
US Congress passes bill to help advanced nuclear power - Tomte
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/09/us-congress-passes-bill-to-help-advanced-nuclear-power/
======
WhompingWindows
Policy will is one obstacle, but high costs are the main factor. Compared to
new gas plants, new nuclear plants are extremely expensive. Look at the
debacle in South Carolina and you can clearly see: new nuclear is not working
(outside China). Old nuclear is still a huge portion of the carbon-free
electric grid in parts of the USA and Europe, especially in other countries
like France. I do believe that if carbon were taxed based on its negative
effects, nuclear would get the much-needed economic re-conception that allows
it to proliferate. It can and should be a climate solution, alongside
batteries and renewables.

~~~
smsm42
I think one of major reasons why new nuclear is so hard is NIMBYism and
irrational fear of "radiation". People discount known risks and exaggerate new
ones, so risks from coal are ignored (even if statistically they are more
serious) and risks from very rare nuclear issues may lead whole countries to
just ban nuclear energetics altogether. Unfortunately, I don't see a good
solution to it - with more environmentally-conscious countries swearing off
nuclear, all living nuclear stations remain in less environmentally-conscious
ones, which will increase the number of issues, which will reinforce the idea
that nuclear energy is too dangerous.

~~~
jaxtellerSoA
>and irrational fear of "radiation"

Radiation is very harmful, and very real. You don't get nuclear power without
it. Nothing irrational about the fear of radiation.

~~~
delecti
More radioactive material is emitted/released from coal plants than from
nuclear plants, even when adjusted for the difference in power production
between those two types of plants. It's not irrational to be wary about
radiation, it is irrational to respond to that wariness by going all NIMBY on
new nuclear plants.

~~~
ahelwer
I'm pro nuclear power, but this is the difference between drinking a glass of
water and drowning with your head in a bucket. It's weird to apply averages to
situations where nuclear disasters release massive amounts of radiation all at
once.

~~~
smsm42
No, it's not weird - that's exactly where the fallacy is. Getting millions of
people slowly poisoned by pollution gets less weight than a dozen of people
directly hurt by radiation. For example, Three Mile Island incidents had
essentially zero casualties (yes, including study of cancer incidence
increase, which did not find any significant increase) but everybody has heard
about it (and it essentially killed new nuclear development in the US). Try to
find out how much morbidity random coal plant is causing, and pretty much
nobody knows or cares.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
This[1] site claims _over 7,500 deaths each year are attributable to fine
particle pollution from U.S. power plants._

This[2] site claims _Coal is responsible for over 800,000 premature deaths per
year globally and many millions more serious and minor illnesses. In China
alone, around 670,000 people die prematurely per year as a result of coal-
related air pollution. The ‘Coal Kills’ report estimates that in India coal
contributes to between 80,000 to 115,000 premature deaths annually. In the
United States coal kills around 13,000 people annually, and 23,300 in Europe.
The economic costs of the health impacts from coal combustion in Europe are
valued at about US$70 billion per year, with 250,600 life years lost._

1\.
[http://www.catf.us/fossil/problems/power_plants/](http://www.catf.us/fossil/problems/power_plants/)

2\. [https://endcoal.org/health/](https://endcoal.org/health/)

~~~
smsm42
Right. So we are comparing (in US) 13000 deaths annually and one major
incident with no casualties - and in the coal case, it's "yeah we know it's
not ideal, so we are slowly moving away, but really slow because you have to
be realistic here" and in the nuclear case it's "OMG OMG OMG radiation no more
new stations ever we have to forget the whole thing now, it's too unsafe did I
say RADIATION?!".

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
Oh, right, sorry. Yeah, coming back to this a day later I see that were you
wrote _" pretty much nobody knows or cares"_ it was meant in the general sense
of _stop someone in the street and ask them about coal_ and their eyes will
glaze over vs ask them about nuclear power and radiation-three-eyed-fish-
godzilla and they're way more likely to have a seizure right there on the
street.

------
_Codemonkeyism
I'm pro nuclear if costs are not externalized (insurance, EOL tear down, waste
management) but priced in.

~~~
DennisP
Nuclear plants over their lifetimes pay into trust funds (from their own
revenue) to pay for their decommissioning:
[https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/environment/2017/07/14/...](https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/environment/2017/07/14/when-
nuclear-plant-shuts-down-who-pays/479392001/)

Until 2013 they also paid into the Nuclear Waste Fund, which currently has $46
billion. Since politicians killed Yucca Mountain and didn't come up with an
alternative, a federal court in 2013 said they have to stop collecting fees
until they come up with a use for them.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Waste_Policy_Act#Nucle...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Waste_Policy_Act#Nuclear_Waste_Fund)

Regarding insurance, I'm in favor of internalizing costs if we take a rational
approach to actual damage. Specifically, if something happens and causes
radiation levels that occur naturally in cities with normal cancer rates, then
don't evacuate the city. If cancer rates are unchanged after an accident,
throw out claims that particular cancers were caused by the accident. In
general, reexamine the linear no-threshold hypothesis, which is looking
increasingly shaky. (However, some GenIV plants look so inherently safe that
this might not be worth fighting about.)

~~~
peterlk
> a federal court in 2013 said they have to stop collecting fees until they
> come up with a use for them

This is fascinating! I didn't realize that killing Yucca Mountain triggered
lower taxes for the companies producing the waste. That's pretty poor
incentive alignment. It also might help explain the seemingly excessive amount
of ad-spend against Yucca mountain when I lived in Nevada.

~~~
DennisP
There are a lot of people who've campaigned against nuclear over the years,
including fossil fuel companies. I think it's a stretch to think nuclear
companies campaigned against waste storage in hopes that a future court case
would eliminate their fees...especially since the consequence is that they
have to store the waste locally at the plant site, which isn't free either.
It's reasonable that if they're paying for that, they shouldn't also have to
pay for a repository that doesn't exist.

Meanwhile, fossil plants dump their waste into the atmosphere and don't pay a
dime for it.

~~~
rplst8
> Meanwhile, fossil plants dump their waste into the atmosphere and don't pay
> a dime for it.

Waste that includes radioactive material, no less.

------
Taylor_OD
Nuclear is an incredibly under utilized option which I believe is due to
public fear from misinformation. Most people don't realize how much nuclear
power we already have in the USA and how close they live to a nuclear power
plant.

~~~
Krasnol
Well...besides the obvious accidents there is nuclear waste.

But luckily you have places where you can make it disappear:
[https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/06/03/yucca...](https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/06/03/yucca-
mountain-congress-works-revive-dormant-nuclear-waste-dump/664153002/)

~~~
dotancohen
Does coal not have accidents? And where do you think the waste byproducts of
coal go?

Take a deep breath.

~~~
hwillis
Or eat some tuna. Coal has doubled the amount of mercury in the ocean.

~~~
Krasnol
Not sure where you've been the last decade but people who speak against
nuclear power are usually also against coal.

------
nickik
This is very much required. Sadly the US nuclear regulatory environment has
been an absolute disaster and very much hurt the global evolution of nuclear
power.

The worst thing is that it is impossible licence a non LWR reactor in the US.
Because a licence requires specific systems to exist, that might not even make
sense in most other reactors. Additionally you have to pay the regulator for
their feedback and the whole process, adding 10s of millions to your
development cost, and that is for a traditional LWR reactor.

Furthermore many regulations and subsidies are built around 'renewables'
rather then non-carbon energies. Production tax credit, build requirements and
so on.

Furthermore the US government has massive capability and facilities but they
are not used well for innovation and there is very little interaction between
nuclear startups and these facilities. Having a government that allows
stronger sustained cooperation between regulators, companies and government
capabilities will be required to change the licencing process and the whole
nuclear industry.

Interestingly there seems to be now some amount of bipartisanship about
nuclear and bills are passing surprisingly quickly.

The University of Michigan had some great talks and debates that people might
find interesting, this video explains some about the bills that have passed:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1lkDRX2huM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1lkDRX2huM)

~~~
derekp7
What about the rest of the world? Does every developed country have similar
regulatory burdens, or is there some other factor at play preventing newer
designs from being developed and put into production?

I'd really like to see the newer designs built out at least somewhere, but I
have a feeling that there is more to it than what I've read in the pop-sci
articles.

~~~
akg_67
[http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-
and...](http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-
generation/plans-for-new-reactors-worldwide.aspx)

Excerpts:

* Nuclear power capacity worldwide is increasing steadily, with about 50 reactors under construction.

* Most reactors on order or planned are in the Asian region, though there are major plans for new units in Russia.

* Significant further capacity is being created by plant upgrading.

* Plant lifetime extension programmes are maintaining capacity, particularly in the USA.

About 50 power reactors are currently being constructed in 13 countries (see
table below), notably China, India, UAE and Russia.

Also, see World Nuclear Performance Report 2018 [http://www.world-
nuclear.org/our-association/publications/on...](http://www.world-
nuclear.org/our-association/publications/online-reports/world-nuclear-
performance-report.aspx)

~~~
natmaka
> Nuclear power capacity worldwide is increasing steadily, with about 50
> reactors under construction.

The decommissioning of nuclear reactors is far outpacing the construction of
new plants.

[https://www.reuters.com/article/energy-
nuclearpower/nuclear-...](https://www.reuters.com/article/energy-
nuclearpower/nuclear-plant-decommissioning-outpacing-new-build-report-
idUSL8N1VM4EC)

The report:
[https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/-2018-.html](https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/-2018-.html)

------
jayalpha
Nuclear is risky. Even if the risk is low, the long tail risk is tremendous.

I wish they would pour more money into Thorium reactors.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-
based_nuclear_power#Po...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-
based_nuclear_power#Possible_benefits)

"Liquid fluoride thorium reactors are designed to be meltdown proof."

------
kisstheblade
To all the "where does the spent fuel go" (dump it in the ocean) and "too
expensive" (regulatory problem). These things are not a problem. Only the
irrational fear of "nucular" is the problem.

Educate yourself
[http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/](http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/)

"For nuclear waste, a simple, quick, and easy disposal method would be to
convert the waste into a glass — a technology that is well in hand — and
simply drop it into the ocean at random locations.5 No one can claim that we
don't know how to do that! With this disposal, the waste produced by one power
plant in one year would eventually cause an average total of 0.6 fatalities,
spread out over many millions of years, by contaminating seafood.
Incidentally, this disposal technique would do no harm to ocean ecology. In
fact, if all the world's electricity were produced by nuclear power and all
the waste generated for the next hundred years were dumped in the ocean, the
radiation dose to sea animals would never be increased by as much as 1% above
its present level from natural radioactivity."

------
DrNuke
Materials informatics should help with accelerating improved or novel
materials discovery (therefore accelerating Gen IV power plants readiness for
deployment) but irradiation damage models are complex and probably non
generalisable in a bottom-up approach, that is starting from the underlying
physical process, up to microstructures and finally to the properties we wish
to improve. We will see.

------
TangoTrotFox
I don't see an economic argument for nuclear. It's already one of, and by some
measurements, the most expensive methods of energy production and that's only
going to become exasperated over time. Right now nuclear accounts for 10-15%
of the world's energy production, yet even at that level we only have known
uranium reserves to run these for about 200 years. [1] Bump that up to where
nuclear is a major player in energy production and we're suddenly running out
imminently. This means we're going to need to turn to things like saltwater
extraction and breeder reactors. But these technologies are going to send
costs skyrocketing. And as well as scarcity becomes an issue, we can also
expect to see the cost of uranium itself start to skyrocket.

And this is before getting into the other issues of nuclear at scale.
Decommissioning is a lengthy, expensive, and complex process. Nuclear
accidents are rare, but nowhere near as rare as they ought be. There are
currently about 450 plants operating worldwide. That's a disconcertingly low
number given the number of accidents. And breeder reactors would be absolutely
required for longterm uranium perspectives, yet that technology not only
greatly increases costs but also complexity and volatility. And another issue
that becomes even more critical at scale is disposal.

In my opinion solar is the most logical option for the future. The one and
only downside there is the lack of production during the night, yet this can
be resolved in a countless number of basic technical ways ranging from
batteries to even just mundane things such as shifting objects (or liquids or
whatever) to create potential energy that can be harvested during off times.
If we take a utopic view of the future, it's even possible to envision
worldwide high energy direct current lines transiting power worldwide. All of
these things involve losses of energy of course, but as far as our needs are
concerned solar can provide a practically infinite amount of energy and so
optimal efficiency is not so relevant.

I also think that the decentralization of energy is also desirable. Even
something as benign as rooftop solar will end up providing an immense amount
of energy. Centralization of energy, let alone when it relies on a scarce
resource is something I think we've learned a lot about for the past century.
A bit of hindsight would be valuable here.

[1] - [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-will-
glo...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-will-global-
uranium-deposits-last/)

~~~
gascan
People are interested in nuclear because it's zero carbon, because it's
mature, and because it's suited to base load. It's the only zero carbon source
that plugs right into the hole left by fossil fuels. IMO it's really that
simple, and you can be pro-nuclear and also pro-renewables.

Personally, I don't really value solely economic arguments about power
generation anymore. The cheapest power would be the best power _if_ all the
externalities were priced in. But they just never will be.

------
jtlienwis
I read where if US reactors replaced their fuel rods with the new design from
Lightbridge, that alone would up us electric generation by 2%. Which is about
the same as the total share due to solar, although solar is rising quickly.

~~~
Iwan-Zotow
nonsense

you cannot just increase thermal power and expect steam generators make a lot
more steam and turbine to rotate twice as fast

------
dangjc
Nuclear power does not play well with renewables. It's a steady baseload
source, but solar and wind are highly variable and need something that can
switch on or off to fill in the gaps. You can't turn on and off a nuclear
plant throughout the day. So even though (ignoring disposal challenges),
nuclear is a clean source of energy, it probably has no place in a highly VRE
dominated future.

~~~
fulafel
You can do load following fine with nuclear, that's how they run a lot of it
in France and to an extent in Germany.

[http://www.oecd-nea.org/ndd/reports/2011/load-following-
npp....](http://www.oecd-nea.org/ndd/reports/2011/load-following-npp.pdf)

~~~
DoctorOetker
do you know where one can find typical frequency or impulse response plots?
both for total input control to energy network or partial (control -> heat,
heat -> turbine etc) responses would be interesting, for real/typical systems

------
gasull
The headline should be "US Government to subsidize nuclear power".

------
trumped
good, because I will need a nuclear car within 15 years.

------
shmerl
May be add more funding to cold fusion research.

~~~
valarauca1
cold fusion is psuedo-science hogwash.

For starters do you really think that after 50 years of nuclear weapons
program and military spending on a scale never before imagined even by
industrial civilization we REALLY missed some way to make better (smaller,
lighter, etc.) nuclear weapons? Because when you believe cold fusion exists
this is fundamentally what are stating.

Fenymann path integration, and its QCD and QED evolution have been some of the
most successful mathematical theories ever developed. We can model fusion
interactions incredibly well, this math lets up predict things like the Higgs
Boson.

You can't even get papers published as "Cold Fusion" any more (in a
respectable journal) because the scientific community gave up on. The math
doesn't check out. Now those truly dedicated pants on head tenured professors
who continue to feed this non-scientific pursuit publish under the title of
"low-energy nuclear reactions" and "condensed matter nuclear science" since
some trash-tier journals still accept that.

The problem is nothing cold/low energy to fusion. Over coming the EM "barrier"
to hit the nucili to _maybe_ trigger fusion requires MeV of energy. That
doesn't come from "cold" objects.

The closest man kind has gotten is Muon-Catalyzed Fusion which required cosmic
rays hitting the upper atmosphere as a source of high-energy particles. And it
was already considered nonviable by 1957 [1]

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muon-
catalyzed_fusion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muon-catalyzed_fusion)

~~~
shmerl
Are you saying that research is driven by war? Because that's exactly what it
sounds like.

------
ainiriand
Well, it certainly goes against the trend of de-nuclearization... I would
invest in renewable energy instead.

~~~
dudul
Interesting to see this comment downvoted because I believe it is true. Most
European countries are looking for alternatives and nuclear power generation
is heavily criticized there.

~~~
chriswarbo
> Most European countries are looking for alternatives and nuclear power
> generation is heavily criticized there.

I'm not sure about "most". Germany is certainly phasing out nuclear. France
has relied extensively on nuclear for decades, and it's a large export
industry for them, so I'm not sure what the general sentiment is (a quick
Google search didn't find anything conclusive). Here in the UK there does seem
to be a general anti-nuclear sentiment (e.g. the (tiny minority) Green Party
want to phase it out). We _are_ building new nuclear, like Hinkley Point C,
but they're unpopular mostly due to bureaucracy and financial nonsense (the
vested interests and brinkmanship over the contract seems like a test run for
the current farce over Brexit negotiations
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_station#Timeline)
!).

~~~
hwillis
France is shutting down most of their plants in the coming decades, and
Switzerland is shutting a few down too. Nuclear is genuinely facing a lot of
opposition in Europe, particularly due to rising costs. In many cases popular
sentiment is a driving force too though. That's probably the case in
Switzerland (direct democracy) where there were a couple notable accidents
right before a referendum. Bad timing and not really terribly newsworthy, but
it really damaged public opinion.

~~~
cm2187
I don't think it's cost. Merkel took the decision to exit nuclear energy after
very little thinking following Fukushima.

Building a single nuclear power plant is very expensive. Building 20 in a row
is cheap (+ the ever changing regulations).

------
kei39jdjr
Back in college I researched history of nuclear energy in the US during the
50s and 60s

Thorium reactors were much further ahead and being funded by the government

Then one Naval officer made the case to arm subs with nukes

Funding for thorium dried up and was funneled into less safe breeder style
reactors

Unless this is funding thorium reactors, I’ll be hard pressed to see this as
anything but a stealthy ploy to reinvent weapons production. What with the
Orange Orangutan pissing off the world, championing Space Farce, some
paranoids in DC probably think we need to build more nukes to match NK and
Iran.

------
logifail
>> Nuclear is considered valuable because it's a zero-emissions energy source
(...)

Unless we're planning on using magic to obtain the fuel, build the power
stations, reprocess spent fuel, and decommission the power stations when
they're done, that claim would appear to be false.

~~~
MorrisofOrange
By that same logic, solar and wind aren't zero emission energy sources
either...

~~~
jMyles
That's right, they aren't. Now, let's have a reasonable dialogue about the
consequences of uranium mining vs the supply chain for materials for wind and
solar.

All of these technologies are zero-on-site emissions, and that's a useful
distinction of course (compared to coal). But of course we still need to
consider the externalities of the rest of the process.

~~~
justtopost
Not just supply side. Decom of old wind units is difficult, and they are
mostly non-biodegrading fiberglass, carbon fiber, and polyester and epoxy
resins, apart from their easily recycled metal bits.

So far, we are trying to repurpose them, but its not a great solution. We can
only use so many turbine blade park benches.

Personally, I think we will look back on wind power as a curious mistake, in
comparison to solar farms and nuclear.

~~~
jMyles
> So far, we are trying to repurpose them, but its not a great solution. We
> can only use so many turbine blade park benches.

Very interesting. I didn't realize this - thanks for bringing it to my
attention. Do you happen to have a link handy where I can learn more about
these sorts of efforts?

------
sambull
Ah great the most expensive power source to build and we don't even cost in
the waste.

EDIT: Capital Cost estimates from the EIA:
[https://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/powerplants/capitalcost...](https://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/powerplants/capitalcost/pdf/capcost_assumption.pdf)

~~~
sambull
It's expensive, and doesn't include anything with the end of the fuel life (or
fuel costs) [0].

[0] TABLE 2-5 is a nice summary,
[https://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/powerplants/capitalcost...](https://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/powerplants/capitalcost/pdf/capcost_assumption.pdf)

