Economics and politics finally have a nuclear bond.

[kach22i]

From the looks of this 2013 chart, Australia never went nuclear.

https://www.carbonbrief.org/five-gra...-story-of-coal


Looked it up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclea...r_in_Australia

The prospect of nuclear power in Australia has been a topic of public debate since the 1950s. Australia has never had a nuclear power station. Australia hosts 33% of the world's uranium deposits and is the world's third largest producer of uranium after Kazakhstan and Canada.[1]

Was there an anti-nuclear movement there?

I do remember this film/book:

On the Beach (1959 film)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Beach_(1959_film)

[oil pan 4]

"The beach" or "on the beach" pretty much sums up their nuclear movement. They are terrified of nuclear weapons and power.
It really stands out in that chart the effect nuclear has on a developed countries coal use.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by kach22i

Did you seriously just ask; What's the difference between a for profit at any cost with no morals international corporation, and a nonprofit grass roots organization where people sacrifice their time and sometime lives for the betterment of us all and for a better future?

Yes, I did seriously say that, because there are a lot of grass roots, non-profit groups out there that (from my point of view, yours may differ) range from ignorantly misguided to seriously evil: anti-nuclear, anti-drug, anti-abortion, gun control, the Westboro Baptist Church....

Most Americans do not want the air and water quality of Mexico City and China, that is a fact.

Sure, but they also want to drive around in their gargantuan SUVs, keep their homes & offices at icebox temperature in the summer, surround their houses with landscape lighting & light up empty streets & parking lots... And they just can't (or won't) see the connection :-(

[gone-ot]

OLD MORAL: Clean-up your own house before you complain about other's houses.

[kach22i]

Pro Nuke power people should read about these cost overruns.

They broke Westinghouse!

How Westinghouse, Symbol of U.S. Nuclear Power, Collapsed
03/30/2017
https://www.powermag.com/how-westing...d/?printmode=1

Crippled by financial setbacks stemming from the half-built AP1000 reactor projects in Georgia and South Carolina, Westinghouse Electric Co., a company with a storied legacy symbolic of American nuclear power, has taken the desperate step of filing for bankruptcy protection.

While owners of the two nuclear construction projects are monitoring the situation, the development could mean their completion is uncertain.

The U.S. company owned by Japan’s Toshiba Corp. on March 29 filed for voluntary petitions under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, saying it is seeking to undertake “a strategic restructuring as a result of certain financial and construction challenges in its U.S. AP1000 power plant projects.”

Three pages of horror.

How the Vogtle Nuclear Expansion’s Costs Escalated
09/24/2018
https://www.powermag.com/how-the-vog...sts-escalated/

The saga continues.

Oglethorpe Agrees to Continue Vogtle Nuclear Project with Conditions; Final Vote Still to Come
09/24/2018
https://www.powermag.com/breaking-ow...clear-project/

The Plant Vogtle expansion is the only U.S. nuclear power plant project currently under construction. A similar project to add two AP1000 reactors to the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station in South Carolina was abandoned last year. Only one new nuclear unit, Unit 2 at the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant in Tennessee—POWER’s Top Plant for 2018—has come online in the U.S. since Watts Bar Unit 1 entered service in 1996.

[oil pan 4]

Well because of the nimby idiots I think only 1 new commercial nuclear power station has been built in the US for about the last 30 years. I think that 1 was built about 20 years ago.
Prior to the AP1000 and AP700 serries each reactor was it's own design. The AP1000 serries is supposed to be 1 size fits all.

For all I care it could be coal.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by kach22i

Pro Nuke power people should read about these cost overruns.

What is responsible for those cost overruns?

The original 2 reactors were projected to cost 2 billion total, but ended up costing close to 9 billion. I'm not sure how someone could be off by orders of magnitude. New regulations were put in place that caused construction costs to increase, but it's unknown to what extent that played on the cost overrun.

The final 2 reactors will cost 27 billion. I read that contractors had not built things to the engineering specs, which I wonder why those costs aren't borne by the contractors. If I specify construction in a particular way, and it isn't built that way, why am I stuck paying for the mistake? Many examples of that happening with this project.

It's not that nuclear costs too much to build, because the '70s proved it could be very affordable. We didn't get dumber in the ensuing years, so something unclear to me is causing nuclear projects to have increased by 50x what they used to be.

I'm reading this now...

COSTS OF NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS — WHAT WENT WRONG?

[oil pan 4]

Must have used union labor.

Steel and concrete prices have maybe quadrupleed since the 1970s.

Be anti nuclear and the power company will just build coal plants.
I'm good either way.

[redpoint5]

What I've read so far suggests that construction delays are extremely costly because construction loans incur interest, and with '80s inflation rates at 12%, paying now for something that won't produce for a decade results in enormous compounded interest charges that are exacerbated by delays and cost overruns.

2008 would have been the year to begin building nuke reactors. They would have been completed now, and during a period of extremely low interest rates.

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

Must have used union labor.

Steel and concrete prices have maybe quadrupleed since the 1970s.

Be anti nuclear and the power company will just build coal plants.
I'm good either way.

Quadrupled in real terms, or just through inflation? If it has increased in real terms, what was the cause of the price increase? Most things get cheaper over time.

You're absolutely correct though, the utilities have a legal responsibility to provide the cheapest energy they can to their customers, which is why nuke plants were booming in the '60s and '70s. Then something happened, which is still unclear to me, that has since caused nuke to cost 10x or more than it used to (in real terms).

Maybe I should found my own country on an island as close to the US as possible, build the biggest, most safe and cost efficient nuke plants that can be devised, run a power line to the US, and sell to the utilities. No NIMBY, no Eco terrorists, no red tape.

[oil pan 4]

Inflation and demand along with inherent cost increases.
I have seen the price of building lumber has doubled since one of my first jobs my doing home renovations in 1999.
If you want higher end woods like oak, walnut, maple the price has more than doubled.

But inflation has caused the buying power of the dollar to loose about 1/3 of its buying power since 2000. The buying power of the dollar has been cut in half since the 1980s.