0.16 Energy: nuclear power  (Page 3/3)

Do you understand these risks somewhat better now – after the Japan Earthquake – Tsunami – Nuclear Accident.

Just how large the U.S. insurance subsidy has been to U.S. nuclear power firms?

• The "fallout" from even one partial melt-down of a reactor could be tens of billions in liabilities. Consider the insurance premiums. Very high premiums are needed on a $10 billion policy to cover the risk of a nuclear accident.
• When the government limits liability of nuclear firms to say $50 million, this subsidy can be very large. But in U.S., the subsidy was never known by public, until about 1984.

Obituaries for nuclear power have been common especially since the Japanese earthquake and Tsunami in 2012. Some nations announced an end to reliance on nuclear power:

Nuclear power in emerging nations

Some new reactors have capacity as large as 1,700 megawatts.

• But, although nuclear obituaries are being written now in rich nations, many emerging nations have recently installed nuclear capacity and have plans for more.
• In 2010, there were 53 new reactors under construction worldwide.
• By 2011, only 1/8 of nuclear power plants were in emerging nations, mostly in China and India.
• Many emerging nations have explored nuclear power options. But few can afford the price tag for a typical nuclear power station. Typical Systems; These are usually large 650 to 1000 megawatts of installed capacity – costs run between $7 billion to $10 billion each.
• But there are 16 larger emerging nations that now have applications pending before the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency). These include Algeria, Chile, Egypt, Malaysia, Philippines, and Thailand.
• The likely future for nuclear power will involve some large nuclear power plants for the larger emerging nations. But elsewhere, the future for nuclear power in emerging nations may be in new reactor designs – modular designs, that downsize nuclear power plants: for example Nuclear power plants the size of railroad cars. Most of these nuclear plants range between 125 megawatts to 140 megawatts or about 1/8 the size of a typical 1000 MW reactors now in use in many nations. However, Westinghouse is developing a 335 MW reactor. These reactors are not only small, but some are portable , and of course the small plants are much more affordable to small emerging nations.
• Also if governments do subsidize the risks the small reactors can produce affordable power . Why? While small reactors lose economies of scale, relative to 1,000 MW reactors, they involve much lower capital costs than the bigger plants. Also they have much shorter construction times
• It is important to understand that up-front capital costs are the most significant in building regular size nuclear power plants.
• The regular size nuclear power plants are among the most capital-intense of all investments. Most of these capital costs are construction costs that extend over a decade involving immense volumes of concrete, piping, metal etc. These building costs are called “overnight” costs. For larger (e.g. 650 MW or more) nuclear power plant, the overnight costs account for up to 2/3 of the costs of supplying power. And overnight costs for regular size nuclear plants are: Double that for coal plants and four times that of natural gas-powered plants.
• Small modular reactors are also safer than larger plants. Why? They have fewer moving parts that can fail. Also, the nuclear reactors in the modular reactors operate at much lower temperatures than regular large reactors.
• Nuclear power in emerging nations should not be written-off for good. To summarize the new, modular reactors feature:
  1. Affordable capital costs – between $500 million to $750 million
  2. Affordable electric power – because of much lower capital costs, much shorter time of construction
  3. Safer – for reasons we discuss below
  4. They involve fewer Back End problems – waste storage and disposal (can store the smaller quantity of waste on site for 60 years at least).

Final Note on Nuclear

Some believe that if we ever have reasonable carbon taxes, nuclear will bloom. Before any country gets too enthusiastic about nuclear power need to consider further points that are almost never considered in decision about building and operating nuclear power plants, especially typical 1,000 MW (or larger).

Decommissioning costs

What to do with an old reactor that has outlived its useful life? Huge problem of disassembly and disposal of contaminated materials. Done correctly decommissioning would easily cost nearly $1 billion per plant .

So governments in 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s "kicked this car down the road", as governments are prone to do. For example, left this problem and the heavy costs to the next generation.

On that note it is appropriate that we close the semester. Governments everywhere, when faced with looming economic threats, tend strongly to “kick the car down the road”. We have in very recent years seen this as governments everywhere (including the U.S.) have kicked the car down the road on

• Social security insolvency
• Climate change
• Water resources
• Growing budget deficit
• Growing government debt
• Government pension liabilities
• Failing education system

The task for good economies is to try to make sure that the public is aware of the liabilities that being placed on future generations, who have no voice in the matter at all.