Nuclear should be considered part of clean energy standard, White House says

(arstechnica.com)

425 points nixass | 1 comments | 02 Apr 21 18:00 UTC | HN request time: 0.205s | source

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philipkglass ◴[02 Apr 21 18:07 UTC] No.26674051[source]▶

I hope that the federal government can provide incentives to keep reactors running that would otherwise close prematurely.

5.1 gigawatts of American reactors are expected to retire this year: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=46436

It's a shame that the US is retiring working reactors while still burning fossil fuels for electricity. Reactors are far safer and cleaner than fossil electric generation. It's mostly the low price of natural gas that is driving these early retirements. Low gas prices have also retired a lot of coal usage -- which is good! -- but we'd make more climate progress if those low prices didn't also threaten nuclear generation.

Some states like New York already provided incentives to keep reactors running for climate reasons:

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=41534

Federal policy could be more comprehensive.

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imtringued ◴[03 Apr 21 07:33 UTC] No.26679016[source]▶

>>26674051 #

That's incredibly stupid. Do you really want to waste your budget on expensive disaster cleanup of a single nuclear power plant? If you decommission old nuclear power plants you save the 200 billion needed to clean them up in an accident (think of Fukushima). That money could have been used to build 5 modern power plants and do a non disaster cleanup of the old power plant.

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1. andrewlgood ◴[03 Apr 21 21:09 UTC] No.26684763[source]▶

>>26679016 #

You don't waste your budget on either. You build solar/wind with natural gas combined cycles. Then you shut down the existing nuclear plant that is hemorrhaging cash and never build the new nuclear. The only new nuclear power plant under construction in the US is Georgia Power's Vogtle 3/4. As described above it is incredibly over budget. What investor would seek to try again? It is not like we build 1,000 of these a year and the industry get more adept. We are building 2 units over 10 years.

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