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FBaggins

(26,731 posts)
13. Answers to a few of your questions
Sun May 1, 2016, 09:18 PM
May 2016
Who going to pay for the decommissioning of the over 100 nuclear plants in the US? Is there a fee for every kwh produced that is put away for this task?

Yes. Part of the licensing requirement (in the US) is that funds be set aside on an ongoing basis to pay for decommissioning.

What happens if a utility company that owns a nuclear plant files for bankruptcy and walks away from all debts?

The decommissioning funds are not subject to bankruptcy. They're in a trust that the company can't spend. They also have to regularly report to the NRC the status of the fund to prove that it's sufficient to pay expected costs.

The greatest risk isn't that the company would go bankrupt, it's that a plant would have to shut down early. Obviously if you're paying retirement costs out of each kwh and you stop producing them a year into the license... you won't have much money saved up.

The difference between wind (and solar for that matter) and nuclear is that nuclear keeps getting more expensive

That's a common claim, but not really true. Wind and solar will become more expensive as their penetration grows - assuming to include the costs necessary to support the higher level of intermittent generation (storage, backup, market disruption, etc.)

(who is paying for the insurance against another Chernobyl or Fuckusall?

That's also part of every kwh. The anti-nuke spin there is that it isn't enough insurance because it wouldn't pay for a worst-case scenario... but that's a strawman - since no company has insurance for an absolute worst-case event (including wind/solar).

because the energy source is free and inexhaustible

That's not really a notable advantage when comparing them to nuclear power. Uranium is a very small portion of the electric bill. As has been pointed out up-thread, if all of the electricity you consumer over your lifetime were generated by nuclear power... the total fuel used could fit in your hand. Does it really matter whether the raw mineral sells for $10/lb or hundreds? Nope.

Why is it for the last couple of years the majority of new electricity generation in the US is from wind and solar? Because even with all the obstruction from the denial crowd, it's easier to build a new wind farm than a nuke plant.


Nope. It's because we passed laws encouraging/requiring it. Of course it's easier to build a new wind farm... but you have to build LOTS of them to equal the output of a modern nuclear plant... and then you have to build them again and again over the 80 years that the nuclear plant operates - along with other expensive infrastructure to get the power to market and back it up for when the wind isn't blowing.

BTW, we produce less than 10% of the uranium we use.

So? It isn't as though it isn't available here... it's just cheaper from Australia/Canada/etc. We have years worth of supply and can easily ramp up production if prices increase due to some foreign supply constraint. We produced about ten times as much in the 70s/80s
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