“With each passing decade, this record-breaking monument to big international science looks less and less like a cathedral—and more like a mausoleum.” — Scientific American
The 35-nation International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project, advertised as “the way to new energy,” has hit another snag. “The world’s biggest fusion experiment,” Bloomberg reported, “faces new delays and potentially billions of dollars in extra costs after defective pieces and broken supply chains disrupted the reactor’s construction in southern France.”
It was bad news at the 32nd annual meeting of the ITER, with a bland press release describing activity but little else. “Council Members reaffirmed their strong belief in the value of the ITER mission and resolved to work together to find timely solutions to facilitate ITER’s success.”[1]
The week before the meeting, Scientific American exposed problems in the article, “World’s Largest Fusion Project Is in Big Trouble, New Documents Reveal.”…
“These too-high electricity prices are slowing progress on electrification and straining the pocketbooks of lower-income households.” (- Meredith Fowlie, University of California at Berkeley)
California electric customers could be seeing a radical new approach to electricity rates by 2025, if state regulators adopt a plan by the state’s three large investor-owned utilities. Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), Southern California Edison (SCE), and San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E) have jointly filed a plan to comply with a state law enacted last June (Assembly Bill 205), that would combine a fixed, monthly recurring bill based on household income, not on how much electricity the household uses, along with a more conventional consumption-based charge.
The utilities will lower their consumption rates, making up the losses through the income-taxation mechanism.
Under Assembly Bill 205, the three investor-owned utilities must reduce their sky-high retail electric rates, using an income-related fixed charge mechanism.…
“NuScale’s estimated ‘levelized cost of energy’ (LCOE) … jumped by one-half last December (to $89/MWh from $58/WMh). The total cost for the project is estimated at a bit over $9 billion, but $1.4 billion is offset by DOE funding, which could increase in the future.”
More news, more problems regarding the live projects being counted on as the beginning of a new era of nuclear power. Back in the 1950s/1960s, the expectation was that learning-by-doing and scale economies would bring parity with fossil-fuel plants. Today, that same goal seems distant.
NuScale
NuScale Power’s small modular reactor project, designed to provide electricity to Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems, a joint action agency serving 50 municipal utilities in Utah, Arizona, California, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, and Wyoming, has survived another near-death experience. Facing a vote by the participants in its project for six light-water pressurized reactors, totaling 462-MW on the grounds of the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory near Idaho Falls.…