Steve Reuland’s Recent Comments

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  wtf?

  If regions create their own energy, they have much less need for, and are much less in thrall to, D.C.

  I agree.  It's a shame all of our electricity from comes from Washington, DC. It should be produced regionally instead, perhaps by smallish plants producing no more than a couple thousand megawatts each.    

  Cutting things up into smaller pieces is always a good idea. Look at how well it worked with the transportation sector.  We went from city-wide mass transit to individually owned cars, and that ended corporate lobbying completely.  Problem solved.On Nuclear energy and power devolution posted 3 years, 6 months ago 4 Responses

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  later

  Distributed storage in the form of 100s of millions of electric cars and solar and wind powered homes with battery backup change that whole lame objection.

  Possibly, but the battery technology isn't here yet.  Li-ion batteries will need to come down in price by several times, and if demand spikes, the pressure on lithium supplies could keep prices high indefinitely.  Best case scenario, we could maybe implement this technology in 30 years.  That's about the lifetime of your average power plant, so it's no reason to defer building them now.

  Anyway, thanks for the spirited debate.On Kevin Drum blows it by repeating the conventional wisdom posted 3 years, 6 months ago 26 Responses

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  No

  The figures are mentioned in it.

  They are, but you're misusing them.  The $6 billion cost to the treasury is not a construction cost, it is the cost of a $0.018 per kWh subsidy spread over 25 years.  That is not a large subsidy.  Wind power currently receives a larger subsidy (which is a good thing) at about $0.02 per kWh.  All forms of power generation recieve subsidies of various kinds, and nuclear is no different.  

  Double or triple the cost is the usual.

  If that were really the case, I doubt utilities would be chomping at the bit to build them.  There's no real need to lecture people about the economics of the situation, because if nuclear isn't commercially viable, then companies won't invest.  The subsidies being offered do make nuclear more attractive, but these are not enough in and of themselves to make it commercially viable; the base cost of generation has to be low enough to be able to sell the electricity for a profit.    

  Consider Yucca Mountain, unsafe at any speed (Years behind schedule), current estimates over 50 billion?

  Yucca Mountain will need to exist regardless of whether any new nuclear facilities open, because the Navy and EOC have lots of their own spent fuel that needs permanent storage.

  Wind is maybe 5 bucks per watt now for the initial installation?

  Wind is economically competitive (but extremely capital intensive), so we should advocate installing wind to the greatest extent possible.  But that will maybe make up 20% of our total capacity.  Beyond that, intermittancy creates too many problems (the wind advocates themselves will tell you this).  That leaves 80% that needs to come from reliable, 24/7 power generation.  That means either nuclear, coal, hydroelectric (mostly tapped-out already), natural gas, and a handful of others that aren't cost competitive.  For the forseeable future, it's really a choice between nuclear and coal.  If we don't build more nuclear plants, we will have more coal plants, and lots of them.

  Wind and solar provide distributed power generation unfriendly to monopoly control, nukes are the ultimate monopoly energy source.

  Since I don't have an ideological objection to large scale industry, then I don't find this argument persuasive.  People aren't putting up tiny windmills on top of their houses afterall, they're building large-scale wind farms with giant turbines.  It's just more cost-effective that way.

  The nuclear "priesthood" keeps nuclear contamination  and corruption all secret under the excuse of national security...

  Right, it's all kept secret, which explains why we can't find any evidence.  But somehow you know all about it.  ;)

  Nuclear power poses a huge threat by faculutating  nuclear weapons proliferation (Iran ring any bells? Check the New york times front page today)

  Then we should oppose nuclear power generation in Iran.  It has nothing to do with the United States, which last I checked, already had nuclear weapons and would still have them even if all commercial nuclear plants were to shut down.

  You certainly do not want to smell the radioactive metal vapor going into your lungs like the victims in the Chernobyl plant did.

  If I thought this were a reasonable possibility, then I wouldn't favor nuclear power.  As it is, we already have nasty stuff going into our lungs courtesy of the coal industry, which is estimated to kill about 15,000 people a year.  That's several Chernobyls each and every year.  Nuclear is far safer than coal.
  On Kevin Drum blows it by repeating the conventional wisdom posted 3 years, 6 months ago 26 Responses

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  No

  Let's add up the costs.  6 billion for the plant, 2 billion in "free" insurance from US taxpayers, 6 billion in subsidies, how about the habit of niclear contractors of cost over runs due to faulty construction, another 2 billion?

  If we make up numbers out of thin air, with no basis in reality, then anything can be made to look bad.  However, the people who make energy investments for a living, and are not exactly known for throwing away their capital, have decided that nuclear power is a worthwhile investment.  When it comes to estimating costs and profitability, I'll take their numbers over yours.

  So if we're going to "look to the market" to see whether or not nuclear is economically viable, the answer is, it's viable.  Complaining about the economics of nuclear as a means of promoting even more expensive alternatives doesn't make a lot of sense.    On Kevin Drum blows it by repeating the conventional wisdom posted 3 years, 6 months ago 26 Responses

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  No

  Let's ask the market. Investment money is streaming into small-scale, distributed power, but the nuclear industry is utterly moribund.

  According to this article in the NYT, there are 19 new nuclear power plants being applied for, and at a cost of around $5 billion each, that represents a potential investment of close to $100 billion.  Not exactly "utterly moribund".

  As for these "small-scale, distributed power" operations that are mentioned, I'm curious as to how much money is actually being invested in them.  For that matter, I'm curious as to what they actually are.  What fuel do they use?  Currently, most distributed generation plants are fueled by gas or diesel.  And they don't exist because they're more efficent or cost-effective (they're not) but mostly to provide emergency back-up.   On Kevin Drum blows it by repeating the conventional wisdom posted 3 years, 6 months ago 26 Responses