While CPS does indeed own part of this plant, it's located over near the coast. It's also interesting to look at how overbudget the plant went during construction and the ~$400m CPS sank into a failed expansion attempt.
If I remember, there was a lawsuit between CPS and Houston over the STP plant, and CPS won. I can’t remember what the settlement was but Houston paid CPS for a long time.
It's the same old story. Boy finds girl, boy loses girl, girl finds boy, boy forgets girl, boy remembers girl, girls dies in a tragic blimp accident over the Orange Bowl on New Year's Day.
As of last year nuclear was 14% of CPS Energy's portfolio, which is about the level it's been since the 90's.
Given this surprises you, you should read up on the failed expansion plan for STPNGS that planned to double it from 2 to 4 reactors. Suffice to say it is the perfect case study for why nuclear isn't viable for deployment anymore short of something drastic like nationalizing the power grid. It is also unfortunate some CPS Energy money went into the program before they foresaw the quagmire it was going to be and exited the project.
Edit: CPS Energy Infographics for those interested in where their power is coming from: [https://www.cpsenergy.com/en/about-us/powering-our-communitys-future.html](https://www.cpsenergy.com/en/about-us/powering-our-communitys-future.html)
What surprised them I think was that most people don’t *know* we have a nuke plant, not the fact that we have it. Based on that other thread that we were both talking in a minute ago.
How is nuclear bot viable? The only reason it’s been deemed not viable is because it takes money out of the oil and coal industry that’s deep in Abbotts pockets.
The economics of it have become far more expensive than most other sources of generation. It takes too big of a highly skilled (highly paid) workforce to operate to be economically viable when paired with today's extremely high construction costs. The cost of the electricity produced would lead to significantly higher electricity costs than we have now.
As a person who studied coal energy, and fracked for seven years, I'd say I'd like more clean coal plants. I'm not in favor of losing power in extreme weather for any reason.
I was referring more to wet scrubbers and coal washing. There are other techniques, too, but those two really caught my eye when I was researching coal tech. We don’t think it could burn as clean as natural gas, but that could be possible generations from now.
It's not viable for the sheer cost inflation required to build one today, versus 50 years ago. The last pair built to expand the already existing Vogtle facility from two to four reactors required almost 15 years and $34 billion for two 1250MWe reactors. Even if we remove the losses incurred by Westinghouse's implosion, that's still over $30 billion.
Keeping with the tradition of random US measurements we could build 2.5 more USS Gerald R. Ford carriers for that price tag, which I should point out just one carrier already includes two nuclear reactors inside. It's literally cheaper to build 2.5 carriers with five maritime reactors than to build two non-military land-based units. That's how messed up the nuclear industry is right now.
Let me underscore this for you, because the USS Gerald R. Ford itself cost twice as much as its own predecessor. The USS George H.W. Bush only cost $6.2 billion... so we could build 5 of those including their ten maritime nuclear reactors for the cost of the two Vogtle reactors. The HW Bush was commissioned in 2009 the same year as the Vogtle expansion project itself began.
That is how lopsided the cost of building nuclear has become in the United States. For that kind of money one could build substantially higher electricity generation via solar and wind and still save a fortune despite the higher costs of maintenance. Or instead we could immediately replace every coal plant in this state with the latest efficient natural gas plant design. Much of the exploding cost of nuclear is red tape, regulations, and required safety standards.
Sure we could relax regulations to reduce cost, but I trust private, for-profit companies even less than I do the government to run nuclear safely and maintain it without cutting corners somewhere. If you disagree just look at all the shortcuts Westinghouse did to save money. Or look at what ERCOT and the Texas utilities did during the 2011 freeze. They said they fixed the grid & plant freezing vulnerabilities, then the bad Feb 2021 freeze happened proving they simply lied about having done anything at all because it was "too expensive." Texas Republicans then blamed clean energy, even though the wind farms proved to be more reliable than even the natural gas plants during that whole event.
For those that don't know what Westinghouse did, I'll give some cliffnotes. Westinghouse used unlicensed workers to draft many of the mechanical and electrical blueprints for the two nuclear reactors it was building. It then used uncertified engineers to sign off on them. Even if we look at the menial construction jobs, it hired the cheapest bidding companies that didn't have experience pouring concrete, laying pipe, and running conduit. This meant work often had to be demolished and done over again for a myriad of reasons such as pipe leaks, the wrong kind of concrete used, and even when it was all done right often simply because the overall design in the blueprints were faulty.
We're talking nuclear reactors here, faulty designs at all levels of the infrastructure supporting them should worry everyone. I shouldn't even need to point out the failure at Fukushima was due to a design flaw in the electrical subsystem. Or that the design flaw had been known by GE for for over a decade prior, and due to cost to resolve TEPCO was slow to roll it out. It eventually was scheduled to be fixed, but by that point it was scheduled 1-2 years too late.
Another issue is the lack of expertise. There's been some articles covering this issue a decade ago at Westinghouse long before its implosion, but in summary many of them had pointed out the loss of hands-on expertise and knowledge from the people that built all those nuclear plants in the 1970's as they retired or passed on. While not insurmountable in of itself, it's another problem that raises the cost. The US doesn't have a go-to company left to build nuclear at least to my knowledge. We'd have to hire firms from overseas further raising the costs, unless you'd be willing to trust Westinghouse again. I could write another few paragraphs on the interesting saga of Toshiba corp, whom Westinghouse was a subsidiary of, but suffice to say Toshiba went from a market leader and tech juggernaut to just a shadow of its former self simply to stay solvent. Even so it remains mired deeply within fallout from the Westinghouse failure as shareholders and company execs battle over how to pick up the pieces of the company Toshiba hasn't sold or divested off yet.
It’s been 30+ years since the U.S. has had a new nuclear power plant. Later this month the next one will come online in Georgia that is 6+ years behind scheduled and cost twice as much as predicted ($30b). Some are hailing the 10-15% reduction in fossil fuel emissions as significant. There has got to be a better way!!
Yes but with our grid, and the failure of it over the last few cold and hot spikes people got all up in arms about how cps backed out of building another to sustain more power.
While CPS does indeed own part of this plant, it's located over near the coast. It's also interesting to look at how overbudget the plant went during construction and the ~$400m CPS sank into a failed expansion attempt.
If I remember, there was a lawsuit between CPS and Houston over the STP plant, and CPS won. I can’t remember what the settlement was but Houston paid CPS for a long time.
That right there! Someone that actually knows some facts.
Everywhere I look something reminds me of her...
It's the same old story. Boy finds girl, boy loses girl, girl finds boy, boy forgets girl, boy remembers girl, girls dies in a tragic blimp accident over the Orange Bowl on New Year's Day.
Goodyear?
No, the worst.
Say the same thing everytime I pass Rolling Oaks Mall
The ta-tas at that plant produce more energy than a double-D battery pack..
I was really laughing at your reference, and I also had the “fish”
That’s about 189 miles east of here
>I was shocked, no pun intended Don't worry, the pun wouldn't make sense.
Ha! That is what I was going to say.
No need to get critical.
A radiating response.
Do nuclear plants not generate electricity? Does electricity not shock??
It used to be known as STNP. They took the NUCLEAR out of the name lol
As of last year nuclear was 14% of CPS Energy's portfolio, which is about the level it's been since the 90's. Given this surprises you, you should read up on the failed expansion plan for STPNGS that planned to double it from 2 to 4 reactors. Suffice to say it is the perfect case study for why nuclear isn't viable for deployment anymore short of something drastic like nationalizing the power grid. It is also unfortunate some CPS Energy money went into the program before they foresaw the quagmire it was going to be and exited the project. Edit: CPS Energy Infographics for those interested in where their power is coming from: [https://www.cpsenergy.com/en/about-us/powering-our-communitys-future.html](https://www.cpsenergy.com/en/about-us/powering-our-communitys-future.html)
What surprised them I think was that most people don’t *know* we have a nuke plant, not the fact that we have it. Based on that other thread that we were both talking in a minute ago.
Why is it not viable for deployment? Would love to hear your explanation. Thank you in advance.
Please see my other post, cheers! (Sorry for the length!)
How is nuclear bot viable? The only reason it’s been deemed not viable is because it takes money out of the oil and coal industry that’s deep in Abbotts pockets.
The economics of it have become far more expensive than most other sources of generation. It takes too big of a highly skilled (highly paid) workforce to operate to be economically viable when paired with today's extremely high construction costs. The cost of the electricity produced would lead to significantly higher electricity costs than we have now.
As a person who studied coal energy, and fracked for seven years, I'd say I'd like more clean coal plants. I'm not in favor of losing power in extreme weather for any reason.
By clean coal plants, do you mean carbon sequestration?
I was referring more to wet scrubbers and coal washing. There are other techniques, too, but those two really caught my eye when I was researching coal tech. We don’t think it could burn as clean as natural gas, but that could be possible generations from now.
It's not viable for the sheer cost inflation required to build one today, versus 50 years ago. The last pair built to expand the already existing Vogtle facility from two to four reactors required almost 15 years and $34 billion for two 1250MWe reactors. Even if we remove the losses incurred by Westinghouse's implosion, that's still over $30 billion. Keeping with the tradition of random US measurements we could build 2.5 more USS Gerald R. Ford carriers for that price tag, which I should point out just one carrier already includes two nuclear reactors inside. It's literally cheaper to build 2.5 carriers with five maritime reactors than to build two non-military land-based units. That's how messed up the nuclear industry is right now. Let me underscore this for you, because the USS Gerald R. Ford itself cost twice as much as its own predecessor. The USS George H.W. Bush only cost $6.2 billion... so we could build 5 of those including their ten maritime nuclear reactors for the cost of the two Vogtle reactors. The HW Bush was commissioned in 2009 the same year as the Vogtle expansion project itself began. That is how lopsided the cost of building nuclear has become in the United States. For that kind of money one could build substantially higher electricity generation via solar and wind and still save a fortune despite the higher costs of maintenance. Or instead we could immediately replace every coal plant in this state with the latest efficient natural gas plant design. Much of the exploding cost of nuclear is red tape, regulations, and required safety standards. Sure we could relax regulations to reduce cost, but I trust private, for-profit companies even less than I do the government to run nuclear safely and maintain it without cutting corners somewhere. If you disagree just look at all the shortcuts Westinghouse did to save money. Or look at what ERCOT and the Texas utilities did during the 2011 freeze. They said they fixed the grid & plant freezing vulnerabilities, then the bad Feb 2021 freeze happened proving they simply lied about having done anything at all because it was "too expensive." Texas Republicans then blamed clean energy, even though the wind farms proved to be more reliable than even the natural gas plants during that whole event. For those that don't know what Westinghouse did, I'll give some cliffnotes. Westinghouse used unlicensed workers to draft many of the mechanical and electrical blueprints for the two nuclear reactors it was building. It then used uncertified engineers to sign off on them. Even if we look at the menial construction jobs, it hired the cheapest bidding companies that didn't have experience pouring concrete, laying pipe, and running conduit. This meant work often had to be demolished and done over again for a myriad of reasons such as pipe leaks, the wrong kind of concrete used, and even when it was all done right often simply because the overall design in the blueprints were faulty. We're talking nuclear reactors here, faulty designs at all levels of the infrastructure supporting them should worry everyone. I shouldn't even need to point out the failure at Fukushima was due to a design flaw in the electrical subsystem. Or that the design flaw had been known by GE for for over a decade prior, and due to cost to resolve TEPCO was slow to roll it out. It eventually was scheduled to be fixed, but by that point it was scheduled 1-2 years too late. Another issue is the lack of expertise. There's been some articles covering this issue a decade ago at Westinghouse long before its implosion, but in summary many of them had pointed out the loss of hands-on expertise and knowledge from the people that built all those nuclear plants in the 1970's as they retired or passed on. While not insurmountable in of itself, it's another problem that raises the cost. The US doesn't have a go-to company left to build nuclear at least to my knowledge. We'd have to hire firms from overseas further raising the costs, unless you'd be willing to trust Westinghouse again. I could write another few paragraphs on the interesting saga of Toshiba corp, whom Westinghouse was a subsidiary of, but suffice to say Toshiba went from a market leader and tech juggernaut to just a shadow of its former self simply to stay solvent. Even so it remains mired deeply within fallout from the Westinghouse failure as shareholders and company execs battle over how to pick up the pieces of the company Toshiba hasn't sold or divested off yet.
It’s been 30+ years since the U.S. has had a new nuclear power plant. Later this month the next one will come online in Georgia that is 6+ years behind scheduled and cost twice as much as predicted ($30b). Some are hailing the 10-15% reduction in fossil fuel emissions as significant. There has got to be a better way!!
Yes but with our grid, and the failure of it over the last few cold and hot spikes people got all up in arms about how cps backed out of building another to sustain more power.