Japan court again steps in to block nuclear reactor restart.
Hopefully this will help get more government finance for LENR
Hiroshima court muffles Japanese fission reactor restart due to volcanic risk
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It seems a little insane. The ruling makes it seem that the nuclear plant's only danger is while it is operating. It is likely that the turned OFF plant represents a greater danger to the public from disasters. The danger is that since it is not turning a profit, no investments can be afforded to buttress the plant against possible dangers from volcanoes or tsunamis. Decommissioning a plant is very expensive and time consuming - taking 20+ years typically. Only a vital power business or government can afford to do the work to remove a plant that is taken from operation. Note that it was the spent fuel storage pool at Fukishima that posed the greatest danger. These spent fuel storage pools must be constantly fed with cooling water (the spent fuel is producing about 25% of its operational heat) or the disaster becomes far greater. Who is paying for the cooling pumping and protection of these spent fuel pools in a plant that is not generating any profit?
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Decommissioning a plant is very expensive and time consuming - taking 20+ years typically.
U.S. plants that have not had accidents have been decomissioned faster than that, at surprisingly low costs. Accidents such as Three Mile Island or Fukushima cause huge problems and additional expenses in decomissioning. For intact plants, it takes:
10 years for SAFSTOR, which is essentially doing nothing for 10 years. That does not cost much.
5 years for DECON, which is the actual demolition and removal.
See:
https://www.nei.org/Master-Doc…Nuclear-Energy-Facilities
By law, the cost of decomissioning is including in the cost of electricity. It is baked in to your rates. By the time the plant is finished, the money should be in the bank.
In Georgia, they are having terrible problems trying to build a new nuke at Vogtle. The whole project may be abandoned next week. I have mixed feelings about that. On one hand, I agree it is foolish to throw good money after bad. It would be cheaper by far to build natural gas plants. On the other hands, nuclear power produces no CO2 or smoke. In Georgia there is practically no potential wind power, and solar power is hardly used. So, I would like to see the plant finished and put on line.
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By law, the cost of decomissioning is including in the cost of electricity. It is baked in to your rates. By the time the plant is finished, the money should be in the bank.
Jed, does that money go into escrow such that a utility in bankruptcy cannot touch those funds?
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My visits to Japan have shown me very little by way of renewables development, in contrast to the UK where there are wind-farms in many locations. If it is of interest, this report looks at current and future developments in this area.
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JedRothwell wrote: By law, the cost of decomissioning is including in the cost of electricity. It is baked in to your rates. By the time the plant is finished, the money should be in the bank.
Jed, does that money go into escrow such that a utility in bankruptcy cannot touch those funds?
Not true. In the case of SDG&E and the San Onofre power plant, the mistake that forever destroyed the facility was made by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. The steam generator they made broke and leaked and it was not practical or nobody wanted to repair it. SDG&E tried to stick the rate payers with ADDITIONAL and heavy fees for the closure of the plant ten years before schedule and for the incredible expensive and hazardous clean up needed. An organization headed by a brave former prosecutor, Mike Aguirre, sued the as_wipes. And still, they have absolutely no means of disposing of high level or for that matter, low level waste. It sits in the plant, a few hundred feet from the ocean essentially at sea level. Waiting for a tsunami I guess. The population of the surrounding metropolitan areas related to Los Angeles and San Diego is what? Around 10 million? All within less than 100 miles from the plant. THAT is what electric companies do. They SCREW the rate payers to the fullest extent that they can. And they grossly endanger the environment. There is no functioning and affordable method for disposing of the waste generated by fission plants and by the nuclear bomb and reactor industry.
http://www.sandiegouniontribun…costs-20170815-story.html
http://www.sandiegouniontribun…ation-20171011-story.html
Not only is SDG&E screwing the rate payers but the State's Utility Commission is helping them and wants meetings to be kept secret! The public despises SDG&E. Everyone who can is going solar to screw them as much as possible. It will take a while but they will get there. So where is LENR power when we need it? Maybe SDG&E should invest in ecats. They'd be just as good as Mitsubishi steam generators.
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Not true. In the case of SDG&E and the San Onofre power plant, the mistake that forever destroyed the facility was made by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. The steam generator they made broke and leaked and it was not practical or nobody wanted to repair it.
I believe that would be an accident, rather than ordinary decomissioning. Accidents such as Three Mile Island cost far more than ordinary decomissioning. The Fukushima disaster wiped out TEPCO, the world's largest power company, and the Japanese government is paying for part of the cleanup.
The NEI document I cited says the industry has put aside $53 billion for decomissioning. It says only three reactors do not have enough put aside, and they soon will.
That's what the industry says. I wouldn't know.
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Jed, does that money go into escrow such that a utility in bankruptcy cannot touch those funds?
I have no idea. But power companies seldom go bankrupt. Not from decomissioning costs, which are predictable. They might go bankrupt from accidents. The one that owned Three Mile Island almost went bankrupt, and TEPCO more or less went bankrupt after Fukushima.
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There is no functioning and affordable method for disposing of the waste generated by fission plants and by the nuclear bomb and reactor industry.
On the other hand, tremendous amounts of radioactive materials are released by burning coal, in the particulates. Much more than all reactors released before Chernobyl and Fukushima. The particulates are "disposed of" by spewing them into people's lungs, growing crops, houses, lakes etc.
Plus there is a problem with CO2 and global warming . . .
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I believe that would be an accident, rather than ordinary decomissioning.
The accident caused the plant to be declared obsolete and to be shut down some ten years before schedule. But it did not spread radioactivity to any significant degree. The costs the rate payers are expected to pay are related to storing and eventually disposing (ha!) of the radioactive waste. Also to paying off Mitsubishi. The electric company really wants to do that instead of suing their asses for damages. They were entirely at fault. They had no idea how to make a safe steam generator for that plant. They screwed the pooch. Part of the cost is paying them off with the plant offline. It had been expected that revenues from the plant would pay for the "upgrade" (the disaster). But obviously, now it won't and SDG&E wants the rate payers to pay. The regulators AGREE but they are clearly corrupt or beyond stupid. You can tell by the way they keep all their proceedings as secret as some bizarre California laws allow and by holding meetings as far away as possible.
But fortunately, we still have decent courts though I am sure the current administration is working hard to change that,
You believe the INDUSTRY about costs and reserves? ROTFWL! The Public Utility Commision in California was holding meetings in far away places (Warsaw if memory serves) to avoid having rate payers or their representatives conveniently attend. These people are scumbags. SDG&E's admins AND the public regulators. Only private organizations who SUE THEM can bring some semblance of sense to this business.
Note: I only follow the events in SoCal. This may not be true elsewhere. But in the Oceanside/San Diego area, it is an ongoing scandal. See the articles I linked.
