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Well yeah, it’s a service. Expecting profit from necessary services is stupid and counter-productive but it makes a few people rich so of course it happens then you get memes like this.
Efficient use of resources still matters in a service-driven model.
The service in this case is to provide electricity - if other alternatives can provide the same system of electricity while using less resources in the process, then it is clearly preferable.
Externalized costs are a thing though. For instance, a coal plant spewing smoke (and radiation) costs everyone else money. A nuclear plant OTOH is usually responsible for dealing with all of its own shit. So it’s not always an apples to apples comparison to consider just the profitability of a project.
Absolutely. I don’t know that anyone is arguing for coal, except for Trump, but he’s also completely deranged.
Wind and solar have very little externalities, however. I’d even call their externalities trivial.
It sure isn’t apples to apples, but it’s also not like nuclear plants actually dealt with their waste
Are you talking about current nuclear plants or the first generation ones built in the 50’s. Because that’s like using steam train safety to negate the use of modern trains.
Oh, I must’ve missed the point where nuclear plants started turning their fuel into mere satisfaction. Good thing the waste from the 50s is still around, I’m sure they can take care of it!
The things are very much run as private companies under the pretense of being profitable. The whole purpose of nukes (other than providing weapons grade material) is shoveling public money into private pockets.
If you ever need firefighters make sure you ONLY go to a profitable firehouse, or you’ll be a huge hypocrite. Either that or stupid.
Also make sure you ONLY drive on profitable roads, and ONLY use private delivery services. And ONLY during the day because of streetlights.
A public service should be a public service, not profitable from the basic level.
why is there such a negative sentiment towards nuclear power? was it all oil and gas propaganda? or is there some truth
Chernobyl, Fukushima, 3 Mile Island. Plus uranium is another non-renewable resource.
I’m still pro nuke as getting off fossil fuels is of the utmost urgency, but we will have to learn to live off wind and solar.
Ideally we figure out some sweet Nuclear Fusion.
Having become a carbon neutral economy a couple years ago since we obviously adhere to the Paris agreement this does not seem like a good solution as we already (would have to have) deployed solutions based on current technology.
Agree that we can get to carbon neutral / carbon negative with current tech.
I do think making plans based on having it are foolish at best.
But I do think we need to keep working on research of it. If we ever hope to achieve a world with “electricity too cheap to meter”, nuclear fusion is the key to it. (That and dyson spheres, but that’s kinda not in scope of discussion).
Ah yes, the Fusion Reactors that are coming soon ™ (promised decades ago).
We need energy now, not at some unknown point in the future. Of course, resaeching this technology may make sense. But it does not help today and also not the next 20 years.
Yeah, putting your hopes / goals on a fusion powered future is foolish at this point.
But I def support (lots of) research into it.
There are new kinds of nuclear power plants based on safe Torum instead of uranium, Torum is more abundant, easy to manipulate and “non explosive” china has many reactors with this technology, meanwhile people in the west world is still deciding their gender.
Thorium
First of all. I’m against nuclear power plants.
But. This right here, is a weird argument against it. I would even say, its no argument against it at all. We should not produce anything with the focus to make a profit. We should produce to meet needs. I would say that for the entire industry.
And even if you’re not for a democratic industry that is owned by the people, you should at least see that there are some services where it just makes even less sense to look for profit. For example energy production, healthcare, public transport or the food industry. These are all fundamental services that just need to work. They should never have to focus on generating a profit. Even many liberals have realised this.
Public services (or even non-profit private organizations) still need to manage their resources efficiently. If the output of the service (number of meals fed to people, kilowatt hours produced, houses built, lives saved, passenger kilometers transported) is much smaller on a per dollar basis than comparable services, without good reason, then that organization is mismanaging resources.
Plenty of public services can and do break even, or bring in more than they cost.
Money is, in many ways, fake. But its accounting represents something real, in the real resources involved: land, human labor, physical materials like concrete and steel and copper that need to be turned into very complex equipment that require highly trained workers to operate and maintain.
So when a project doesn’t break even, it’s worth asking whether the project is still worthwhile, whether the external benefits outweigh the localized costs. I don’t think modern nuclear passes that test (even if I believe that already-constructed nuclear should be extended as long as possible and operated at as close to full capacity as possible, because those up-front costs are already sunk).
“Doesn’t make a profit” doesn’t mean “is run inefficiently”. It doesn’t even mean “doesn’t generate excess value”. It just means excess value is reinvested into the system, like the US Post Office. It never makes money, never has made any money, has always either saved or reinvested the money left over on the balance sheet at the end of the year.
Yes, the specific accounting rules make the line between “profit” and “loss” fuzzy at times, but however you slice it, nuclear power costs a lot of resources for the amount of electricity that it produces. The money represents an opportunity cost of engineering effort and concrete and steel and equipment manufacturing and mining that could have been steered towards other types of projects.
I’m agnostic towards the technology itself, but the economics of nuclear power just don’t make sense in the current environment, where we know that any new plants will get undercut by technologies that are already on the market today (solar+wind+batteries), technologies right around the corner (advanced geothermal), and even technologies that might be commercialized (fusion) within the 50-80 year lifespan of any new fission plant. That’s the competition, and I don’t think new nuclear plants are gonna be able to compete with those other technologies on cost.
Is this true? Because Holy shit this would be hilarious if it was.
You can cherry pick the numbers to show whatever you like.
Wikipedia has an article on the economics of nuclear power. To summarize: it’s expensive upfront. If you look at it from a pure commercial enterprise it’s not really worth it. If you look at it as decarbonizing the future it’s better.
Solar and wind is cheaper, but intermittent and it’s a question if we can wait for grid scale energy storage being viable before we cook ourselves.
it’s a question if we can wait for grid scale energy storage being viable before we cook ourselves.
Given the average time to build one single nuclear power plant, you should consider whether we have time to finish construction of one before we cook ourselves.
Cheaper is the definition of better. Power is a fungible good. Price is what matters. And it’s not like they include the cost of waste handling in the price of nuclear energy. For simplicity it is easiest to assume it free. And it’s not like it would change the result of the calculus.
A low maximum price is a better measurement of what is good.
We had 6 consecutive weeks of country wide harsh winter temperatures this year. Suddenly the fact that electricity was almost free and occasionally negative spot price during summer was irrelevant.
Even if this were true, would that be important nowadays? If it can push out climate change and make it into a problem to solve later (in case of fission). Fusion would be great though
It can’t. It takes WAY too long to build, and for what it is the whole work isn’t worth it.
The volume of renewables and batteries (Incl. Sodium-Ion, great tech for the grid) we can produce outpaces nuclear by a long shot, is safer, cleaner, available quicker, easier to install, easier to regulate (once the batteries are up, it’s a combo deal) and especially more “for the people” (you can carry and install smaller units of solar and wind anywhere).
I also thought nuclear (fission) made somewhat sense a few years ago, but it really doesn’t in any way shape or form. Countries who’re dead-set on nuclear such as France are already running into SO mamy problems. They’re building a huge financial pile of shit for the current and next generation to be fucked over by.
From Wikipedia
In 2019, the US EIA revised the levelized cost of electricity from new advanced nuclear power plants going online in 2023 to be $0.0775/kWh before government subsidies, using a regulated industry 4.3% cost of capital (WACC - pre-tax 6.6%) over a 30-year cost recovery period.[63] Financial firm Lazard also updated its levelized cost of electricity report costing new nuclear at between $0.118/kWh and $0.192/kWh using a commercial 7.7% cost of capital (WACC - pre-tax 12% cost for the higher-risk 40% equity finance and 8% cost for the 60% loan finance) over a 40-year lifetime.[64]
The article discusses why that number is probably flawed and relies on cherry picked data, but it seems somewhat close to profitability. Assuming theyre above with a cost of electricity of ~$0.20/kWh (already cheaper than some of US) should be viable, yeah?
Assuming theyre above with a cost of electricity of ~$0.20/kWh
Can we assume that, after factoring in the actual portion that the accounting says goes to the power plant itself? The economics of utility scale electricity includes both generation and transmission, so you can’t just take that retail price and assume it all goes to the power plant that produced the electricity.
Wholesale prices tend to stay below 10 cents in most parts of the country, although it sometimes spikes when grids are under strain. I think that’s probably a more fair assumption of how much the power plants themselves are paid for their production.
