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Page added on October 31, 2012
The rust-bucket reactors start to fall
The US fleet of 104 deteriorating atomic reactors is starting to fall. The much-hyped “nuclear renaissance” is now definitively headed in reverse.
The announcement that Wisconsin’s Kewaunee will shut next year will be remembered as a critical dam break. Opened in 1974, Kewaunee has fallen victim to low gas prices, declining performance, unsolved technical problems and escalating public resistance.
Many old US reactors are still profitable only because their capital costs were forced down the public throat during deregulation, through other manipulations of the public treasury, and because lax regulation lets them operate cheaply while threatening the public health.
But even that’s no longer enough.
Dominion Energy wanted a whole fleet of reactors, then backed down and couldn’t even find a buyer for Kewaunee. As the company put it: the decision to shut Kewaunee
was based purely on economics. Dominion was not able to move forward with our plan to grow our nuclear fleet in the Midwest to take advantage of economies of scale.
Ironically, Kewaunee was recently given a license extension by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Shuttered and shuttered
Though Kewaunee may become the first US reactor to shut in more than a decade, it won’t be the last:
Two reactors at San Onofre, between Los Angeles and San Diego, are down with massive steam generator problems. The potential cost of restarting them could easily run into the hundreds of millions. A new leak of hydrogen gas has just complicated the situation as public hearings have drawn large, angry crowds demanding the reactors not reopen.
Repairs to Florida’s Crystal River have been so thoroughly botched by Progress Energy that holes in the containment may cost $2 billion or more to fix. Odds are strong this reactor will never operate again.
Official reports now confirm that Nebraska’s Cooper and Ft. Calhoun reactors are at considerable risk from flooding. One or both may soon face decommissioning.
A fierce public confrontation over Entergy’s leaky, accident-prone Vermont Yankee may soon bring it down. Vermont’s governor and legislature have voted to deny permits necessary under state law, but Entergy has gone to the courts to prolong its operation.
A parallel confrontation at Entergy’s Indian Point may turn on whether the state’s denial of water permits could force shut a reactor just 35 miles north of Manhattan. That the first plane to hit the World Trade Center flew directly over Indian Point has been a source of serious public tension since 9/11/2001.
New Jersey’s Oyster Creek is slated to shut by 2019 as a compromise forced by the state’s demand that it add cooling towers to avoid further thermal damage to local marine eco-systems. But this dangerously decrepit reactor could go down early due to technical, economic and political pressures.
Ohio’s infamous “hole-in-the-head” reactor at Davis-Besse continues to operate with a compromised containment and a long list of unresolved technical problems. Like Kewaunee, its economic future has been darkened by cheap natural gas.
No end to problems
The list of other reactors with immediate technical, economic and political challenges is long and lethal. The world still has no place for high-level radioactive waste. Renewable energy prices continue to drop while projected cost estimates for new reactors soar out of control—here, in Finland, France and elsewhere.
The two reactors under construction in Georgia, along with two in South Carolina, are all threatened by severe delays, massive cost overruns and faulty construction scandals, including the use of substandard rebar steel and inferior concrete, both of which will be extremely costly to correct.
A high-priced PR campaign has long hyped a “nuclear renaissance.” But in the wake of Fukushima, a dicey electricity market, cheap gas and the failure to secure federal loan guarantees in the face of intensifying public opposition, the bottom may soon drop out of both projects.
A proposed French-financed reactor for Maryland has been cancelled thanks to a powerful grassroots campaign. Any other new reactor projects will face public opposition and economic pitfalls at least as powerful.
The announcement that Kewaunee will shut could send the US fleet into free fall. Richard Nixon promised the US a thousand reactors by the year 2000. But in fact there were 104. And with the needle now dropping, it’s clear the “peaceful atom” is on its way out.
The decline is worldwide. China may still be weighing more reactor construction, as are Russia and South Korea. But public resistance has vastly escalated in India.
Virtually all of Europe is abandoning the technology, with Germany leading the way to a green-powered future. A fuel pool laden with radioactive rods still hangs precariously in the air at Fukushima, casting an even harsher light on the two dozen GE reactors of similar design still operating here. All but two of Japan’s reactors remain shut while an angry debate rages over whether any of the rest will ever reopen.
Should the very pro-nuclear Mitt Romney win here in November, another surge may come aimed at reviving this industry.
But the mountains of money, litany of technical fixes and heavy political costs that would be required are staggering to say the least.
In the long run, the real worry is that one or more of these old reactors might just blow before we can get them decommissioned. In that light, the shut-down of Kewaunee and the rest of its aging siblings can’t come soon enough.
–Harvey Wasserman, Transition Voice
17 Comments on "The rust-bucket reactors start to fall"
BillT on Wed, 31st Oct 2012 12:52 pm
Shut them all down tomorrow and send the spent fuel rods to the corporate owner’s homes to be maintained. And don’t forget a few hundred for the Nuclear Regulatory Offices. Put the potentially lethal junk in their back yards. I bet they find the money and place to canister and store them in a hurry…lol.
DC on Wed, 31st Oct 2012 12:56 pm
I would not discount these for-profit nuclear operators just allowing these dangerous relics to simply fail. On the idea that since they cant afford decommissioning, it would be ‘cheaper’ just to let them blow and walk away from them. After all, the hard-rock mining industry used exactly this tactic to avoid liability in the US for the huge waste problems created by played out mines. Dont be least suprised if a few are just ‘allowed’ to fail, or alternately, the operators just walk away in the middle of the night and hang a sign saying.
‘All yours, have fun’.
TIKIMAN on Wed, 31st Oct 2012 1:16 pm
I really wish Fukashima #4 would collapse already since no one in thw world is concerned about it. Just get it over with.
Kenz300 on Wed, 31st Oct 2012 1:26 pm
Quote — ” The list of other reactors with immediate technical, economic and political challenges is long and lethal. The world still has no place for high-level radioactive waste. Renewable energy prices continue to drop while projected cost estimates for new reactors soar out of control”
——————–
Nuclear energy is too costly and too dangerous.
The disaster at Fukishima continues today with no end in sight. The spent fuel rod pools are now seen to be as dangerous as the reactors yet they have little protection. The true cost of nuclear energy will be seen when the companies try to dismantle the plants and deal with all the nuclear waste materials. The cost of the clean up will go on FOREVER.
It is time to transition to safe, clean alternative energy sources. Wind, solar, wave energy and geothermal are the future.
BillT on Wed, 31st Oct 2012 4:32 pm
Kenz, we all agree that it should happen, but most of us realize that it never will. All of those ‘alternates’ are not going to exist when oil is gone. None of them. They do not produce enough ‘net’ energy to reproduce themselves. And they will never make today;s lifestyle possible. Not even 1/3 of it.
SOS on Wed, 31st Oct 2012 4:33 pm
THe nuclear industry has been killed by politics. Insanely expensive and burdensome regulations and the politics of fear.
The Natural disaster in Japan is in fact the focus of the world and it will in fact be solved.
If wind, solar, wave energy and geothermal are the future who is going to pay for it. Are any of you supporting this move with donations or installations of your own.
The “problems” with conventional energy are all plitical and some hysterical, especially those on the enviromental extremes. Those types of politics are costing each of us dearly except of course those gaining power and money by manipulating opinions begining in our inefficient and hopelessly mired in left wing politics school system.
A lot of our energy problems would magically disappear if we allowed school vouchers so thinking people could find more wholesome and unbiased ways to learn and educate. We would have a much more positive world working to a brighter future than we have with the doom and gloomer no hope herds pourning out of our sick and broken schools.
BillT on Thu, 1st Nov 2012 2:06 am
Ah SOS, if nuclear is so good, take a spent fuel rod from one of them and put it in YOUR guest room. When you and your family are all suffering from radiation sickness, you will have the answer to why they should ALL be closed tomorrow.
James on Thu, 1st Nov 2012 2:31 am
Most of the atomic plants were built back in a time when the economy was good in the U.S., and it was cheaper to build them. Now, everything is high including the building of nuclear facilities. We would be foolish to invest more money into these plants for two reasons. One, they are not safe. They can be equipped with the best fail safe devices money can buy, but they can still have something go wrong. It only takes one nuclear facility going wrong to kill thousands, if not millions of people. We still haven’t experienced the full outcome of Fukashima yet. The second reason is that these plants are very expensive to build and operate, and may become more so if the government puts more rigorous regulations on them. They also have a storage problem for the spent fuel rods. There is no permanent facility for the storage of spent fuel rods that can insure that they won’t EVER become hazardous to the environment.
MrEnergyCzar on Thu, 1st Nov 2012 2:54 am
Wind is coming in it’s place, somewhat…
MrEnergyCzar
Vipp on Thu, 1st Nov 2012 8:00 am
Seriously guys, if you even discount nuclear, there really won’t be any alternatives left. At least none that could support us at a scale such as oil does.
I agree nuclear plant of the second and third generations are useless, but the new gen 4 they are developing will be the only reasonable outlook we have for our energy needs. Thorium based reactors could be the future.
BillT on Thu, 1st Nov 2012 12:35 pm
ALL nuclear plants are obsolete, if they were ever viable in the first place. WHO is going to secure those thousands of spent fuel rods for the next 1,000+ years? You? Are you willing to work a day out of 5 to pay the bill? You will, wait and see. It’s not as if they can just walk away and let them lay in the pools as Fukushima found out.
Thorium is a dream of fools. Not going to happen in a million years. We cannot find the $20B necessary to build a new fission plant. We certainly will not have $100B+ for an experimental nuclear plant.
Get used to using much, much LESS energy. Wind and PV is NOT going to power today’s world. Not even a small percentage of it. The energy slide will take the West into the 3rd world, wait and see.
Arthur on Thu, 1st Nov 2012 1:27 pm
“Seriously guys, if you even discount nuclear, there really won’t be any alternatives left. At least none that could support us at a scale such as oil does. ”
Vipp, how a look at this:
http://deepresource.wordpress.com/2012/11/01/renewables-are-for-winners-oil-for-losers/
GregT on Thu, 1st Nov 2012 5:59 pm
“Nuclear energy is a hell of a way to boil water.” Albert Einstein
Chernobyl is by no means contained. The “sarcophagus” that was erected in 1986 is in immanent danger of collapse. This could have disastrous implications for much of Europe, as well as the world. Construction has started on a new “containment” structure at a cost of 1 billion dollars, and is expected to be completed by 2015. It is hoped that this new structure will be able to contain Chernobyl for 100 years.
What will our grandchildren do then?
http://rt.com/news/complete-chernobyl-shelter-new/
Kenz300 on Thu, 1st Nov 2012 6:03 pm
No nuclear plant would ever be built without government guaranteed loans and limits on liability.
What is the real cost of Chernobyl or Fukishima. The taxpayers will be paying for these disasters FOREVER.
GregT on Thu, 1st Nov 2012 6:51 pm
Seriously guys, if you even discount nuclear, there really won’t be any alternatives left. At least none that could support us at a scale such as oil does.
Vipp,
You are absolutely correct, however, even if you do include nuclear, there still will not be enough energy to support us on the scale that oil does.
When you add to that the problems that our use of oil has created; dwindling natural resources, ocean acidification, soil erosion, climate change, overpopulation, etc., you can begin to understand the magnitude of the dilemma that we as humans face.
Vipp on Fri, 2nd Nov 2012 7:07 am
“When you add to that the problems that our use of oil has created; dwindling natural resources, ocean acidification, soil erosion, climate change, overpopulation, etc.”
I wouldn’t say our use of oil created these problems. It’s more likely just doing what we do, it would’ve happened eventually. Every living thing ruins the environment it lives in and we started ruining ours way before we started using oil.
The way I see it, there is only one problem: overpopulation. The explosive growth of the populus was started by coal and oil and the green revolution. We then became dependent on coal and oil to sustain those numbers. The only way to end relying on oil is to either find the next source of energy (it should have a higher ERoEI than oil, for us to keep growing), or to drastically reduce the demand for oil. And pretty much the only way to do that is to kill off over half the population. (Like our good teacher Stalin said “Death is the solution to all problems. No man, no problem.”) Neither of those options are easy or “good”, but I can’t say I’m really against either of them, if it means the continuity of civilization.
“Thorium is a dream of fools. Not going to happen in a million years. We cannot find the $20B necessary to build a new fission plant. We certainly will not have $100B+ for an experimental nuclear plant.”
Where did you get the figure for $100B+?
To my knowledge a prototype was built in the 70s(I could be wrong) and currently construction is ongoing in India. Maybe somewhere else as well. And it certainly doesn’t cost $100B.
Arthur on Fri, 2nd Nov 2012 3:22 pm
“(Like our good teacher Stalin said “Death is the solution to all problems. No man, no problem.”) Neither of those options are easy or “good”, but I can’t say I’m really against either of them, if it means the continuity of civilization. ”
Volunteers, anyone? 😉