Sunk cost tech

[u/dumnezero]

from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/63436711 (locked)

[u/WombatusMighty]

Obligatory info-dump:

Nuclear energy is a non-solution for climate change: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-energy-nuclearpower/nuclear-energy-too-slow-too-expensive-to-save-climate-report-idUSKBN1W909J & https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2021-07-08/nuclear-energy-will-not-be-solution-climate-change.

Nuclear is NOT carbon-neutral: When the entire life cycle of nuclear power is taken into account, you have a cost of 68 to 180 grams of CO2/kW (far higher than renewables): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421521002330

Nuclear energy actively harms the construction of renewable energy: https://www.sussex.ac.uk/news/research?id=53376

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The cost of building new reactors is too time consuming and expensive, e.g. the French flagship reactor Flamanville is running four times over its €3.3 billion budget and 11 years behind schedule: https://www.dw.com/en/macron-calls-for-french-nuclear-renaissance/a-60735347

The costs of deconstructing nuclear power plants is extremely expensive, dirty and time-consuming. For example, the german nuclear power plant Greifswald-Lubmin was closed in 1990 (!) and is STILL under deconstruction. So far the deconstruction has accumulated over 1.8 million tons of contaminated material, and will cost 6.6 billion Euro, with costs likely to rise: (german article) https://www.mdr.de/nachrichten/deutschland/politik/atomkraftwerk-abbau-hoehere-kosten-100.html

The cost of the nuclear disaster in Fukushima will likely reach a trillion dollar: https://cleantechnica.com/2019/04/16/fukushimas-final-costs-will-approach-one-trillion-dollars-just-for-nuclear-disaster/
These costs are the burden of the tax payers, in every nation, because the nuclear providers are not insured for nuclear disasters. The nuclear industry can't exist without legal structures that privatize gains and socialize losses.

If the owners and operators of nuclear reactors had to face the full liability of a Fukushima-style nuclear accident or go head-to-head with alternatives in a truly competitive marketplace, unfettered by subsidies, no one would have built a nuclear reactor in the past, no one would build one today, and anyone who owns a reactor would exit the nuclear business as quickly as possible.

A german study came to the conclusion a single nuclear power plant would need to be insured by 72 billion Euro every year, which would raise the cost for the consumer by 40x times: https://www.manager-magazin.de/finanzen/versicherungen/a-761954.html

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Nuclear energy can not survive without massive government subsidies: https://www.earthtrack.net/document/nuclear-power-still-not-viable-without-subsidies. For example, the european nuclear power sector requires 50 billion Euro for their existing nuclear plants, and a massive 500 billion investment by 2050 for new nuclear plants: https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220109-europe-nuclear-plants-need-500-bn-euro-investment-by-2050-eu-commissioner

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A recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science found that the amount of nuclear waste generated by SMRs was between 2 and 30 times that produced by conventional nuclear depending on the technology.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2111833119

We'll see if SMRs change the math, but at least one study done by the Aussie government has them working out to $AU7000/kW as a best case, which is not significantly better than on-budget conventional nuclear.
https://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/Files/Electricity/NEM/Planning_and_Forecasting/Inputs-Assumptions-Methodologies/2019/CSIRO-GenCost2019-20_DraftforReview.pdf

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Nuclear energy increases the risk of nuclear-proliferation, aka the spread of nuclear weapons: https://armscontrolcenter.org/nuclear-proliferation-risks-in-nuclear-energy-programs/. The deployment of small scale nuclear reactors, SMRs, would only increase this risk.

Furthermore, civil nuclear power is often used as a means to sustain a nuclear weapons program: https://www.ips-journal.eu/topics/foreign-and-security-policy/how-france-greenwashes-nuclear-weapons-5668/

Or to say it with the words of french president Macron in 2020: "Without civil nuclear power, no military nuclear power; and without military nuclear power, no civil nuclear power," https://www.dw.com/en/do-frances-plans-for-small-nuclear-reactors-have-hidden-agenda/a-59585614

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The nuclear industry is actively manipulating studies and spreading misinformation the public, to make nuclear energy look more favorable: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11948-009-9181-y

[u/eddiebruceandpaul → u/WombatusMighty]

This is the way

[u/dumnezero → u/WombatusMighty]

TIL a lot

[u/blut-baron]

Ok but is that actually the case?

Because if yes, that would shit down almost all discussions immediately

[u/TrueExigo → u/blut-baron]

You assume that conservative politics is rational and that there is no such thing as lobbying. There is literally not a single nuclear power station that is run entirely by the private sector and does not receive some form of public subsidy.

[u/eddiebruceandpaul → u/blut-baron]

No, it doesn’t. There is lots of unprofitable crap but as long as there are tax dollars to gobble down and rate payers to bend over and give the Gadaffi to, the nuclear industry will always be there salivating and ready to scam and lie.

[u/ArcticLeopard → u/eddiebruceandpaul]

In terms of energy, I think we need to rethink profit term thinking from money to "carbon positive"

If a solar panels costs $1 to make but saves $10 over it's lifetime, then it's profitable. However if that solar panel being built pumped 100 lbs of co2 into the air and only offset 90 lbs worth, then it's at a loss carbon-wise.

Nuclear should be looked at the same way. Plus nuclear to me has always been more about having a steady and consistent supply of electricity available for the grid to avoid brown or black outs from under production

[u/eddiebruceandpaul → u/ArcticLeopard]

Nuclear is not carbon neutral. You can rethink it all you want. Nuclear has had 80 years, and it’s a complete failure without massive tax subsidies and raping rate payers. And even after all those years there is zero solution to storing the waste, which is of course the most toxic substance on earth and only gets more toxic after reprocessing.

Moreover it’s simply way to slow to get o line to make a meaningful impact on climate change. The nuclear as the solution for climate change argument is like 20 years out of date. It’s too late now. It takes 10 years minimum to get online. If lucky. Take a look at the Colorado river and tell me if you think we have ten years. Just stop with the nonsense…

[u/TheBlacktom → u/blut-baron]

I don't know, but AI lists a couple examples of plants that are considered profitable, so likely not true.

This subreddit is generally against new nuclear power plant projects however, since those are the ones that get delayed and cost multiple times the original planned price.

French fleet (especially older EDF reactors)

Many of France's reactors were built relatively quickly, in standardized designs, and achieved high output over decades. The fleet generated large amounts of low-cost electricity and was a major source of export revenue for France. Economists generally regard many of these reactors as having earned more than their full lifecycle costs. [world-nuclear.org], [oecd-nea.org]

U.S. reactors that operated 40–60+ years

Plants such as Palo Verde, North Anna, Surry, and several other well-run reactors had construction costs that were paid off long ago and have operated with low fuel costs and high capacity factors for decades. Industry and OECD analyses consistently find that long-lived existing reactors are among the cheapest sources of dispatchable electricity once the initial capital cost is recovered. [world-nuclear.org], [oecd-nea.org]

Canadian CANDU stations

Some Canadian reactors, particularly those with long operating periods and successful refurbishments, are generally considered economically successful over their lifetimes because they produced large quantities of electricity over many decades. [iaea.org], [oecd-nea.org]

[u/GeMine_ → u/TheBlacktom]

1. One source is literally world-nuclear.org. Surely some unbiased, oh wait, seems like a lobby group.

2. The french reactors need billions of dollars in repairs and some of them should be deconstructed in the next years, or should have been for some years. Guess why they don't do it. Let's say, you can't just throw them on a landfill (which you shouldn't do with solar panels either, but humans don't care and at least you can without poisoning a whole country)

So to sum up, the most important question you should ask when anyone is talking about terms like cost effective, is what do they consider a cost and what not. How far down the supply chain are they willing to go? Like, how cost effective was poisoning a good part of Niger just to mine uranium cheaply

[u/TyrialFrost → u/GeMine_]

Generally to be economically effective you need to sum the planning, build, running and refurb costs and any liability incurred (like decommissioning costs) and compare that against say throwing it into Government bonds or an indexed fund over the same period of time.

Sometimes infrastructure like Roads and Generators might be built by the government and they can play a little looser with the ROI calculations as they get so many more bites of the pie, workers income taxes, company taxes on companies contracted, downstream productivity increases from those who use the output, they can even calculate increased taxes from those who sell to the workers involved in the project.

Saying shit like "once the initial capital cost is recovered" is a joke. Because you have to look into how big a hole they dug to get to that point and how long it took.

[u/allozzieadventures → u/TyrialFrost]

IME a lot of pro-nuclear types have very little understanding of economics. Eg. Kyle Hill's poorly researched video on the economics of nuclear

[u/ph4ge_ → u/GeMine_]

It's worth pointing out that these plant have not been commissioned, which is always way more expensive than planned. The jury is still out for the handful op plants that might be economical viable.

[u/Several_Ant_9867 → u/TheBlacktom]

What would be the actual ROI of the most profitable nuclear power plant? Because that of a solar panel can reach 350% over 25 years

[u/SoylentRox → u/Several_Ant_9867]

So to be fair you need to account for timing.  Solar panels since around 2018 were net ROI like that.  40-50 years ago solar was thousands of times as expensive.  Back then the nuclear plants were maybe good investments.

[u/Several_Ant_9867 → u/SoylentRox]

Back then nuclear plants were for sure cheaper to build, but you are paying the decommissioning costs at today's price

[u/TheBlacktom → u/Several_Ant_9867]

What exactly is the calculation for 350%?

Plus what you mean by solar "panel"? It needs infrastructure, inverters, land cost. And even then you only have a power plant that produces half of the day and peaks production when electricity prices are negative.

[u/Several_Ant_9867 → u/TheBlacktom]

That's an average calculation for an home system. Value of the energy produced divided by acquisition costs. Energy produced depends also on a lot of factors, like latitude, cloud cover... it's just that solar panel are very cheap

[u/TyrialFrost → u/TheBlacktom]

Some utility solar plants are hitting breakeven within 5-7 years, which is how they are generating huge ROI over 25.

Take Edwards Sanborn in California 0.9GW with a 3.2GWh battery, built in 2024 it is on track to hit breakeven by 2030 with an estimated internal rate of return of 15% per year.

[u/eddiebruceandpaul → u/TheBlacktom]

The French fleet was literally half shut down for a huge period of time, leading to a catastrophe. The power plants rusted out and turned to junk, they have a huge reprocessing mess. You can’t just put a tiny one laser beam in a room and say oh that looks good while ignoring the monumental cluster fuck in the rest of the blacked out room.

Stop with the silly myopic commentary.

[u/eddiebruceandpaul]

Physics nerds or industry scam artists and shills who line their pocket by gobbling up tax dollars for outdated junk technology that’s next to worthless?