6 ms·

>it would be 4-8x or so more expensive than solar/wind Is that accounting for the renewable's inherent need for very expensive energy storage? Because otherwis

>it would be 4-8x or so more expensive than solar/wind Is that accounting for the renewable's inherent need for very expensive energy storage? Because otherwise you need to build that gas turbine to cover for when sun isn't shining.

35mm 2y ago
Or the cost of processing nuclear waste for 1,000s of years?
- sofixa 2y ago
  I don't know about this particular power plant, but on new constructions all costs, including decommissioning and storage of waste, are included.
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    "Storage of waste" is also a farce. All of the components of "nuclear waste" are commercially valuable, especially the exotic and hazardous ones. The issue is that we don't reprocess most of the spent fuel for political reasons.
    - Lutzb 2y ago
      That is not true, stop perpetuating that myth. Most of the nuclear waste by volume is of low level waste (90%) or intermediate level (7%) and only 3% is high level waste i.e. spent fuel. We still have to store the 97% of waste that cannot be reused. https://world-nuclear.org/nuclear-essentials/what-is-nuclear-waste-and-what-do-we-do-with-it https://world-nuclear.org/nuclear-essentials/what-is-nuclear...
      - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
        Low-level waste is basically just ordinary rubbish. You don't have to store it in a mountain for a million years, it will be indistinguishable from background before anybody finishes arguing about what to do with it. A lot of it is indistinguishable from background to begin with but is legally required to be treated differently because of where it came from. The people who think this is a problem haven't internalized a fact about radioactivity: Half life is the inverse of radioactivity. The more radioactive something is, the less time before it's gone. Anything with a short half life is not a problem because it will be gone soon; anything with a long half life is not a problem because it's about as radioactive as a banana.
        Lutzb 2y ago
        You said *All* of the components of "nuclear waste" are commercially valuable, especially the exotic and hazardous ones. Which is untrue. Most of it is waste that needs to be dealt with and has no value.
        AnthonyMouse 2y ago
        This is just using a different definition of "nuclear waste". What most people mean by this (and are concerned by) is something that is radiologically dangerous and has to be stored for thousands of years, but no such thing exists. There are things that are radiologically dangerous, but they have short half lives and are commercially valuable. Then there are things that "last for thousands of years" (e.g. Pu-239), but Pu-239 is only mildly radioactive and has commercial and government uses as fissile material. In fact, building new reactors is the best way we know of to get rid of it. What you're referring to ("low-level waste") is this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste#Low-level_waste https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste#Low-level_wa... > Low-level wastes include paper, rags, tools, clothing, filters, and other materials which contain small amounts of mostly short-lived radioactivity. Materials that originate from any region of an Active Area are commonly designated as LLW as a precautionary measure even if there is only a remote possibility of being contaminated with radioactive materials. Such LLW typically exhibits no higher radioactivity than one would expect from the same material disposed of in a non-active area, such as a normal office block. This isn't really "nuclear waste", it's ordinary rubbish that was near radioactive material so people are paranoid about it out of an abundance of caution. And any radioisotopes that are present in it will follow the same rule -- anything with high radioactivity decays quickly. It's no great mystery how to deal with that sort of thing; you store it for a short number of years to let anything with a short half life decay and then you treat it as any other trash.
        Lutzb 2y ago
        > Low-level waste is basically just ordinary rubbish. Untrue. You are just making nuclear proponents look bad with your broad strokes statements. Edit: I am sorry if this came out angry. We need to have a good discussion about nuclear power and it's place in the energy mix. It's clearly losing at this point due to the immense costs associated with it (construction, insurance, decommission, etc.), the risks and the long investment horizon. Handwaving away issues or derailing arguments does not help the discussion. Look we tried to find a solution for LLWs in Germany with cavern style storage repositories in Asse 2 and Morsleben. Due to many reasons, the costs spiraled out of control and we basically had to switch to overground storage and are in the process of repatriation. The reality is that currently storage of LLWs is expensive (see https://www.oecd-nea.org/jcms/pl_13212/low-level-radioactive-waste-repositories-an-analysis-of-costs?details=true https://www.oecd-nea.org/jcms/pl_13212/low-level-radioactive...). The cost of treatment of LLW is difficult to specify. So far I have seen no reports that would compare treatment to long term storage repositories. Even with incineration the ashes still need to be stored for some time until they can be disposed.
      - defrost 2y ago
        If we're getting real and addressing "myths" then here's a good often ignored hard truth; Most radioactive waste, by weight and volume, is low to mid level raioactive waste and most of that is 'NORM' and outside the nuclear power industry. The mining industry also produces large volumes of waste containing naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM) ~ https://www.arpansa.gov.au/sites/default/files/legacy/pubs/radwaste/Issues92_woollett.pdf Two examples of large volumes of non nuclear industry radioactive waste are: * Asia Rare Earth Sdn Bhd (ARE) in Bukit Merah, Perak ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_Bukit_Merah_radioactive_pollution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_Bukit_Merah_radioactive_p... ), * Lynas Advanced Materials Plant (LAMP), Gebeng, Kuantan. both as a by product of processing to refine rare earth metals for electronics.
        Lutzb 2y ago
        Don't change the topic. We are talking about nuclear power, not rare earth.
        defrost 2y ago
        When did dang die and who elected you the moderator? The topic I replied to was nuclear waste (check your very own comment) and it's relevant to nuclear power that dealing with radioactive waste is a persistent issue regardless of whether nuclear power exists or not.
        Lutzb 2y ago
        The thread was about nuclear power and the accompanying issue with nuclear waste types. You brought up mining for rare earth and naturally occurring radioactive waste in the process. I don't see how this relates to nuclear power and it's waste issue.
        defrost 2y ago
        I'm not responsible for your inability to see a connection, FWiW I do have a few decades in global scale geophysics and environmental background radiation maping, but what would I know. WRT your self annointed command and control of thread comments, have you read: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html ? Best read cephalic sans rectum.
ZeroGravitas 2y ago
The current trend is moving from "baseload and peaker" to "renewables and firming". Peaker and firming are both traditionally gas. If you think that renewables have an inherent need for expensive storage then you're holding them to a higher standard than nuclear. This is both inaccurate and ahistorical given all the pumped hydro built specifically to complement nuclear. Though the continued reduction in price of renewables and batteries means they probably already meet and exceed your higher standard anyway (see the recent Fraunhofer report that solar and batteries were cheaper than gas in Germany).
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  > If you think that renewables have an inherent need for expensive storage then you're holding them to a higher standard than nuclear. This is both inaccurate and ahistorical given all the pumped hydro built specifically to complement nuclear. It's a different kind of storage. Nuclear generates the same amount of electricity all the time but then there is higher demand during certain parts of the day. You then make up the difference between the baseload and the peak with a different kind of power plant. Typically nuclear is not used with storage at all, it's instead used for baseload with the peaks handled by other types of primary generation, traditionally natural gas or non-pumped hydro that dams a river. Renewables have entirely variable output, so you need alternative generation with enough capacity to supply the whole grid at any given time, and enough storage to be able to do this for a week or more in the event that renewable generation is low for an extended period of time. It's the difference between building a grid which is half nuclear and half something else vs. fully duplicating the whole capacity of the grid.
  - ViewTrick1002 2y ago
    In California the lowest yearly demand is ~13 GW. The yearly peak is ~48 GW. Assume that 3 reactors at a time are in revision during the spring and autumn. This means the "base demand" is 16 GW. I don't see a material difference in handling 32 GW or 48 GW of dispatchable power generation, assuming the lowest possible renewable generation is zero for the renewable side (which is not the case.) The other option would be having more nuclear plants and turning them off for large parts of the year. That is incredibly expensive. All this entails forcing the customers to pay for more expensive nuclear energy rather than utilize cheaper energy when it is available. In reality the more expensive nuclear power plants are turned off. https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/commodities/energy-prices-negative-france-solar-panel-wind-renewable-nuclear-green-2024-6 https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/commodities/energy-...

35mm 2y ago

Or the cost of processing nuclear waste for 1,000s of years?

sofixa 2y ago
I don't know about this particular power plant, but on new constructions all costs, including decommissioning and storage of waste, are included.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  "Storage of waste" is also a farce. All of the components of "nuclear waste" are commercially valuable, especially the exotic and hazardous ones. The issue is that we don't reprocess most of the spent fuel for political reasons.
  - Lutzb 2y ago
    That is not true, stop perpetuating that myth. Most of the nuclear waste by volume is of low level waste (90%) or intermediate level (7%) and only 3% is high level waste i.e. spent fuel. We still have to store the 97% of waste that cannot be reused. https://world-nuclear.org/nuclear-essentials/what-is-nuclear-waste-and-what-do-we-do-with-it https://world-nuclear.org/nuclear-essentials/what-is-nuclear...
    - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
      Low-level waste is basically just ordinary rubbish. You don't have to store it in a mountain for a million years, it will be indistinguishable from background before anybody finishes arguing about what to do with it. A lot of it is indistinguishable from background to begin with but is legally required to be treated differently because of where it came from. The people who think this is a problem haven't internalized a fact about radioactivity: Half life is the inverse of radioactivity. The more radioactive something is, the less time before it's gone. Anything with a short half life is not a problem because it will be gone soon; anything with a long half life is not a problem because it's about as radioactive as a banana.
      - Lutzb 2y ago
        You said *All* of the components of "nuclear waste" are commercially valuable, especially the exotic and hazardous ones. Which is untrue. Most of it is waste that needs to be dealt with and has no value.
        AnthonyMouse 2y ago
        This is just using a different definition of "nuclear waste". What most people mean by this (and are concerned by) is something that is radiologically dangerous and has to be stored for thousands of years, but no such thing exists. There are things that are radiologically dangerous, but they have short half lives and are commercially valuable. Then there are things that "last for thousands of years" (e.g. Pu-239), but Pu-239 is only mildly radioactive and has commercial and government uses as fissile material. In fact, building new reactors is the best way we know of to get rid of it. What you're referring to ("low-level waste") is this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste#Low-level_waste https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste#Low-level_wa... > Low-level wastes include paper, rags, tools, clothing, filters, and other materials which contain small amounts of mostly short-lived radioactivity. Materials that originate from any region of an Active Area are commonly designated as LLW as a precautionary measure even if there is only a remote possibility of being contaminated with radioactive materials. Such LLW typically exhibits no higher radioactivity than one would expect from the same material disposed of in a non-active area, such as a normal office block. This isn't really "nuclear waste", it's ordinary rubbish that was near radioactive material so people are paranoid about it out of an abundance of caution. And any radioisotopes that are present in it will follow the same rule -- anything with high radioactivity decays quickly. It's no great mystery how to deal with that sort of thing; you store it for a short number of years to let anything with a short half life decay and then you treat it as any other trash.
      - Lutzb 2y ago
        > Low-level waste is basically just ordinary rubbish. Untrue. You are just making nuclear proponents look bad with your broad strokes statements. Edit: I am sorry if this came out angry. We need to have a good discussion about nuclear power and it's place in the energy mix. It's clearly losing at this point due to the immense costs associated with it (construction, insurance, decommission, etc.), the risks and the long investment horizon. Handwaving away issues or derailing arguments does not help the discussion. Look we tried to find a solution for LLWs in Germany with cavern style storage repositories in Asse 2 and Morsleben. Due to many reasons, the costs spiraled out of control and we basically had to switch to overground storage and are in the process of repatriation. The reality is that currently storage of LLWs is expensive (see https://www.oecd-nea.org/jcms/pl_13212/low-level-radioactive-waste-repositories-an-analysis-of-costs?details=true https://www.oecd-nea.org/jcms/pl_13212/low-level-radioactive...). The cost of treatment of LLW is difficult to specify. So far I have seen no reports that would compare treatment to long term storage repositories. Even with incineration the ashes still need to be stored for some time until they can be disposed.
    - defrost 2y ago
      If we're getting real and addressing "myths" then here's a good often ignored hard truth; Most radioactive waste, by weight and volume, is low to mid level raioactive waste and most of that is 'NORM' and outside the nuclear power industry. The mining industry also produces large volumes of waste containing naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM) ~ https://www.arpansa.gov.au/sites/default/files/legacy/pubs/radwaste/Issues92_woollett.pdf Two examples of large volumes of non nuclear industry radioactive waste are: * Asia Rare Earth Sdn Bhd (ARE) in Bukit Merah, Perak ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_Bukit_Merah_radioactive_pollution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_Bukit_Merah_radioactive_p... ), * Lynas Advanced Materials Plant (LAMP), Gebeng, Kuantan. both as a by product of processing to refine rare earth metals for electronics.
      - Lutzb 2y ago
        Don't change the topic. We are talking about nuclear power, not rare earth.
        defrost 2y ago
        When did dang die and who elected you the moderator? The topic I replied to was nuclear waste (check your very own comment) and it's relevant to nuclear power that dealing with radioactive waste is a persistent issue regardless of whether nuclear power exists or not.
        Lutzb 2y ago
        The thread was about nuclear power and the accompanying issue with nuclear waste types. You brought up mining for rare earth and naturally occurring radioactive waste in the process. I don't see how this relates to nuclear power and it's waste issue.
        defrost 2y ago
        I'm not responsible for your inability to see a connection, FWiW I do have a few decades in global scale geophysics and environmental background radiation maping, but what would I know. WRT your self annointed command and control of thread comments, have you read: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html ? Best read cephalic sans rectum.

ZeroGravitas 2y ago

The current trend is moving from "baseload and peaker" to "renewables and firming". Peaker and firming are both traditionally gas. If you think that renewables have an inherent need for expensive storage then you're holding them to a higher standard than nuclear. This is both inaccurate and ahistorical given all the pumped hydro built specifically to complement nuclear. Though the continued reduction in price of renewables and batteries means they probably already meet and exceed your higher standard anyway (see the recent Fraunhofer report that solar and batteries were cheaper than gas in Germany).

AnthonyMouse 2y ago
> If you think that renewables have an inherent need for expensive storage then you're holding them to a higher standard than nuclear. This is both inaccurate and ahistorical given all the pumped hydro built specifically to complement nuclear. It's a different kind of storage. Nuclear generates the same amount of electricity all the time but then there is higher demand during certain parts of the day. You then make up the difference between the baseload and the peak with a different kind of power plant. Typically nuclear is not used with storage at all, it's instead used for baseload with the peaks handled by other types of primary generation, traditionally natural gas or non-pumped hydro that dams a river. Renewables have entirely variable output, so you need alternative generation with enough capacity to supply the whole grid at any given time, and enough storage to be able to do this for a week or more in the event that renewable generation is low for an extended period of time. It's the difference between building a grid which is half nuclear and half something else vs. fully duplicating the whole capacity of the grid.
- ViewTrick1002 2y ago
  In California the lowest yearly demand is ~13 GW. The yearly peak is ~48 GW. Assume that 3 reactors at a time are in revision during the spring and autumn. This means the "base demand" is 16 GW. I don't see a material difference in handling 32 GW or 48 GW of dispatchable power generation, assuming the lowest possible renewable generation is zero for the renewable side (which is not the case.) The other option would be having more nuclear plants and turning them off for large parts of the year. That is incredibly expensive. All this entails forcing the customers to pay for more expensive nuclear energy rather than utilize cheaper energy when it is available. In reality the more expensive nuclear power plants are turned off. https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/commodities/energy-prices-negative-france-solar-panel-wind-renewable-nuclear-green-2024-6 https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/commodities/energy-...