Let me make one prediction for the coming year. Once tax reform has been passed the White House will turn to an infrastructure spending bill. As usual most of the attention will be on building new roads and bridges, where we’re already overbuilt, and not on the less glamorous projects like sewers and maintenance.
If I were king, I’d devote much more attention to the resilience of the electrical grid, something that simply won’t be done by the private sector because a resilient electrical grid is a public good, something whose benefits accrue to everybody and not something that will improve the power companies’ bottom lines this quarter.
And in my opinion the technology described in this article at The Hill is a key component of a more resilient grid:
In today’s politically polarized environment, compromise is a rare commodity, especially in the energy debate. While progressives push for the use of zero-carbon energy, conservatives counter by advocating for a reliable electricity grid.
Yet, nuclear energy could bridge the divide. Innovative technologies like molten salt reactors safely create power that is both carbon free and highly reliable. By removing onerous energy-related regulations and subsidies, federal and state governments can provide an economic environment that allows such a game-changing innovation to benefit Americans.
Small modular nuclear reactors, preferably fueled with thorium rather than uranium, have much to recommend them. They don’t require the enormous capital investment of the sort of nuclear reactors we’ve been building or the long lead times, they’re far safer, they aren’t targets for terrorists, they have a low cost per kwh, they don’t emit and carbon, and they lend themselves to the redundancy needed for a truly resilient grid.
Sounds like you want the electrical grid nationalized or am I reading this wrong? Seems to be a way to make the utilities actually do something.
Sure, nationalize it. Like the interstate highways. Everything government ain’t commie.
One can make good arguments for “small” thorium-fueled reactors. (But, goodbye NH mountains.) However, the reason we used to build 1,000 MW reactors is economy of scale. Capital costs rise approximately as the 0.7 power of size. So, doubling the size of a plant only increases capital costs by 60%. This is a very robust rule across a very wide range of industrial facilities, and it applies to thorium-fueled reactors, too. People who invest in them will want them as large as possible. The only way to build the power grid you want is to nationalize it. Good luck with that.
By the way, thorium reactors are not all that simple, and they do not dispense with nuclear waste.