Three Mile Island closes for good(cbsnews.com)
cbsnews.com
Three Mile Island closes for good
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/three-mile-island-unit-1-closes-for-good/
6 comments
Do you really think that "nuclear can... be profitable" if the operators have to pay insurance premiums against the possibility of catastrophic failure?
What about paying to store the (albeit small amount of) long lived waste? What is the cost of permanently, and safely, storing a tonne of very poisonous material for hundreds of thousands of years? And do not say " deep-geologic placement" as there is no geological structure that we know of that is stable and seperated from the biosphere for those periods.
Nuclear power is socialising extraordinary risk and making future generations pay for today's energy.
Yes it can be profitable. But never moral
What about paying to store the (albeit small amount of) long lived waste? What is the cost of permanently, and safely, storing a tonne of very poisonous material for hundreds of thousands of years? And do not say " deep-geologic placement" as there is no geological structure that we know of that is stable and seperated from the biosphere for those periods.
Nuclear power is socialising extraordinary risk and making future generations pay for today's energy.
Yes it can be profitable. But never moral
> Yes it can be profitable. But never moral
Without comparing it to the morality of the alternatives, it's not really fair to say that.
The only other large power sources in existence today that are reliable and sufficient to meet demands are fossil fuels. Burning them has been demonstrated time and time again to shorten the lives of the millions who have to live near the pollution. Not to mention climate change, which is happening as a result of CO2 emissions.
Solar and wind are cheaper, but not reliable. You need to either have massive energy storage- whose cost to build would greatly exceed nuclear plants- or else additional fossil fuel plants to handle the fluctuations.
> if the operators have to pay insurance premiums against the possibility of catastrophic failure?
Nuclear in Ontario uses CANDU[0] reactors- a design which has never had any disasters. Insurance against catastrophic failure wouldn't be expensive given all of the long-proven safety features built in, and strong engineering regulations around operations.
> What is the cost of permanently, and safely, storing a tonne of very poisonous material for hundreds of thousands of years?
Cheaper than the costs to society for the thousands/millions of premature deaths each year from pollution and hundreds of millions who are going to be displaced from climate change. And worth pointing out as well that the CANDU design is versatile enough to be able to use the waste of some other reactor types or dismantled nuclear weapons as fuel.
It's all about context, is my point. And in the context of the world today, nuclear is (imho) the best choice as the baseline power generation system.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor
Without comparing it to the morality of the alternatives, it's not really fair to say that.
The only other large power sources in existence today that are reliable and sufficient to meet demands are fossil fuels. Burning them has been demonstrated time and time again to shorten the lives of the millions who have to live near the pollution. Not to mention climate change, which is happening as a result of CO2 emissions.
Solar and wind are cheaper, but not reliable. You need to either have massive energy storage- whose cost to build would greatly exceed nuclear plants- or else additional fossil fuel plants to handle the fluctuations.
> if the operators have to pay insurance premiums against the possibility of catastrophic failure?
Nuclear in Ontario uses CANDU[0] reactors- a design which has never had any disasters. Insurance against catastrophic failure wouldn't be expensive given all of the long-proven safety features built in, and strong engineering regulations around operations.
> What is the cost of permanently, and safely, storing a tonne of very poisonous material for hundreds of thousands of years?
Cheaper than the costs to society for the thousands/millions of premature deaths each year from pollution and hundreds of millions who are going to be displaced from climate change. And worth pointing out as well that the CANDU design is versatile enough to be able to use the waste of some other reactor types or dismantled nuclear weapons as fuel.
It's all about context, is my point. And in the context of the world today, nuclear is (imho) the best choice as the baseline power generation system.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor
Nuclear is about the safest power source mankind has. Most research looks like this https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-d...
And more modern designs than most countries use are much safer than the ones in the link.
And more modern designs than most countries use are much safer than the ones in the link.
It's safe in terms of deaths, but most power sources' failure modes don't include "render a large area uninhabitable for a century".
Have you looked at Hiroshima on google maps?
This is where the detonation occurred
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Hiroshima+Atomic+Bomb+Hypo...
It's not particularly relevant, but I thought it was interesting seeing the people living so close to the site of a nuclear detonation.
This is where the detonation occurred
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Hiroshima+Atomic+Bomb+Hypo...
It's not particularly relevant, but I thought it was interesting seeing the people living so close to the site of a nuclear detonation.
And they never have been able to keep people from staying in, or moving back into, the area around Chernobyl.
There's an interesting documentary, "The Babushkas of Chernobyl" about some women who refused to leave.
There's an interesting documentary, "The Babushkas of Chernobyl" about some women who refused to leave.
Meanwhile NGOs like the http://www.hilfe-tschernobyl.de/ fund the removal of tumours of kids from Belarus who suffer due to the accident and support local hospitals and hospices where victims are being treated or live their last days.
>tumours of kids from Belarus who suffer due to the accident
Sounds like bullshit to me. There's no way to tell if it's due to the accident, and the statistics of such cases are not conclusive. And of course it's a German organization, which is a country known to be irrationally anti-nuclear, burning brown coal just to offset the closed nukes which had zero impact on the environment.
Sounds like bullshit to me. There's no way to tell if it's due to the accident, and the statistics of such cases are not conclusive. And of course it's a German organization, which is a country known to be irrationally anti-nuclear, burning brown coal just to offset the closed nukes which had zero impact on the environment.
> but most power sources' failure modes don't include "render a large area uninhabitable for a century".
Large scale hydro is probably the closest to nuclear in this respect.
And is notable because it's success mode also does something similar.
(Of course, the “success” mode of fossil fuel power renders the whole planet uninhabitable, but not from a single average-size generating station.)
Large scale hydro is probably the closest to nuclear in this respect.
And is notable because it's success mode also does something similar.
(Of course, the “success” mode of fossil fuel power renders the whole planet uninhabitable, but not from a single average-size generating station.)
> "render a large area uninhabitable for a century".
I've never really understood this argument. Even if we set aside 1000 square miles of land for waste disposal, that's a rounding error in the amount of uninhabitable land on the planet. It's probably even a rounding error in land that has been made uninhabitable by humans for similarly long time spans.
I've never really understood this argument. Even if we set aside 1000 square miles of land for waste disposal, that's a rounding error in the amount of uninhabitable land on the planet. It's probably even a rounding error in land that has been made uninhabitable by humans for similarly long time spans.
Not waste disposal, nuclear disasters.
I think the waste problem is awkward but far from a dealbreaker for nuclear energy, especially with breeder reactors and other more efficient designs.
The problem is that even though nuclear reactors work the overwhelming majority of the time, such that disasters are practically a rounding error, when they happen they're rather spectacular.
I think the waste problem is awkward but far from a dealbreaker for nuclear energy, especially with breeder reactors and other more efficient designs.
The problem is that even though nuclear reactors work the overwhelming majority of the time, such that disasters are practically a rounding error, when they happen they're rather spectacular.
The most spectacular one so far won’t render a place uninhabitable for a century, and it’s a terribly old design.
Where is the evidence of your century of uninhabitable failure mode going forward?
Where is the evidence of your century of uninhabitable failure mode going forward?
How about all the uninhabitable land from other power sources? There’s plenty of Superfund sites from traditional power generation.
If you’re going to criticize, be sure to apply the same standard to all methods.
When you dig into it carefully, you’ll find nuclear to be one of the cleanest, safest solutions, taking into account cost to build and externalities, cost for waste, lifetime of the plant, etc.
And modern designs don’t render a place dangerous after failure. That’s 1950 talking, not 2019. Google nuclear reactor safety and read about it. You’ll be surprised.
It’s not the terror so many associate with the word nuclear.
If you’re going to criticize, be sure to apply the same standard to all methods.
When you dig into it carefully, you’ll find nuclear to be one of the cleanest, safest solutions, taking into account cost to build and externalities, cost for waste, lifetime of the plant, etc.
And modern designs don’t render a place dangerous after failure. That’s 1950 talking, not 2019. Google nuclear reactor safety and read about it. You’ll be surprised.
It’s not the terror so many associate with the word nuclear.
oh, and i forgot, the worst part of nuclear power is the fans.
And by subsidizing the heck out of it. Oh, and by not buying any more when recently it came in at 3x the cost of other energy options (after which they sold the Candu IP to a private firm for $15M).
https://www.thestar.com/business/2009/07/14/26b_cost_killed_...
https://www.thestar.com/business/2009/07/14/26b_cost_killed_...
Demand can also be broken up into those same categories.
You can also store energy in various ways and change demand by large consumers.
You need a lot of ways to store energy, is the problem.
Consider the Hornsdale Power Reserve- the big set of Tesla batteries in Australia that everyone uses as an example of storage working. Very successful project. Storage for 129 MWh of energy.
Ontario's baseline need for energy, at the dead of night, is 11GW. This means you would need 85 of those facilities to handle just one hour where there's no wind (nor sunlight, given it's night time). In the winter, we have 15 hours of night per day in this province, so we need nearly 1300 of those facilities. And that's very dense energy storage.
Others have proposed pumped-water, which is actually a great fit given the number of dams we have, but is a problematic choice during times of drought when there's simply no water to pump (which are more and more common because of climate change). This is made worse when drought correlates with hot days when everyone wants to use their air conditioner.
To me, the ideal solution is a baseline of nuclear, along with solar + wind + batteries.
Consider the Hornsdale Power Reserve- the big set of Tesla batteries in Australia that everyone uses as an example of storage working. Very successful project. Storage for 129 MWh of energy.
Ontario's baseline need for energy, at the dead of night, is 11GW. This means you would need 85 of those facilities to handle just one hour where there's no wind (nor sunlight, given it's night time). In the winter, we have 15 hours of night per day in this province, so we need nearly 1300 of those facilities. And that's very dense energy storage.
Others have proposed pumped-water, which is actually a great fit given the number of dams we have, but is a problematic choice during times of drought when there's simply no water to pump (which are more and more common because of climate change). This is made worse when drought correlates with hot days when everyone wants to use their air conditioner.
To me, the ideal solution is a baseline of nuclear, along with solar + wind + batteries.
I was studying nuclear engineering in Finland in 2011, and by reading BP's Statistical Report on World Energy I came to a conclusion which dismissed the reason that I had opted to go into the energy sector: the belief that we are running out of fossil fuels. The specific numbers that convinced me that there was no shortage in fossil fuels was the known oil reserves vs time and consumption vs time. In the 25 years from 1985 to 2010 humanity was discovering oil reserves faster than we were increasing production! This ran counter to the narrative of Peak Oil at the time (noticed how no one talks about that anymore?)
I only saw part of the picture, though. I didn't spot the revolution in natural gas extraction that was occurring and which is the interesting part of this story: nuclear power can't compete with natural gas! The prices of fossil fuels are simply too low.
This makes me happy that I chose a career in programming and crypto currency instead of trying to solve a problem that wasn't there.
I only saw part of the picture, though. I didn't spot the revolution in natural gas extraction that was occurring and which is the interesting part of this story: nuclear power can't compete with natural gas! The prices of fossil fuels are simply too low.
This makes me happy that I chose a career in programming and crypto currency instead of trying to solve a problem that wasn't there.
There are plenty of fossil fuels available. Far too much. If we burn it all, or even a decent fraction of it all, we’ll wreck the world. We must leave the vast majority of it in the ground.
We’d be much better off if, in fact, we were running out.
We’d be much better off if, in fact, we were running out.
Oil, gas and coal are all quite different beasts. Oil is the scarcest, and is still running out (hence looking at more expensive fields in remote places, and tar sands). Gas has only recently (last couple of decades) been 'tamed' (i.e. capable of being stored and transported long distances). I have no idea what gas reserves are like. There is _heaps_ of coal. Which is the problem for climate change. And that's also why no-one talks about peak oil anymore.
Oil will never run out in our lifetime. The green River formation in the us alone has 3 trillion barrels worth of shale oil with half expected to be recoverable. At 100 million barrels of oil usage per day for the globe, it could support the world's oil usage by itself for over 40 years. Factor in all of the other resources, and it will be a long time before we run out.
The other reason that nuclear can't compete with natural gas is that combustion turbines are just inherently cheaper than systems based on steam turbines.
Steam turbines requires at least two systems to transfer heat across solid/fluid boundaries. In a coal burning power plant, these are the boiler (where heat is transferred from the hot combustion gases to the water/steam) and the condenser (where waste heat is transferred from the low pressure steam to the cooling water). PWRs have three such boundaries (fuel rods, steam generator, condenser).
In constrast, simple cycle combustion turbines requires no transfer of energy across solid/fluid interfaces. Combined cycle plants do, but for only 1/3 of their output. As a result, the power density of a combustion turbine based power plant can be very high.
Steam turbines requires at least two systems to transfer heat across solid/fluid boundaries. In a coal burning power plant, these are the boiler (where heat is transferred from the hot combustion gases to the water/steam) and the condenser (where waste heat is transferred from the low pressure steam to the cooling water). PWRs have three such boundaries (fuel rods, steam generator, condenser).
In constrast, simple cycle combustion turbines requires no transfer of energy across solid/fluid interfaces. Combined cycle plants do, but for only 1/3 of their output. As a result, the power density of a combustion turbine based power plant can be very high.
Replaced by natural gas? Excuse me, I’ll just go cry in a corner.
Vote for people who want to ban fracking. Buy renewables with your power bill (no way to specify nuclear unfortunately); it’s usually very little more per kWh, check with your utility. If you can, run for office.
Vote for Bernie and Warren who want to close all nuclear plants? Which inevitably lead to rise of carbon emissions in every single country doing that.
Nuclear is end of life, full stop. Would I love to stall it from happening? Sure, but the economics of renewables are going to steamroll nuclear, natural gas, and coal regardless (doesn’t even need to be baseload when you overbuild renewables and simply curtail when you have excess power).
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I just looked and it will add ~$3 to my electric bill to only use wind and solar. Thanks for the tip.
Happy to help.
People worried about rising CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere should note that gas is not just out competing nuclear power but also coal which emits twice the amount of CO2 per energy unit produced. All in all it is probably a net positive wrt. decreasing CO2 emissions.
The massive natural gas boom has increased US methane emissions. Given methane’s vastly increased greenhouse potency (albeit for a shorter time) it may be possible that the big switch we are seeing to gas isn’t actually an improvement. I’d like to see something that takes these methane emissions of the fracking, extraction, shipping, storing into account when comparing natural gas to coal.
This is not accurate. US methane emissions have fallen, even as natural gas production has increased. From 1990 to 2017, total emissions of methane decreased by 15.8 percent. https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2019-04/documents... See page 2-2.
There are a lot of articles around about how the natural gas boom is releasing methane. So unless that’s all untrue then it’s fair to say it’s increased our emissions. We would have had lower methane emissions if we hadn’t started the shale gas boom and big switch from coal.
So in evaluating coal vs natural gas in the US we commonly see the number quoted that it released 50% less CO2 at the pipe. But we never see the amount of methane included that otherwise wouldn’t be released. I would like to see something that compares the total effect of all greenhouse gases from coal vs natural gas not just the CO2 number. Gas may still be better. But it just obviously wouldn’t be the 50% that everyone loves to quote.
So in evaluating coal vs natural gas in the US we commonly see the number quoted that it released 50% less CO2 at the pipe. But we never see the amount of methane included that otherwise wouldn’t be released. I would like to see something that compares the total effect of all greenhouse gases from coal vs natural gas not just the CO2 number. Gas may still be better. But it just obviously wouldn’t be the 50% that everyone loves to quote.
I agree it is a positive for gas to supplant coal (at least simplistically, from a pure plant emissions perspective). It's the lesser of those two evils. But we've still got to cease use of gas for electricity at some point.
However, it's not a net positive for carbon emissions if it replaces nuclear, which is what's described in the article.
However, it's not a net positive for carbon emissions if it replaces nuclear, which is what's described in the article.
Really great talk [0] from RailsConf about some lessons learned from Three Mile Island. Has stuck with me.
0: https://youtu.be/YBRiffheLXE
0: https://youtu.be/YBRiffheLXE
Nuclear is, unfortunately, way too expensive to operate. It's hard enough to keep some existing plants running, let alone build new ones, just based on the economics of it alone.
Solar and wind, meanwhile, are cheap enough that they're being built in massive numbers even without subsidies.
We just need to solve the energy storage gap.
Solar and wind, meanwhile, are cheap enough that they're being built in massive numbers even without subsidies.
We just need to solve the energy storage gap.
"just" might not be the right word here. Electric cars existed in the 1890s but their range was too short. Which is exactly the same problem they have today. The problem of non-existent cheap energy storage has been around for more than a century.
Battery backup seems to mostly be there in terms of daily storage. “1.997 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) for the solar power and 1.3 cents per kWh for the battery.“ https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/07/giant-batteries-and-...
Seasonal issues are more complex and likely involve other sources like Wind/Hydro/etc.
Seasonal issues are more complex and likely involve other sources like Wind/Hydro/etc.
A tremendous amount of progress has been made in battery technology since the 1890s. We're the vast majority of the way there in terms of total progress and development that needs to be made on the technology.
And you can get EVs today that have the same range as petroleum-powered vehicles, which is much, more longer than the average trip. EVs have well over 20X the range they did a century ago, so no, they don't have "exactly the same problem today".
And you can get EVs today that have the same range as petroleum-powered vehicles, which is much, more longer than the average trip. EVs have well over 20X the range they did a century ago, so no, they don't have "exactly the same problem today".
Do you really think there has been no progress making electric cars better? I don't think you've been paying attention.
Why is too expensive to operate? China is still building them. Can’t we develop a standard design to reduce the red tape?
Nuclear had a good run until the Three Mile Island accident.
Nuclear had a good run until the Three Mile Island accident.
I believe the inability of North America to complete the construction of new nuclear plants that have been approved or maintain the existing ones is a symptom of a shortage of competent labor and know how. We can’t organize ourselves to complete a large project. The people with the ability to build or maintain a nuclear plant are pursuing more lucrative careers at FAANG.
"Nuclear had a good run" until you realize that we never solved the long-term radioactive waste problem.
What China is or isn’t building is not a good guideline for infrastructure investment.
It absolutely is. The PRC tends to invest in infrastructure projects for the future, and not for today. That's something western politicians do an awful job of with their 4 year election cycles.
This isn't responsive to the parent comment in any way.
It needs lots of people, and many of the people must be highly trained. This makes it more suitable for low labor cost markets.
Nuclear was having serious cost escalation problems in the US even before the TMI accident.
Nuclear was having serious cost escalation problems in the US even before the TMI accident.
Nuclear costs squat to run. It's all the construction costs you need to amortize over the life of the plant that screw you.
This is not true. Many nuclear plants in the US have been shut down because they cannot cover their operating costs. The plant in this thread is one of them. TMI hadn't been cash flow positive for six years.
The one near me (Seabrook Station) gets taken offline every 18 months for major maintenance. This is actually good for the local economy - because it costs so much money. They bring in workers from all across the country, who spend a lot of their wages at nearby motels etc.
Nuclear had some horrendous accidents before TMI. It’s just that they were military facilities, so it got hushed up. TMI was far from the first, it was just the first that didn’t get the cover of “national security” thrown over it. Look up Windscale, Kyshtym, and SL-1 for some prominent examples.
We can certainly do much better today, though.
We can certainly do much better today, though.
Chinese nuclear engineering sounds like foreshadowing to the next Chernobyl.
Nuclear makes a great "base load" handler actually. It's complementary to solar/wind.
No, nuclear is a poor complement to solar/wind. To complement solar/wind you want a source that has low capital cost and that can be ramped up and down quickly, to fill in gaps. This is pretty much the opposite of what nuclear is.
Except it doesn't, because it's too expensive to operate and not only are new nuclear plants not being built (for economic reasons), but existing ones are being shut down (for economic reasons; see the article).
There is no energy storage gap. The same storage systems that coal and gas fired plants utilize (pumped hydro dams, flywheels, molten salt batteries, etc.) are right there and available for use.
Anyone saying the storage of energy is a problem has not looked at what traditional power generation plants use for power storage after generation.
Anyone saying the storage of energy is a problem has not looked at what traditional power generation plants use for power storage after generation.
There are three types of energy production, as I see it: those that have little control of their production (wind, solar); those that have control of their production but are hard to change (nuclear); and those that can rapidly change their production (fossil fuels, hydro-electric).
Demand, on the other hand, fluctuates based on all the wants and needs of humans. You need a mix of all three.
http://www.ieso.ca/power-data (the supply graph over the last week is the most interesting).
Ontario has made nuclear work by demanding from it what it is absolutely best at: an unchanging, fixed supply of a large amount of electricity. 10.3-10.6 GW at all times for the last week (and probably a lot longer). Wind and solar help, but their inputs are so variable that they can't suffice. Gas and hydro make up the rest because it's easy for them to adjust their production.
Nuclear can work and be profitable, but only as a piece of the puzzle.