Monthly Archives: August 2019

Nuclear power ‘seven decades of economic ruin’, says new report

29.07.2019 – London, United Kingdom – Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament

New research has found that almost all nuclear power plants built since the nuclear industry’s inception have generated large financial losses.

The report by the German Institute for Economic Research examines 674 nuclear power plants built since 1951. Its authors found that typical nuclear power plants averaged 4.8 billion euros in losses.

Nuclear power plant in Cattenom, France (Image by Stefan Kühn on wikimedia commons)

Nuclear power plant in Cattenom, France (Image by Stefan Kühn on wikimedia commons)

The report authors argue that new technology for nuclear plants won’t solve the underlying economic difficulties: “Those in favor of nuclear energy like to point out the ongoing technological developments that could lead to it growing more efficient in the future.

“They include ‘fourth generation’ nuclear power plants and mini-nuclear power plants (small modular reactors, SMRs). Anything but new, both concepts have their roots in the early phase of nuclear power in the 1950s. Then as now, there was no hope that the technologies would become economical and established.”

Kate Hudson, CND general secretary, said:

“The history of nuclear power is seven decades of economic ruin and environmental catastrophe. Toshiba’s decision last year to abandon plans to build a reactor at Moorside in Cumbria and Hitachi’s suspension of work this year on the Wylfa Newydd plant in Anglesey simply reflect the economic reality that this report sets out.

“Nuclear power isn’t only expensive, it creates an unsolvable waste problem, and as the TV drama Chernobyl so graphically reveals, nuclear accidents create human misery and environmental destruction.

“Our new Prime Minister should learn these lessons and adopt a fresh approach to energy that centres on clean and economically viable renewable technology.”

Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license

https://www.pressenza.com/2019/07/nuclear-power-seven-decades-of-economic-ruin-says-new-report/

24 Questions That Show Nukes Are NOT The Answer

July 29th, 2019 by   —  cleantechnica.com

1. How many more decades of uranium does the planet have left?

There are about 8 decades of supply remaining.

“Uranium abundance: At the current rate of uranium consumption with conventional reactors, the world supply of viable uranium, which is the most common nuclear fuel, will last for 80 years.” If nukes were fully built out to provide our full energy needs, we would have about 5 years of uranium remaining on the planet.

Note that nukes are not renewable energy. Anything that has to be mined is, by definition, not renewable.

Image via Land Art Generator Initiative

2. How much are US taxpayers paying to store nuclear power waste?

Billions of dollars and counting.

“The Maine Yankee nuclear power plant hasn’t produced a single watt of energy in more than two decades, but it cost U.S. taxpayers about $35 million this year,” the LA Times reports.

“Almost 40 years after Congress decided the United States, and not private companies, would be responsible for storing radioactive waste, the cost of that effort has grown to $7.5 billion, and it’s about to get even pricier.

“With no place of its own to keep the waste, the government now says it expects to pay $35.5 billion to private companies as more and more nuclear plants shut down, unable to compete with cheaper natural gas and renewable energy sources.”

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Finding a repository for San Onofre plant’s nuclear waste is a difficult task

By ROB NIKOLEWSKI — JULY 27, 2019 — LOS ANGELES TIMES
 

SAN DIEGO —  Earlier this month, Southern California Edison — the operators of the now-shuttered San Onofre nuclear power plant — resumed transferring heavy canisters filled with spent fuel assemblies from wet storage pools to a newly constructed dry storage facility on the plant’s premises.

Putting aside the criticism from some advocacy groups about restarting transfers at all, the move brings up a larger question: Where will the waste at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, known as SONGS, eventually go?

Some of the options are fairly well known, such as reviving a controversial site in Nevada, while others are more obscure, such as a proposal to send the waste down deep boreholes.

But regardless of the pros and cons of each proposal, getting consensus and putting a plan into action can be elusive in a nuclear sector where the confluence of science, industry and politics all too often leads to stalemate.

“Finding solutions is hard,” said David Victor, the chairman of the SONGS Community Engagement Panel. “If it were an easy problem, we would have solved it by now.”

SONGS is located right above the beach at San Onofre and although the plant has not generated electricity since 2012, it is home to 3.55 million pounds of radioactive waste that dates from the time when the plant was active.

Many in the San Diego area worry about the waste (or, as nuclear proponents prefer to call it, spent fuel) resting so close to the ocean and busy Interstate 5 — and located in a populous region with a history of seismic activity.

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