Energy Bill Aids Expansion of Atomic Power ($50 billion in loan guarantees)

[jpak]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/31/washington/31nuclear.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin

WASHINGTON, July 30 — A one-sentence provision buried in the Senate’s recently passed energy bill, inserted without debate at the urging of the nuclear power industry, could make builders of new nuclear plants eligible for tens of billions of dollars in government loan guarantees.

Lobbyists have told lawmakers and administration officials in recent weeks that the nuclear industry needs as much as $50 billion in loan guarantees over the next two years to finance a major expansion.

The biggest champion of the loan guarantees is Senator Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico, the ranking Republican on the Senate Energy Committee and one of the nuclear industry’s strongest supporters in Congress.

Senator Jeff Bingaman, Democrat of New Mexico and the energy bill’s author, has long argued that nuclear power plants do not need federal loan guarantees. Mr. Bingaman said that the industry was over-interpreting the provision and that it would provide loan guarantees for only the most innovative power plants.

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[phantom power]

1. Interesting. I wonder what Bingaman means by "most innovative"

[jpak]

4. I would suspect Gen IV or pebble bed plants

n/t

[Dogmudgeon]

2. So it's NOT all for nuclear energy?

I wonder how much energy that money will buy.

--p!

[jpak]

3. Yes it is and the plants will cost $4-5 billion a piece (or more)

and they could *not* be built if the loans were not guaranteed by the taxpayers...

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While the nuclear industry says it will need $25 billion in loan guarantees in 2008 and $50 billion over the next two years...

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Michael J. Wallace, the co-chief executive of UniStar Nuclear, a partnership seeking to build nuclear reactors, and executive vice president of Constellation Energy, said: “Without loan guarantees we will not build nuclear power plants.”

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[Dogmudgeon]

5. How much does a wind turbine cost?

Using the same formula you apply to a nuke (generator plus construction plus the externalities measured by the DoE), of course.

I haven't come across any hard figures for it.

On Edit:

Just found a good ref from the NREL.

It looks like it's about $1.60 a watt of capacity. At 20% average loading, $8.00 per watt of output unbuffered. At higher loading, the price would be better (lower).

For a 1000 MWe output wind farm, comparable to the usual nuke size these days, it would require 8000 MWe installed, at a cost of $8 billion. Maybe less in a few years, but that's for the best sites. I just read where the recent optimum sites are reaching 35%, but most sites are not optimum. $5 billion might be a good target for the industry to aim for.

What did you say a nuke cost these days -- $4, $5 billion?

Electricity is expensive, i'n'it?

--p!

[jpak]

6. $1000/kW for utility scale turbines compared to $5000/kW for new nuclear capacity

http://www.windpower.org/en/tour/econ/index.htm

[Dogmudgeon]

7. That's *capacity*, for Denmark, 1998-2003

I edited my earlier post, but I will recap:

$1600/kW; prices are rising, but not steeply.

at 20% capacity load: $8000/kW output
at 35% capacity load: $4600/kW output

Since nukes average 90%, the capacity load factor multiplies the cost by 1.1 -- I still count it. I may advocate for nuclear energy, but I like to compare similar things.

35% appears to be the upper bound for most projects; 20% is more usual, although the recent projects have been coming in closer to the 35% mark.

--p!

[jpak]

9. Those are the *real world* capital costs

There are no fuel or spent fuel disposal costs associated with wind turbines - and O&M costs are far lower than for nuclear....

More info here...

http://www.awea.org/faq/wwt_costs.html#How%20much%20does%20wind%20energy%20cost

Current US prices are $790/kW

[Dead_Parrot]

8. Ahh, I was about to post that

Curse you, edit button!

I would point out that these don't have fully externalised costs though - there's no backup included in there.