EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

Nuclear has much higher operating costs than coal. It’s not 20% of 3 = 60% of 1, but it’s unpleasantly close for anyone looking for cheap nuclear power. Especially when you include interest + storage as nuclear reactors start with multiple years worth of fuel when built and can’t quite hit zero at decommissioning so interest payments on fuel matter.

> You're describing a heat exchanger and some pipes. If this is the thing that costs a billion dollars, you're making the argument that this is a regulatory cost problem.

It’s a lot more than that, and far from the only cost mentioned. It’s pumps, control systems, safety systems, loss of thermal efficiency, slower startup times, loss of more energy on shutdown, etc.

> Shielding is concrete and lead and water. None of those are particularly expensive.

Highways don’t use expensive materials yet they end up costing quite a lot to build. Scale matters.

> Equipment to move things is something you need at refueling intervals, i.e. more than a year apart. If this is both expensive and rarely used then why does each plant need its own instead of being something that comes on the truck with the new fuel and then goes back to be used at the next plant?

Contamination with newly spent nuclear fuel = not something you want to move on a highway. It’s also impractical for a bunch of other reasons.

> But then one of them is required to carry that amount of insurance when the others aren't. It should either be both or neither, right?

No nuclear power plants has ever actually been required to carry a policy with that kind of a payout. Taxpayers are stuck with the bill, but that bill doesn’t go away it’s just an implied subsidy.

However, the lesser risk of losing the reactor is still quite substantial. You could hypothetically spend 5 billion building a cheap power plant rather than 20+ billion seen in some boondoggles but then get stuck with cleanup costs after a week.

But that's the point, isn't it? You have two types of thermal power plant, one of them has a somewhat lower fuel cost so why does that one have a higher operating cost? Something is wrong there and needs to be addressed.

> It’s a lot more than that, and far from the only cost mentioned. It’s pumps, control systems, safety systems

These things should all costs thousands of dollars, not billions of dollars.

> loss of thermal efficiency, slower startup times, loss of more energy on shutdown, etc.

These are operating costs rather than construction costs and are already accounted for in the comparison of fuel costs.

> Highways don’t use expensive materials yet they end up costing quite a lot to build. Scale matters.

5 miles of highway has around the same amount of concrete in it as a nuclear power plant. We both know which one costs more -- and highways themselves cost more than they should because the government overpays for everything.

> Contamination with newly spent nuclear fuel = not something you want to move on a highway.

Is this actually a problem? It's not a truck full of gamma emitters, it's a machine which is slightly radioactive because it was in the presence of a radiation source. Isn't this solvable with a lead-lined box?

> Taxpayers are stuck with the bill, but that bill doesn’t go away it’s just an implied subsidy.

Have taxpayers actually paid anything here at all? The power plants have paid more in premiums than they've ever filed in claims, haven't they?

> You could hypothetically spend 5 billion building a cheap power plant rather than 20+ billion seen in some boondoggles but then get stuck with cleanup costs after a week.

You could hypothetically build a hydroelectric dam that wipes out a city on the first day. You could hypothetically build a single wind turbine that shorts out and starts a massive wildfire.

> it's a machine which is slightly radioactive because it was in the presence of a radiation source

This isn't how radiation works. Material doesn't get radioactive from being in the presence of a radioactive source. Contamination refers to radioactive emitters being somewhere they don't belong.

There is this thing called neutron activation.

But the elephant in the room is of course that coal plants emitted way more radioactivity than nuclear ones even taking into account every disaster on even non-power generation plants.

Nuclear is inherently vastly more complicated requiring more maintenance, manpower, etc per KW of capacity and thus has more operational costs. A 50+ year lifespan means keeping 50+ year old designs in operation which plays a significant role in costs here.

> 5 miles of highway has around the same amount of concrete in it as a nuclear power plant.

A cooling tower isn’t dealing with any radioactivity and it’s not a safety critical system yet it’s still difficult to build and thus way more expensive per cubic foot of concrete than a typical surface road. When road projects get complicated they can quickly get really expensive just look at bridges or tunnels.

> You could hypothetically build a hydroelectric dam that wipes out a city on the first day.

Hydroelectric dams have directly saved more lives than they have cost due to flood control. The electricity bit isn’t even needed in many cases as people build dams because they are inherently useful. Society is willing to carry those risks in large part because they get a direct benefit.

Wind turbines are closer and do sometimes fail early, but they just don’t cost nearly as much so the public doesn’t need to subsidize insurance here.

Nuclear power plants need shielding to avoid their workforce being killed off very quickly. Obviously safety standards are much higher than that, but significant shielding is inherently necessary.