I'm back at the grindstone.
first up:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/23/the-new-nuclear-craze/?src=recg&_r=0
I'm not sure about all the cost figures but the overall gist "let's remember nuclear has many many expensive and unsolved problems" strikes me as right on.
It makes me think about how by now, if it were going to really be safe we'd have seen the cost and risk curves go in the right direction but nobody in the private sector is interested in underwriting the risks of new plants both energy wise nor disaster wise. The formula is supposed to be
1) we produce a product/service for X and
2) sell it for X+
where X+ is enough to justify the risk of doing it in the first place.
YES that is an over-simplification. But if we get too far from it... we get in trouble. I do see there is a place for keeping the door open to innovation by stimulating experiments and disturbing monopolies. But the long history of subsidizing nuclear power plants and putting off the disposal issues strikes me as not the same thing. I could be wrong. But the point of the opinionator piece I think lands either way: renewables and distributed power and conservation are all growing fast are mutually reinforcing and could just fill in to address our load with carbon neutral juice and leave conventional plants with less and less to do. If those plants have, wrapped up in their fundamentals a bunch of thousand year poison - that we get if we run the plant or not... seems like we should think twice or thrice.
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