Recently, in preparation for a long lecture on nuclear, I attempted to use some algebra to compare the cost of nuclear with wind. That was a waste of time, because algebra seems to be going the way of the language spoken by the Aztecs at the time that Cortez paid his visit to Mexico City. What this issue comes down to is that the TV audience has been led to believe that there is a choice where the use of nuclear is concerned. There is no choice. More nuclear will have to be used - that is to say, the total nuclear capacity will have to be increased - and eventually it will be increased. Even in Sweden the moronic former prime minister was forced to lift the ban on nuclear research.

Increased by how much. This is hardly the place to go into that, but it does not involve putting a reactor on every street corner. Besides, there are people who know more about this matter than my good self, although most of them seem to be afraid to offer an estimate, and in particular to offer an estimate in unambiguous language. One of these people appears to be the new US Energy Secretary. As for his closest subordinates, they seem to have about the same amount of scientific smarts as an average student of physics at Boston Public.

Let me note though that regardless of how I sound here, I have more respect than ever for the anti-nuclear people. One reason is that there is so much dishonesty these days that it is impossible to be certain that nuclear installationswould be constructed the way that they should be constructed if the activities of constructors were not under constant scrutiny. In addition, I can appreciate the fanaticism of some of the members of the anti-nuclear booster club. Where things like science and economic theory - and just as important history - are concerned, they are pretty ignorant, but they know what they want and they spare no effort in obtaining it.

The ABWR certainly requires some updating, but a revision to a current license is significantly easier than starting at the beginning.

The company seems to have recognized this fact and is now trying to get into the ABWR game, but their long delays and focus on the ESBWR has put them in the follower position to Toshiba on their own design.

If GE-Hitachi folds, don't blame the slow licensing process alone. Poor choices within the company's power certainly contributed to their problem.

To keep a large number of the global population from starving, and in addition to maintain or raise standards in the industrial countries, nuclear is a must. Today I received a publication in which the ignorant boss of the Swedish energy institute put in a good word for wind and sun. Can you imagine - in Scandinavia he thinks that solar power makes more sense than nuclear, and this man has a PhD in technical physics.

Of course, Professor Chu - the US energy minister - has a Nobel Prize in physics, but he cant seem to bring himself to give nuclear the unambiguous endorsement that is required.

But in reality (and once again) it makes no difference what people like this do. Eventually there will probably be a 'Manhattan (type) Project' in order to provide the energy needed to keep the world economy on the rails, and that will mean more nuclear. I just hope however that the persons who are going to manage the nuclear additions have more on the ball than the ladies and gentlemen who - despite in some cases cases having technical educations - prefer sub-optimal solutions to the energy dilemma.

If nuclear costs are dramatically reduced (and the nuclear waste dilemma essentially solved), then nuclear might stage a real comeback because it will soundly beat the competition.

The Obama administration has the same energy policy as the Bush administration. None. Fragmented. Maybe.

We can not build coal plants because they are dirty. We can not build nuclear plants because they are dirty.

The result? I'm just a poor boy from New Hampshire, but it seems to me that energy shortages are inevitable. Someday we will plug in our whooptee-do electric hybrid and pray for juice.

TCE

It is precisely because these things haven't happened that nuclear power is on the receiving end of so much vehement opposition.

At $7,000/kW installed cost, a nuclear plant must recover something like 12 cents per kWh, including returns of and on capital, O&M and fuel costs. Greenfield sites for nuclear plants will be very difficult to permit and brownfield sites won't be a picnic either. There's still no plan for dealing with the waste.

Even with natural gas prices in the range of $12, a combined cycle plant only needs around 9-10 cents. There's no waste and no decommissioning problem.

Of course if carbon gets taxed or priced at levels that discourage the use of gas and coal, nuclear starts to look pretty good.

At the same time though I am slowly coming to the conclusion that I might have been wrong to take the position that I took on nuclear. If I had spent more time in the presence of the know-nothings, neurotics and parasites, I would probably be a charter member of the anti-nuclear booster club, and might have met some very personable young ladies whose vapid conversations I could have tolerated with the aid of alcoholic beverages.

Add in the "big shaft" syndrome and fission based power looks like a looser. The transmission issues associated with these monster plants are as expensive as the plant itself. Small, professionally run nuclear power with highly enriched U235 might work...basically naval reactors placed near the load. Sadly civil nuclear power in the US have screwed themselves over and so they need to look in the mirror for solutions.

It is a sorry state of affairs!

I have news for you all. This is precisely what has happened to most industries and now governments too ever since the technological revolution from computerization and the internet happened over the last few decades, which has pervaded most of the industrial and consumer and political world.

Everything commercial happens and changes at lighting speed nowadays, so it has become a widely accepted view that is far more risky to spend big money on long range bets than it was to do so many decades ago. Even some academic intellectuals have said on this website in the past that most companies in US industries can no longer afford research and development on long range strategic projects, and so look to governments instead to help them do it.

My whole point is that only those companies and governments with the deepest pockets can afford to spend on long range projects or on the necessary research and development of new technologies to be commercialized many years out. And, it now includes large nuclear plants for the energy industry in spite of its technical advantages that we engineering and physics types recognize. The whole concept of only spending money on short range thinking is probably worth writing a book on by some clever economist.

The money spending problem is a major part of the anti-nuclear club boosters’ platform.

Any domestic nuclear power plant builder needs to ask themselves if the U.S. Gov't is likely to untie the Gordian Knot that is Yucca Mountain anytime soon. If not, then they need to eliminate that problem entirely by going with IFR. IFR also addresses long term Uranium supply concerns.

Technically, IFR may not be the best solution in terms of costs for power produced. But any system will become more economical over time (if you build a lot of them), and as most know, nuclear power is dominated by non-technical concerns (fears) that IFR is able to address.

Further, review of new designs under consideration / development could lead one to believe in a remarkable technological revival of nuclear energy. These include such a simple but key direction as greater standardization of designs. Lack of such standardization was a major contributor to the problems of the early nuclear industry, notably the high capital cost. Even more exciting is work on "alternative designs", for example the potential offered by small "nuclear batteries" for distributed generation. Don't be surprised if a major player announces strong involvement in this area.

Further still, proclaiming the demise of GE Nuclear dismisses the likelihood of GE absolutely dominating nuclear enrichment within five years. Work in this area appears to be on track based on recent NRC filings.

If one needs to concerned about anything in the nuclear industry, I would point to the possibility of renewed availability of HEU depressing the market for uranium again. For Cameco, their delay at Cigar Lake coupled with another "flood" of HEU may severely impact their finances.

Finally, blaming the dearth of reactor construction in the USA on "delays", particularly regulatory, seems inappropriately simplistic. Granted the regulatory regime has tightened substantially from "the early days". And, as is not unusual, it likely has overcompensated. However, the situation at Davis Bessie earlier this decade highlighted the need for further refinements of operations, design and regulation. Until such events are distant history, regulatory delays will continue to brake nuclear development

Frankly, I'm encouraged by the unfolding state of affairs regarding "a new nuclear industry". And, the level of "teeth gnashing" in this forum is possibly a wonderful contrary indicator of the likely direction.

The development of nuclear batteries and standardization of large plant designs are exciting technology prospects for the nuclear industry. It must be recognized however, in my humble opinion, that the companies developing these must take the lions share of investment risk to develop and later market them as off-the-shelf commercial ready, particularly for any large central plants. What I mean is they must depend less over time on governments and utility companies to commit to purchase them as the way to fund their development. The latter scenario is commonplace in many other industries, particularly ones with lots of competition.

As to funding large plant standardization...agreed...suppliers of plants should be funding this (although I think it could be a smart investment by select utilities to participate as investors).

As to novel technologies / fuel cycles...it would seem that public / private partnership may be appropriate...with emphasis on private. So again, agreed.

The gentleman tutoring me in German in Vienna described the euphoria that swept over that city when news reached its citizens of the entry of the German army into Paris. However he said that when the US came into the war, he and his intelligent friends knew that Germany would be defeated, although it wouldn't happen over night.

Similarly, on the nuclear front, it is absolutely and totally and completely and definitely certain that all is going to make economic sense in the long run, but even so it is annoying - and to a certain extent frustrating - that we will have to wait years for the inevitable to take place.

Streamlining reactor design and construction by modularizing the plant is the path to lowering capital costs. What energy company out there, or even nuclear production company, is large enough to set up that kind of production facility without guaranteed contracts? By encouraging competition in the energy/nuclear industry, governments have insured high costs. Fortunately the solution is at hand. The last few contracts it has signed for nuclear plants included complete technology transfer. They have the demand, the long term view and the wherewithal to move forward with factory based modular component construction of nuclear power plants. America's (and pretty much every other industrialized nations's) nuclear future belongs to the Chinese, just like it's manufacturing base does now, it's Technical support industry, it's electronics industry and soon, it's service industry.

Paul

Welcome to the real world of business today. It's not just the nuclear industry that suffers from this sad reality, but just about every other commercial and industrial sector. Too, governments everywhere have been gradually adopting a similar philosophy. Voters have pressured them into being reluctant investors in R&D for any long-term commercialization because among other things they have adopted the predominant conservative view that "picking" technology winners in the future is better left up to the private sector.

Governments are also increasingly loathe to guarantee purchase contracts particularly when companies receiving them habitually experience cost overruns and then soak taxpayers for it, which by the way plagued the nuclear industry in its early years.

Don't get me wrong here, I don't like it either that private companies are being forced to bear all the costs of R&D, but that is what has increasingly taken place over the last couple of decades. And now that China and other emerging economies are fiercely competing on all costs, it's inevitable that our industries are gradually shifting to other parts of the world.

The bottom line Paul is that for North American industry to survive in a global marketplace with free trade, companies must "innovate or stagnate", and that unfortunately means that we must lower our incomes to compete with all the cheap labor and lack of environmental standards abroad, and above all shoulder the costs of much more R&D to come up with the next technology that the world will buy.

One might think that this means there should be lots of work for scientists and engineers (like me) to develop new products in our domestic industries. But sadly this is not the case either, because as you correctly point out, even services like engineering are migrating overseas now too for much cheaper salaries.

When our existing domestic companies face severe competition from abroad, the overwhelming tendency is just to go out of business instead of stepping up their R&D efforts to compete. But this is really no surprise either, since top executives in many of our industries now make huge salaries relative to most other employees, so it's financially easier for them to close down their company and retire while everyone else is left to fend for themselves.

Thanks to the lobbying efforts of large corporations, deregulation became the catchphrase of the day, and it was fashionable to justify it by waving the flag of free enterprise. Now we must compete with foreign semi-managed economies, in which industries are truly deregulated (in terms of labour practices, pollution controls, environmental controls). These advantageously placed companies (more and more frequently western ones that have relocated) are now competing head-to-head with our own domestic industries.

The fact that Chinese companies, as an example, don't actually pay the world price for gas or oil, and have low energy costs due to the prevalence of coal power, don't have to meet the same safety regulations for workers or pruducts, and work hand in hand with government owned and run banks (that are themselves awash in surplus currency) means that they can compete at a huge advantage to North American companies.

And all of this has been engineered by our own governments. It almost is enough to make one start looking for the money trail, except I think it is more likley due to extreme near-sightedness, and an addiction to short term results that has caused it. The same addicition to short term results that will destroy the domestic nuclear industry.

Paul

But before we get to that point, the US distinguished itself in the 1940's by turning manufacturing plants into war machinery plants. Pittsburgh poured out steel mined in US mines, and manufacturing took place across the country.

GE in its world wide globalization was forging steel ingots in Japan and assembling them in Spain. Why? Because the US no longer is the leader in manufacturing. Let us reinstitute the Pittsburgh steel mills, get the vessel assembly plant in Mount Vernon, IN its N-Stamp back. We, the previously great nation of the United States, could mine iron ore, process steel, assemble the vessels, pumps, valves, and piping in the US.

If we do not do this now, what will happen in the next global catastrophy? Will we serve each other food, or maybe loan each other worthless money? If we do not manufacture something, we are worthless in the global economy.

Nuclear power plants can provide our economy with jobs for design engineers, process engineers, construction workers, eguipment manufacturers, operators, and management personnel. 100% U.S. And then when the next need for global salvation occurs, we Americans can divert our efforts to their cause because we will remember how to make things.

As for the NRC, why are so many of the License Review people not English speaking as a first language? Is this condition leading to a language barrier that is delaying the license reviews? Are there no Americans who could provide nuclear safety oversight without dragging out the process? Have we set ourselves up for failure? Why should this process take four years to review?

Many people share your views on America's past manufacturing history and leadership, and also agree that a stimulated domestic nuclear industry could create substantial new domestic companies and new employment. But we must accept that the nuclear industry is just ONE of many industries who would potentially want to recreate our lost domestic manufacturing companies to create many new jobs.

Many in government circles including the Obama administration consider for example the auto industry, and the renewable source generation industry, to be just as capable of maintaining existing jobs and creating badly needed new employment.

My point here is that government led initiatives to revitalize our lost manufacturing industries are faced with many competing ideas on how to do it. This means there are many competing ideas for government contracts and public money. Nuclear sadly is not particularly high on their priority list it would seem.

Even more troubling is that public money is not coming from a bottomless pit – sooner or later the federal government will exhaust its favor with foreign lenders particularly as federal budget deficits and total government debt both continue to grow to unprecedented levels. This is the underlying message I have been trying to get across to our professor Banks, meaning the future for nuclear is not as bright as he would like to see even if our governments some day come to their senses as he likes to describe it. America’s massive debt will eventually cripple the central government’s ability to finance industrial restructuring to restore its economic world leadership position. So prepare yourself David for a steadily declining standard of living in America.

Len, having a father who is a retired Ontario steel worker, I saw first hand what happened during the 1980's, and you are precisely correct (as usual). The Canadian and North American steel industries peaked during the 1970's when average workers' wages were even higher than the automotive industry. All that changed when global competition in the steel industry emerged in the 1980's. Combined with gradual process automation, our primary and secondary steel industry has steadily shrunk ever since, and never recovered. e.g. Ontario's former primary steel company Stelco Inc., now owned by US Steel Corp., was once over 13000 employees in 1981. When US Steel closed these facilities down completely last month in Hamilton and Nanticoke due to the current economic recession, it was barely over 2000 workers, with only 2 out of its 5 original blast furnaces operating. Other American primary steel companies, like Bethlehem Steel which once located its plants near Buffalo, New York, had several dozen blast furnaces lining the shores of Lake Erie. Today they are all gone, ghosts of the past.

I'm sure there are similar stories in the North American auto industry happening too.

The collapse of North American manufacturing has only been offset in part by huge increases in productivity over this period in whatever companies remain in business. But achieving constant productivity increases, from automation etc., have practical limits to what is attainable. So in time as more companies close down or move offshore, the wealth, and spin-off business employment, and government tax revenues all generated by them disappears too.

Fred Banks is going to wait a long time for the relative economics of nuclear plants to match up with gas in North America - perhaps as much as two or three decades. I was convinced we'd neared or reached peak gas production last summer, until high prices brought forth new supplies. The natural gas industry keeps talking about ten year average reserve lives but it seems we never run out of the stuff. Eventually we will stop finding economically exploitable gas supplies and nuclear will look competitive, but I'm not willing to take or make bets on when. Especially as rapid growth in renewable energy production reduces the demand for gas as a boiler fuel.

For those who advocate a centrally planned economy, bear in mind that it has not been a particularly successful national economic strategy. The Asian Tigers are suffering terribly as a consequence of government controlled economic strategies that focused too much on exports and too little on building a sustainable local economy. Russia, Venezuela and Iran to name a few are hurting pretty badly. The Chinese are enjoying great success as they bring middle class lifestyles to hundreds of millions of people, but the ending to their story is far from being written. Let's see how they do in 20 or 30 years. The capitalist free-for-all has its warts, but it has also proved very resilient.

Agree completely about having to wait a very long time before there is any signficant high priority given to large nuclear plants. I believe we will see some nuclear built in the short term, but nowhere near the numbers Fred Banks would like to see.

Some very smart people have suddenly turned dumb where nuclear is concerned, and so that is that. Finito! Something to be noticed here is that economics education is so terrible in most countries that there is no point in wearing my good self out preaching certain things about nuclear costs that I once thought was obvious, and which should be obvious. The key factor however is that advocating nuclear is a political liability: people just dont want it because they have been led to believe that they can do without it and maintain their standard of living. On average I dont believe that this is true.

Malcolm

I never realized you had studied Roman history or Roman sayings. Here's a cute comparison for you.

You and professor Banks remind me of historic Romans like Galileo and other famous astronomers of his era. Remember Galileo was persecuted by the Catholic church for his beliefs, including that the world was round and not flat. Although he and others turned out to be right, no one believed them until a very long time later.

Today it's not the Catholic church but the majority of politicians and the public who refuse to believe what you guys are saying on this website. Yes indeed, there are a lot of dumb people out there in high places according to you. Heaven help us all.

I also agree that centrally planned economies are not very preferred given a choice. Given the sad state of the world and US economies though, and given the fast returns that most investors today look for, and given all the other short-term thinking that pervades our society, the US central government believes it has no other choice than to force a planned restructuring of the economy with strong interventionism.

Leaving the economy on its own without intervention, the US government believes, and so do I to some extent, that most investors will never make the longer term bets necessary to pull the US out of the mess it's in. If anything investors and even average citizens have reined in their spending and holding onto their cash even more so now, reluctant to invest in anything.

I like to compare the actions of Obama’s administration and US economy to a man and his family who are painfully slowly losing their income and standard of living. The only tool the man has is a huge line of credit to borrow money against. Rather than sit back and hope his family somehow saves themselves from disaster, he chooses to be proactive and take some risks by borrowing heavily to strategically invest in retooling his family for future work, at the expense of putting a huge mortgage on them. If he chooses the right investments that pay off down the road, the mortgage will eventually get paid off. If not, at least he tried.

So whether we like it or not, Obama's administration is doing what they believe is right. And guess what, it has widespread appeal to many average US voters out there too who have longed for a strong interventionist central government with socialist tendencies. It just so happens that their interventions will not include very much emphasis on investing in the nuclear industry anytime soon.

My point is that today the NRC uses methods that are so constrained and ungainly they prevent timely accomplishment of any work. Since the ABWR would have to be relicensed in the U.S like the Westinghouse AP-1000, there’s little hope that even that design could speed anything up. Lengthy, ungainly reviews penalize suppliers with limited capital. Lately, the only suppliers with unlimited capital are government-owned like Areva, and overseas like Doosan, Toshiba, MHI and Hitachi. NRC Chairman Dale Klein has previewed the logical outcome. The U.S. supplier base is virtually gone, and in the future new nuclear products will be imported from elsewhere. Even DOE is considering the Pebble Bed for its new NGNP prototype. Thus the tables have turned on the technology the U.S. developed, and the taxpayer supported dearly.

There are no strategic choices anyone can make that don’t depend heavily on one wildcard -- government cooperation. Overseas, governments take much more care looking after their supplier’s, compared to what we do here.

J.K. August

While the Obama Administrations position on nuclear power is disheartening, the problems are largely our own making. We’ve created so much uncertainty and hedging in nuclear power project costs and delivery, it’s not a very attractive. Does that need to be the case? Absolutely not. However, if Congress doesn’t start to get the NRC focused, they will place the last nail in the lid of our coffin. It’s clear that at least five countries overseas could replace our nuclear power capability, and giving preference to them based on their current expertise, designs or simpler regulatory processes -- or any other reason…. could guarantee undesirable strategic outcomes for the U.S. I believe that it is untenable for Congress to let that happen without debate. In several years, people on the street could easily be paying four-times what they do today for power. Once Congress realizes that, they’ll have act. Or they’ll be replaced, too.

“Federal review of a new nuclear reactor design will take 15 months longer than expected, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.”

“The Westinghouse reactor was first approved in 2006, but has been updated 17 times since then. The updates, which include details on how the reactor will withstand the impact of an airplane, was supposed to be reviewed by March 2010. That deadline has been pushed back to August 2011.”

Okay, we started with 48 months and now we're up to 63. What else is there to say? Remember, delays and costs killed the nuclear industry, not TMI directly. J.K. August

Galileo must of been a very lonely person during his time. History repeats itself in the strangest ways.

As for this business of my being a punching bag, if some ignoramus at CERN believes that and wants a debate with me, he can send me a plane ticket - which is essentially what I told Amory Lovins. In fact, YOU can send me one if you desire a debate, assuming that you continue with your present absurd belief of how energy economies function. But be aware of one thing Mr A: I take no prisoners!

Besides, I am comparing him with Galileo who ultimately was right in his beliefs (about the solar system) but no one believed him for a very long time. It would seem the same will hold true for professor Banks about his beliefs on nuclear, until he backs up his claims with hard numbers on this website somehow without being paid for it. I won't be holding my breath for the latter to happen any time soon, and readers of this website shouldn't count on it either.

Apparently you don't go along with this, but you want me to provide some hard numbers (on this website) to support my theories. Bob, this is Fred Banks, and he aint nobody's fool. I could probably dig those numbers up in a day or two and express to both you and the White House, but why bother. Just as words don't mean anything in the great world of sites, online forums and debates, cell phones, blogs, CNN, etc etc, I really doubt whether numbers mean a great deal. either. I mean, the people who are active in this forum - both articles and comments - must be among the best in the world, but every day I get a load of nonsense from some source.

And that's why I will continue to wait for that air ticket +.