| > Of course, my point is only that it's true to say that EDF sold the power too cheaply, otherwise they would have been profitable and debt-free. They have been profitable for decades. As for the debt, part of the debt is logical for such a group to have (i.e. amortizing the expense that was or is being made to extend the plants' lifetime). Part of it is due to being required by the government to make bad decisions (e.g. buying and recapitalizing Areva, giving 8 billions worth of electricity to their competitors this winter, ...). This debt is unrelated to EDF's operations. > Yankee costs 10 million USD per year still to this day with no end in sight. That is related to long term storage, not dismantling. There's no reason for that to cost billions in France, where a storage site is on the rails. > Why doesn't that count as being part of the decommissioning costs? Decomissioning a plant has two parts: dismantling, which is a one-time cost, and long-term storage, which is an ongoing cost. The specific issue with the US govt. is that, when the plants were being built, it guaranted that a storage solution would be built, but didn't deliver. That's why the government currently pays for storage. There is no technical reason for this to happen. > This means that every year, at least 10 million USD has to retroactively be added to the actual cost of electricity generated by that plant. [...] To say that nobody knows what it actually costs is quite fair IMO By that same logic, it's impossible to know the cost of anything. Maybe future politicians will force people to recycle their solar panels at outrageous cost? The only logical decision is to separate the cost of decomissioning (dismantling, a reasonable duration of dry-cask storage and the cost of a long-term storage site) and the cost of political decisions. |
How can you know if they were profitable or not before you know the final costs?
>> Why doesn't that count as being part of the decommissioning costs? >Decomissioning a plant has two parts: dismantling, which is a one-time cost, and long-term storage,
Certainly, but the yankee plant is currently housing the fuel in a short-term storage container on-site. So the dismantling part is not completed yet, and the costs are ongoing. It's not yet in the "long-term-storage" phase of operations, which btw also cost money.
>Maybe future politicians will force people to recycle their solar panels at outrageous cost?
The difference with nuclear compared to other sources is that the costs of nuclear __have__ to be handled. If an operator of a solar panel plant goes bankrupt, the state doesn't have to pay a cent since the plant simply stops costing money when it is shut down. That makes it much easier to estimate the costs.
If an operator of a nuclear plant goes bankrupt however, the state simply has to cover all the costs to ensure proper handling of the fuel and waste.
We have to date not managed to do so reliably anywhere in the world, so how can we claim to know the costs?