants before he is out of office, I'll eat crow.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Any idea how many half-built unfinished nuke reactors do we have scattered across the country? 

[kgbsquirrel]

Any idea how many half-built unfinished nuke reactors do we have scattered across the country?  

92.  ETA: In the interest of full disclosure, 37 were canceled during the construction phase, 44 were canceled during the planning phase, and 11 I was unable to determine the time of cancellation.


And 19 functional plants have been closed.

As of 2008, 104 functional reactors remain.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Ah, thank you.  I didn't know the exact numbers, but I knew they were significant.  So roughly half of the potential supply of nuke reactors has died on the vine.

But I suppose if Obama breaks ground on one, all is well...

[mellestad]

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf41.html  According to that lots of reactors have been granted licenses since 2007, and money is an issue.

Nothing will be finished until 2018 anyway, so I suppose that means you can be curmugenny about Obama and nuclear power no matter what.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Money is always an issue.  But is money the prime issue here?  As a businessman, if I could produce a product for 1.87 cents per unit and sell it for 7 to 10 cents per unit, I'd do it in a heartbeat.  Unless something else is stopping me, that is.

Look, my day job is in the energy industry, at an engineering firm that designs equipment for energy production.  We deal with the effects of regulatory distortions on the market every day.  We could design systems for nuke plants coal plants and help bring more capacity online cheap.  Instead we're designing systems for use with solar and wind tech.  Solar and wind aren't competitive, efficient, or profitable, but with the government regulatory burden killing off any growth in the mainstream energy fields, this is where our market gurus think we're most likely to find new customers with cash to spend. 

We don't make money when licenses are issued, we make money when plants buy operating equipment.  Despite Obama's assurances, we have no reason to foresee any market growth potential in nuke.

I think it's a mistake to look at this as a practical (engineering, technology, money) problem.  It's really a political issue.

Politicians love to stand up and proclaim that they're solving problems, making things work, making things better.  They'll make token gestures aimed loosely at the problem.  It gives them a bit of credibility without having to do anything substantive or, you know, difficult.  All too often people fall for the trick, giving the politcritter credit for something that hasn't actually happened, something that was probably never meant to happen.

That's exactly what I see happening here.  Obama offers to give other peoples money to solve the not-enough-nuke-plants problem, a solution only loosely aligned to the real problem (regulatory burden).  In return, he gets to take credit for fixing the problem.  Except he never addresses the real problem and the problem isn't actually solved.  But by the time anyone notices (2018?), the body politic has long since moved on and nobody cares any more.

It's a time-honored political ploy.  And it aggravates me to see people fall for it.  I guess that does make me curmudgeonly, dunnit?

[Nitrogen]

Energy policy in this country is just dumb now.

My girlfriend lives in California.  With what PG&E charges her household, it is now CHEAPER for her to buy a diesel generator and power her house.

[red headed stranger]

Politicians will seldom take substantive action on anything that they can't get credit for before the next election.  This is why get no meaningful reform on things like entitlements, healthcare, or energy policy. 

[mellestad]

Money is always an issue.  But is money the prime issue here?  As a businessman, if I could produce a product for 1.87 cents per unit and sell it for 7 to 10 cents per unit, I'd do it in a heartbeat.  Unless something else is stopping me, that is.

Look, my day job is in the energy industry, at an engineering firm that designs equipment for energy production.  We deal with the effects of regulatory distortions on the market every day.  We could design systems for nuke plants coal plants and help bring more capacity online cheap.  Instead we're designing systems for use with solar and wind tech.  Solar and wind aren't competitive, efficient, or profitable, but with the government regulatory burden killing off any growth in the mainstream energy fields, this is where our market gurus think we're most likely to find new customers with cash to spend. 

We don't make money when licenses are issued, we make money when plants buy operating equipment.  Despite Obama's assurances, we have no reason to foresee any market growth potential in nuke.

I think it's a mistake to look at this as a practical (engineering, technology, money) problem.  It's really a political issue.

Politicians love to stand up and proclaim that they're solving problems, making things work, making things better.  They'll make token gestures aimed loosely at the problem.  It gives them a bit of credibility without having to do anything substantive or, you know, difficult.  All too often people fall for the trick, giving the politcritter credit for something that hasn't actually happened, something that was probably never meant to happen.

That's exactly what I see happening here.  Obama offers to give other peoples money to solve the not-enough-nuke-plants problem, a solution only loosely aligned to the real problem (regulatory burden).  In return, he gets to take credit for fixing the problem.  Except he never addresses the real problem and the problem isn't actually solved.  But by the time anyone notices (2018?), the body politic has long since moved on and nobody cares any more.

It's a time-honored political ploy.  And it aggravates me to see people fall for it.  I guess that does make me curmudgeonly, dunnit?

The site I linked to seemed to indicate regs were opened up in 2007, which is why they have so many in progress reactors.  Is that not true?

[brimic]

Politicians will seldom take substantive action on anything that they can't get credit for before the next election.  This is why get no meaningful reform on things like entitlements, healthcare, or energy policy.

They do if it makes them look good and screws the next guy holding the seat.

For example: 4 years ago Gov Doyle signed a pet law of his to promise every 8th grader (at the time) that they woul dbe guaranteed acceptance into a state university and would recieve financial aid from the state if they maintained a B average.

Its 2010, Gov Doyle is not running for re-election, and couldn't get re-elected if he tried, our state is in massive debt and there is no funding set aside for these now graduating high school seniors.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

The site I linked to seemed to indicate regs were opened up in 2007, which is why they have so many in progress reactors.  Is that not true?

"In progress" and "opened up" are relative terms here.  It usually takes decades to foster a nuke plant from conception all the way through to where the plant can start feeding power into the grid.  There are several layers of approval and permit required, and the cost of the paperwork alone can run into the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars.  

Off the top of my head, and as a grossly over-simplified explanation of the process, there's an official approval needed for the reactor design, another approval for the location of the plant, and another approval before you can begin construction at that location, and still another approval after construction is complete and the plant is brought online.  Each of these steps individually can take years to complete.  

I believe there was some simplification recently allowing construction and operation permits to be combined into one process, and some further changes to allow some of the process steps to be performed in parallel.  That's probably what they mean by "opening up" the regs.

Regardless, each of these steps is an easy opportunity for outsiders to initiate legal and bureaucratic challenges to the project.  The greenies and anti-nuke activists love this strategy.  Unless the project owners want to hire a phalanx of lawyers to fight off the never-ending stream of challenges, the project can easily be brought to a screeching halt.  Many reactors have been planned over the years only to die on the vine this way.

The entire process of approving and building a reactor can cost billions of dollars.  That's 'billions' with a 'B'.  And having invested billions of dollars into a project, the plant can still be shut down (and the investors bankrupted) by any number of factors, including future regulatory changes and further legal challenges.

If the politicians were serious about nuclear power, they'd put in some serious effort towards reforming the approval/construction process to make it more affordable, faster, and more immune to obstructions.  At the very least a good dose of legal reform is necessary to prevent opponents from derailing new projects with petty challenges and insulating plant operators from future changes in the regulations.

[mellestad]

"In progress" and "opened up" are relative terms here.  It usually takes decades to foster a nuke plant from conception all the way through to where the plant can start feeding power into the grid.  There are several layers of approval and permit required, and the cost of the paperwork alone can run into the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. 

Off the top of my head, and as a grossly over-simplified explanation of the process, there's an official approval needed for the reactor design, another approval for the location of the plant, and another approval before you can begin construction at that location, and still another approval after construction is complete and the plant is brought online.  Each of these steps individually can take years to complete. 

I believe there was some simplification recently allowing construction and operation permits to be combined into one process, and some further changes to allow some of the process steps to be performed in parallel.  That's probably what they mean by "opening up" the regs.

Regardless, each of these steps is an easy opportunity for outsiders to initiate legal and bureaucratic challenges to the project.  The greenies and anti-nuke activists love this strategy.  Unless the project owners want to hire a phalanx of lawyers to fight off the never-ending stream of challenges, the project can easily be brought to a screeching halt.  Many reactors have been planned over the years only to die on the vine this way.

The entire process of approving and building a reactor can cost billions of dollars.  That's 'billions' with a 'B'.  And having invested billions of dollars into a project, the plant can still be shut down (and the investors bankrupted) by any number of factors, including future regulatory changes and further legal challenges.

If the politicians were serious about nuclear power, they'd put in some serious effort towards reforming the approval/construction process to make it more affordable, faster, and more immune to obstructions.  At the very least a good dose of legal reform is necessary to prevent opponents from derailing new projects with petty challenges and insulating plant operators from future changes in the regulations.

Interesting, thanks for the info.

[sanglant]

Regardless, each of these steps is an easy opportunity for outsiders to initiate legal and bureaucratic challenges to the project.  The greenies and anti-nuke activists love this strategy.  Unless the project owners want to hire a phalanx of lawyers to fight off the never-ending stream of challenges, the project can easily be brought to a screeching halt.  Many reactors have been planned over the years only to die on the vine this way.

and this is why we need stiff penalties for bringing a frivolous/useless/unfounded/false/losing/retarded lawsuits.

[Firethorn]

the link might not work since this is being posted from my phone, and the site is for a mobile device.

Worked fine, if a bit basic in the layout.

Ah, no wonder your figures looked off to me - your earlier 1998 figure is $4.40 per watt, not per kwh.  IE Capacity, not production.  That 'watt' of capacity can be expected to produce 2-3 kwh per year in a good area, plus can do so for 10-25 years.  Discounting cost of capital, you can expect to break even in around 20 years.

Thing is, my cutoff for good projects had better pay even in less than 10 if you're not counting cost of capital - otherwise you're never getting it paid off.

I think it is hard to quantify the free market cost. There has to be a metric buttload of subsidies for this industry, and it is a relatively small one.  This could mean the cost is significantly reduced, and unsustainable as a larger market.

I've seen direct subsidies of greater than 50% which STILL wouldn't pay the remaining cost off in 20 years.  It's very much unsustainable.  At this point I think we'd still be better off paying researchers directly to improve the technology. 

[alex_trebek]

I hate it when I make dumb mistakes, thanks.

Yeah I agree that paying for, or encouraging research is the way to go. I really doubt solar energy ever becoming a major source of energy production. Hopefully it will be a significant supplimental source.

[sanglant]

i think, trying to cut the load from your AC during the hottest part of the day could be interesting, that way you avoid batteries but the costs still need to come down.just think if you could cut your ac in half from 10:00 to 18:00.

[P5 Guy]

Scott Brown is against the wind farm and so was Edward "Ted" Kennedy. Anybody else seeing a connection here?

[MillCreek]

and this is why we need stiff penalties for bringing a frivolous/useless/unfounded/false/losing/retarded lawsuits.

There already are.  They are called CR 11 sanctions, and exist at the Federal level and just about every state of which I am aware.

[erictank]

Any idea how many half-built unfinished nuke reactors do we have scattered across the country? 

Dunno for sure, but the two they started at North Anna here in VA in the early 80s and cancelled after TMI got just about completely torn down.  Right down to the foundations.  No benefit in trying to restart construction on those - besides, no one's going to build an old Gen II plant instead of current-design Gen 3/3+ plants, which are safer, more passive, and more efficient anyways.

They've got permission now to build Unit 3 (a different design plant from Units 1 & 2 on that site), but I haven't heard if they're actually moving forward on funding and construction yet.  Last I heard, they were planning an Advanced CANDU type for U3.  Annnnnd, looking at Dominion's website, they've apparently changed their minds on that, and just (Friday) announced that they'll be putting a Mitsubishi-designed Advanced Pressurized-Water Reactor (US-APWR) in.  More similar to what's already in place, though that still won't allow licensed operators from Units 1&2 to operate Unit 3, under the NRC's rules.   As little as 46 months to from ground-breaking to online, apparently.

MOAR NUKES!!!!1!!one!!

[sanglant]

CR 11 sanctions, don't look quite like what i was thinking of. this is closer, but the guy that wrote it is probably a nut.

What is needed is an approach that balances the right to sue against the right to be free from harassing lawsuits. My suggestion is to make the loser of any lawsuit, along with the law firms representing the loser, pay all legal expenses of the winner. This would work for any successful party in a suit, whether plaintiff or defendant. If the suit is judged to be frivolous, the defendant would also collect special damages to compensate for the harassment.

People would think twice before filing frivolous lawsuits, because they would now have something to lose. Law firms would hesitate to take on clients who didn't have reasonable cases, for fear of sharing in the cost of defeat. On the other hand, clients with good cases would have no trouble attracting representation. The overall result would be a rebirth of responsibility among lawyers and their clients.