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Tepco is being loaned more interest-free money to cleanup after the Fukushima disaster:
Japan will increase an interest-free loan to the operator of the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant, Tokyo Electric Power (9501.T), by more than a third to 14 trillion yen ($123 billion), a source familiar with the matter said on Thursday. The increase in the loan from 9 trillion yen is to cover the costs for compensation and decontamination areas around the plant, according to the source.
[...] The disaster is likely to cost 22.6 trillion yen ($199 billion), more than double an earlier government estimate.
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Loan to Tepco for Fukushima Cleanup Costs Rises to 14 Trillion Yen
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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
In the Halls of Justice the only justice is in the halls.
-- Lenny Bruce
(Score: 4, Informative) by Aiwendil on Friday December 09 2016, @12:47PM
Depends on how you see it (I will now assume light water power-reactors):
* Cost per kWh - one of the cheapest (about the same as well-sited hydro)
* Unit cost - most expensive
* With sane safety - about as expensive as coal to build (but cheaper to operate)
* With current safety - most expensive to build.
* With political meddling - insanely expensive
* With current safety, no meddling and being able to finance it without loans - coal looks expensive in comparasion.
The reason why s.korea builds western-style reactors at about 65% if the cost in the west is due to streamlined bureucracy.
(In case anyone cares I'll post a crude translate of the cost [2015] breakdown of Forsmark NPP in sweden below)
Financial costs/interests 11%
Fuel 15%
Depositons (decom, spent fuel...) 14%
OpEx 33% (opration and maintainence)
Other 4%
Nuclear tax* 23% (unique for sweden, will be removed by 2019)
This is for a plant that produces for 3.4us cent/kWh (3 units, BWR, brought online 1980, 1981 and 1985). (Its finnish sisterplant (Olkiluoto) produces [2012] for about 2.2us cent/kWh)
And before anyone screams "but look at the costs at fukushima" - globally that would add about 0.22 us cent per kWh for nuclear power, and that is disregarding that only about a third if the costs actually are motivated)
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Friday December 09 2016, @07:49PM
* With sane safety - about as expensive as coal to build (but cheaper to operate)
* With current safety - most expensive to build.
You're advocating that safety measures be lessened to save money, in a topic about Fukushima clean-up costs, really?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Aiwendil on Friday December 09 2016, @09:12PM
Yes. Having more safety in the reactors themselves wouldn't have helped much, but having better mitigation systems (like filters for emergency venting - we installed that back in the 80s in sweden and finland [as a response to TMI]) would have reduced the release to being doubtful if it would have gone far beyond plant boundary.
Also, forcing a plant to stay below 20mSv/yr has no medical advantage (takes about 50mSv/yr before it might get iffy for the odd smoker) but only adds costs. Then we also have the part with radiation-restrictions are tougher for nuclear than coal in most countries that has both.
So - having upgraded the Fukushima I - 1-4 plants with better mitigation would have helped, better safety wouldn't have helped at reactor-level (but might have at plant-level). But the "fun" part is that in the case of Fukushima-1 "more safety" would just have meant more drowned diesel-generators ("more safety" has little to do with "better safety" (take a look at the ESBWR for a reactor with less and better safety))
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Saturday December 10 2016, @02:59AM
Shutting down the reactors at Fukushima and replacing them with a safer design would have been, I daresay, cheaper.
Some other things that would have helped at Fukushima:
- devices to catalytically react hydrogen with oxygen, thereby preventing hydrogen explosions
- larger containment structures, like those at typical nuclear stations
- a higher sea wall, or putting the station at a higher altitude
- putting the station in a less earthquake-prone place
[...] filters for emergency venting - we installed that back in the 80s in sweden and finland [as a response to TMI]) would have reduced the release to being doubtful if it would have gone far beyond plant boundary.
I don't understand what type of filtration you're writing about. I'm not disputing what you say. Filters proved invaluable at Windscale:
When [physicist Terence Price] raised the issue [of a possible fire] at a meeting and suggested that filters be added to the chimneys, the concern was dismissed as being too difficult to deal with and was not even recorded in the minutes. Sir John Cockcroft, leading the project team, was alarmed enough to order that filters be installed, which required them to be constructed on the ground while the chimneys were still being built, and then winched into position at the top once the chimney's concrete had set. These became known as "Cockcroft's Folly" by workers and engineers.
[...]
The presence of the chimney scrubbers at Windscale was credited with maintaining partial containment and thus minimizing the radioactive content of the smoke that poured from the chimney during the fire. These scrubbers were installed at great expense on the insistence of John Cockcroft and were known as Cockcroft's folly, until the 1957 fire.
-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windscale_fire [wikipedia.org]
Filters were also in place at Three Mile Island; they didn't stop radioactive noble gases from escaping the damaged reactor, but they stopped other substances.
In the U.S. the use of tanks of water for filtration has been under consideration; gases would be bubbled through the water.
pages consulted:
http://safetyfirst.nei.org/safety-and-security/filtered-vents-and-boiling-water-reactors-its-not-about-the-costs/ [nei.org]
http://www.rebresearch.com/REB_Hydrogen_Nuclear.html [rebresearch.com]
http://energyblog.nationalgeographic.com/2013/03/11/safety-question-on-fukushima-anniversary-should-plants-of-the-same-design-have-filtered-vents/ [nationalgeographic.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESBWR [wikipedia.org]
http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/three-mile-island-accident.aspx [world-nuclear.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Aiwendil on Saturday December 10 2016, @09:51AM
(Btw, thanks for a great discussion)
Adding filters and/or hydrgen recombiners would have been cheaper than a complete replacement of the reactors (and would have been in the era of sane safety).
In the context of japan each extra nuclear reactors save a lot if money (due to displacing imported fossil fuel) - so actually replacing a nuclear reactor would be both costly to propose and would just end up with the old reactors still running until end of life (always been amazed japan doesn't go the korean or french route in regards to nuclear)
Hydrogen recombiners - yup, great mitigation system.
Would required a complete rebuild of the reactor. Also, the BWR Mark I was the typical containment at the time the Fukushima I 1-4 reactors where built.
Plant-wide safety, but yeah - this would have worked as long as long as an even higher wave didn't hit
The reactors handled the earthquake just fine, it was the water that was an issue
One really cheap option that would have worked would have been if they had sited the generators in a submersible building, sited generators _inside_ the reactorbuildings (would been considered less safe however), or have had the major powerlines underground (which is a great mitigation against lightningstrikes, fires and typhoons as well).
The filters I mention are the ABB-designed Multi Venturi Scrubber System ("haverifilter") - interesting enough ABB tried to sell them internatiinally (incl to the japanese) in the early 1990s. (A more expensive but similar option is the vacuumbuilding use for CANDUs).
Oooh, the filters you describe being considred seems like the MVSS mentioned above.
Kinda sad that we sold off ASEA/ABB (now part of the Westinghouse-division of Toshiba) - their nuclear division made some seriously interesting things (BWR90+ for instance).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 09 2016, @09:46PM
I noticed that you didn't include INSURANCE costs.
Oh, that's right. Governments have been giving them waivers for 7 decades.
If these for-profit companies had been required to get insurance on the open market for these incredibly dangerous things, they never would have been built.
Governments have been subsidizing reckless behavior in the nuke industry since Day 1.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Saturday December 10 2016, @10:10AM
Ehm, since 1988 (IAEA Joint Protocol) they have insurance in most sane countries, since 2003 there even are extended facilities for payment even in the US.
However - the issue with insurance for nuclear is that you need to insure against politicians rather than radioactivity. So you don't know what costs you are calculating towards.
And the reason I didn't mention insurance was twofold.
*) Differs widely between country
*) Is in OpEx (just like pens and paper, didn't mention that either)