It ain't about the money

The Show
42

Nuclear energy is safe and cheap when things work as expected, but it is super-expensive and deadly when accidents happen.

If we can count on one thing in life, it’s that the unexpected will happen.

in my state of Maine, Maine Yankee, decommissioned in 1996, has 64 “dry cask canisters” holding spent nuclear fuel rods and other radioactive materials. From Bangor Daily News Mar 16, 2011: “…ratepayers pick up the estimated $6 - $8 mil annuall tab to store & monitor radioactive fuel…” from the Wiscasset plant. Since 1996, an average of $7 mil x 21 yrs = $147 mil. It produced NO electricity in those 21 years, just cost money.

Well, since there is no other options for storing this poison, and needs to be kept secure for the next 25,000 years, that is $175,000,000,000, not counting for inflation. $175 Bil, just in storage costs. One plant, that produced electricity from 72-96, a short 24 years.

If the true costs of nuclear energy were factored in to what a utility charged for that electricity, it would not be “too cheap to meter,” but too expensive to produce.

Factor in true costs of insurance policies a utility company SHOULD be required to carry (and does not, BTW) to recompense victims after major accident, and not policies artificially capped by federal legislation–you would not split one atom…

Factor in true costs of security services at storage site for the waste products for thousands of years…

Factor in the design, land, building, and maintenance of a storage facility–none yet exists–and true costs would bankrupt several nations…. Imagine storing your own garbage output in the kitchen for the next number of decades…

2 Likes
43

Nuclear receives much more subsidies than any other power source, especially the exemption from liability costs above a certain low minimum.

Look up: Price-Anderson Act.

I would like a guarantee like that whenever I TRIED SOMETHING DANGEROUS…

44

Mr Bing? OK Mr oldbuck. We get off tangent, no fault of yours. I think we actually enjoy it. Now to add fuel to the fire, I may be wrong, but my thought was that subsidies in their origin were to help spur growth by providing a less expensive source of energy.

45

Back to cars as they say.

2 Likes
46

Price-Anderson Act was enacted to provide insurance coverage for nuclear plants since there wasn’t a company big enough to take on the burden…The government doesn’t contribute to the insurance pool anymore, the secondary insurance has never been required to be used, and it’s paid approx 151 mil, which, remember, was put in by the companies themselves.

Not unless these numbers have changed drastically since 2016 (hint, they haven’t!)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2016_Energy-Related_Tax_Preferences.png#/media/File:2016_Energy-Related_Tax_Preferences.png

Back to cars, it would’ve been fascinating to track how many cars and what brand/model were evacuating the area around the time of the TMI accident…my guess would be heavy American knowing people who live closer to TMI than I do

47

I used to work in the nuclear industry, and what happened at 3 Mile island was exactly what was supposed to happen when someone makes a mistake, misreads instruments, etc. The system shut down without loss of life or widespread damage.

At that time Sen. Ted Kennedy was furiously against nuclear power. It gave rise to bumper stickers reading “More people were killed in Ted Kennedy’s car than at 3 Mile Island”.

3 Likes
48

Folks, I know some of you feel passionately about our mother earth, God, country, the public schools, founding fathers, the constitution and so on. But we are unable here to fully discuss these issues since there is no old Rant N’ Rave forum. We are restricted to car related matters like the highway to Amsterdam. So it’s a little unfair for some to sneak in their personal views without others able to discuss the accuracy or merits of those views. In previous robust discussions I have been accused of being a skin head, lunatic, keyboard mechanic, set in my ways, and others that I choose not to recall. I usually don’t hit first but find it hard to restrain myself to respond.

So maybe can we just relate this to cars or transportation somehow? The headline today was Tesla Sales about to take a big hit. I didn’t read the article. I really am not interested in electric cars at this point and think sales is somewhere around 5% of total sales so it’s not like a sweeping revolution. There was an article in one of the mags about research on a new charging system in Canada that allows a rapid recharge in 15 minutes. Maybe some day that would prove to be a game changer, I dunno. Not yet. In the meantime I think our power providers have done a pretty good job giving us dependable electric power (except for the incompetent Ohio system) and we should encourage them to continue to harden the system from EMPs, and expand where it makes economic sense.

Comrade Bing out-thanks for listening.

3 Likes
49

Amen to Mr. Bing. from oldbuck

50

You dont hear much about it with all the hype, but the range can drop by 50% in cold weather and I imagine running the air conditioner reduces the range also. They talk about really fast chargers but in my experience with any type of battery, a slow charge is best for charge efficency, charge capacity, and battery life

51

When I put E15 in my 2003 Dodge, my mileage drops by more than 10%.

52

I have a feeling that your 2003 Dodge is not designed for E15.

53

80 people died from radiation at Chernobyl.

54

That’s true for electric cars as well, but unless you’re a traveling salesperson, the vast majority of your charging is most likely going to be at home where the charger can spend at least 8 hours charging the batteries nice and slow. The rapid chargers are meant only for road trips, where you don’t want to have to spend several hours at your lunch stop waiting for the car to be fueled up.

55

Your source? I’m seeing 28 directly from radiation sickness with possibly another 19 added to it along with 15 deaths due to Thyroid cancer…(per WHO and UNSCEAR). Granted total death counts could continued to rise as people age and could develop cancer that could be directly attributed to Chernobyl

56

Bing’s right. Please bring this back to cars. Thanks.

57

Yeah that’s meant for flex fuel vehicles. Like I said before, we had a driver at work that twice put E-85 in a non-flex fuel pool car. It cost us over $2000 each time he did it to get the system repaired again. I don’t know everything that had to be repaired, cleaned or replaced but it was not cheap. That’s why I’m railing against the Kwik Trip chain that now has the E85 nozzle right in the middle of the regular and premium nozzles with a little orange sticker with the caution not to use it in non flex fuel vehicles. I’ve got to believe there have been a few elderly ladies (not to be ageist or sexist) that have done it and almost did it myself.

I’m not an electric car apologist but the charging technology talked about in the Canadian lab is a different technology than just a trickle versus fast charge of today’s chargers. It changes the electrons or whatever they are to get the battery to accept something like a 50% charge in 15 minutes while you are getting a cup of coffee. Even I might find that acceptable if the chargers work and becomes wide spread. I’ll have to look but I think I already recycled the worthless car magazine.

58

Only if you leave your car at home while you are at work and charge during the day when the sun is shining. Otherwise, your charging at night will be from fossil fuels.

1 Like
59

I was wondering how many chargers there might be at my lunchstop?

60

An article in the IEEE Spectrum Magazine maybe about 15 years ago that summarized the incident and the remedial efforts that reported 80 radiation deaths, many from the helicopter pilots dropping water on the fire.

1 Like
61

E-15 isn’t for flex flue cars. E-85 is, but not E-15.