Costs to close nuclear power plant?

[Amati]

Nuclear power, it has many benefits and many drawbacks. Did you ever wonder how much it costs to disassemble (that is, decommission) a nuclear power plant? The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in Southern California is already closed, and work has started on disassembling the plant. This is what the OCRegister says about the costs:

In 2013 – the year the closure was announced – decommissioning efforts at San Onofre cost $237.9 million, according to Edison’s filings with the Public Utilities Commission.
In 2014, they cost $210.8 million; in 2015, $282.8 million; and 2016, about $240 million. An additional $1.4 billion will be spent by 2020, and $1.6 billion more by 2030, after which spending is expected to taper off.

That's billions ....

"Billion" dollars is hard for me to put into perspective. Well, let's see, a minimum wage worker in Hawaii will earn under $18,000 /year. There are a whole lotta' more zeros in "billions" than "thousands"... Hummm, OK, that hasn't helped me break it down, so maybe I'll compare it to the cost estimates of rail in Honolulu.

KHON2:

That’s the latest projection from federal officials who say the cost for Oahu’s rail project can go up to $8 billion.

Now I feel worse than ever.

[Ron Whitfield]

Re: Costs to close nuclear power plant?

don't worry, rail will probably top $10B before the hard work in town even begins, so be glad we never got a nuclear plant as we'd probably be dead or long gone by now.
I'm actually surprised the nation hasn't suffered a real nuclear catastrophe, we're long over due and it's doubtful the brains exists to solve it ala Fukushima which is destroying our oceans.

[Amati]

Re: Costs to close nuclear power plant?

Yeah, I'm surprised also. We had one near disaster at 3 Mile Island, about which the Nuclear Regulatory Commission reported:

A combination of personnel error, design deficiencies, and component failures caused the Three Mile Island accident...

Do we have reason to think things are all perfect now? What if the management for Nuclear Power Plants use the same coursework as those who are overseeing our rail,,,,, yikes, that is not reassuring about the plants being well managed.

[Ron Whitfield]

Re: Costs to close nuclear power plant?

Are you kidding? Humans are the main problem, from design, to politicians, to over aged facilities, to error, to sabotage, it's the human element that is our biggest threat when playing with such volatility, and with the outright insanity that is overtaking all seats of Gmt. power in January with no restraints... you can expect a myriad of real problems just on this topic alone.

[Amati]

Re: Costs to close nuclear power plant?

That's what I was trying to say .... the human element (ie management) of nuclear power plants makes for the possibility of problems, similar to the human element (management) of rail having the problem of sending it into financial overdrive.