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TOO_MUCH

                                             January 12, 2022


"But nuclear power is too expensive"

Actually, it's reasonably cheap
averaged over the lifetime of a plant.       And as I frequently point out:
                                             we don't have anything like a
                                             sane energy market in the US
                                             with some form of carbon
                                             pricing built-in.  Fossil fuels
                                             like natural gas get a free
                                             ride on their pollution costs,
                                             Nuclear power doesn't get any
                                             credit for being much cleaner.
What is true is that in *some* places--
the United States being the worst--
construction costs for nuclear have
been tremendously expensive in recent           Myself, I think this
decades.                                        seems to be endemic for
                                                all large construction
These high costs are almost entirely            projects in the US.  I
the result of construction delays--             haven't heard any solid
these are investements that tie up a            explanation for the
lot of capital, and any delays kill             cause, but "corruption"
you on the need to pay interest on              seems likely.
the capital.

  This makes nuclear power projects very
  susceptible to legal hararrasment, a point    But it's worth remembering
  not lost on our anti-nuclear friends.         that the costs of building
                                                a new nuclear plant have
                                                been lower in other places,
Currently, there's a lot of interest in         and lower in the United
the "small modular reactor" idea, which         States in the past: there
I think has a lot of potential because          does not seem to be
it shifts the costs from "construction"         anything inherent in the
to "manufacturing".                             technology that makes it
                                                expensive to build.
    We can still manage
    to manufacture things...                       And if you cared about
                                                   global warming you might
                                                   think about investigating
                                                   and fixing the source of
                                                   the *recent* and *local*
                                                   rises in cost.


                                                And we also need to remember
                                                that *even if* new nuclear
                                                plants are irredeemably
                                                slow and expensive to build
                                                that is not a good reason
                                                to rush to close already
                                                built and paid for nuclear
                                                power plants that are
                                                operating safely.
      WARMING_TO_NUKES
                                                It's actually remarkable
                                                how hard it is for
                                                anti-nuclear people to
                                                focus on this one, please
                                                try to think about it:

                                                Should we build more is
                                                a different question than
                                                should we keep what we've got.


                                                          WRONG_TO_THE_CORE






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