[Propelloni]

From TFA

> Meta and its Big Tech peers have fallen head over heels for nuclear power lately. Meta announced earlier this year that it was soliciting proposals for new nuclear power plants that would generate between 1 and 4 gigawatts of power. Today, the company said it has received over 50 qualified submissions for sites in more than 20 states.

I would like to see one of those submissions. Is Meta getting into the utilities business? Have they figured out how to store the waste yet? How to insure the power plant? How to make a dime of nuclear power without relying on massive public subsidies?

[maeil]

The waste and costs will be socialized, the profits will be privatized.

[preisschild]

> Have they figured out how to store the waste yet?

Not the power plants problem, as per law the government is responsible for it and the utilities have to pay them. The govt is in breach of this by not opening Yucca Mountain.

For contrast, in Finland the utilies are responsible for their waste and they have Onkalo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repo...

> How to insure the power plant

Thats what insurance pools like the "American Nuclear Insurers" are for

> How to make a dime of nuclear power without relying on massive public subsidies?

German commercial nuclear power plants for example never received ANY subsidies and they still made a lot of money.

[Propelloni]

Thank you for giving me an opportunity to research this stuff again.

> Not the power plants problem, as per law the government is responsible for it and the utilities have to pay them. The govt is in breach of this by not opening Yucca Mountain.

Strange, we assigned blame, yet the problem persists. What are they going to do with nuclear waste until the government acts? [1] I guess you wouldn't be willing to put a barrel or two into your garage, would you?

> Thats what insurance pools like the "American Nuclear Insurers" are for

I have heard of those. Let's check how much they disbursed for Fukushima. Apparently Fukushima was insured by the German Nuclear Reactor Insurance Association. And apparently the Association did pay out... nothing [2]. Furthermore, liability is often capped for those insurance associations, just like in the USA [3]. In the end the public will pay anyway.

> German commercial nuclear power plants for example never received ANY subsidies and they still made a lot of money.

The science service of the German Bundestag seems to disagree [4]. A more comprehensive study is here [5].

[1] And "act" could just mean to revoke the law and institute something like in Finland. Proper compensation of risk could certainly speed up finding suited locations. I'm all for it.

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Nuclear_Reactor_Insuran...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93Anderson_Nuclear...

[4] https://www.bundestag.de/resource/blob/877586/4e4dce913c3d88...

[5] https://foes.de/publikationen/2020/2020-09_FOES_Kosten_Atome...

EDIT: typos, grammar

[preisschild]

> The science service of the German Bundestag seems to disagree [4]. A more comprehensive study is here [5].

You are wrong. It's not the science service of the Bundestag quoted in your link, but the exact same junk-science study by the anti-nuclear "Forum Ökologisch-Soziale Marktwirtschaft" that you quote below

See here: https://dserver.bundestag.de/btd/14/080/1408084.pdf

Antwort des Parlamentarischen Staatssekretärs Siegmar Mosdorf vom 15. Januar 2002 > In Deutschland sind bisher in Leichtwasserreaktoren ca. 3 225 Mrd. kWh erzeugt und in öffentliche Netze eingespeist worden. Subventio- nen für die kommerzielle Stromerzeugung aus Kernenergie gab es nicht. Allerdings wurde die Forschung auf dem Gebiet der Kern- energie durch öffentliche Mittel unterstützt.

Translated:

Answer from Parliamentary State Secretary Siegmar Mosdorf dated January 15, 2002 In Germany, around 3,225 billion kWh have been generated in light water reactors and fed into the public grid. There are no subsidies for commercial electricity generation from nuclear energy . However, research in the field of nuclear energy has been supported by public funds.

[Propelloni]

You are mistaken, just read the whole science service report and not only the chapter on subsidies (which leads with a definition of subsidies that includes all furtherances). However Mr. Mosdorf is not wrong, even if his data foundation remains unclear. There were, respectively are, no direct subsidies, just tax exemptions, indemnifications, and cost absorptions, esp. with regards to long-running waste disposal costs.

Anyway, nuclear power probably is not economical, but it also is not an existential threat, like climate change. So there are better hills to die on than this topic.

[jajko]

Just look at history of their behavior in other areas for those answers. Its the same company, same people making same or similar decisions.

[rollcat]

Just to give everyone some perspective, my guesstimated peak power usage of common household appliances: an electric stove - 5kW; a fridge - 500W; washing machine - 500W; 55" TV - 120W; a laptop - 65W; gaming PC - 600W. If you'd run all of these simultaneously, that'd be around 7kW.

So, in the most unrealistic scenario, a 1GW power plant could power 140.000 households. The grid may have to handle those kinds of peaks by using other sources of energy, but let's assume all we have is this one power plant.

Let's pretend we don't need to handle peaks. Assuming average yearly power usage of 10kWh, average power draw could be around 1.15kW. In that scenario, a 1GW plant could power 870.000 houses.

[lwo32k]

Too add more perspective

They generate cash at a ridiculously insane rate (literally few bucks off everyone connected to the internet growing by 10-15 cents every quarter).

What happens when you can produce cash faster than you can cultivate capacities to use it, and Wall St is constantly pushing you do something with it?

[fastball]

Storing nuclear waste is a solved problem.

[Propelloni]

How so?

[fastball]

https://www.orano.group/en/unpacking-nuclear/all-about-radio...