Republicans for Nukes!

House Republicans plan to introduce an energy bill to counteract the carbon cap-and-trade scheme offered by House Democrats last month. The goal is to encourage the building of 100 new nuclear power plants over the next 20 years. The total generating capacity of today's 104 nuclear power plants is 105 gigawatts. Assuming each new nuke facility has a generating capacity of 1,000 megawatts that would mean essentially doubling the U.S. nuclear power capacity.

Greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired electricity now constitute about 27 percent of total U.S. emissions. Stretching reality a bit, but assuming that the new nukes replace 100 gigawatts of the current 330 gigawatts of carbon-emitting coal-fired electricity generation, that would reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions over the next 20 years by 9 percent. Compare this with the Democratic cap-and-trade bill which aims to cut U.S. carbon dioxide emissions by 17 percent by 2020 and 42 percent by 2030. The House will supposedly vote on the cap-and-trade bill before the July 4th Congressional recess. 

Instead of trying to compete with the Democrats by proposing subsidies to favored energy technologies, why not just get rid of all energy subsidies?

Comments

[MNG]

Seward
IIRC Often when we talk about energy you advocate nuclear power. I just wondered the other day how you felt about the subsidies that go to nuclear power.

[John Thacker]

Instead of trying to compete with the Democrats by proposing subsidies to favored energy technologies, why not just get rid of all energy subsidies?

Tracking subsidies gets difficult. What's mentioned in the article for nuclear is the high cost of regulation and the uncertainty of regulatory approval. I certainly hope that we're not rhetorically lumping in deregulation with subsidies.

Allowing drilling in ANWR is not exactly a subsidy either; nor is affecting how the Department of Interior approves oil and gas leases. Changing the price of oil and gas leases certainly can be a subsidy, and appears to be in there, but the entire process makes it difficult to determine the true price. The land rights should be auctioned, rather than sold at a fixed price.

[P Brooks]

Everything will be fine, as soon as we get the right subsidies in place.

[John Thacker]

If, for example, the bill loosens some of the NEPA requirements and gives instructions to approve all nuclear plants that follow a certain guideline, that would not be subsidy in my view, though I'm sure that some people who don't like nuclear would call it such.

Not every legal chance that benefits something is a subsidy. It's not a "subsidy" to online poker to allow it, nor a "subsidy" to cigarettes if excise taxes were lowered, at least not under one sense of the word.

[tehdude]

80% of emissions come from power generation. Every single watt of that could be replaced by nuclear.

If global warming were real, nuclear power would totally be the rational answer. The awesome irony is that the same retards who foisted this dumb ass theory on us, are to special to comprehend the safety and possible cheapness of nuclear power.

[phalkor]

but NUCLEAR POWER is SCARY! Think of all the terrible things associated with NUCLEAR POWER.

we are all gonna die!

[Ron Bailey]

All: In my June cover article comparing various energy techs, I reported on how how fed subsidies have been divvied up over the past 50 years or so. One relevant passage:

Since 1961 the federal government has spent nearly $187 billion (in current dollars) for the development of advanced energy technologies and basic energy science research. About a quarter of the funds were spent during the oil crisis of the 1970s. According to an October 2008 report by the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, $66 billion of that $187 billion has been spent researching nuclear energy, $65 billion on basic energy science, $28 billion on fossil fuel research and development, and $28 billion on renewables and conservation.

If you're interested you might also check out my capital cost comparisons between various energy techs including the subsidies lavished on each type.

[Gimlet]

Know New Nukes

[Harpoon]

"Instead of trying to compete with the Democrats by proposing subsidies to favored energy technologies, why not just get rid of all energy subsidies?"

Because then, as a politician, you lose your sense of god-like control.

[Gilbert Martin]

"Instead of trying to compete with the Democrats by proposing subsidies to favored energy technologies, why not just get rid of all energy subsidies?"

Because that gives leave to the "global warming" cassandras to claim that coal burning is being "subsidized" because it being allowed to freely "pollute" by emitting CO2.

And since that idea is complete and utter bullshit, there's no reason to give those clowns any bigger opening than they already have.

[VM]

MNG - did Gunnels have the first answer? why are you addressing him?

[Gabe]

If you pass legislation encouraging 100 nuke plants you better get some more uranium. Prices would skyrocket under current conditions, there are very few uranium mines and it takes years to get them going. People don't like to invest billions of dollars getting them going when they can be made usless at the whim of flaky legislative fads.

Uranium prices at $200/ pound changes the "cheapness" of nukes pretty radically.

[roystgnr]

$200 per pound divided by 20,000 kilowatt-hours per pound would give us $0.01 per kW-hr. Oooh, "radical".

But your point is correct in the long run; we're eventually going to have to stop extracting only a fraction of the energy available from nuclear fuel before dumping the rest in holes in the ground. Perhaps we can think of modern subsidies as reparations for what Ford and Carter did to the nuclear industry decades ago?

[thew83]

Uranium prices at $200/ pound changes the "cheapness" of nukes pretty radically.

Yes but you only need to refuel once every ten years or so depending on how the reactor is set up. There are also some innovative new reactor designs being proposed by some companies that could use fuels other than U-235, or could use U-235 more efficiently, or could act as a both a breeder reactor and heat source at the same time and/or use the decay chain of the U-235 as fissable material also.

[Gabe]

If the feds mandate 100 new nuke plants it will be debatable whether we should make some of them thorium based instead of uranium. I wonder if we'd use pebble bed reactor technology or old fashioned.

Whatever happens I predict that the feds mandating a specific type of power gen technology will be a huge clustf**k.

[John Thacker]

In my June cover article comparing various energy techs, I reported on how how fed subsidies have been divvied up over the past 50 years or so.

Yes, and very useful information it is. Also seems to show that nuclear has a slight to large edge over other technologies right now. It doesn't tell us much about this bill. The bill looks like it does some non-subsidy changes (regulatory approval, drilling in ANWR), some possibly-subsidy changes (lease rates), and some almost definitely-subsidy changes (changes in tax treatment).

Reporting tends to break everything down into "pro-" or "anti-." The bill is either pro-nuclear or anti-. Generally I would think that libertarians would distinguish between subsidies and deregulation, even if politicians and the media don't.

[Spoonman]

Using thorium reactors and other extant technology makes nuclear virtually infinite and way less polluting, but nooooooooooo.

[Chad]

Boy, it sure is ironic (err..hypocritical) that Republicans seem to want to pick the winner rather than let the market sort it out, eh?

I have no problem with new nuclear - as long as it is unsubsidized. As Ron pointed out, it has already received tens of billions of dollars in direct subsidies, and countless more in indirect subsidies. It should be able to stand on its own two feet by now.

Likewise with coal. It has received literally trillions of dollars worth of of subsidies over the last century, mostly in free rights to pollute public property, but also tens of billions in direct subsidies. The little crybabies at Big Coal should be able to fend for themselves after all that help, don't you think?

Natural gas? I am fine with that as a stop-gap. We really don't need to build more plants, though, as the ones we have will burn through our supplies over the next few decades.

Renewables? Subsidize them. Massively. It is simply a matter of playing catch-up. It wouldn't make sense to give Big Coal and Big Nuclear a trillion dollar head start and then claim the removal of all subsidies would be a "level playing field". And in the end, renewables + fusion have to win. There are no other options.

And yes, Gilbert Martin, a free public-owned garbage dump for your company's waste IS a subsidy.

[thew83]

For the record I am against any form of subsidies.

The pebble bed they tried in Germany had some problem with the pebbles cracking way faster than expected. They were using thorium, but I doubt if that would make any difference in the degradation of the graphite as opposed to uranium.

[robc]

Coase Coase Coase Coase Coase Coase Coase Coase Coase
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Coase Coase Coase Coase Coase Coase Coase Coase Coase
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Coase Coase Coase Coase Coase Coase Coase Coase Coase

Sorry, but it is easier than typing a real response.

[robc]

That was for Chad if it wasnt obvious.

[Abner MacGillicuddy]

I don't know why Congress doesn't just pass a law telling Carbon Dioxide it's not allowed to cause global warming any more.

Ain't no more stupid than most of the other laws it passes.

[Gilbert Martin]

"And yes, Gilbert Martin, a free public-owned garbage dump for your company's waste IS a subsidy."

Chad, you can keep on chanting that nonsense from now until the end of time.

You haven't proven a single word of it and you are incapable of ever doing so.

[thew83]

I don't know why Congress doesn't just pass a law telling Carbon Dioxide it's not allowed to cause global warming any more

That would fill already overcrowded prisons with CO2.

[Rex Rhino]

Chad:

The difference between subsidizing renewable and nuclear is that nuclear will actually work.

Unless we decide to start covering areas the size of Texas and California with solar cells/wind turbines, and ignore the disastrous ecological issues that sort of thing creates, then renewables are not a solution. We can get 20% of our energy from renewables, at best.

Shouldn't the government invest in the energy source that will produce the greatest returns, both in energy and CO2 reduction, than to try to equalize investment between all technologies? Are we trying to promote some weird concept of energy-industry-social-justice, or you know, fix the climate change problem?

[R C Dean]

Chad's energy policy is as follows:

Nuclear, coal, gas - you're on your own boys, except of course that we will regulate the living fuck out of you.

Renewables - here's a big old bag of money. Oh, and we, the Almighty State, preordain that you and fusion will win in the end.

The end result, of course, will be ordained by the market, so libertarians should be happy.

[R C Dean]

Are we trying to promote some weird concept of energy-industry-social-justice,

Yes. Yes, we are.

[Abdul]

The DOE and NRC licensing requirements for nuke plants are, understandbly, quite extensive and quite strict. Even in libertopia, the idea of a government agency to regulate an instrumentality as potentially dangerous as nuclear energy would probably have some merit.

Given the regulatory costs the government imposes, maybe subsidies for this one area are more understandable because as a kind of bureuacracy offset.

[EscapedWestOfTheBigMuddy]

Abdul,
Can we have regulatory compliance get us out of having to defend the permit from half a dozen law suits in as many jurisdictions? Or passing the law suits get us out of dealing with the regulatory body? Or something?

Hmmm...the first would seem to require some kind of mechanism to prevent regulatory capture, and the second would present some trouble with consistency of standards.

[Chad]

Rex Rhino | June 10, 2009, 2:48pm | #
Chad:

The difference between subsidizing renewable and nuclear is that nuclear will actually work.

Wow! You better inform our electric companies, as the majority of new installations nowadays are renewables. They must be completely out of their minds.

Unless we decide to start covering areas the size of Texas and California with solar cells/wind turbines, and ignore the disastrous ecological issues that sort of thing creates, then renewables are not a solution. We can get 20% of our energy from renewables, at best.

Take a poster-sized map of the US. Stick the end of your pinky finger on northwest Nevada. That's how much land is required for 100% renewable power. Compared to agriculture, roads, lawns, and buildings, it is nothing.

R C Dean | June 10, 2009, 2:49pm | #
Chad's energy policy is as follows:

Nuclear, coal, gas - you're on your own boys, except of course that we will regulate the living fuck out of you.

Naah, renewables should be regulated as well. They just happen to rarely run afoul of major regulations. Yay for them.

Renewables - here's a big old bag of money.

A pretty small one compared to the big old bag that fossil fuels have been handed.

Oh, and we, the Almighty State, preordain that you and fusion will win in the end.

You mean "We, the Almighty Laws of Nature", don't you?

[Anonymous]

You can't hug your children with nuclear arms.

Ignorance is strength.

[Tony]

So they have advanced beyond "drill baby drill"?

[Hazel Meade]

Well, with nuclear, we will have cuts in carbon emissions AND cheaper energy.
The cuts from cap-and-trade will come at the cost of higher energy prices.

I do , of course, prefer zero subsidies, but then we ought to revise the regulations so that nuclear, coal, wind, hydro, and solar are all on an equal footing. Right now, nuclear faces a kafkaesque nightmare of regulation coupled with harassment by malicious (stupid and insane!) activists at every step in the construction process.

[DADIODADDY]

Yo Chad
The reason the new installations are "renewables" is that they are easier to passs through the regulatory hoop (unless you're proposing a wind turbine that a democrat can actually see). The utilities would prefer to build large central generating stations (that whole pesky economies of scale thing) but those plants are difficult to pass through the regulatory hoop regardless of what they "burn". The current strategy in nuclear is to build a fleet (common design)that gets licesned once. As for renewables, I refer you to the graveyard of dead wind turbines south of Oakland CA as well as the incredible surface area required of solar to power a typical 3 bedroom house in the Northeast.

[John Thacker]

A pretty small one compared to the big old bag that fossil fuels have been handed.

Most of the subsidy consists of the US government owning the land and then arbitrarily setting lease rates. I'd like to see the land just plain old sold off, preferably at auction, or at least the lease rates auctioned off.

A few radical types like Jeff Flake and others have proposed such things, but they've been rebuffed.

[Rex Rhino]

Wow! You better inform our electric companies, as the majority of new installations nowadays are renewables. They must be completely out of their minds.

Our electric companies aren't out of their minds... they are aware that there are powerful political incentives for choosing renewables.

But the trouble isn't producing a handful of cost-effective renewable energy plants to green up your image, the problem comes when you try to scale it larger than in a handful of wind/sun heavy locations.

Take a poster-sized map of the US. Stick the end of your pinky finger on northwest Nevada. That's how much land is required for 100% renewable power.

Says who? This guy makes a powerful case that what you are saying is simply not true:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/05/13/mackay.energy/index.html

[brotherben]

The problem with nuclear power as I see it is the huge amounts of water it needs for cooling. I will admit, I am not real familiar with newer technologies used in European nuke plants with recirculation and such.

[Hazel Meade]

brotherben,
Anything that produces energy by boiling water and driving a turbine requires cooling. i.e. gas and coal as well. Nuclear concentrates more energy production in one location, but overall doesn't require any more cooling water than coal or gas, per kilowatt hour. Probably it's more efficient.

[brotherben]

Wind and solar energy, while being green and making me feel groovy, can be difficult to supply in reaction to large demand changes.

[brotherben]

Hazel Meade, I did a quick wiki check and nuclear needs more water than other types of power generation. I would think that it is a viable method in some areas, as is green energy production.

[Chad]

Says who? This guy makes a powerful case that what you are saying is simply not true:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/05/13/mackay.energy/index.html

One million wind generators? At one acre each? That't 1563 square miles...or a block of land less than 40 miles on a side. Of course, we will spread this out all around the country, but the whole thing would be smaller than most major cities. Of course, in reality, a typical generator requires about 30 acres of additional space around it, but this land can be used for agriculture, so it is not a loss.

Solar? 10% efficient panels running at 30% capacity would require a block about 300 miles on a side to provide the entire 4.1 trillion kwh we use every year. Thats about the size of your pinky on the wall map, as I noted earlier. Again, in reality this would be spread out and much of it would be integrated with other infrastructure.

[mark]

Spread out and backed up by a traditional generator. Efficiency!

[R C Dean]

One million wind generators? At one acre each? That't 1563 square miles...or a block of land less than 40 miles on a side. Of course, we will spread this out all around the country, but the whole thing would be smaller than most major cities. Of course, in reality, a typical generator requires about 30 acres of additional space around it, but this land can be used for agriculture, so it is not a loss.

You can't put wind generators one per acre, as you admit at the end. I'll take your estimate of one per thirty acres. That means that, for your 1,000,000 windmills, you will need 30,000,000 acres, or roughly 47,000 square miles. That would be a block of land the size of Pennsylvania or Mississippi.

People are reporting problems with their livestock around windmills, and you can't irrigate a field with windmills, so you would be restricted to dryland cropping for agricultural use.

[SugarFree]

Chad has moved on from hippy-dippy optimism about renewable energy and is now just actively lying.

How megawatts are produced when a unicorn vomits a rainbow, Chad?

[Abner MacGillicuddy]

Actually, Hazel, some natural gas plants are driven by gas tubines and don't involve boiling water at all. Of course they still require some cooling, but not as much as a steam turbine.

[creech]

Let's stipulate that Chad's calculations are correct. So what's wrong then with drilling in ANWR that only takes up the space of a postage stamp on a football field?

[thew83]

Wow! You better inform our electric companies, as the majority of new installations nowadays are renewables. They must be completely out of their minds.

This is because they're being "encouraged" to.

I did a quick wiki check and nuclear needs more water than other types of power generation.

This is completely dependent on plant design. Pressurized water reactors can use closed loop cooling easier that conventional reactor designs.

The DOE and NRC licensing requirements for nuke plants are, understandbly, quite extensive and quite strict

This is why I got the hell out of that industry.

[thew83]

Actually, Hazel, some natural gas plants are driven by gas tubines and don't involve boiling water at all. Of course they still require some cooling, but not as much as a steam turbine.

But they're way more efficient when you use the exhaust gas to boil water for a steam turbine. I work at a plant like this and the make up required is not that much.

[thew83]

*than conventional reactor designs.

Also I don't know of any Nat. gas plants that aren't gas turbine.

[Chad]

Let's stipulate that Chad's calculations are correct. So what's wrong then with drilling in ANWR that only takes up the space of a postage stamp on a football field?

Nothing. I have consistently expressed support for drilling in ANWR (and offshore) with the following stipulations

1: We take a much bigger royalty cut than we have in the past. Our rates are much lower than that of other nations, and loopholes make our cut even smaller.

2: Every drop of revenue we get out of our oil and natural gas should be used to develop renewables.

[Chad]

You can't put wind generators one per acre, as you admit at the end. I'll take your estimate of one per thirty acres. That means that, for your 1,000,000 windmills, you will need 30,000,000 acres, or roughly 47,000 square miles. That would be a block of land the size of Pennsylvania or Mississippi.

97% of which you can grow corn or wheat or pansies on. Compared to how much land we use for agriculture, this is nothing.

[Lamar]

"Assuming each new nuke facility has a generating capacity of 1,000 megawatts that would mean essentially doubling the U.S. nuclear power capacity."

I say double the shit out of that power.

[thew83]

Does anyone here remember that kid that built a breeder reactor in his mom's shed?

Also Chad there are some interesting advances in solar technology that might make it worthwhile to wait a bit on building huge masses of solar panel fields.

[R C Dean]

97% of which you can grow corn or wheat or pansies on.

Maybe, I couldn't say. I doubt you can either.

I do know that most of the country is next to useless for wind power generation, due to the lack of consistent, sustained winds in the sweet spot (25 - 35 mph, if memory serves). In Texas, most of that land is (a) already built up for wind power and (b) useless for dry land farming - its too dry, and can be used only for livestock or irrigation, neither of which is all that compatible with wind farms.

[Abner MacGillicuddy]

"But they're way more efficient when you use the exhaust gas to boil water for a steam turbine. I work at a plant like this and the make up required is not that much."

Thanks, sport, I didn't know that. Nothing like making use of waste products though.

It's funny, in a number of socialist screeds, The Jungle comes to mind, the authors seem to really be bothered about the capitalist's tendency to wring every bit out of everything with no waste. This seems to represent how tightfisted and mingy these blokes are.

Now the Chads of the world are complaining about waste.

But, you know what, evil capitalists are still trying to wring every BTU and every dollar and everything else out of every single input into the production process.

[Chad]

Also Chad there are some interesting advances in solar technology that might make it worthwhile to wait a bit on building huge masses of solar panel fields.

You could have said that every day for the last thirty years, and could continue to say it for another thirty. It is simply an excuse for doing nothing. And anyway, you are generally wrong in your sentiment. Improvements in solar nowadays are very incremental and mostly coming from the development end, not the research end. We need to get the current generation deployed, so that economies of scale can take hold.

But, you know what, evil capitalists are still trying to wring every BTU and every dollar and everything else out of every single input into the production process.

For big manufacturing companies, this is the truth. For small business and individuals, you have to be joking.