(Someone on Twitter pushing back against Alec Stapp of the Institute for Progress, who is quoting my review of your book, on the topic of NRC charging by the hour for application review and whether that is significant)
The applicant pays system only exacerbates the basic problem, which is the chasm between the regulator's incentives and societal welfare. The discussion in The Flop book was clear on this. Indeed applicant pays was introduced in the US well after the regulators had pushed US nuclear costs to uneconomic levels.
I have noticed two recent organic references to you in the nuclear twitter ecosystem, I think you are percolating through the filters with this. Maybe an SMR hits Vogtle costs per kW and people sit down and think hard about what needs to be done
Thanks for continuing to clarify your book, Jack. You are leaving crumbs for those who follow. I admire the effort and the drive to make the crumbs understandable and useful.
Jack, since you leave in Sisphus Beach, you have to keep rolling that nuclear stone up the hill of resistance!
In terms of impact, how much have you reached out to nuclear advocacy groups with your excellent material? This really does look like the most promising time for nuclear in decades -- not very promising but better than in a long time. You've done so much work that I'd like to see others use your material and finetune it for impact. A good example is Alex Epstein and his Energy Talking Points.
The only good thing about old age is you don;t have to travel. But I do appreciate the invite.
Almost all the nuclear advocacy groups that have sprung up come from the left side of the house. They tend to be unconcerned about energy poverty, very concerned about global warming, unconcerned about costs, and unsympathetic to market based solutions. They won't support UCert. The incumbents will defend their moat. Hard to see where the support
for UCert will come from.
Epstein is an exception, but his main focus is pointing out how beneficial fossil fuels have been and are and the cost of an attempt to replace them when we have no real replacement. No idea how he would feel about UCert.
The American Enterprise Institute does good work on regulation. I like Adam Thierry's work especially. His "permissionless innovation" mirrors my own Proactionary Principle. I haven't looked at what AEI might be doing with nuclear but they might be an organization to look into. If I wasn't fully engaged with my own work, I'd take it on.
BTI takes a conventional view of nuclear. As far as I can tell. they accept LNT. They seem to believe that safety should be the overriding priority. They seem to be OK with very expensive nuclear. The NRC should be in control. Just needs a few tweaks.
They can be quite elitist. They wrote a piece on spent fuel which never ,mentioned the difference between penetrating and non-penetrating radiation. When I asked them why not, the reply was the public wouldn't understand the difference.
FYI, your Site Directory does not show up in the Substack iPad app. With a browser, I see: Home, Notes, Site Directory, Glossary, Archive and About. In the app, I only see: Posts, Notes, About and People. I can't find your Site Directory anywhere in the app. I don't understand why Substack would make the app less functional. Anyway, thanks for creating the directory; great job.
Big changes take time! I think you have laid out the logical endpoints of this very well, and it will be a source that people keep coming to for many years. One or two more blackouts and people will start asking hard questions (already starting).
Same issues with military procurement, pharmaceuticals, and on and on. Our legacy managerial systems are not really fit for purpose anymore and lots will change over the next 20-50 years as new systems get built up (after we get through this chaos).
Notice that, even though the expense was so high, the profits are there, mostly because fuel is only about 5% of the cost of nuclear power and the plants last from 60-100 years, still producing power. Once the mortgage is paid off, the power costs less than 3 cents per kWh. Also, it runs all the time placing AC power directly on the grid. So, imagine how better our lives would be if free enterprise still worked in America. We need to get back to our Constitution and fire all the petty egotistical managers we now have in DC (we can vote them out, of course). Now, we just have to find some patriotic benevolent leaders to replace them with. Oh, well, we could not hire people any worse, and we can fire them if they do not work. Yes, it is political, not technical or economic.
After a little more than 500 years, all the emitters of penetrating photon radiation are gone. You would have to ingest or inhale the waste for it to harm you. That would require eating rocks. It becomes just another poison, and not a particularly toxic one at that. Dry cask the 6000 tons (roughly 600 m3) spent fuel for at most 600 years, extract the valuable isotopes and landfill the rest.
The nuclear establishment's self-aggrandizing claim that deep geologic repositories are necessary is doubly defeating. Not only is it a monumental waste of money, it convinces everybody that nuclear is every bit as scary as the anti-nukes claim.
What's new and perplexing in this case is adding 100,000 tons of uranium to the mix. Presumably this is depleted uranium, the tails of the enrichment process. If so, it is less radioactive than the natural material as mined. Almost all the photon emitting daughters have been removed. It can be diluted and landfilled as is. That would be stupid because this is nearly pure U-238 which could be breeder reactor fuel down the road. You want to keep it around.
The 120 tons of plutonium is also perplexing. Guessing this is weapons grade, mostly Pu-239, in which case it is excellent reactor fuel. Feed it into the fuel stream.
Of course, it's possible the author of this article has no idea what he's talking about, and the uranium and plutonium figures are bogus.
I've been reading about the HTTR test reactor in Japan and HTGR reactors in general. Additonally having hydrogen production sounds like a good idea, but why I haven't I heard more about it? Is it economically unfeasible? What are your thoughts on this?
For the upteenth time, nuclear's problem is not technical and cannot be solved by this or that technology. That's one reason GKN does not comment on any specific technology. By the same token, there's no point in talking about synthetic hydrogen until you have should-cost nuke.
Not sure. It's based on newspaper reports that the cost of the 2 unit EPR plant is approaching 60B USD. No idea how accurate that figure is nor what it includes. Guessing its overnight CAPEX plus accumulated interest,
The present value of decommissioning cost of a 60 year plant is nearly negligible. More to the point, in a rational world a nuclear power plant would almost never be decommissioned. Just replaced. Think building in the center of the City.
Maybe you have a response to this? https://twitter.com/jbkrell/status/1787846652545347804
(Someone on Twitter pushing back against Alec Stapp of the Institute for Progress, who is quoting my review of your book, on the topic of NRC charging by the hour for application review and whether that is significant)
Jason,
The applicant pays system only exacerbates the basic problem, which is the chasm between the regulator's incentives and societal welfare. The discussion in The Flop book was clear on this. Indeed applicant pays was introduced in the US well after the regulators had pushed US nuclear costs to uneconomic levels.
Safety 3rd. John Kutsch puts it this way. See https://youtu.be/GGBbtU5UVn8?t=32309
Worth watching.
Cost 1st
Speed 2nd
Safety 3rd
I have noticed two recent organic references to you in the nuclear twitter ecosystem, I think you are percolating through the filters with this. Maybe an SMR hits Vogtle costs per kW and people sit down and think hard about what needs to be done
Thanks for continuing to clarify your book, Jack. You are leaving crumbs for those who follow. I admire the effort and the drive to make the crumbs understandable and useful.
Jack, since you leave in Sisphus Beach, you have to keep rolling that nuclear stone up the hill of resistance!
In terms of impact, how much have you reached out to nuclear advocacy groups with your excellent material? This really does look like the most promising time for nuclear in decades -- not very promising but better than in a long time. You've done so much work that I'd like to see others use your material and finetune it for impact. A good example is Alex Epstein and his Energy Talking Points.
https://energytalkingpoints.com/
https://alexepstein.substack.com/
If you ever find yourself in Scottsdale, AZ (near the largest nuclear plant in the country until GA overtook), let me buy you a drink or dinner.
Max,
The only good thing about old age is you don;t have to travel. But I do appreciate the invite.
Almost all the nuclear advocacy groups that have sprung up come from the left side of the house. They tend to be unconcerned about energy poverty, very concerned about global warming, unconcerned about costs, and unsympathetic to market based solutions. They won't support UCert. The incumbents will defend their moat. Hard to see where the support
for UCert will come from.
Epstein is an exception, but his main focus is pointing out how beneficial fossil fuels have been and are and the cost of an attempt to replace them when we have no real replacement. No idea how he would feel about UCert.
The American Enterprise Institute does good work on regulation. I like Adam Thierry's work especially. His "permissionless innovation" mirrors my own Proactionary Principle. I haven't looked at what AEI might be doing with nuclear but they might be an organization to look into. If I wasn't fully engaged with my own work, I'd take it on.
How about the Breakthrough Institute?
Max,
BTI takes a conventional view of nuclear. As far as I can tell. they accept LNT. They seem to believe that safety should be the overriding priority. They seem to be OK with very expensive nuclear. The NRC should be in control. Just needs a few tweaks.
They can be quite elitist. They wrote a piece on spent fuel which never ,mentioned the difference between penetrating and non-penetrating radiation. When I asked them why not, the reply was the public wouldn't understand the difference.
That's sad to hear. I'll keep that in mind when I read their stuff -- I'm only slightly familiar with them at this point. Thanks for the reply.
FYI, your Site Directory does not show up in the Substack iPad app. With a browser, I see: Home, Notes, Site Directory, Glossary, Archive and About. In the app, I only see: Posts, Notes, About and People. I can't find your Site Directory anywhere in the app. I don't understand why Substack would make the app less functional. Anyway, thanks for creating the directory; great job.
Big changes take time! I think you have laid out the logical endpoints of this very well, and it will be a source that people keep coming to for many years. One or two more blackouts and people will start asking hard questions (already starting).
Same issues with military procurement, pharmaceuticals, and on and on. Our legacy managerial systems are not really fit for purpose anymore and lots will change over the next 20-50 years as new systems get built up (after we get through this chaos).
Notice that, even though the expense was so high, the profits are there, mostly because fuel is only about 5% of the cost of nuclear power and the plants last from 60-100 years, still producing power. Once the mortgage is paid off, the power costs less than 3 cents per kWh. Also, it runs all the time placing AC power directly on the grid. So, imagine how better our lives would be if free enterprise still worked in America. We need to get back to our Constitution and fire all the petty egotistical managers we now have in DC (we can vote them out, of course). Now, we just have to find some patriotic benevolent leaders to replace them with. Oh, well, we could not hire people any worse, and we can fire them if they do not work. Yes, it is political, not technical or economic.
And the world is now building NPP’s and fortunately, many more will follow in the decades to come.
Hi Jack…..from the uk.
Finally managed A contribution to GKN.
Please ignore my earlier email, here is a copy.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/66bn-nuclear-graveyard-became-britain-130500677.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAANLQl9dKTnI4dvO-j2_aeSDLiCDDgDnHB71k3a8xqK0YTTyyVQyRyxysP_CbKb5uy-StX88PlzsWEz1Rj4xS6cnuXr9TgjgSwk4_Gwfux5NmeDzBjmzmhrukvs3ekQH3f5Rm3HoIp3yWkaV_Dxzfcej0qKCq-sM1PSq-Sr1IP3bx
With you 100% re big nuclear generation.
Unfortunately it continues to be strangled by regulation here in the UK to.
However thinking outside the box I find myself in is not that easy.
Getting a handle on the cost’s associated with the life storage of high level nuclear waste (HLNW) continues to haunt me.
The following dropped in my in box this weekend putting me on the back foot, your valued views would be much appreciated.
Love to comment on GKN replies but getting on board is proving difficult due to my limited techy abilities.
Thanks in anticipation…….Barry Wright, Lancashire.
Barry,
Thanks link. Please carefully read
https://gordianknotbook.com/download/nuclear-waste-a-tale-of-two-particles
After a little more than 500 years, all the emitters of penetrating photon radiation are gone. You would have to ingest or inhale the waste for it to harm you. That would require eating rocks. It becomes just another poison, and not a particularly toxic one at that. Dry cask the 6000 tons (roughly 600 m3) spent fuel for at most 600 years, extract the valuable isotopes and landfill the rest.
The nuclear establishment's self-aggrandizing claim that deep geologic repositories are necessary is doubly defeating. Not only is it a monumental waste of money, it convinces everybody that nuclear is every bit as scary as the anti-nukes claim.
What's new and perplexing in this case is adding 100,000 tons of uranium to the mix. Presumably this is depleted uranium, the tails of the enrichment process. If so, it is less radioactive than the natural material as mined. Almost all the photon emitting daughters have been removed. It can be diluted and landfilled as is. That would be stupid because this is nearly pure U-238 which could be breeder reactor fuel down the road. You want to keep it around.
The 120 tons of plutonium is also perplexing. Guessing this is weapons grade, mostly Pu-239, in which case it is excellent reactor fuel. Feed it into the fuel stream.
Of course, it's possible the author of this article has no idea what he's talking about, and the uranium and plutonium figures are bogus.
I was a little too flip. If the depleted uranium is in the form of UF6, it would have to be converted to uranium oxide before landfilling.
Also the articles volume number in no way match his mass numbers. Dont know what to make of that.
Mornin’ Jack….big thanks for a speedy reply; phenomenal content, when do you sleep ? Best Barry.
Sent from my iPhone
I've been reading about the HTTR test reactor in Japan and HTGR reactors in general. Additonally having hydrogen production sounds like a good idea, but why I haven't I heard more about it? Is it economically unfeasible? What are your thoughts on this?
For the upteenth time, nuclear's problem is not technical and cannot be solved by this or that technology. That's one reason GKN does not comment on any specific technology. By the same token, there's no point in talking about synthetic hydrogen until you have should-cost nuke.
zionlights, with good ideas, a good grasp of the situation, and a good perspective has written a nice non-technical post: https://zionlights.substack.com/p/five-ways-we-can-build-nuclear-reactors-quickly
She's 3/4 wrong. The problem is: regulation, regulation and regulation. The other issues are symptoms, not causes.
"Hinkley Point C Tombstone. $18,000/kW and counting"
Hi Jack....what's included in this scary number ?
Does it factor in true end to end cost's ie clean up post decommissioning ?
Barry Wright
Not sure. It's based on newspaper reports that the cost of the 2 unit EPR plant is approaching 60B USD. No idea how accurate that figure is nor what it includes. Guessing its overnight CAPEX plus accumulated interest,
The present value of decommissioning cost of a 60 year plant is nearly negligible. More to the point, in a rational world a nuclear power plant would almost never be decommissioned. Just replaced. Think building in the center of the City.