Nuclear power generation in the United States is falling. After increasing rapidly since the 1970s, electricity generation at U.S. nuclear plants began to grow more slowly in the early 2000s. It then plateaued between 2007 and 2010—before falling more than 4 percent over the last two years. Projections for 2013 show a further 1 percent drop. With reactors retiring early and proposed projects being abandoned, U.S. nuclear power’s days are numbered.
早在1979年宾夕法尼亚州三里岛核电站的事故播下公众对原子能的不信任种子之前,核工业的麻烦就开始了。1957年,美国第一个商业核反应堆在宾夕法尼亚州建成。到20世纪60年代中期,人们对一种被预测为“便宜到无法计量”的能源的兴奋,引发了建造反应堆的疯狂热潮。但随着工程延期和成本超支的现实逐渐浮现,公用事业公司很快就收紧了油门。新反应堆的年订单在1973年达到超过40个的峰值,在接下来的几年里急剧下降。1978年的两个反应堆订单将是三十年来的最后一次。
Of the 253 reactors that were ordered by 1978, 121 were canceled either before or during construction, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists’ David Lochbaum. Nearly half of these were dropped by 1978. The reactors that were completed—the last of which came online in 1996—were over budget three-fold on average.
By the late 1990s, 28 reactors had permanently closed before their 40-year operating licenses expired. A number of factors played a role in this, including cost escalation, slower electricity demand growth, and a changing regulatory environment. Despite these closures, the United States was still left with 104 reactors totaling some 100 gigawatts (100,000 megawatts) of generating capacity—by far the most of any country.
Then, spurred on by new tax credits and loan guarantees promised in the 2005 Energy Policy Act—as well as by high prices for natural gas, a competing fuel—the industry has recently had visions of a “nuclear renaissance.” By 2009, utilities were planning more than 30 new reactors. But in the years since, the vast majority of these plans have been shelved. Even with huge subsidies, private lenders still see new nuclear projects as too risky to finance. Meanwhile, the U.S. shale gas production boom sent natural gas prices plummeting, further darkening nuclear’s prospect.
In 2012, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) approved four new reactors for construction, two each at the Vogtle plant in Georgia and the Summer plant in South Carolina. These reactors are all of the same commercially untested design, purportedly quicker to build than previous plants. Both projects benefit from fairly new state laws that shift the economic risk to ratepayers. These “advanced cost recovery” laws, also passed in Florida and North Carolina, allow utilities to raise their customers’ rates to pay for new nuclear plants during and even before construction—regardless of whether the reactors are ever finished.
这两个基地的建设都于2013年3月开始。据报道,在耗资140亿美元的Vogtle项目浇筑第一层混凝土时,它已经落后计划19个月,超出预算超过10亿美元。耗资100亿美元的夏季项目也很快遇到了问题。今年6月,该公司的所有者斯坎纳公司(Scana Corp.)承认,该公司的运营进度落后了大约一年,并面临着2亿美元的额外成本。考虑到这些延迟,这些反应堆的预计最早完工日期是在2017年底。
The only other reactor currently under construction in the United States is Watts Bar 2 in Tennessee. It broke ground in 1972 and, after being on hold for two decades, was finally scheduled for completion in 2012. But that year, the owner—the Tennessee Valley Authority—announced it would be delayed again until 2015 and that the cost of the project would rise by up to 80 percent, to $4.5 billion.
Several utilities have recently dropped plans for new reactors or for “uprates,” where an existing reactor’s generating capacity is increased. For example, in May 2013 Duke Energy suspended its application to the NRC for two proposed reactors in North Carolina, citing slow electricity demand growth. Then in August, Duke pulled plans for a two-reactor, $24.7-billion project in Florida, on which it had already spent—and mostly recovered from its ratepayers—$1 billion. The company worried that mid-2013 amendments to the state’s advanced cost recovery law would make it more difficult to fund ongoing projects with higher customer bills.
In June, the nation’s largest nuclear utility, Exelon, canceled uprate projects at plants in Pennsylvania and Illinois. (These are two of at least six uprates dropped by utilities in 2013 as of early September.) Just over a month later, the French utility Électricité de France (EDF) announced it was bowing out of a partnership with Exelon that operates nuclear plants in New York and Maryland. In fact, EDF will no longer pursue U.S. nuclear projects at all, instead focusing its U.S. efforts on renewables.
今年已经有4个总容量为36亿瓦的反应堆被永久关闭。第一个倒塌的是杜克大学位于佛罗里达州的水晶河反应堆。尽管该工厂获准运营到2016年,但杜克大学决定关闭它,而不是支付所需的维修费用。随后,道明尼能源公司(Dominion Energy)在威斯康星州拥有39年历史的科瓦尼(Kewaunee)反应堆关闭,原因是天然气价格较低。它最近被批准运行到2033年。今年6月,南加州爱迪生公司(Southern California Edison)的两座圣奥诺弗雷(San Onofre)反应堆因一台全新的蒸汽发生器泄漏而关闭了18个月。这些退役使美国拥有100座反应堆,平均运行时间为32年。(法国排名第二,有58座反应堆。)
More closures will soon follow, particularly among the roughly half of U.S. reactors in so-called merchant areas where nuclear competes with other technologies and prices are set by the market. A2013 reportby Mark Cooper at the Vermont Law School indicates that there are nine merchant reactors that, like Kewaunee, were granted 20-year life extensions but are especially at risk of closure. Epitaphs are already being written for two of them: Vermont’s lone nuclear power plant will close in 2014, and the country’s oldest reactor, Oyster Creek in New Jersey, will retire by 2019.
“Regulated” areas, where state authorities set electricity prices such that nuclear operators are guaranteed a profit, contain the rest of the U.S. reactors. Even for many of these plants, the economics may not allow for survival much longer. According to Credit Suisse, the cost of operating and maintaining the aging reactor fleet is rising at 5 percent a year and the nuclear fuel cost is growing even faster, at 9 percent annually. Wind and solar power costs, on the other hand, continue to drop as their electric output grows rapidly.
Dealing with nuclear waste is another expensive proposition. Over the past 30 years, the U.S. government has spent some $15 billion trying to approve a central repository for nuclear waste, and for most of that time the only site under consideration has been Nevada’s Yucca Mountain. Amid concerns about the site’s safety and its extreme unpopularity in Nevada, the Obama administration has moved to abandon the project entirely and explore other options.
2013年8月,一家联邦上诉法院裁定,核管理委员会必须重新审查该地点的适用性。与此同时,废物不断堆积。目前储存在35个州80个临时场所的7.5万吨垃圾预计到2055年将翻一番。所有这些都对核能的扩张前景产生了影响:包括加州、康涅狄格和伊利诺斯州在内的9个州已经禁止新建核电站,直到找到解决核废料问题的办法。
核运营商在发生事故时的低责任水平也让纳税人陷入了困境。工厂所有者缴纳的保险金额仅为120亿美元;公众将承担进一步的损失。相比之下,2011年日本福岛核灾难的清理和赔偿预计将花费至少600亿美元。The Natural Resources Defense Councilestimatesthat a catastrophic accident at New York’s Indian Point plant could cost 10 to 100 times that amount. This risk will be underscored on September 29, 2013, when one of Indian Point’s two reactors becomes the first ever to operate with an expired license.
If the reactors now under construction in Georgia and South Carolina actually come online, they are projected to generate electricity that is much more expensive than nearly any other source, including wind and solar power. New nuclear plants are simply too expensive to replace the aging fleet. And with uprate proposals for existing reactors being pulled, it appears the industry cannot depend on this option to increase capacity much either.
美国核管理委员会已经批准将美国现有反应堆三分之二以上的运行寿命延长20年;其余大部分人可能也会获得延期。即使这些反应堆达到了许可使用年限(过去的经验表明这是不可能的),如果没有新的核电站上线来取代它们,美国最后一个反应堆将在本世纪50年代末关闭。任何行业都希望Vogtle和Summer项目的成功。As U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said in arecent interview在美国,如果这些正在建设的核电站继续造成巨大的成本超支和延误,“很难看到核电站在美国的未来”。
Data and additional resources available atwww.earthpolicy.org.
Image credit:Michael Kappelviaphotopincc
jc1255says
Keep your fingers limbered up to report on the upcoming US energy crisis! Within the next 5 years the current glut of fracking generated natural gas will run it’s course as utilities retool to exploit it and prices rise accordingly. It will be about then that it’s availability tapers off as the technology to produce it reaches it’s limits and the “Green” movement begins to understand it’s ecological cost. Unfortunately the “renewables” will still be far short in their capability to replace the lost nuclear capacity which will leave us with no choice but to fall back on oil and (dare I say it?) coal to keep prices down until we can regain our footing with new nuclear capability. The smart money today is on small modular reactors. So keep your eyes pealed!
Rhonda Lenstsays
DOE needs to answer for this first:
http://boycotttesla.wordpress.com/2013/07/25/the-drop
Jeff McIntire-Strasburgsays
嗯……打哈欠。
George Lawrencesays
In reply to jc1255, I would respectfully suggest that the indefinitely delayed renaissance of the commercial nuclear power industry in this country is not in response to any ‘Green” movement [straw man as used here], but rather to simple economics. One does not need to be a proponent or opponent of nuclear power, instead just accept the market judgment. The costs of shale gas, photovoltaic and wind are now dropping and all other electric generation modes are increasing, but particularly nuclear Witness the recent decision by Duke Energy to cancel the Levy County pair of 1100MW plants whose projected price had ballooned from US$4B in 2006 to US$24.7B this year before they pulled the plug, with no plans to return the approximately US$1B that ratepayers are going to have to finish paying in by 2014. Paying for generation they never get to use. How many industries get to do that? Nuclear has fairly been described as one of the most socialized parts of the US economy.
现在,我要承认,天然气价格本身就不稳定,当页岩气产量下降的速度像多边定向水力压裂井那样快时,天然气价格显然会上涨(也许会大幅上涨)。
But at the same time, wind turbine prices are coming down, and in 2012 nine states in this country generated at least 10% of their electricity from wind, a sustainable resource if ever there was one. Photovoltaic panels and inverters are coming down in price as well, though PV will rise some as the current Chinese oversupply is worked through.
1999年,煤炭发电占美国发电量的52%,现在已经下降到40%左右,尽管已经下降到37%,而且趋势明显下降。不要责怪环保运动,这是简单的经济学。
As for modular reactors, I would be cautious with any investment there. The economy of scale is given up, with really no reduction in security risk, accidents, and again unenviable economics.
I am curious what others think as well. I think that the article was a cogent and responsible summation of the sad but well-earned demise of an industry.
CaptDsays
Whether you are Pro or Anti Nuclear, Fukushima’s radioactive water is causing Global concerns and rightfully so since TEPCO’s track record at telling the truth is about as good as their handling of the triple meltdown at Fukushima.
TEPCO saves huge YEN for every liter of radioactively polluted water that escapes. leaks or is simply allowed to run either onto the ground or directly into the Pacific Ocean, via the Sea of Japan.
Once off site it is no longer TEPCO’s problem, which is wonderful for them but terrible for the res of us!
他们的储存系统自从第一个水箱在现场建造后就设计失败了,那些认为东京电力公司正在尽一切努力捕获和保存这些放射性水的人是生活在一个幻想的世界里,东京电力公司更关心日本人民,而不是他们自己的面子和利润!
We are not being told the truth about what is going on there, which is BAD news for mankind and especially the Pacific Ocean that is now a Japanese radioactive dumping ground!
Yet another Colossal FAILURE by TEPCO and the Japanese Government who “regulates” them:
Rad detectors at Fukushima Diachi read 1,800 millisieverts an hour.- BBC.http://wp.me/pDwKM-3HZ
所以,比起说太平洋是巨大的,日本可以继续倾倒,每个支持或反对核能的人都应该问,为什么允许日本这么做,因为这让整个核工业都面临放射性鸡蛋,自3/11/11以来,他们一直试图淡化任何和所有挑战核能不安全的负面信息!
CaptDsays
核电站(NPP)可能会出什么问题?
Anyone or more of these:
~ Tornado strike?
~ Earthquake?
~人为错误?
~ Tsunami?
~ Power outage?
~ Pipe break?
~ Test gone wrong?
~ Old fuel issues?
~恐怖袭击?
~飓风?
~ Plane crash?
~ Heavy rains/River floods?
~ Metal Fatigue?
~ Nuclear Ransom?
~ Solar Flair?
~ EMP?
~ Lightning?
~ Dam Failure?
~火?
~ Operator suicide?
~ Jihadist?
~ CME ?
~ Carrington Effect?
~ Cyber-warfare?
~ Meteror?
~ Aliens?
~ Volcano/Eruption?
~ Stuxnet ?
~ Bad Luck?
~ Murphy’s Law?
… Just to name a few possibilities of how NPP’s can fail.
CaptDsays
Here is what Former Japanese PM Kan (1), Gregory Jaczko (2) the Former Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and 2 other Nuclear Experts (3) had to say at a June 4, 2013 seminar in San Diego,CA, “Lessons for California” which was based upon what they experienced as the Leaders “in-charge” when 3/11/11 occurred:
(1)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAYVK8_W2h4
(2)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AG1QmEQ84aY
(3)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8g6mViUvHUo
CaptDsays
Uprate’s: Big Profits for Utilities & Big Losses for Ratepayers
Uprate’s allow more power to be generated which is wonderful for the Utilities bottom line (additional profits from same “old” nuclear power plant (NPP), but it is never mentioned that generating that additional power increases the wear and tear on the NPP, which the ratepayers, not the Utility, have to pay for!
At San Onofre NPP in CA (which is also now being decommissioned), SCE wanted to install new replacement steam generators (RSG’s) so they could generate more power and make more profits but their poor in-house design resulted in their RSG’s failing soon after being installed! Now ratepayers have pushed the CA Public Utility Commission (CPUC) into demanding an investigation into the reasonableness of all the monies spent in order to determine what amount of money should be rebated to ratepayers. Estimates of total cost of their debacle as 13 billion dollars, yet the Utility is claiming they are not responsible! Note, because the NPP was decommissioned prematurely, there is now a shortage of money to decommission the NPP of about 740 million dollars, since this money is collected from ratepayers while the NPP is in service. So get ready ratepayers in VT, chances are that you will soon be learning that you are going to have to pay for any shortage in decommissioning costs that have not been already collected.
Uprating is only a good deal for the Utilities and their shareholders who do not have to pay for the increased maintenance costs required by the uprate due to higher corrosion rates and fatigue stress, which are just past along to the ratepayers, as part of the NPP’s ongoing maintenance. Remember, if additional maintenance is required, the Utility also profits from that “extra” work so there is little incentive to prevent wear and tear, especially when Utility profits are at stake!
CaptDsays
Great article:
Flare-up: How the Sun Could Put an End to Nuclear Power
http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/ei…
BY GAR SMITH
snip
太阳能可能很快就会超过核能——只是不是以我们所希望的方式。据美国国家航空航天局称,地球将很快面临强大的太阳耀斑爆发,足以摧毁全球电网。如果发生这种情况,世界上的核反应堆可能会失控,过热,融化,爆炸。
The sun’s magnetic cycle peaks every 22 years while sunspot activity crests every 11 years. Both events are set to peak in 2013. Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) trigger geomagnetic disturbances (GMDs) – tides of high-energy particles that can disrupt power lines. Since the 1970s, the array of high-voltage transmission lines spanning the US has grown tenfold. NASA warns these interconnected networks can be energized by a solar flare, causing “an avalanche of blackouts carried across continents [that] … could last for weeks to months.” A National Academy of Sciences report estimates a “century-class” solar storm could cause 20 times the damage as Hurricane Katrina while “full recovery could take four to ten years.”
CaptDsays
FACT: A once in a hundred year or even a thousand year event is just as likely to happen tomorrow as many years in the future; then what?
This is where the NRC and the nuclear Industry fails the public trust because they live in Nuclear Denial* because they believe nothing BAD will happen to any Nuclear Power Plants (NPP’s).
Example:
French Nuclear Disaster Scenario Was So Bad The Government Kept It Secrethttp://www.businessinsider.com/potential-cost-o通过@bi_contributors……
snip
Catastrophic nuclear accidents, like Chernobyl in 1986 or Fukushima No. 1 in 2011, are, we’re incessantly told, very rare, and their probability of occurring infinitesimal.
But when they do occur, they get costly. So costly that the French government, when it came up with cost estimates for an accident in France, kept them secret.
But now the report was leaked to the French magazine, Le Journal de Dimanche. Turns out, the upper end of the cost spectrum of an accident at the nuclear power plant at Dampierre, in the Department of Loiret in north-central France, amounted to over three times the country’s GDP.
*http://is.gd/XPjMd0
The illogical belief that Nature cannot destroy any land based nuclear reactor, any place anytime 24/7/365!
Martin Vermeersays
队长,别这么烦人。
Diane Csays
我对这些评论完全无语,尤其是关于太阳黑子的评论。我计划在屋顶安装太阳能电池板,我想知道太阳活动是否会对它们产生负面影响。
Martin Vermeersays
Diane C, forget it. It’s nonsense. Yes, solar eruptions can potentially disrupt by EM induction large above-ground electric grids (esp. a so-called Carrington event, last seen 1859) but individual solar panels are not at risk. Do your economics and enjoy
CaptD是个愚蠢的大嘴巴,原谅我的法语。