Re:Map of the World's Nuclear Power Plants
by ImprovedSilence on Friday June 14, 2019 @11:13AM
(#20183646)
Or states are giving tax breaks to fracking (natural gas) companies in the name of “job creation”, only helping to lower the cost of electricity produced from natural gas. Basically we are subsidizing non-renewalable energy sources.... Also regulation drives a big chunk of the cost of nuclear. It’s not the cement and labor that drives the cost here...
I've observed a bit of an irony there - the fossil fuel industries generate political protection for themselves because of all the jobs they generate.
Nuclear is an order or two more efficient (you need a fraction of the mines, and a fraction of the work to keep the whole technology stack running). In practice this seems to mean that nuclear power doesn't have much of a lobby in favor of it even if it is established as an industry.
In Australia the coal lobby is a pretty noticeable force in two states and arguably influenced the last election. If we were 100% nuclear instead there wouldn't be enough people in the industry to make a political difference.
Globally the same amount of Nuclear power was produced in 2017 as 2002. That has little to do with local regulations and a lot to do with basic economics. As China etc have very different approaches to regulation.
While this is true, it’s only because non renewable fuel is “subsidized” by not being penalized on the massive negative externalities it creates. If a reasonable price for carbon is set, nuclear emerges as a very strong temporary complement to renewable sources
It's this 100%. People like to blame the regulations, but there's not beating the economics.
It's incredibly expensive and takes a decade to start collecting revenue. In that time, renewables could emerge as a winner.
Without subsidies it’s a money losing proposition even if you can sell all power produced at a good rate. However, with renewables regularly pushing down the value of electricity for much of the day things have gotten even worse.