Electricity Price Increases

[ultrarunner]

I’m thinking both inflation/declining purchasing power plus the for profit structure of many but not all providers…

 

[KennyG]

There is a least a chance that we may start building nuclear plants again in quantity. They won't be cheap, so it won't reduce electric rates, but it should stabilize rates for a long time. New nuclear plants should operate for 80 years or more, so capital costs are less important.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

There is a least a chance that we may start building nuclear plants again in quantity. They won't be cheap, so it won't reduce electric rates, but it should stabilize rates for a long time. New nuclear plants should operate for 80 years or more, so capital costs are less important.

The Japanese are deploying 1 mw nuclear modules designed to provide electricity where stringing wires is not practical. The Chinese have a prototype molten salt thorium reactor in operation. I think the US has a couple new nuclear plants under construction, but I don't know of any others on the drafting board. I think the ones under construction are using the 75 year old pressurized water heat exchanger design.

https://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/green/japans-yoroi-reactor-ushers-in-a-new-era-of-micro-nuclear-power.html

 

[KennyG]

The newest operating plants in the US are the Westinghouse AP1000 units at Vogtle in Georgia. They were late on schedule and over budget but now the design is standardized and approved and Westinghouse claims they want to build at least 10 more units in the nest 5 to 10 years. There are several small modular reactors either in the permitting stage or under construction. There is a planned reprocessing plant in Tennessee that will reprocess used fuel into new fuel, greatly reducing the waste disposal volume.

There is a lot of information in the industry press but these companies tend to avoid the general media attention because of the small group of "protest anything" organizations. That's why you don't hear much about the projects.

 

[KennyG]

The Westinghouse AP1000 is, at it's basis, a conventional pressurized water reactor. However, it is passively safe. That means that, in the event of a design basis accident, no active components, power supplies, or other support is required.

 

[MossRoad]

Palisades plant in Michigan is going to restart the existing reactor that was shut down in 2022 by the end of 2025. That's the goal, at least. Then they are going to install two SMR-300 reactors and have them operational by 2030, again, that's the goal. It's the first nuclear plant in the US that will be restarted after being decommissioned.

 

[Carl_NH]

Three MIle Island will restart it's non damaged reactors (that were shut down in 2019) by 2028 as part of a deal with Microsoft to run one of their data centers, also, Bill Gates is behind a project in Wyoming to build a plant there.

 

[KennyG]

Restart is also being considered for the Duane Arnold plant in Iowa. There are other nuclear plants that were perfectly good units that were shut down for political reasons or because of competition from cheap natural gas. They include /Rancho Seco and San Onofre in California, Zion in Illinois and Indian Point in New York but they will be harder to restart.

 

[rontaki]

Three MIle Island will restart it's non damaged reactors (that were shut down in 2019) by 2028 as part of a deal with Microsoft to run one of their data centers, also, Bill Gates is behind a project in Wyoming to build a plant there.

Let's just hope the TMI reactors and the one in Wyoming will not be running on Windows OS.

 

[ponytug]

Let's just hope the TMI reactors and the one in Wyoming will not be running on Windows OS.

No, I think it is MS-DOS, the last certified OS.