Andy wrote:Devil,
You really consider nuclear cheaper than hydroelectric power? Just curious as to how you arrive at that conclusion. Every other power person I talk to tells me that established hydroelectricity is the lowest cost electricity source bar none.
I agree that the generation of hydroelectricity, by itself, is fairly low cost, but the holistic costs are enormous, from cradle to grave.
Whole villages and enormous tracts of fertile valley are immerged under water. The loss of agroproduction to a relatively poor community and their re-housing is never calculated in. Peasants are forced upwards into less fertile land that is much more difficult to cultivate because of the gradients. As a result, the Swiss Federal and Cantonal governments give Alpine peasants massive subsidies which are their only means of survival. Add to that the loss of tourism revenues (it is difficult to ski down a slope that is under water).
Then there is a cost of surveillance and safety. Since the Mattmark disaster in the 1960s, when a lump of glacier fell into the water, Switzerland has been lucky. I can recall only two or three deaths and much material damage when a penstock ruptured about three years ago, so. This is nothing compared with the estimated 250,000 global deaths from ruptured dams and suchlike over the last 50 years. Is human life that cheap that we can ignore the cost of these disasters? Not to mention the material damage. The Rawyl dam had to be emptied a decade or so ago and repaired because of rock movements. Was the cost of this factored in? Is the cost of the satellite observation of the dams included? And, God forbid, if a major dam, like the Grande Dixence (or, worse, the Three Gorges) gave way, it would make Chernobyl look like a Sunday outing.
Then, we hear of the cost of decommissioning nuclear sites, but the cost of end-of-life decommissioning Alpine HE dams has never been calculated. Simply, the blasting of the concrete and removing the debris will cost more than building the dam thing in the first place!
On river dams, such as the Aswan, the cost of dredging the silt and the loss of downstream natural fertilisation of the flood plain are also extremely high charges that are never calculated in.
I repeat, the holistic costs of hydroelectricity more than take it over that of the holistic costs of nuclear, simply because they are not factored in.