From Energy Bill Aids the Expansion Plans of Atomic Power Plants:
A one-sentence provision buried in the Senate’s recently passed energy bill, inserted without debate at the urging of the nuclear power industry, could make builders of new nuclear plants eligible for tens of billions of dollars in government loan guarantees.
Lobbyists have told lawmakers and administration officials in recent weeks that the nuclear industry needs as much as $50 billion in loan guarantees over the next two years to finance a major expansion.
…
Power companies have tentative plans to put the 28 new reactors at 19 sites around the country. Industry executives insist that banks and Wall Street will not provide the money needed to build new reactors unless the loans are guaranteed in their entirety by the federal government.
Are you freaking kidding me???
If nuclear power is so wonderful and so cheap, then why the hell does that industry need $50 billion in loan guarantees? Why does it need any loan guarantees whatsoever? Could the bankers know more about the economic viability of these plants than the nuclear proponents? We’ve been building and running commercial nuclear reactors for 50 years in the US, and everyone agrees that we need a lot more electricity generation, so why in the world does the industry need this kind of backing? Could it be that there’s no economical way to build nuclear power plants that are “safe enough”?
And does anyone here besides me think these loan guarantees will only lead to sloppier business practices, since the companies will be able to rely on a taxpayer bailout for loans if they screw up?
And am I the only one who thinks it’s absolutely insane to reward, or at least not penalize, any sort of sub-par performance regarding the building and/or operating of nuclear power plants?
Finally, I can imagine the nuclear supporters jumping into this conversation and talking about the evils of coal-fired electricity generation. I agree 100% that coal is evil. But how much CO2, as a percentage of today’s emissions, will we eliminate with nuclear, and at what total cost–from plant construction through operation, through the nightmare of decommissioning, to permanent waste management?
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July 31st, 2007 at 10:43 am
Not to play devil’s advocate, rather just out of curiosity:
Please elaborate on the assertion “loan guarantees will only lead to sloppier business practices, since the companies will be able to rely on a taxpayer bailout for loans if they screw up”…can you cite evidence?
July 31st, 2007 at 11:45 am
Imagine the following scenario: You’re a business running extremely expensive and complex construction processes that require the borrowing billions of dollars. Are you going to be more or less careful with the finances if you know that the loans are covered by the US government and you’re not betting just your own company’s money? It’s basic economics–the potential risk of a financial screwup is greatly reduced, so companies will be far more likely to accept greater financial risk.
July 31st, 2007 at 12:48 pm
The nuclear advocates are fighting a battle against time. One concern is that in ten years time it will be much harder to argue that renewables are only niche sources (as sun and wind ramp up and geothermal and wave power get some track record). Plus what if the cost of renewables continues to fall as the cost of nuclear continues to climb?
Another problem is that in ten years time some of the original (but still running) reactors will reach the end of their design lifetime and start decommissioning. The nuclear industry maintains that these costs are small (less than the original plant construction in some cases), and they don’t want to be proved wrong until we, the public, have sunk so much money into the next generation that we can’t pull out.
And I think you are well aware of the waste issue…one that occurs to me with all the freakish weather going on…how well prepared are these nuclear plants for once every hundred or thousand year floods, mudslides, and such? Such events seem to be happening with greater frequency…black swan.
July 31st, 2007 at 2:03 pm
“how well prepared are these nuclear plants for once every hundred or thousand year floods, mudslides, and such?”
Well, we did get to see the results of a moderately large earthquake on a Japanese plant. The results did not look promising for areas that can expect a lot stronger earthquakes than that, i.e., anywhere on the Pacific rim. One would expect a nuclear plant not be built anywhere that is susceptible to a mudslide, which are really, really easy to avoid (build on top of relatively flat hills). Flooding is a whole lot trickier, although there are usually advance warnings, during which time one would hope a plant could properly prepare for a rising river/incoming storm surge. Ask New Orlean-ers how advance warning worked out for them, though.
July 31st, 2007 at 2:05 pm
Off topic - but perhaps Lou can wrap this in somewhere.
Our natural gas water heater sprung a leak so I “upgraded” (???) to an
electric heater. It’s cheaper to install (I can do it) and cheaper to
operate based upon 2 weeks of metering.
http://sca.uwaterloo.ca/~praetzel/personal/WaterHeaterUpgrade.html
It’s looking like it’s going to be slightly cheaper at about $70/yr
vs $85/yr for our gas heater. We choose a 19 gallon heater to
reduce standby losses. It’s oversized for what we need; but the
smaller model would not have been able to fill the tub for those
rare times when we want a bath.
I was surprised when I looked up the numbers; but the CO2 emissions
are higher for the electric heater (in Ontario here we still have a
signif. amount of electricity generation via coal).
One reason for choosing this type of heater is that when we get time-of-day electricity pricing (due within about 2 years) it’ll become 25% cheaper to
have an electric heater if you only turn it on at night; and that’s fine
by us.
For the first time I crunched the CO2 emissions for us and they are aprox:
elec 2.6 tonnes/yr
car 1.5 tonnes/yr
home heating 1.7 tonnes/yr
water heater 0.6 tonnes/yr (vs 0.4 tonnes/yr for gas fired one)
What I found intolerable was that with the gas fired heater, 1/4 of
our yearly natural gas use would have been the pilot light keeping
the tank warm!
August 1st, 2007 at 8:53 am
praetzel: I think you have a nearly perfect example of just how dirty coal is relative to natural gas. Plus, keep in mind that you’re losing a lot of energy with the electric water heater–the process of burning the coal and turning that heat into moving electrons is only about 35% efficient. (I’m using the overall electricity numbers for the US, as shown in the DOE/EIA’s electricity flow diagram.) Burning the natural gas on-site and using the heat to directly warm water is likely more efficient.
The pilot light thing really frosts my cookies. The house we bought in 2004 had a natural gas fireplace, and I was shocked that it used an always-on pilot light and not an auto igniter thingie like modern gas stoves. Needless to say, that pilot light is shut off unless we’re actually using the fireplace, which is very rarely.