Although nuclear energy is widely used for electricity production, it has often faced an image problem, particularly in the wake of accidents such as the 1985 Chernobyl disaster, the 2011 Fukushima accident or, more recently, the occupation by Russian forces of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine.
They’re restarting one in Michigan for $1.5 billion and expect to have it online in two years. At $1.5 billion for 800MW it’s cheaper than renewables.
Meanwhile, the last new nuclear power plant built in the US was seven years and was $15 billion over its original budget of $14 billion. And they’re going to have to raise electricity rates to cover these costs.
The government is “loaning” them 1.52 billion…
The link doesn’t even say that it is projected to cost that much. And there’s definitely no guarantee it really will.
It doesn’t go into specifics on what that entails, but I’d be very very surprised if it doesn’t require a complete replacement of the stacks. Like as you seemed to be aware of, is where the carbon issue is.
I’m not saying it’s impossible. I’m saying the carbon costs of refurbishing are going to be similar to the carbon costs of a new one.
Maybe I wasn’t clear, I thought we were talking about environmental effects and not money.