Some numbers of design lives: in general, the older nuclear plants were designed to be in operation for 40 years, and the newer ones are designed for 60 years. In the time since the older plants were built, we've learned a thing or two about how to keep them in good working order, and many of them are being extended to operate for more like 60 years. There are efforts underway to figure out how to extend that to 80 years.
I don't think my point about plant lifetimes was clear. It's not a good thing that they last so long; after all, you're still paying a lot for that long lifetime. But the long lifetime means that, for all that is said about whatever potential nuclear power plants might have (breeder plants and whatnot), that's not what would get built right now if all governments caved to nuclear lobbies right now. What would get built is today's technology, which would be so expensive that we would be stuck with it for 40, or 50, or as you say, 80 years. Renewables, which everybody loves to say aren't good enough, will get good enough, provided we shift enough funds to develop them. I would prefer if those funds aren't tied up in 40, 50, 80 year projects. Because if a project is projected to last 80 years, you'd better believe that'll allow a much higher bottom line to get passed in the local budget.
That's not how the economics of nuclear power work. The vast majority of the cost of nuclear power is the up-front cost of building the plants; the operation and maintenance costs are remarkably low. The longer you keep them running, the more profitable they are. Once you get them built, you want to keep running them for a long time, because once you've paid off the cost of building it in the first place, it's one hell of a cash cow. We're not talking about "funds tied up in 80 year projects"; we're talking about several-year expensive projects to construct the plant, followed by 80 years of cheap power.
The closest thing to a problem here is that we may develop energy production methods so amazing that they're way cheaper to build and operate than keeping a nuclear plant running. I wish we had such a wonderful problem.
Debt financing means you're funding that project in the long term, even if the costs are technically up front. Promises of long lifespans let estimates per year drop, which allows a higher budget to be approved. And reactors are not cheap: http://www.thestar.com/business/article/665644
They may seem cheap if you cut corners, bury costs in the energy department of a country as a whole, ignore massive cost overruns in building these things, or ignore the potential cleanup cost that only governments are willing to pay for and therefore never truly appears on a ledger beforehand (in the form of insurance).
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Some numbers of design lives: in general, the older nuclear plants were designed to be in operation for 40 years, and the newer ones are designed for 60 years. In the time since the older plants were built, we've learned a thing or two about how to keep them in good working order, and many of them are being extended to operate for more like 60 years. There are efforts underway to figure out how to extend that to 80 years.
I don't think my point about plant lifetimes was clear. It's not a good thing that they last so long; after all, you're still paying a lot for that long lifetime. But the long lifetime means that, for all that is said about whatever potential nuclear power plants might have (breeder plants and whatnot), that's not what would get built right now if all governments caved to nuclear lobbies right now. What would get built is today's technology, which would be so expensive that we would be stuck with it for 40, or 50, or as you say, 80 years. Renewables, which everybody loves to say aren't good enough, will get good enough, provided we shift enough funds to develop them. I would prefer if those funds aren't tied up in 40, 50, 80 year projects. Because if a project is projected to last 80 years, you'd better believe that'll allow a much higher bottom line to get passed in the local budget.
That's not how the economics of nuclear power work. The vast majority of the cost of nuclear power is the up-front cost of building the plants; the operation and maintenance costs are remarkably low. The longer you keep them running, the more profitable they are. Once you get them built, you want to keep running them for a long time, because once you've paid off the cost of building it in the first place, it's one hell of a cash cow. We're not talking about "funds tied up in 80 year projects"; we're talking about several-year expensive projects to construct the plant, followed by 80 years of cheap power.
The closest thing to a problem here is that we may develop energy production methods so amazing that they're way cheaper to build and operate than keeping a nuclear plant running. I wish we had such a wonderful problem.
Debt financing means you're funding that project in the long term, even if the costs are technically up front. Promises of long lifespans let estimates per year drop, which allows a higher budget to be approved. And reactors are not cheap: http://www.thestar.com/business/article/665644
They may seem cheap if you cut corners, bury costs in the energy department of a country as a whole, ignore massive cost overruns in building these things, or ignore the potential cleanup cost that only governments are willing to pay for and therefore never truly appears on a ledger beforehand (in the form of insurance).