Quote:
Originally Posted by redpoint5
Hogwash. They aren't being built because of NIMBY and FUD due to the human tendency to be terrible at approaching risk in a rational way. If land based wind were cheaper, my utility would ask if I would like to pay 4 cents less per kWh for "green" energy rather than asking that I pay 4 cents more.
Decommissioning is factored into the price of nuclear plants before construction even begins. The extremely high upfront and decommissioning cost is meant to be amortized over the course of 40 years or more. Fuel and maintenance is extremely cheap beyond these 2 major expenses. The rising cost of nuclear has more to do with irrational fear and NIMBY hurdles than anything else. Storing "waste" isn't a problem, you just store it. The USA has tons of space to store a little fuel. Besides that, today's waste is tomorrow's fuel.
That's 1 plant out of 440 in the world. I'm not up on why they want to decommision the plant, or why it's "losing" money. Normally once a plant is built, the cost is already sunk and you can only make money from there on out. CA wants to decommision a plant due to NIMBY, but it currently produces carbon free electricity at $0.027 /kWh. Somehow those idiots think they are better off building new natural gas plants at a higher cost, than simply continuing to use the plant that is already built.
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You might want to look at the facts. The two reactors being built here in the US are wildly over budget and overdue, and the same goes for the reactor being built in the UK.
Pilgrim had FIVE unscheduled shutdowns in about a year - that sort of undependability costs a lot of money. The fund they have to decommission it is $1,000,000,000 dollars, and I'll bet that won't cover the costs, and it won't be done by 2028. The original plan was to take as long as SIXTY YEARS.
The same company Entergy, that owns Pilgrim, also owns Vermont Yankee, and that plant is already being decommissioned - and I doubt they have enough money to do it right.
Nuclear was promised to be
too cheap to meter. HA!