US Grants $1.1 Billion To Keep Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant Open - Slashdot
source link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/22/11/21/2325226/us-grants-11-billion-to-keep-diablo-canyon-nuclear-plant-open
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US Grants $1.1 Billion To Keep Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant Open
These days it seems like you find the two major U.S. parties on the opposite side of every issue (to the point where they flip en-masse if the other side flips on something).
But in the middle of that all, a shining example has ben support for nuclear energy which at this point has very strong bi-partisan support, including at the state level where a number of reactors in both Democrat and Republican controlled states being kept open that were supposed to be shut down.
With the upcoming Republican takeover of
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Support for nuclear? More like bailing out Cali yet again. None of us even got a thank you card after bailing out their pension fund.
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Support for nuclear? More like bailing out Cali yet again.
Yes it's also that but there are many other pro-nuclear things from the federal government in motion (a whole bunch of different stuff in the Inflation Accretion Act).
Also California originally didn't want it bailed out, they wanted it shut down. But they have gone 180 on this issue while Republicans have maintained support for nuclear as well.
The fact is that Democrats want nuclear for zero carbon, and Republicans want it for energy security. Actu
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Cali is kind of stuck. Without Diablo Canyon they will have customers in the dark. And they know it.
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But isn't nuclear the safest, cheapest, environmentally- friendliest kind of power generation there is?
Why does cheapest matter when the Earth is at stake? Are you an accountant by chance?
And apparently it is the most Earth friendly if California is supporting it. Just think, you are on the opposite side from California on an environmental matter. Are you an accountant that owns a coal mine?
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The question to ask here is if it would be better to spend $1.1bn of tax money on keeping this plant going or on wind turbines.
They are claiming that the plant produces electricity at $60/MWh, which is quite expensive and hence the reason they want to shut it down. Wind would obviously be much cheaper. The reactor produces 1.1GWe.
Using worst case for offshore wind in California, for $1.1bn they could deploy around 1,100 turbines with a average output of 11GW. With that much over-capacity it would never fall
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Probably because the Nuke plant is working right now, and the equivalent power generation in wind turbines would take some time to construct, especially with the universal supply chain and staffing issues hitting most sectors right now.
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But you have to buy another powerplant beside the turbines for when the wind isn't blowing. Besides, windturbine output given is maximum: typically they power production grow with the cube of the wind speed up to 15m/s where the blades will either stall or be turned out of the wind, since the construction can't take anymore load. If your wind is 7.5 m/s the turbines will only produce 1/8 of the given power.
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Not only that, its Socialism to give them a bailout:)
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This article attempts to explain it:
https://localnewsmatters.org/2... [localnewsmatters.org]
Though it seems rather cheer-leadery and is short on details.
Honestly it seems like they should have looked at SMRs as a replacement years ago, assuming Diablo Canyon really costs that much for continued operation in total. There seems to be no mention of what kind of revenue it generates.
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California gets $0.65 in spending for every dollar it puts into the Treasury. Out of the 50 states 47 get more federal support than California. Only Illinois, Washington and New Jersey get fewer federal dollars relative to their taxes paid.
So I think what you meant to say was "Thank you California"
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It's bailing out PG&E, which is definitely not popular in California.
The right outcome is to expropriate the plant for $1 (as PG&E wants to shut it down anyway, how can they complain), take ownership and keep it running at cost.
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PG&E should pay them to take it away. At some point it's going to need to be decommissioned and a long term home for all the nuclear waste stored on-site will have to be found. It will cost whoever owns it money.
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That is unfortunately not how assets work. In accounting, even if something represents an ongoing cost, or an abandonment cost, it none the less has paper value based on the cost of the equipment.
Think of it like a $10m painting. Just because someone doesn't want it, and just because it doesn't actually generate any ongoing revenue doesn't mean it is worth $1.
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Not a good analogy because it ignores the huge decommissioning costs that will need to be spent eventually. If PG&E is let off the hook for the decommissioning costs then they should be happy to let the assets go for free.
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Agreed. But that's socialism which will never fly in the US.
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Nobody bails out California. If they were a country their economy would be the world's fifth largest. If anything they fund the shitty red states like Mitch McConnell's home state of Kentucky.
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Bailing out California? California is the second biggest net contributor to the federal government, second only to New York. The states that are being bailed out are Alaska, Mississippi, Kentucky etc.
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This one plant is sucking up 1/6th of all available funds to keep all of the US nuclear power plants in operation, why can't California, the richest, smartest, and most environmentally conscious state in the country (just ask them) fund its own damn power plant? Why do the need federal grants to keep their power plant operating?
I mean, if we only had 5 or 6 nuclear power plants in the country that would be one thing, but there are over 90 nukes in the country, seems kinda selfish to spend so much money on o
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