
First New U.S. Nuclear Reactor in Two Decades to Begin Fueling in Tennessee - sasvari
http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/nuclear/first-new-us-nuclear-reactor-in-two-decades-to-begin-fueling-in-tennessee
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ju-st
back of napkin calculation:

1180 MWh; 4.5 billion dollar capex; 2.4ct/kWh opex[1]; 50$/MWh income

yearly power production = 1180MWh * 24 * 365 = 10'336'800 MWh

yearly revenue = power production * 50$/MWh = 516'840'000 USD

yearly costs = power production * 1000 * 0,024$ = 248'083'200 USD

capex / (revenue - costs) = 18 years

Doesn't look like a very interesting investment choice!?

1: [http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/economic-
aspects/economics...](http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/economic-
aspects/economics-of-nuclear-power/)

~~~
illumen
I think it's an even worse investment than that.

I don't believe them that the cost of decommissioning is built in. Especially
since the financiers who pay during construction aim to sell their equity.
Also in the UK, recently had to pay 4 billion worth of tax payer funds to
decommission. That puts the whole thing at a loss.

Also, wind, solar and other renewable are able to be produced with a much
smaller capital cost, and are only getting cheaper. Many of the tech issues
are being fixed. For example, critical steam is now possible with CSP and mass
production is making the systems cheaper.

The production risks for nuclear are really high, because of the high capital
costs. As demonstrated by this project stalling for over a decade.

Also, uranium costs are not fixed. Over the last 18 years have changed a
number of times. The price difference has been 3x (not even adjusting for
inflation).

Finally, many nuclear power plants have been closed down early to fix up (14%
have been closed for more than a year). Including of course Fukushima, but
also other ones around the world and in the USA. There was a report of 14
plants in the USA which will likely close early. That is around 14% of plants
(so far) closing earlier than planned. (There are 99 plants in the USA).

If there is a problem because the high capital costs, it seems many of the
plants get closed. 100 orders for plants in the USA were cancelled,
bankrupting companies.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
> I don't believe them that the cost of decommissioning is built in.
> Especially since the financiers who pay during construction aim to sell
> their equity. Also in the UK, recently had to pay 4 billion worth of tax
> payer funds to decommission. That puts the whole thing at a loss.

Only if you're counting the decommissioning costs for nuclear but not for
anything else. By the time a mine is exhausted it's generally a Superfund
site, whether they're mining coal or neodymium. And what do you do with fifty
million decommissioned solar panels?

> Also, uranium costs are not fixed.

The amount uranium price fluctuations contribute to operating costs is
negligible.

~~~
illumen
Yes, PV solar is not so good with waste either. Yes, the costs of removing
broken solar panels should go into the costs for a project too. But that has
nothing to do with judging weather Nuclear plants are a terrible investment.

Last I read none of the closed plants in the USA had been completely
decommissioned. Which is why I think the estimates for decommissioning are
wrong. But perhaps there are cheaper ways to do it in the future... I don't
know.

Yes, fuel cost isn't that much... apparently 0.52 ¢/kWh. But that could still
impact the bottom line if costs were 3x as much. But with 70 years of uranium
left, I'm not sure prices will stay at similar prices over the life time of a
new reactor.

~~~
hga
_Last I read none of the closed plants in the USA had been completely
decommissioned._

Much, if not a lot of this has to do with the simple fact that after you
mothball the plany, it's easiest and cheapest to wait a while for various
radioactive isotopes to decay to less hazardous stuff. As long as you mothball
it properly, and maintain that, there's no hurry.

~~~
Retric
If the money is set aside ahead of time and invested well then sure. If your
dependent on the company that operated the plant to still be around then there
just going to keep putting it off until the company fails. At which point the
taxpayer is stuck with the costs.

------
jobu
The last line of the article surprises me:

 _However, we 're hoping that by the time Gen IV reactors are ready for
construction (sometime in the 2030s), fusion power will have completely taken
over electric power generation._

Based on the current trends, it seems like renewable energy will be set to
take over energy production before fusion power.

~~~
norea-armozel
I doubt renewables can compete with a fusion reactor for high load power uses.
So, I can see fusion being used in part with water desalination plants or
anything to do with heavy industry.

~~~
dragonwriter
> I doubt renewables can compete with a fusion reactor for high load power
> uses. So

Right now, the can compete favorably with fusion for most uses, what with
fusion not actually being even remotely viable. GP seems to be offering the
opinion that they will improve to compete more favorably with the best (even
before considering environmental concerns) large-scale generation methods
before fusion is viable, which may be overly pessimistic in terms of fusion
progress, but then again, given how consistently fusion has failed predictions
of imminent viability, isn't at all implausible.

~~~
amckenna
Actually there are potentially some large breakthroughs in fusion power
depending on how the new Wendelstein 7-X does when it is turned on later this
year. Stellarators are pretty cool and if they prove viable could lead to a
big shift in the field away from tokamaks which have stalled in efficacy
improvements.

Here is an article about it:
[http://news.sciencemag.org/physics/2015/10/feature-
bizarre-r...](http://news.sciencemag.org/physics/2015/10/feature-bizarre-
reactor-might-save-nuclear-fusion)

And here is a great video showing the design in amazing detail:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyqt6u5_sHA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyqt6u5_sHA)

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delinka
"[During failure,] only a small amount of water transfer (about ten garden
hoses worth) is necessary [...] to keep the reactor stable."

How much is "ten garden hoses worth"? Are we talking running ten garden hoses
at full capacity for a few seconds? A couple hours? I very much dislike
comparisons like these in reporting, especially when discussing safety.

~~~
astrodust
They didn't say how long the hose is. Maybe it's a mile? To the moon and back?

~~~
shawn-furyan
I would think the author means flow rate, not static volume. That would be a
hopelessly unintuitive, and as you demonstrate, incomplete analogy if it were
meant to represent the static volume needed.

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deftnerd
I wonder how this new plant will affect the power costs to consumers and
especially wholesale power costs.

The Chattanooga area just turned up their municipal fiber network to 10 Gbps
and a lot of tech companies are moving there. With inexpensive power and good
connectivity, it might be a prime location for data centers.

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microDude
So, where do Small Module Reactors (SMR) fit onto the authors timeline of
reactor development? Do SMRs show any promise, or are they just an iteration
of the same ideas, but at a smaller scale.

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ck2
design from the 60s, built in the 70s and ceased production in the 90s

put into operation in late 2010s

what could possibly go wrong

~~~
hga
Given how much experience we have with this class of reactors, and the
inherent safety of PWRs (e.g. TMI, vs. BWRs like a Fukushima), and that the
organization running it has long, continuous experience in running these, not
much, I'd expect. They only unique danger comes from it being mothballed for
so long, and the possibility that resulted in undetected degradation (anything
more that corrosion?).

~~~
zamalek
Agreed.

If PBR is to be taken as the flagship of reactor safety (physics prevents a
problem from ever occurring), the safety features in Gen II PWR come pretty
damn close. You'd need a long cascade of extremely unlikely events in order
for it to dangerously fail, for example, the reactor vessel being bent so that
the rods are unable to be affected by gravity. Having first breached the
concrete and steel whatever caused the catastrophe would also need to bend
_uranium._

~~~
rsync
I don't have anything new to say about TMI/PBR/PBM, etc., however this
sentence stands out:

"You'd need a long cascade of extremely unlikely events in order for it to
dangerously fail"

Have we learned nothing at all ? Even when given extremely relevant and
instructive examples _within the last 10 years_ ?

From Fukushima to Lehman Brothers, we continue to be shown that these unlikely
events are highly correlated - even if they are extremely unlikely
individually.

 _The Tsunami comes with the Earthquake_

~~~
zamalek
> Fukushima

With Fukushima they _knew_ what the problems were and _chose_ to make an half-
assed attempt at safety - for example: the 2008 Tsunami study was ignored. I
guess what could be surmised is that nuclear power is only completely safe in
the absence of human nature. Which makes you correct in a round-about way.

However, it is unsafe in comparison to what? Nine times out of ten not being
able to breath anywhere on the planet, forever, seems like the more dangerous
prospect; versus making a specific piece of land uninhabitable for a few
thousand years. Nuclear waste is far easier to see, which makes us more aware
of it and hence our monkey brains believe it is more dangerous ("smoke just
dissolves into the air!").

I can't think of any power solution that doesn't have severe drawbacks;
however, nuclear is at the very least not the top contender in that list.

~~~
smileysteve
> However, it is unsafe in comparison to what? Nine times out of ten not being
> able to breath anywhere on the planet, forever, seems like the more
> dangerous prospect;

The arsenic and other emissions from a coal plant are roughly measurable to a
nuclear MELTDOWN every 10 years.

~~~
zamalek
... and because of the current anti-nuclear sentiment, when South Africa faced
a power crisis they decided to build the biggest coal power plant in the
southern hemisphere[1]. I honestly can in no small way whatsoever see that as
a win for the environment.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medupi_Power_Station](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medupi_Power_Station)

 _Thanks for that factoid._

------
wahsd
I'm glad we have solved the nuclear waste problem.

~~~
mason240
It's a political problem, not science problem. We could have already completed
the Yucca Mountain project, if not for the anti-science anti-nuclear fear
mongers and NIMBYs.

~~~
wahsd
You delusional people are fascinating. If anything you are anti-science,
considering that it's bat shit insane to do something that has absolutely no
chance of being sustainable and every chance in the world of being a disaster.
What's so darn scientific about piling up nuclear waste with a half-life
longer than humans have even been able to spell out names? This has nothing to
do with NIMBY, but if you think it is, why not simply store it where you live.

That project is not complete at all and there are significant problems with it
altogether, not even to mention that it's not a solution, it's a warehousing
of a problem. It's as if you cut off your house from the sewage system and
started stockpiling your waste in the garage. Sure, that would work, but for
how long.

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irremediable
Exciting, but too little too late? As I understand it, there's a good chance
we've already doomed ourselves to the necessity of using geoengineering to fix
our climate.

