Re: "Europe: No. 1 in Sustainable Energy"

On Mon, 06 Aug 2007 23:45:17 GMT, Ann <nntpmail@xxxxxxxx> wrote:


"New Reactor Costs Daunt U.S. Utilities as TVA Restarts Old Unit"
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=agGMCRlWdMyU&refer=home
" July 9 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush plunged into the cotton
fields of northern Alabama last month to fete the restart of the Tennessee
Valley Authority's oldest, most troubled nuclear reactor after a $1.8
billion renovation.

"We want to start building plants," said Bush, whose administration is
promoting loan guarantees and tax breaks to get the first new U.S.
reactors constructed since 1996."

And who other than taxpayers is paying for these tax breaks and loan
guarantees?

when you quote mass media as your source of information, "URL warrioring", you run
the risk of appearing quite stupid. Such is the case here. That article is all over
the place and has little to do with industry reality.

All that blather is based on old plant design, something that isn't even a
consideration for new plants. The modern designs which will be type-accepted ahead
of time so that costly licensing hassles against the obstructionists won't have to be
done for each plant, and will be mostly shop-fabricated and site-erected will greatly
reduce the cost. How much? Who knows until one is actually built.

FWIW, On general principles, I'm opposed to both "tax breaks" (using the government
to thieve money from working people to give it to those who need it least) and "loan
guarantees". I'm not sure what a "loan guarantee" means in the context of a federal
corporation such as TVA.

To answer your specific question of who pays, why the ratepayers, of course, just
like they do for the so-called alternative energy boondoggles, environmental
extremism, taxes, fees and all the other stuff that gets heaped on 'em. All the loan
guarantees do is make the overall cost to the ratepayers - you and I and most
everyone else - lower.

BTW, you snipped out a fairly important piece:

"TVA's renovation of Browns Ferry Unit One was attractive because it retooled an old
reactor for just $1,558 per kilowatt.

By comparison, traditional coal-fired plants cost $2,022 per kilowatt to build, Hunt
says. And Congress is considering clean-air legislation that would add about $500 per
kilowatt to the cost of those conventional coal plants."

and

"Investment banking consultant Gary L. Hunt, president of Global Energy Advisors in
Sacramento, California, estimates the cost of building a plant at $2,214 per kilowatt
of generating capacity. The market places a value of $1,730 per kilowatt of
generating capacity on currently operating reactors, he says."

If we accept these last numbers as valid, which I don't since they're based on old
technology, nuclear and coal construction costs are neck and neck with the winner
going to nuclear by a nose. Thing is, once a nuke is built, the major costs stop.
Fuel is relatively so cheap that it has little effect on power costs. Nuke
operational overhead costs are higher, of course, but not nearly enough to offset the
cost of coal.

Now I'm intimately familiar with BFNP, as I worked there as an engineer for years.
What TVA did with Unit 1 was basically to build a new plant inside the shell of the
old plant. TVA both proved that it could be done and proved that it could be done at
moderate cost. This will be a common thing to do in the future as so many plants
reach the end of their design lives. Rebuilding like this saves the cost of
acquiring and licensing a new site and it saves the cost of the heavy construction of
things like reactor and turbine buildings and other massive structures. TVA is to be
congratulated for a job well done.

One other point. The article notes - correctly this time - that BFNP #1 was
constructed for about $300 million. It was one of the few "turnkey" plants that GE
was allowed to build (without utility interference) and is regarded as one of the
best bargains in the industry.

If we plug $300 million into the government's inflation calculator here
http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl we see that $300 million in 1974 works out to
about $1.3 BILLION in today's dollars. BFNP 1 and 2 were built before all the
ruinous over-regulation and obstructionism and OSHA and lawyers and lawsuits and all
the other government crap that has been heaped on the industry since then. If a
plant were to be built today under those same conditions, it would cost almost $1.5
billion. Government regulation has jacked up the price of everything else so it's no
surprise that to build a plant of the old design today would cost double.

A $3 billion plant would be about the cost of what, 2 B2 bombers, something that has
little direct benefit to us here in the states. By that measure, even an old design
nuclear plant would be a bargain.

-----
Assuming there is never another drought:
"Drought hits TVA power production"
http://www.timesfreepress.com/absolutenm/templates/local.aspx?articleid=18576&zoneid=77
"Nonetheless, TVA has had to rely on more power generation from alternate
sources this year, he said. Minimum flows have cut normal hydroelectric
power generation nearly in half, while warmer-than-normal reservoirs are
threatening to curb or even halt production at nuclear and fossil fuel
plants, Mr. Gibson [TVA's water supply manager] said.

"We're getting very close to the limits," he said. "It's something that
everyone at TVA is very concerned about."

Oh bullsh*t. When they hit the "limit", that is, some arbitrary value for water
temperature, they'll simply fill out some forms, get the proper exemptions for higher
water discharge temperatures and keep on generating. Happens every few years. Until
the NY times bought out the Free Press a few years ago, they'd have not wasted ink on
such routine happenings. Now they fabricate controversy out of thin air and TVA is
as good a place to look as any.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), drones such as this
guy and the other PR flacks in TVA are separate from Power Operations, the guys who
actually make and ship the power. Just something else Power Operations has to put up
with.

If some state 'crat ever tried to upset this procedure and actually force a plant to
shut down, TVA would simply restate their federal supremacy and ignore 'em. Everyone
involved knows that so all those types do is huff and puff to the media. Shutting
down a plant for such silliness isn't even on the table.

John
--
John De Armond
See my website for my current email address
http://www.neon-john.com
http://www.johndearmond.com <-- best little blog on the net!
Tellico Plains, Occupied TN
I didn't claw my way to the top of the food chain to eat vegetables!

.

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