The Gordian Knot Group has written a book length description of Underwriter Certification. It can be downloaded from the GKG web site. It's a how-to manual aimed at lawmakers and their staff. However, anyone truly interested in solving the Gordian Knot should take a look at it. The manual includes a chapter on nuclear cost. It's mostly a rehash of stuff the choir has seen before. But there are some new graphics. I've extracted that chapter in this post.
I recall that in the early 2000's that the average price of electricity from a NPP was 2.4 cents / kwh. How can the price of that gone up rather than down?
a) The dollar figures in this piece are 2024 dollars. Thanks in large part to the recent inflation a 2020 dollar was 1.8 times as valuable as a 2024 dollar. Your 2.4 cents in 2000 USD is about 4.3 cents in 2024 USD.
b) More fundamentally, I'm pretty sure the price you are quoting was the marginal cost for an already fully depreciated NPP. In a rational world, about 75% of a nukes fully built up cost is CAPEX , the rest is OPEX and fuel. Figure 4 in the piece What is Nuclear's Should Cost shows to get down in the 3 cents/kWh range all in cost we need an overnight CAPEX below $2000/KW, low interest, and reasonable build times. Warning the Figure 4 dollars are 2020 dollars.
In a rational world, nuclear's marginal cost wouldbe far below 2.4 cents/kWh, more like 0.7 cents. But ALARA/INPO pushed the marginal costs for a fully depreciated plant up to the point where even such a plant could not compete with gas at about 3 cents/kWh.
Very forceful essay. Basically somewhat like drinking from a firehose. These cost increasing factors do seem to be a major impediment to implementing nuclear power as widely and quickly as a rational assessment would warrant. However, I did not attempt to follow through to the referenced sources you provided. I also scanned* the 101 page pdf for the Underwriter Certification process (recognizing some text from your past recent posts).
Somehow I ended up coming away with a possibly OT question:
What other biological risks are there besides down stream cancer results?
I am thinking mostly in terms of birth defects. I vaguely recall you have already mentioned this is not a major concern - but I forgot why :-( [Lower probably of gamete DNA damage as the sex organs are a small % of total body volume, etc. ??]
*Since I only scanned the doc, I might have missed if you also provided a set of sample payouts. For example, for high, medium, and low exposures. E.g., if you were 10 miles from TMI, you got $X. If 1 mile from TMI you got $Y. If you were within 500 or 1000 yards of TMI you get $Z, plus weekly medical exams for the first 8 weeks, and monthly exams for the rest of the year [or whatever - I just made that up]. I think having a sample/ example was an item I suggested in a previous comment? I suspect even legislative staffers might want to have a story to tell constituents along the lines of "here are some typical benefits", etc.
Genetic defects were THE health hazard raised by the Rockefeller Foundation and other bomb test opponents. The assumption that such defects were unrepairable led to LNT.
To see just how bad things were, the US government funded the Neel study. This was a ten year study of 70,000 pregnancies to women who were bomb survivors, 1948? to 1958?. To just about everybody's surprise, the study found no statistical difference in genetic defects between these kids conceived after the bombs had dropped and the general population. The whole genetic harm theory had crashed and burned. The focus only then shifted to cancer.
I thought about showing some example UCERT payments. The problem is that, unless the release is Chernobyl-like, depsite all the conservatism, the radiation exposure payments are puny, as they should be. In the Fukushima example in Section 8.1, the worst hit group in the worst hit town, Okuma, have a maximal LLE of 3.25 days (actual is more like 2 hours) for which they are paid $1135. The payments drop rapidly from there. The lost earnings payments are about a factor of 3 higher. than the exposure payments. Pls reread Section 8.1.
Chernobyl was very roughly a ten times larger release. According to SNT, harm goes at the 2.2 power of the dose rate. To first order, the Chernobyl payments would be 150 times larger than the Fukushima. Not sure it is a good idea to emphasize the point that, unless we have a Chernobyl, the radiation compensation payments will not be large.
I recall that in the early 2000's that the average price of electricity from a NPP was 2.4 cents / kwh. How can the price of that gone up rather than down?
David,
Two points:
a) The dollar figures in this piece are 2024 dollars. Thanks in large part to the recent inflation a 2020 dollar was 1.8 times as valuable as a 2024 dollar. Your 2.4 cents in 2000 USD is about 4.3 cents in 2024 USD.
b) More fundamentally, I'm pretty sure the price you are quoting was the marginal cost for an already fully depreciated NPP. In a rational world, about 75% of a nukes fully built up cost is CAPEX , the rest is OPEX and fuel. Figure 4 in the piece What is Nuclear's Should Cost shows to get down in the 3 cents/kWh range all in cost we need an overnight CAPEX below $2000/KW, low interest, and reasonable build times. Warning the Figure 4 dollars are 2020 dollars.
In a rational world, nuclear's marginal cost wouldbe far below 2.4 cents/kWh, more like 0.7 cents. But ALARA/INPO pushed the marginal costs for a fully depreciated plant up to the point where even such a plant could not compete with gas at about 3 cents/kWh.
Very forceful essay. Basically somewhat like drinking from a firehose. These cost increasing factors do seem to be a major impediment to implementing nuclear power as widely and quickly as a rational assessment would warrant. However, I did not attempt to follow through to the referenced sources you provided. I also scanned* the 101 page pdf for the Underwriter Certification process (recognizing some text from your past recent posts).
Somehow I ended up coming away with a possibly OT question:
What other biological risks are there besides down stream cancer results?
I am thinking mostly in terms of birth defects. I vaguely recall you have already mentioned this is not a major concern - but I forgot why :-( [Lower probably of gamete DNA damage as the sex organs are a small % of total body volume, etc. ??]
*Since I only scanned the doc, I might have missed if you also provided a set of sample payouts. For example, for high, medium, and low exposures. E.g., if you were 10 miles from TMI, you got $X. If 1 mile from TMI you got $Y. If you were within 500 or 1000 yards of TMI you get $Z, plus weekly medical exams for the first 8 weeks, and monthly exams for the rest of the year [or whatever - I just made that up]. I think having a sample/ example was an item I suggested in a previous comment? I suspect even legislative staffers might want to have a story to tell constituents along the lines of "here are some typical benefits", etc.
Ssri,
Some perceptive comments.
Genetic defects were THE health hazard raised by the Rockefeller Foundation and other bomb test opponents. The assumption that such defects were unrepairable led to LNT.
To see just how bad things were, the US government funded the Neel study. This was a ten year study of 70,000 pregnancies to women who were bomb survivors, 1948? to 1958?. To just about everybody's surprise, the study found no statistical difference in genetic defects between these kids conceived after the bombs had dropped and the general population. The whole genetic harm theory had crashed and burned. The focus only then shifted to cancer.
I thought about showing some example UCERT payments. The problem is that, unless the release is Chernobyl-like, depsite all the conservatism, the radiation exposure payments are puny, as they should be. In the Fukushima example in Section 8.1, the worst hit group in the worst hit town, Okuma, have a maximal LLE of 3.25 days (actual is more like 2 hours) for which they are paid $1135. The payments drop rapidly from there. The lost earnings payments are about a factor of 3 higher. than the exposure payments. Pls reread Section 8.1.
Chernobyl was very roughly a ten times larger release. According to SNT, harm goes at the 2.2 power of the dose rate. To first order, the Chernobyl payments would be 150 times larger than the Fukushima. Not sure it is a good idea to emphasize the point that, unless we have a Chernobyl, the radiation compensation payments will not be large.
The LNT and the precautionary principle are two of the greatest obstacles to sanity in energy production.