Re:The price of solar power just fell 50% in 16 months
by Spooky23 on Tuesday May 03, 2016 @10:09PM
(#11625678)
A nuclear plant today would cost something like $6B that's not a regulatory tweak.
The problem with nuclear is waste disposal (still not figured out, and a will be a problem for decades/centuries after the plant is closed) and amortization of billions of capital costs.
With the price disruption potential of other technology, it's a bad bet, and has been so for many years.
Re:The price of solar power just fell 50% in 16 months
by jessaustin on Tuesday May 03, 2016 @11:24PM
(#11625935)
Nuclear was only ever "viable" for political reasons. We had to have enough nuclear weapons to extinguish mammalian life nineteen times over. Eighteen times would have been pathetic. It was all a boondoggle anyway, so the war pigs were happy to spread a bit of cash on the civilian side...
Re:The price of solar power just fell 50% in 16 months
by pyre on Wednesday May 04, 2016 @12:38AM
(#11626229)
There are nuclear plants that generate isotopes for medical purposes.
Re:The price of solar power just fell 50% in 16 months
by jessaustin on Wednesday May 04, 2016 @04:57PM
(#11631726)
Those are not the same plants that generate power for the grid.
Re:The price of solar power just fell 50% in 16 months
by kazagistar on Tuesday May 03, 2016 @08:40PM
(#11625378)
The problem is they have a huge spinup and spindown cost. So as long as we have solar, we need power that we can use at those times when solar is unavailable.
Fission plants are held to a much higher standards of safety in terms of eg decrease in quality adjusted life-years per Gigawatthour than any other form of producing electricity. Even solar.
(Though most deaths and injuries from solar come from people slipping off their roof when installing residential capacity. If memory serves right.)