Dillon finds new way to disappoint

Not so fast... (4.00 / 1)

I think it's misguided and reactionary to reject nuclear energy outright. True, it is not widely used in the United States, but it does safely power much of Europe. The fact that nuclear is not used here is more a result of its risky reputation than actual fact. Nuclear power has become much safer, and produces far less waste than in the Three Mile Island days.

And when it comes to danger, I'd be interested in seeing the breakdown: how many people have died in accidents involving nuclear waste? How many have died as a result respiratory problems and cancers caused by coal? My bet is the latter far outweighs the former.

"Just because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason not to try and win it." Atticus Finch

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by: elisematz @ Sat Jun 06, 2009 at 15:43:22 PM UTC

Not so fast, yourself (0.00 / 0)

I haven't rejected nuclear power outright.  In fact, I prefer nuclear power to coal.

The problem is that nuclear power plants costs a lotta, lotta money to construct, take years, and come with a great deal of uncertainty.  Financing dried up because banks wouldn't invest in something so expensive that had good chances of failing, and insurance companies wouldn't cover the things.  It could be the cleanest, safest, most reliable source of energy and one that could last centuries, but if you can't make the financing work you may as well be advocating on behalf of nuclear fusion or an energy source that harnesses the gloom of a Michigan winter.

Among the Trees

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by: Eric B. @ Sat Jun 06, 2009 at 15:57:01 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Ok, then (0.00 / 0)

But the fact that insurance companies won't cover them has to be something we could work around if, in fact, their skittishness is based more on doomsday movies than reality. Maybe it's a legitimate concern, but I'm not buying it.

I suppose I'm not up-to-date enough on this issue, so I'll ask: which affordable, alternative energy is the low-hanging fruit that beats coal and nuclear? Because we have to do something and can technically "afford" jack.  

"Just because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason not to try and win it." Atticus Finch

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by: elisematz @ Sat Jun 06, 2009 at 16:08:13 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Energy efficiency is the low-hanging fruit (0.00 / 0)

The cheapest energy of all is the energy you don't use.  That's energy efficiency.  That means better insulation, more intelligently designed and constructed buildings, more emphasis placed on decreasing the amount of energy that is lost without being put to use.

Beyond that, what we need is a feed-in tariff, which complements Michigan's net metering program, and would allow home producers to sell their electricity to the grid for a fair price.  The problem is that I doubt we get it.  It's far too advanced in its thinking for the state Legislature to get behind.  The utilities would be opposed to it, which means it'd probably be a dead issue.

The next step is updating the electric grid and improving storage facilities, which is what you need to make renewables a lot more viable anyway.  In West Texas, they're actually paying windmills not to generate electricity because they do it at off-peak hours and it winds up depresses costs too much.  Find a way to better store it and shift it around more quickly, and you overcome the "unreliability" factor that the pro-coal crowd points to as doom for wind and the sun.

When you come to the actual energy generation ... nothing is going to be cheap.  The most recent EIA study said that natural gas are a more economical long-run investment because the costs of coal will rise once a global warming policy is enacted.  We use natural gas to heat our homes in this state, and we don't like to see competition between keeping the lights on and keeping the house warm.  So, I doubt it will be that.

Coal is a better (cheaper) investment than are renewables, and both beat nuclear.  Insurance companies aren't covering nuclear power plants because of "booga booga" spookster stories hippies tell their kids at night, but because they've proven over the years to be such terrible investments; which is why it's virtually impossible to find anyone willing to invest in them.

As far as I'm concerned, coal is the last thing we ought to be looking at.  Not only does it send Michigan money out of the state (to coal-producing states) but there are a good many environmental and human health questions about it.  Once you figure in externalities and a future cap-and-trade, I think it'll wind up being a worse investment than nuclear, in fact.  The utilities are banking on "clean coal," which frankly just simply doesn't exist.  There are some test projects ongoing right now, and even those that have shown promise haven't yet tackled the question of what to do with the capture carbon.  There are schemes to bury it in various geologic formations up north (Gaylord, Rogers City), and some people have suggested using it to recover oil and natural gas in capped wells (this isn't really sequestration since the oil wells aren't themselves actually designed to hold injected carbon dioxide).

I think, at the end of the day, once you apply efficiency plus decreased demand (contrary to what the utilities keep saying, demand is going down) plus the generating potential of a feed-in tariff that you can meet most of your energy demand with renewables, which is what we want in the long-run anyway.

What's left?  Well, nuclear.  If you still -- after exhausting every other option except for coal -- require baseload generation, I don't mind building new nuclear reactors.  It may even prove to be something we do to retire old coal plants in order to meet a federal global warming plan.  But, you're not going to construct them solely with private dollars.  You're going to need public financing or guarantees (which kind of already exist through last year's energy legislation).  And, not to strike this point at too much of an angle, the people pushing hardest for nuclear power scream "Socialism!" every time a stiff breeze bends a branch.  Do you think they're going to be okay with using public dollars to back something that was too risky for the market in the first place?  (They may very well do that, since they're not given terribly to intellectual consistency.)

Among the Trees

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by: Eric B. @ Sat Jun 06, 2009 at 17:06:51 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Lack of Insurance (0.00 / 0)

Insurance companies aren't covering nuclear power plants because of "booga booga" spookster stories hippies tell their kids at night, but because they've proven over the years to be such terrible investments; which is why it's virtually impossible to find anyone willing to invest in them.

Huh? As long as the insurance companies are able to charge a premium commensurate with the risk they are taking on, why should they care whether or not the investors lose money? (This is assuming that the financial losses aren't creating a moral hazard situation where the managers are pressured to skimp on safety spending, but presumably that's the point of regulation.)

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by: boehmianrhapsody @ Sun Jun 07, 2009 at 16:57:54 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Let me clarify... (0.00 / 0)

It's not so much insurance companies that refuse to back investments in nuclear power, it's that no one will invest money without loan guarantees from the federal government.  Insurance companies have always stayed away from the nuclear industry because the payout of a disaster would probably swallow up any company dumb enough to back one, which is why federal law caps damages and essentially puts the onus of cleaning up the damage on taxpayers.

The point is that, over the years, nuclear energy has proven to be a terrible investment.  It isn't something that is going to work purely with private financing, because no one is crazy enough to take on that kind of risk.  Even now, with considerable federal loan guarantees on the table, it's hard to find money to invest in the things.  The last GAO report said that a default rate of up to 50 percent is possible.

Among the Trees

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by: Eric B. @ Sun Jun 07, 2009 at 17:41:31 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

There's a lot of disinformation comming from the pro-nuclear crowd. (0.00 / 0)

how do you quantify the risk of operating a nuclear reactor? doesn't the risk go to infinity? what's the premium on infinity?

the risk of insuring an operating nuclear reactor is a second stage problem. the first problem you have to tackle is to be able to buid one (on budget hopefully). which doesn't seem probable lately. There's a lot of disinformation comming from the pro-nuclear crowd. Take a look what toronto star energy reporter and clean break blooger tyler hamilton has said.

The Tennessee Valley Authority is the latest utility group to disclose revised estimates on the cost of building a new nuclear plant. The TVA says it now expects the cost of building a twin-reactor plant based on Westinghouse AP-1000 reactors could reach as high as $17.5 billion (U.S.). A few days earlier, Eskom, which is South Africa's state utility, said it was dropping plans to build a single-reactor nuclear plant because of the "magnitude of investment" - an estimated $10 billion (U.S.).

Of course, these costs don't include operating costs, long-term waste management and plant decommissioning costs, or costs for the massive volumes of water that are needed every day for cooling of the reactors. There are other costs as well, but somehow they never seem to be calculated in discussions about the economics of nuclear.

Will Ontario make the same decision as South Africa? Somehow I doubt it, but certainly if the load trend falls and the nuclear cost trend rises, the government here will have some explaining to do if it hopes to sell the nuke plan to the general public.

My guess, if such a scenario does occur, is that the government will suddenly be all ga-ga over electric cars and the need to build nuclear plants to handle the sudden rise in grid load as more cars plug in.

http://www.cleanbreak.ca/2008/...

and the final paragraph of this post about wind potential on the great lakes:

Two nuclear reactors in southwestern Ontario are 60 per cent complete and already $600 million over budget, but both the operator of these reactors and the power authority that approved the project seem to treat it more like a rounding error. Yet talk of spending hundreds of millions of dollars to support development of a new industry is dismissed because of higher costs and too much risk.

Finally you have to look at dillon's positioning as a potential candidate for governor. He's one of the designers of michigan's new energy monopoly. magically, after that bill passed natural gas commodity prices crashed during the winter. yet michigan residents gas bills doubled. So here he is, the key-note speaker at a conference for nuclear power and he's promoting nuclear power. I think that article tells you all you need to know about where dillon's support is based.

"Stop the looting and start the prosecuting."

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by: jsalera @ Sun Jun 07, 2009 at 22:45:51 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Risk (4.00 / 1)

how do you quantify the risk of operating a nuclear reactor? doesn't the risk go to infinity? what's the premium on infinity?

Unless a nuclear plant can actually threaten our continued existence as a species, to say that the risk is infinite is a bit melodramatic. (And just for perspective, consider that we have set off a number of nuclear weapons over the years without serious risk of extinction. Indeed, from the perspective of humanity as a whole our biggest risk is that they will be used on large cities and bring down our civilization, not the nuclear explosions themselves.)

Nuclear accidents are a prime example of low frequency, high severity events. Are they difficult to evaluate and insure? Certainly. But it is not impossible to deal with such risks.

Whether the best solution is a private or public insurer is of course another matter. Probably the nearest example is flood insurance, which is primarily provided by the government.

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by: boehmianrhapsody @ Mon Jun 08, 2009 at 00:17:04 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

public insurance or government? (0.00 / 0)

Whether the best solution is a private or public insurer is of course another matter.

Why bother talking about a public insurance option? there is none. there will never be one. it is government insurance or nothing.

Infinity may be a little melodramatic when calculating risk for a nuclear reactor but, to give it some context, a chernobyl type accident here would completely wipe out the insurance industry. That's infinity for the insurance industry.

the real question is: with all those huge expenditures and cost overuns and no certain outcome, why put our energy future in the hands of the old guard utilities who have been such terrible stewards of energy innovation? Put that money to use by smaller and more innovative firms. there is a literal explosion of alternate energy technology at this time. shoving all that money at the old guard utilities would choke it off. which is what the utilities want.

"Stop the looting and start the prosecuting."

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by: jsalera @ Mon Jun 08, 2009 at 01:52:00 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Why Discuss? (0.00 / 0)

Why bother talking about a public insurance option? there is none. there will never be one. it is government insurance or nothing.

Infinity may be a little melodramatic when calculating risk for a nuclear reactor but, to give it some context, a chernobyl type accident here would completely wipe out the insurance industry. That's infinity for the insurance industry.

Even if it must be a public insurance option, the government still has to set the premiums. Thus, the risk has to be quantified one way or another. (Or, as an alternative, we could set the premiums based purely on political considerations. Such premiums would transfer the costs of such risk to the taxpayers and send false price signals to the companies about their actual risk levels.)

the real question is: with all those huge expenditures and cost overuns and no certain outcome, why put our energy future in the hands of the old guard utilities who have been such terrible stewards of energy innovation? Put that money to use by smaller and more innovative firms. there is a literal explosion of alternate energy technology at this time. shoving all that money at the old guard utilities would choke it off. which is what the utilities want.

Until those smaller firms can provide the baseload generating capacity, we need the "old guard" utilities whether we like them or not. The sun does not shine at our convenience, and our ability to store electricity is effectively nil.

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by: boehmianrhapsody @ Mon Jun 08, 2009 at 11:16:41 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

"Old Guard" (0.00 / 0)

Back when this was a wealthy nation, nuclear power was a loser in the marketplace.  I realize we have working, functioning nuclear power plants today (Michigan gets about one-quarter of its electricity from nuclear), but the original idea was that nuclear power would be universal and generate electricity for comparative pennies on the dollar.

It failed, and was failing even before Three Mile Island. In fact, it would have never come to the marketplace had not the federal government capped liability to encourage investment (it's the ultimate "government shouldn't be in the business of picking winners and losers" tale").

Today, we're no longer as prosperous as we once were and the costs for building new plants are rising.  Nuclear requires the biggest upfront investment of resources of all power generation methods, which no private company wants to provide without further assurances that history won't repeat.  In fact, the latest projections from the federal government are that 50 percent of government-backed loans for nuclear power would wind up in default.

Meanwhile, our electrical infrastructure is old enough that it needs to be updated anyway (we're running plasma screen Tee Vees, MRIs, and laser-guided saws on technology that was cutting edge when FDR could still walk).  So, we already have to invest in the very thing that will help alleviate the kinds of "the sun don't shine very often" concerns (anyway, cutting edge photovoltaics can still generate power even on semi-cloudy days).

There are two very reasonable questions that we should expect supporters of nuclear energy to answer before we consider it a serious part of the solution -- what is different about the marketplace today that it won't fail all over again, and how will new plants be constructed in a time frame that will permit them to be a part of our energy solution.  These aren't NIMBY questions, or questions about waste or safety, but fundamental, basic questions that we should ask first about anything. I count myself among the supporters of nuclear energy and have answers for neither, and until I get them the issue of nuclear energy is to me a non-starter.

Among the Trees

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by: Eric B. @ Mon Jun 08, 2009 at 15:13:49 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

We're Not the British Empire (4.00 / 1)

The sun does set on the western hemisphere. A smarter grid can definitely help balance supply and demand across different regions, but in the end, unless we can meet night-time electricity demands based just on wind, hydro, and geothermal, then we are going need at least one of the dirty three: coal, natural gas, or nuclear. (Or I suppose one could build an intercontinental power grid, but aside from the expense and the transmission losses, I imagine that would be a national security nightmare.)

There are also some very reasonable questions that we should expect supports of coal and natural gas to answer. How are we going to alleviate the effects of megatons of carbon emissions? And at least for coal, how are we going to offset the environmental impacts of mining? There are answers for neither of those questions either.

So pretty much we have no good options. The question is which option is the least bad. I am not certain it is nuclear, but I also realize that the status quo (primarily coal) has its own host of problems.

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by: boehmianrhapsody @ Mon Jun 08, 2009 at 20:45:31 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

You know, I've already laid out my full position on this elsewhere (0.00 / 0)

I don't really have the energy to re-explain the circumstances under which I'd support building a new fossil fuel/nuclear power plant.  If, after exhausting every other option, you find that you still need something to bridge a gap (and, after you maximize renewables through a feed-in tariff, efficiency, and grid improvements, you may not need one since demand is expected to decline), then you can probably find the financing for a nuclear power plant.

But, just tossing the dice on two dozen proposed nuclear power plants nationwide under the guise of "We need more baseload generation" is a plan for failure.  How do I know? It failed the last time we tried it.

Among the Trees

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by: Eric B. @ Tue Jun 09, 2009 at 03:31:35 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

First of all... (0.00 / 0)

It's pronounced nucular.

Second of all, in my ever so humble opinion it's the only (presently available) way to provide enough electricity to power the entire world without cooking us in greenhouse gases. I can understand that people are concerned about the potential for a nuclear disaster, but the risks of a nuclear disaster need to be weighed against the certain destruction of the entire planet if we continue using fossil fuels much longer. The risk to humans from a nuclear disaster and from nuclear waste can be mitigated to a large extent (Rule #1: don't put nuclear plants in populated areas), but if we continue to use coal, eventually we're all gonna die. Beyond that, as nice and wonderful and happysunnyawesome as wind and solar are, providing enough energy to power the entire world using a patchwork of wind and solar isn't even remotely realistic.

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by: PerfectStormer @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 02:29:50 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

A bit of perspective... (0.00 / 0)

Well, first off, we're not talking about powering the entire world.  We're talking about Michigan.  Second, we need to consider what our real baseload electrical needs are and whether we really even actually need to build a new power plant.  That is debatable, especially since demand is expected to decline, not increase. We're currently meeting electrical demand with available plants, so if demand decreases, why do we need to build anything?.

The question is how do we replace the electrical generation of the state's existing coal plants as they get old.  You can do a lot of that through energy efficiency programs, renewables like wind/solar/landfill gas/hydro/etc..., and updating the grid so that you negate the "the wind doesn't blow all the time" substitutes for the anti-nuclear NIMBY arguments. Finally, pass a feed-in tariff and you provide financial incentives for people and businesses to concoct their own at-home/business electrical generation plans, any excess for which can be sold to the grid at a modest profit, and you may not actually need to build anything.

Anyway, you haven't answered the most important question, which is, "How are we going to pay for this?"  Nuclear power already failed in the marketplace.  Nothing has changed since then except that the costs for construction materials has increased and financing has become less available.

Among the Trees

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by: Eric B. @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 12:41:08 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

The potential risk of a nuclear catastrophe (0.00 / 0)

Well, for starters, the amount of liability for a nuclear catastrophe is capped.  The federal government capped it, realizing that there is no possible way to know how much money it might cost to clean it up.

There are good reasons for that ... the primary of which is that we've never actually seen a major nuclear catastrophe in this country.  We can look at Chernobyl, which was an explosion and fire, but we have no idea what we're really talking about with a potential full meltdown.  The cleanup would last decades, and there's no knowing how far the damage would spread.

Knowing this, the federal government capped liability for private companies.  It's not insurance; it's the pre-emptive promise of a federal bailout in case of disaster.

Among the Trees

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by: Eric B. @ Mon Jun 08, 2009 at 04:01:43 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

the answer to your three questions are obvious (0.00 / 0)

the customers, the ratepayers, and the public.

I'd sure like to have mr. dillion give us some more detail on that part about safer and better disposal. it's pretty obvious that the disposal methods are the same as they always were - which is there are none. especially since that myth about france being able better handle disposal has been exposed as a fraud.

"Stop the looting and start the prosecuting."

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by: jsalera @ Sat Jun 06, 2009 at 22:37:46 PM UTC

Dillon's 'forward' thinking (0.00 / 0)

It should come as no surprise that some business interests try to cast Speaker Dillon as a really smart dude with forward thinking, unlike, say Governor Granholm who is actually doing something about the future with real clean energy initiatives. But can we once and for all dispel the smart dude visionary myth of Dillon by examining the nonsense notion that nuclear power is an acceptable alternative energy source?  

Forty years ago when the French embarked on their nuclear build they gave little thought to what do with with radioactive waste that hangs around for thousands of years.  They couldn't foresee the huge benefits of not using energy in the first place--energy efficiency. Nor in 1973 did they see the advances in technology that would make wind, solar and other clean energy sources the wave of the future.  So now they are left with the legacy of 40 years of nuclear waste and no safe place to put it.  So that's what today's French kids will inherit from their parents--an expensive, unsafe energy source.

But Speaker Dillon has the advantage of knowing there are much better choices for our future than nuclear energy, yet he still clings to the bad old choice--one that would actually undermine our efforts to build a clean energy economy in Michigan.   That doesn't strike me as smart or visionary, just dumb.    

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by: LiberalBubba @ Sun Jun 07, 2009 at 12:38:07 PM UTC

Solar (0.00 / 0)

The funny thing about solar, is that there seems to be incremental advances in the technology related to it year after year, like this:

Xunlight, a startup in Toledo, Ohio, has developed a way to make large, flexible solar panels. It has developed a roll-to-roll manufacturing technique that forms thin-film amorphous silicon solar cells on thin sheets of stainless steel. Each solar module is about one meter wide and five and a half meters long.

As opposed to conventional silicon solar panels, which are bulky and rigid, these lightweight, flexible sheets could easily be integrated into roofs and building facades or on vehicles. Such systems could be more attractive than conventional solar panels and be incorporated more easily into irregular roof designs. They could also be rolled up and carried in a backpack, says the company's cofounder and president, Xunming Deng. "You could take it with you and charge your laptop battery," he says.

The article goes on to mention United Solar Ovonic, which is based in Auburn Hills.

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by: rich @ Mon Jun 08, 2009 at 15:34:16 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Solar panels (0.00 / 0)

Dow is working on solar panels that would be fitted into roof shingles.  That means that when it's rainy, your roof is keeping you dry.  When it's not, your roof is generating electricity.  This sounds like much the same thing.

All of this research is being conducted in a state that last year saw one of its legislative chambers -- the Senate -- produce an energy bill that would have created the nation's weakest RPS standard (the majority party in that chamber during the last gubernatorial campaign nominated a guy who last year said that RPS wasn't an important tool in revitalizing the economy).  I mean, the Senate bill didn't even bother to define energy efficiency.

It reminds me quite a bit about how the newspaper industry approached the Internet.  At first there, was a lot of dismissive hand waving.  "Bah, that things a fad.  No one will ever make money on it."  Then, people started blogging.  "Bah, that's a fad.  No one reads what those angry loners have to say."  Now, a decade later, companies are scrambling to create Web operations because it's the only place anyone's making money, which includes considerable real estate devoted to blogs.

Among the Trees

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by: Eric B. @ Mon Jun 08, 2009 at 16:25:21 PM UTC

[ Parent ]