I've seen quite a few SMR proposals over the last couple of years and not a single one that dared to address the whole cycle from deployment to eventual decommission as a function of the total revenues - costs to operate. Most of these projects seem to be made to bilk investors or governments rather than to actually produce power. The day Italy produces the first KWh that is net profitable to the operators without counting subsidies I will be highly amazed, and that's assuming they get to operational in the first place.
I agree, I tell everyone who will listen that no country, not Russia, China, Japan, France, USA etc has ever made nuclear power profitable. And you can't blame it on the environmentalists in China and Russia.
That being said, many countries consider it a national security issue not to be held hostage to foreign oil.
> country, not Russia, China, Japan, France, USA
Are you serious when putting France in this list? Nuclear is such a cash cow here that EDF manage to make profits even while being forced by the regulator to sell a big fraction of its nuclear capacity below the operating cost and buying it back to them at market price! (We're talking about a multi-billon subsidies scheme, look for ARENH).
And that is despite (rather legitimate IMHO) regulatory constraints that have no equivalent in any other industry.
technically speaking they don't have to be decomissioned and when they absolutely have to be I believe at that point we will have fusion which is only 10 years away.
That was infact the joke, but surely by the time this would need to be decomissioned we would have fusion power right? Some reactors we operate today are older than the oldest people on the planet!
I remember reading about coal-fired power plants specifically in Poland, which exceed the radioactivity levels for nuclear plants. This because the burnt-off coal contains small amounts of radioactive elements, which form particles and drop off near the flue.
But of course there are no norms for max radioactivity levels at a coal power plant site.
Coal plants spread radioactivity because it concentrates all the radioactive elements naturally found in the coal into ash, much of which then gets released into the air, deposited on surfaces and breathed in, which is extremely harmful.
But if decommissioned properly, most of the ash inside the building can be collected and mixed into soil and bricks at a safe concentration not far above background radiation level.
In a nuclear power plant, there is no release of radioactive materials, but it’s possible for the structure of the reactor and building to absorb radiation and become radioactive themselves, and that’s much harder to deal with.
Steel is not vitrified, only high level nuclear waste - spend nuclear fuel with highly radioactive fission products.
Steel is taken apart and measured, non-activated steel can be melted down and recycled. Activated steel has to go into storage, either low level nuclear or medium level nuclear waste.
The biggest concern for steel is cobalt. During manufacturing steel with very low cobalt content is usually used for nuclear applications, but there is still small amount of cobalt.
In reactor, under neutron radiation, stable cobalt-59 changes to cobalt-60, strong gamma ray emitter with a half-life of 5 years. So neutron activated steel has to storage for at least few decades.
When done not properly, this is a health hazard.
"
Circa 1983, construction was finished of 1700 apartments in Taiwan which were built with steel contaminated with cobalt-60. About 10,000 people occupied these buildings during a 9–20 year period. On average, these people unknowingly received a radiation dose of 0.4 Sv. Some studies have found that this large group did not suffer a higher incidence of cancer mortality, as the linear no-threshold model would predict, but suffered a lower cancer mortality than the general Taiwan public. These observations support the radiation hormesis model, however other studies have found health impacts that confound the results.
"
"
The four low-level waste facilities in the U.S. are Barnwell, South Carolina; Richland, Washington; Clive, Utah; and as of June 2013, Andrews County, Texas.
"
Have a look at this nuclear plant in Northern Germany that is in the process of being decomissioned since 1995. It's still not finished, suspected end date is now in the 2040s and is now projected to cost about 10B €. For a single plant.
<a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernkraftwerk_Greifswald" rel="nofollow">https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernkraftwerk_Greifswald (you have to translate that page yourself, the English version doesn't contain the relevant information)
Yes, a lot of that is just waiting for the active parts to get less 'hot' though. But yes it's incredibly expensive and it's only going to get more so as we start caring more about pollution and proliferation.
Surely that's not because the people in power - the same people who have pushed trhough the decommissioning of these still functioning power plants - are want them to be expensive to decomission because it suits their agenda. Decomissioning costs can always be however high you want them to be but that doesn't mean that they have to be. Worst case you can just encase the whole thing in concrete until radiation levels naturally drop.
Did you honestly just invent a conspiracy about some unnamed people with a hidden agenda of making nuclear look expensive by paying 10B euros for decommissioning a working plant?
Just a suggestion, but alternatively you could also accept that in reality, decomissioning actually is expensive.
It’s not really that much of a stretch to think this is exactly what is going on.
One state in Australia, Victoria, recently disappeared $15 billion of public funds to criminal organisations under the guise of funding a big infrastructure project.
Okay, that’s not entirely accurate. No one knows how much money disappeared, it could be up to $30 billion.
Labor-Green governments do this everywhere.
It’s entirely reasonable to suspect something similar is going on in Germany around their nuclear decommissioning.
I suppose your name ("rightnutwingjob") gives it away but "Did you know crooks exist" isn't actually a proof that grand conspiracies are true.
I saw a DW Planet A documentary about decommissioning a nuclear plant in Germany. They walked around the plant in some safety gear, but with their faces fully exposed and no breathing apparatus. They said the project was decades behind schedule and it was costing ten times as much as expected. The decommissioning process involved spraying water and gels on slightly radioactive materials from the factory to reduce their radioactivity to effectively zero. The process created much more radioactive material than there was in the first place, which then itself had to be dealt with. The cost of decommissioning is determined by the lobbyists for the companies that do the decommissioning. Voters have no idea what decommissioning should cost, and no one will ever question going over budget. It's a great business.
The context is that all german reactors that aren't experimental or soviet are decommissioned on operators money without state financing.
The example of isar is particularly interesting - isar 2 is one of the latest that started decommissioning but is in much more advanced state vs others. Each operator does it as they wish. If you wait a bit more, rad levels drop so it's easier to decommission with less specialized equipment
Just declare that LNT is wrong and treat materials as non radioactive if they are less than half the radiation level associated with cancer. For the rest you can try and reuse them in new reactors if possible or store it in the same place as other nuclear waste.
We've got the technology to drill deep bore holes, kilometers below where water will move on any time relevant to human existence, where we could stick what small amounts of dangerous material is left.
Encapsulating the waste and burying it somewhere on an abyssal plain in the deep ocean should also be a pretty low-risk approach, the IAEA has looked into variations of that.
Like someone else said, I think it's all expensive because some people want it to be.
Why people spread such bullshit statements? Take Germany which enacted EARLY phaseout, yet all it's reactors are decommissioned on operator money except experimental and soviet units
"
EDF Group assumes sole financial responsibility for decommissioning power plants. The cost is factored into operation from the start and included in the price of the kilowatt-hour. It is re-assessed every three years to take account of changing technical and financial assumptions, as required by law.
"
The 100% state owned EDF group take sole responsibility for the finances? What a relief for the taxpayers of France...
But at least the cost is factored in from the start. Those costs often double during construction but at least we know the decommissioning costs are factored into the fake numbers they use to get approval to start builds.
It's a great scheme because it prevents cost blowouts bouncing back on the taxpayer. Or at least the UK taxpayer since the nuclear plant it was used for was built by EDF which was fully renationalised after their repeated nuclear builds failures this century.
They refused to use CfD for the next UK nuclear plant because unlike wind power, they have no faith in it being completed anywhere near on budget. And if they bid the real cost it wouldn't get built.
So now UK taxpayers are paying in advance for a decade to get new nuclear built with no cap on cost.
Technically I think the Hinkley prices are what we'd call £2012 [if we could easily write a subscript here I would use that for 2012] that is, they are prices in the Pound Sterling as it was at some fixed point in the year 2012 and so when paid in the CfD contract they'd be adjusted for inflation.
All the early CfD prices were in £2012, whereas those newer CfDs have strike prices in £2024 which is about 40% more money in real terms. You can see this notation in the linked Wiki page.
So, if we adjust all the prices to £2024 that price for Hinkley is about £130 per MWh whereas Solar farms are £75, onshore Wind is £92, off-shore Wind is £113
Except, that's not really what's going on either because those AR8 prices are what's called "Administrative Strike Prices". AR8 like all the other allocation rounds is a reverse auction whose results we won't know for months, and those are the start prices in the auction, if you want to win and you're not the only bidder you will need to come lower. Maybe your competitor says they can do solar for £72, but you stared at your loan sheet and projected sunlight over the next decade and dared to say £71.50, you win that contract. But the strike price is now £71.50 not £75 per MWh. Your competitor might still build their solar farm, but at market prices not the guaranteed £71.50 per MWh you've contracted for. Maybe they get lucky - this summer the CfD "subsidy" for Solar farms paid us back many millions of pounds, because electricity prices were high and the subsidy is effectively a fixed price. Of course this doesn't cancel the hundreds of millions we spend subsidising Drax, but that's a completely different discussion.
jacquesm · · focus · HN ↗
asmodeuslucifer · · focus · HN ↗
That being said, many countries consider it a national security issue not to be held hostage to foreign oil.
stymaar · · focus · HN ↗
Are you serious when putting France in this list? Nuclear is such a cash cow here that EDF manage to make profits even while being forced by the regulator to sell a big fraction of its nuclear capacity below the operating cost and buying it back to them at market price! (We're talking about a multi-billon subsidies scheme, look for ARENH).
And that is despite (rather legitimate IMHO) regulatory constraints that have no equivalent in any other industry.
vjvjvjvjghv · · focus · HN ↗
himata4113 · · focus · HN ↗
stingraycharles · · focus · HN ↗
(I think fusion is great, by the way, but I just don’t believe any timelines at this point anymore)
himata4113 · · focus · HN ↗
sarchertech · · focus · HN ↗
That is not correct.
mikestew · · focus · HN ↗
You might want to look that up, because I’m older than the oldest operating reactor.
vjvjvjvjghv · · focus · HN ↗
fuzztester · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno_of_Elea" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno_of_Elea
i like how he died. guts.
fuzztester · · focus · HN ↗
and yet they aspire to run or work in startups. ... hee hee.
adrianN · · focus · HN ↗
Propelloni · · focus · HN ↗
rightnutwingjob · · focus · HN ↗
The reactor vessel and the primary coolant loop.
All that steel can be vitrified and stored in stainless casks somewhere fairly indefinitely.
Or just buried. It doesn’t stay reactive very long.
The rest of the site is no different to any other electricity generator, and no different really to the average industrial manufacturing plant.
Everyone likes to just say ”decommissioning costs”, without actually thinking about what any of that means.
It’s not like every nuclear power site is a Chernobyl.
rich_sasha · · focus · HN ↗
But of course there are no norms for max radioactivity levels at a coal power plant site.
teamonkey · · focus · HN ↗
But if decommissioned properly, most of the ash inside the building can be collected and mixed into soil and bricks at a safe concentration not far above background radiation level.
In a nuclear power plant, there is no release of radioactive materials, but it’s possible for the structure of the reactor and building to absorb radiation and become radioactive themselves, and that’s much harder to deal with.
leonidasrup · · focus · HN ↗
Steel is taken apart and measured, non-activated steel can be melted down and recycled. Activated steel has to go into storage, either low level nuclear or medium level nuclear waste.
The biggest concern for steel is cobalt. During manufacturing steel with very low cobalt content is usually used for nuclear applications, but there is still small amount of cobalt.
In reactor, under neutron radiation, stable cobalt-59 changes to cobalt-60, strong gamma ray emitter with a half-life of 5 years. So neutron activated steel has to storage for at least few decades.
When done not properly, this is a health hazard.
" Circa 1983, construction was finished of 1700 apartments in Taiwan which were built with steel contaminated with cobalt-60. About 10,000 people occupied these buildings during a 9–20 year period. On average, these people unknowingly received a radiation dose of 0.4 Sv. Some studies have found that this large group did not suffer a higher incidence of cancer mortality, as the linear no-threshold model would predict, but suffered a lower cancer mortality than the general Taiwan public. These observations support the radiation hormesis model, however other studies have found health impacts that confound the results. "
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobalt-60#Steel_contamination" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobalt-60#Steel_contamination
account42 · · focus · HN ↗
leonidasrup · · focus · HN ↗
" The four low-level waste facilities in the U.S. are Barnwell, South Carolina; Richland, Washington; Clive, Utah; and as of June 2013, Andrews County, Texas. "
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-level_waste" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-level_waste
atwrk · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernkraftwerk_Greifswald" rel="nofollow">https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernkraftwerk_Greifswald (you have to translate that page yourself, the English version doesn't contain the relevant information)
wolvoleo · · focus · HN ↗
account42 · · focus · HN ↗
atwrk · · focus · HN ↗
Just a suggestion, but alternatively you could also accept that in reality, decomissioning actually is expensive.
rightnutwingjob · · focus · HN ↗
One state in Australia, Victoria, recently disappeared $15 billion of public funds to criminal organisations under the guise of funding a big infrastructure project.
Okay, that’s not entirely accurate. No one knows how much money disappeared, it could be up to $30 billion.
Labor-Green governments do this everywhere.
It’s entirely reasonable to suspect something similar is going on in Germany around their nuclear decommissioning.
tialaramex · · focus · HN ↗
I suppose your name ("rightnutwingjob") gives it away but "Did you know crooks exist" isn't actually a proof that grand conspiracies are true.
oatmeal1 · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKIaRg3SdTw" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKIaRg3SdTw
Moldoteck · · focus · HN ↗
Black616Angel · · focus · HN ↗
Moldoteck · · focus · HN ↗
The example of isar is particularly interesting - isar 2 is one of the latest that started decommissioning but is in much more advanced state vs others. Each operator does it as they wish. If you wait a bit more, rad levels drop so it's easier to decommission with less specialized equipment
tancop · · focus · HN ↗
mrngld · · focus · HN ↗
Encapsulating the waste and burying it somewhere on an abyssal plain in the deep ocean should also be a pretty low-risk approach, the IAEA has looked into variations of that.
Like someone else said, I think it's all expensive because some people want it to be.
Moldoteck · · focus · HN ↗
leonidasrup · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://www.edf.fr/en/the-edf-group/producing-a-climate-friendly-energy/nuclear-energy/edf-unique-expertise-in-nuclear-power-creation/decommissioning" rel="nofollow">https://www.edf.fr/en/the-edf-group/producing-a-climate-frie...
ZeroGravitas · · focus · HN ↗
But at least the cost is factored in from the start. Those costs often double during construction but at least we know the decommissioning costs are factored into the fake numbers they use to get approval to start builds.
leonidasrup · · focus · HN ↗
UK Eighth Allocation Round are from 20 July to 7 August 2026, Offshore wind £113 /MWh, Onshore wind (>5 MW) £92/MWh
UK Government also awarded a CfD to Hinkley Point C nuclear power station, set at £92.50/MWh for a 35 year period.
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contracts_for_Difference_(UK_energy)#AR8_(2026/27)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contracts_for_Difference_(UK_e...
ZeroGravitas · · focus · HN ↗
It's a great scheme because it prevents cost blowouts bouncing back on the taxpayer. Or at least the UK taxpayer since the nuclear plant it was used for was built by EDF which was fully renationalised after their repeated nuclear builds failures this century.
They refused to use CfD for the next UK nuclear plant because unlike wind power, they have no faith in it being completed anywhere near on budget. And if they bid the real cost it wouldn't get built.
So now UK taxpayers are paying in advance for a decade to get new nuclear built with no cap on cost.
tialaramex · · focus · HN ↗
Technically I think the Hinkley prices are what we'd call £2012 [if we could easily write a subscript here I would use that for 2012] that is, they are prices in the Pound Sterling as it was at some fixed point in the year 2012 and so when paid in the CfD contract they'd be adjusted for inflation.
All the early CfD prices were in £2012, whereas those newer CfDs have strike prices in £2024 which is about 40% more money in real terms. You can see this notation in the linked Wiki page.
So, if we adjust all the prices to £2024 that price for Hinkley is about £130 per MWh whereas Solar farms are £75, onshore Wind is £92, off-shore Wind is £113
Except, that's not really what's going on either because those AR8 prices are what's called "Administrative Strike Prices". AR8 like all the other allocation rounds is a reverse auction whose results we won't know for months, and those are the start prices in the auction, if you want to win and you're not the only bidder you will need to come lower. Maybe your competitor says they can do solar for £72, but you stared at your loan sheet and projected sunlight over the next decade and dared to say £71.50, you win that contract. But the strike price is now £71.50 not £75 per MWh. Your competitor might still build their solar farm, but at market prices not the guaranteed £71.50 per MWh you've contracted for. Maybe they get lucky - this summer the CfD "subsidy" for Solar farms paid us back many millions of pounds, because electricity prices were high and the subsidy is effectively a fixed price. Of course this doesn't cancel the hundreds of millions we spend subsidising Drax, but that's a completely different discussion.
schainks · · focus · HN ↗
MentalM · · focus · HN ↗
All the data showing that it is still free. There is no cost, generally anthropogenic climate change is increasing the habitability of our atmosphere.