Obama to announce financing for two nuclear reactors

[discocrisco01]

Source: AFP

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama will announce on Tuesday plans for the government to help finance the construction of two nuclear reactors -- the first in nearly 30 years, a top US official said.

Obama, who has advocated reducing foreign energy dependency and cutting back on greenhouse gases, will use a 2005 law that authorizes the Energy Department to guarantee loans to projects that help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Obama "has long believed that nuclear power should be part of our energy mix," a senior administration told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The 18.5 billion dollars in existing loan guarantee authority will be used to help finance the construction and operation of two new nuclear reactors at a Southern Company plant in Burke, Georgia.

There have been no new nuclear power plants built in the United States since the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear accident in the eastern state of Pennsylvania.


Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hUDOlFcTkfXanbluyrt31dwzaqmA

[PSPS]

1. Bush's third term strikes yet again

[saigon68]

91. Its getting old

[grahamhgreen]

189. Next he'll start saying "nukular", and threaten nuclear war in the Mideast with a Beach Boys song nt

[bluestateguy]

2. Correct me if I am wrong

But isn't Illinois one of the biggest nuclear power states in the US? Meaning that as a senator from that state Obama would be likely to see nuclear power as a positive thing.

[mopinko]

3. yup

not sure about national ranking, but we do have several big nukes here. although we also have one, zion, that is in mothballs after being declared unsafe.

[Pavulon]

4. Cant outsource a high paying technical job at a reactor

to india, cant be made in china (not a good idea), clean power, lots of it. Rain or shine. Solar cells will be low bid trash as will wind turbines made by wage slaves in asia pac. Not so much for reactors. 80,000 starting salary.

[inna]

7. "clean power"? are you sure about that?

[Pavulon]

8. Yep. Cleaner than coal, and unlike the other stuff actually can do the work.

unless your count prayer power wind will not get it done. Manufacturing silicon chips involves pretty nasty processes.

add:
none of that can power the tristate at 130 gigawatts, not possible.

[Vincardog]

9. How clean is mining nuclear material then transporting and storing nuclear waste?

[Pavulon]

12. Cleaner than coal, or we could use FBR

not like we are playing the plutonium game. Reactors can fuel a partner every 5 years. Pretty cool. You know the sun, the thing that sustains all life here, is a nuclear reactor.

[Chef Eric]

18. How clean will it be if a hijacker crashes a passenger jet into it?

[Pavulon]

21. you mean that shit near newark?

that would be bad mmmkay.

[Confusious]

29. Americian reactors can withstand the impact of a 747..

try again.

[Technodaoist]

37. And the titanic was unsinkable...

[Pavulon]

44. An attack on a nuclear site is an act of Nuclear War

and would be responded to in kind. In a very uneven manner. OBL even mentioned it in his tapes. Was a bit worried about getting bottled sunshine in return. Hard to have a caliphate in a ecological desert.

[Chef Eric]

51. Oh, I see. The extremists who love war are afraid of war. That makes sense.

[Pavulon]

58. look it up on youtube..

lots of shit does not make sense.

[Chef Eric]

71. So, since Osama wouldn't send someone to fly a jet into a reactor, nobody else would either.

Thank you for clearing that up. I'm glad we have someone like you, who is able to read the minds of all extremists.

[Pavulon]

77. Lots of people get nervous on the shit end of a MAD doctrine.

they have been around a while, guess no one thought of that yet.

[Hugabear]

209. Since when did Youtube become an authoritative source?

Besides, WorldNutDaily says you're wrong. :tinfoilhat:

[Pavulon]

210. I dont speak arabic

but you can watch the video.

[Technodaoist]

60. So...

... we leave a potential weapon lying around, confident in the fact that anyone who would use it to kill us would get theirs. Sorry if I'm not crazy about your risk management skills.

BTW - OBL still hasn't gotten his, so your argument that our reactors would be safe seems to fall a little flat.

[Pavulon]

65. They sure ignored indian point.

guess they just forgot all about those reactors they could attack.

[Technodaoist]

75. Only so many things you can do in a day, right?

[Snazzy]

253. Actually Atta surveilled Indian Pt. from the air

as noted in 9/11 comm. report.

During the Spain meeting,Atta also mentioned that he had considered targeting a nuclear facility he had seen during familiarization flights near New York -- a target they referred to as "electrical engineering."According to Binalshibh, the other pilots did not like the idea.They thought a nuclear target would be difficult because the airspace around it was restricted,making reconnaissance flights impossible and increasing the likelihood that any plane would be shot down before impact.Moreover, unlike the approved targets, this alternative had not been discussed with senior al Qaeda leaders and therefore did not have the requisite blessing. Nor would a nuclear facility have particular symbolic value. Atta did not ask Binalshibh to pass this idea on to Bin Ladin, Atef, or KSM, and Binalshibh says he did not mention it to them until after September 11

p 245

with this footnote

... KSM has admitted that he considered targeting a nuclear power plant as part of his initial proposal for the planes operation. See chapter 5.2. He has also stated that Atta included a nuclear plant in his preliminary target list, but that Bin Ladin decided to drop that idea.

http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report.pdf

[demigoddess]

70. looks like even democrats want endless war, and the bills that go with it!!!

you know, if we didn't scream attack and war all the time Iran might be spending its time on something besides developing the atomic bomb.

[Toots]

254. So if a bearded group of cave dwellers somehow mange to hijack a plane and fly it into a reactor

Who would you nuke? Would you be like Bush* and attack any country that has an abundance of oil? When individuals do horrible things it is not an act of war. That is IMO a ridiculous idea. It is a crime against humanity but still a crime. Now if a Russian fighter jet flew into a nuclear reactor that would be a bit different.

[Chef Eric]

40. How often has that been tested with a 747 that was fully fueled?

Can you point me to the documentation of those tests? Thanks.

[Confusious]

57. No, I have no idea if unicorns shit skittles

You're asking for information you know doesn't exist.

They know it will work the same way they knew how to send a man around the moon, or a probe to Saturn.

It's called mathematics. Works pretty well. Take a class. You'll probably be surprised.

On Edit: considering, very, very, very, very, very surprised.

[Technodaoist]

64. Please explain...

I love math.

Please consider all potential factors... I'm sure you have all of those facts and formula somewhat accessible (I will wait).

Or am I asking for information that doesn't exist?

[Confusious]

79. Oh goody, another person trying

By asking for information that he knows I'm not going to have unless I'm a nuclear engineer, and thinks by doing so he wins the debate.

Physics, computer science, engineering ( nuclear, aerospace ), electronics, all use the same math. They don't have "special" math for each. If you really "loved" math so much you'd know that.

The same math used to calculated the path of probes to the outer planets is the same math used to create cars, is the same math used to build reactors.

[Technodaoist]

89. Right...

All I'm saying is that your own argument works against you. Sounds like you're shitting skittles and think that means you win an debate.

[Confusious]

105. Maybe it would, but in this case I gave examples

Someone said they wanted proof, I said the proof is the fact that the same math they use to send a probe 390,682,810 miles to Jupiter, and hit the mark within 5 miles, is the same math they use to design a reactor to withstand an impact.

Here's a nice link for you:

http://www.euronuclear.org/reflections/nuclear-facilities.htm

[Chef Eric]

81. I seem to recall that the WTC was built to withstand the impact of a passenger jet.

That was based on mathematics too. Faulty mathematics. You should learn about faulty mathematics. You'd probably be surprised.

[Technodaoist]

92. On consideration, very very very very very surprised...

[Confusious]

94. No, that was based on calculations

That the plane wouldn't be fully loaded with fuel to make a cross-country flight.

That plus all that was needed was for the steel to bend for the building to fail.

"You should learn about faulty mathematics"

The math doesn't lie, if your competent and taken everything into consideration. The only people who would thing "math" itself fails at a point like this, is people who have no science or math background.

[Chef Eric]

101. Faulty mathematics is a figure of speech.

I am not mistrustful of mathematics. I am mistrustful of people who do not take everything into account when they design things that are potentially very dangerous. Please tell me how you know that the designers of our nuclear reactors have taken everything into account. Please tell me how you know that they have covered all the bases.

[Pavulon]

104. I designed a milling process to handle steel that is made one place in the world

for reactor technology used and tested at idaho falls. The technology behind reactor safety can be seen in the operating record of the US naval fleet.

I no longer work for that company but was impressed with the people I met there. There are decades of experience and records available on design.

One thing we do really well here is make critical things work well. Cant farm that out to a wage slave in china, or a warm body from wipro.

[ThomThom]

153. and this steel will come from where? CHINA?

they are making wonderful products these days

[Confusious]

161. This is the 21st century

There are multiple ways of testing steel for durability and hardness and consistency.

http://www.ntbxray.com/application/material_testing/application_material_testing.html

[Pavulon]

165. Nope. They dont make that, and if they do they dont export it.

If they did, no one would use it. Japan does and so do several US companies. Special application steel is generally a batch made product for a specific project. Like a tasty handmade french pastry, it is an art form. Where steel from china is a damp little debbie cake that tastes like an old sock.

[bananas]

240. They do make that, and they will export it.

They also have gourmet cooks who make tasty french pastry.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x216559

Regarding cost estimates for the AP-1000's being built in China

Edited on Sat Nov-14-09 09:17 AM by bananas

In the past, some pro-nukes didn't believe me when I said that China had licensed the AP-1000 technology from Japan and would build their own versions of it, also building them in other countries. I've also pointed out that the techology licensing terms are among the many items not reflected in the publicly available cost estimates for the first AP-1000's now being built in China, and that those cost estimates should be taken with a large grain of salt. I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but China requires every foreign company to also sell them a technology license, and negotiations between France and China over licensing terms apparently delayed the sale of EPR's.

Well, here we go - China is now going to start building their own versions of the AP-1000 reactor, just as I said.

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN_Preparations_for_six_AP1000s_1111092.html

Chinese planners are moving ahead with three new nuclear power plants based on AP1000 reactors - the first to be developed after technology transfer from Westinghouse.

The US-based reactor vendor is already constructing pairs of AP1000 reactors in China with its partner Shaw at Sanmen and Haiyang, but these new units are to be the first built independently after the technology transfer that was part of Westinghouse's contract. They are also China's first nuclear power plants not located on the coast.

There are obvious dangers here about quality control. In the recent past few years, we've seen Chinese pet food and human infant formula contaminated with melamine and distributed worldwide, and we recently saw safety reports falsified in the US at Davis-Besse.

[Pavulon]

243. Pastry with melamine.

they are going to copy the technology. They hopefully will be able to copy the qa process that specialized steel goes through. Hopefully they will not skip that step, it is very expensive.

You end up throwing out millions of dollars of a material that can not be reused.

We do not import finished steel from china to make reactor vessels.

[Chef Eric]

158. You seem so pleased that this work can't be farmed out.

I don't care that this work can't be farmed out, because there's something more worrisome than not having these jobs. What is important is, how can we be 100% sure that there will never be a meltdown? How can we be 100% sure that our nuclear waste will be 100% contained for the next several thousand years? What happens if we get another Bush-like president in office, and our national debt doubles once again, and our economy collapses, and we can no longer afford to maintain our nuclear reactors in a safe manner? What will the impressive people that you met do then?

[Confusious]

163. You asking for assurances you never get in life

Am I 100% sure that aliens won't invade in the next 1000 years? no. I am sure 100% that the super-volcano under yellowstone won't go off and bury us under 100 feet of ash? no.

If the last 30 years is an indicator, things will be safe. New ways are being found to destroy the waste. Things go on after a collapse people go on. The plants would probably be shut down, because if we're all so depressed about the future, well, no need for power.

[Chef Eric]

181. Aliens? You want to talk about aliens?

O.K. then, let't talk about aliens. If aliens invade the earth, then it most likely won't be the USA's fault, will it? But if we have a nuclear meltdown in the USA, then it WILL be the USA's fault. See, there's a difference. A subtle difference, but maybe you can see it if you try really hard. But then again, I guess it won't matter if we have a nuclear disaster 100 years from now, right? Because it won't be OUR problem. It'll be our great grandchildren's problem. Well, screw the great grandchildren, right? Screw 'em.

[Confusious]

191. Have we had one in 30 years?

Newer reactors will be built with better safety features, passive safety features which will require no human intervention. And not just one or two, but layers deep.

We get the experience from these, and then we can move on to thorium reactors, which have fewer problems i.e. no meltdown, no waste. India is already building them, do we want to be the backwater of the world?

[Pavulon]

168. Nothing is for sure, nothing is for certain.

"outkast"...

The reactors go passive and shut down and the hole in nevada stays closed. You want a rapture ready nuclear reactor, that can be done.

[bertman]

215. Pavulon, you keep saying "we can't farm that out to a wage slave in China or India" but we

can sure as hell give them an H1B and put them to work HERE. Your naivete is striking for someone who has such technical skills.

[Pavulon]

218. Never saw a contractor in my division. Saw UK citizens

and others with specialized skills in areas of technology actually requiring them. You know, the real reason for the program. Replacing your IT department is not the same as running a nuclear reactor program.

This has been years but the clearance was not possible without a ssbi. Dont think most wipro guys could get that. No idea how that works in civilian land.

I dont think progress energy is going to hand over the most sensitive parts of its operations to a bunch of guys who dont know shit and come from who knows where with 60% turnover rates.

Not sure how the NRC handles employee security in reactor systems. Pretty sure there is some guideline.

[golfguru]

222. India is building 7 NEW nuclear power plants right now...

so it is quite possible they will have a lot of
"skilled" nuclear power plant techs running around.

[bananas]

241. And China is building 3 using Pavulon's super-secret technology

I guess nobody told him, the technology he helped develop has been sold.
See post #248: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4270354&mesg_id=4271038

[Pavulon]

245. No the technology I helped develop is not transferred. See China Sub incident

where crew killed. We DO NOT export military reactor design to anyone other than a handful of NATO countries like the UK. Westinghouse maintains distinct departments for those contracts. The AP reactors are not secret, the design has been marketed and will be sold.

I am sure China would love to be able to build that s6w system and are busy trying to steal it right now.

I WOULD NOT want to live next door to a chinese knock off of any reactor design.

[bananas]

264. So you're talking about secret military technology which can only be used on US warships.

I thought you were talking about the AP-1000.
(I wasn't referring to you in the other post when I wrote "some pro-nukes didn't believe me")

[Pavulon]

247. Sure they do. Just not at idaho falls.(nt)

[Alias Dictus Tyrant]

235. Impact? Yes. Phase change due to extended high temperature? No.

Every undergrad engineer knows that common steel undergoes a phase change from a face-centered cubic structure to a body-centered cubic structure well below its melting point. FCC steel is much stronger than BCC steel, so it doesn't have to melt to fail.

Hell, the only reason I remember that is because the drilled that into us incessantly back in school. I've never used it for anything.

[boppers]

208. Hey, look, a link!

http://www.nci.org/02/06f/18-02.htm

[dencol]

126. Well, there are A380s out there. What happens then? n/t

[Tesha]

263. Got any proof of that? One of the concerns after 9/11 was that they couldn't withstand even...

...a smallish jet, let alone a fully-fueled 747.

Tesha

[dencol]

113. We have an atmosphere and magnetic field to protect us from the sun.

Nuclear material is radioactive. Just because you can't see the ash, doesn't mean it won't kill you.

[Pavulon]

116. Guess everyone who served in the sub fleet is a dead man.

oh wait, nope. Everything will kill you in sufficient quantity.

[Grinchie]

185. There is a difference between Kilowatts and Megawatts

It figures that you would try to insinuate that Steam Pressure Reactors Scale up to Megawatt size without any problems.

Nice try, but the guy's in Three Mile Island have learned the hard way that it doesn't behave like a tiny nuclear reactor in a submarine.

I think you might find some work there cleaning out the melted reactor still.

[Pavulon]

197. Not a single dead body from that incident. Nor any civilian reactor in the US

aircraft carriers use large reactors. Safe operations abound. But hey, coal is awesome. Lets just run it forever.

[ThomThom]

147. so try living on the sun

[Pavulon]

170. Soon enough it will kill us all.

so lets just sit around with out thumbs up our asses and not actually fix the carbon problem.

[Ecumenist]

238. it is a FUSION reaction , not FISSION...big difference

in terms of waste, dear. Fission makes radioactive waste, FUSION DOES NOT.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

250. Note: 93,000,000 miles away.

When we can safely dispose of the waste, I'm all for it.

We've got 50,000,000 gallons of waste up here at Hanford.

[niceypoo]

16. Chernobyl

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster">Chernobyl Disaster

[Pavulon]

19. rickover"s navy. poor russians

had lots of nuke issues. name one person dead in a us civilian accident.

[niceypoo]

45. So, these dead Americans dont count?

http://www.lutins.org/nukes.html">US Nuclear Accidents

[Pavulon]

52. That word "CIVILIAN" was important...

a criticality event a military facility messing with criticality events are not relevant to generating power. This is the adults table, step it up.

[niceypoo]

67. Read beyond the caption

[Pavulon]

69. Not one name, from a civilian plant.

post it.

[Chef Eric]

200. This is NOT the adults' table.

This is the kiddie table, where people say things like, "Just bury it in Nevada. We already nuked 'em anyway."

[Pavulon]

205. Worked for the French.

and it is much better than storing it at the plants.

[Confusious]

31. Chernobyl was not safe from the start

No secondary containment and they used graphite as a moderator.

American reactors have massive secondary containment and use water or some other material that won't catch fire.

[niceypoo]

42. And the waste material generated...

...how 'safe' is that?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste">Nuclear Waste

[Confusious]

47. They have new ways to destroy the waste material

destroying up to 98%.

Here's the link:

http://www.utexas.edu/news/2009/01/27/nuclear_hybrid/

[niceypoo]

62. They have theories

that 'Could theoretically' do it, but nothing concrete on the horizon.

Reality: Nuclear waste is buried in hopes it wont leak out.

[Confusious]

66. If we fund it, it could happen

and "theories" are the basis of science. It's not conjecture, it's not "I sort of have an idea"

Theory of gravity
Theory of relativity
Theory of evolution

Theory in science is 98% certainty

Or do you want to argue what "theory" means like a fundie?

[niceypoo]

85. The article says it is fraught with problems

The article originated in a http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/2589/fission-fusion-hybrids-could-mop-nuclear-waste?page=0%2C1&%24Version=0&%24Path=/&%24Domain=.cosmosmagazine.com">pop science magazine and scientists interviewed for the article cast doubt on the reality of it actually happening.

"Matthew Hole, a physicist from Australian National University in Canberra said the hybrid scheme was a "different spin on an old idea" and while it is interesting in theory he questioned if it would work in practice.

When spent uranium is involved "reaction dynamics can be complicated and messy," said Hole, who argued that combining fission and fusion, in the one vessel could damage the structure."

AKA it could self destruct.

Hate to break it to you, but science isn't magic.

[Confusious]

111. No, what I gave you came from the university of austin, texas

Top byline of your article:"SYDNEY: U.S. scientists have designed a new system" not from a pop science mag.

You found one scientist who says it might not work, so now you're like "it'll never work". The opinion of one scientist who wasn't even on the same team, let alone the same country, does not science make.

"When spent uranium is involved "reaction dynamics can be complicated and messy," said Hole, who argued that combining fission and fusion, in the one vessel could damage the structure."

AKA it could self destruct."

Says nothing of the sort, and wouldn't happen, if you read anything about fusion or what waste they would be using. It's a reaction based totally on fear.

Which is what most of your argument against this and nuclear energy is based on. Not science, not anything but fear.

[Technodaoist]

112. That sounds like and argument for...

...funding solar, wind, bio, and other energy sources instead.

[Confusious]

118. I'm all for funding those

They are just not going to be able to carry the load if you want to get rid of coal.

If you want to switch cars to electric, we need even more power. Where does that come from?

Biofuels? Maybe this alge thing I read about, but run billions of cars on it? What are we going to eat?

Solar and wind are viable, but they are going to need more time. Nuclear is really the only option.

There are other designs that use thorium, which has no chance of a nuclear indecent or waste. To say no just leaves us using coal.

[420inTN]

202. I'm all for Thorium-based reactors

Those look really promising. Too bad the work done in TN was scrapped in the 60's/70's for uranium enrichment for nuclear weapons.

[mbperrin]

248. Then I wonder why they're filling up my water supply with nuclear waste.

http://www.txpeer.org/toxictour/wcs.html

How to Dispose of Radioactive Waste without a Permit

WCS has, with the help of state regulatory agencies, successfully converted its hazardous waste dump into a radioactive waste dump. Corporations and other states are taking advantage of exemptions granted to Texas companies and are turning Texas into a national dumping ground.

WCS has disposed of at least 257 tons of waste containing radioactive cesium-137, thanks to a change in the rules to exempt this type of radioactive waste made by the Bureau of Radiation Control at WCS's request in 1998.
WCS is disposing of Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials that is classified as exempt.(10) This waste came from places like a Michigan Superfund site and the Tinker Air Force base in Oklahoma.
WCS has disposed of radioactive waste contaminated with thorium and cadmium from a Superfund site in Pulaski, Pennsylvania.
WCS obtained permission in April 1999 to dispose of 20,000 cubic feet of waste from the US Department of Defense contaminated with depleted uranium and lead. This waste was rejected at other sites, but allowed in as exempt under Texas Department of Health.


Anybody at all that wants to take this shit is welcome to it. I don't want it here or anywhere else. I am completely opposed to any nuclear plants, period. The waste is here forever compared to the span of the human race.

[Pavulon]

49. Safe as all that shit around newark. Dont eat it, dont lick the paint

bad for you. Pray really hard and you will get a little energy miracle. Or just build some more coal plants.

[pnorman]

225. Thnks for that image!

I'll save it for just the right opportunity!

[kristopher]

110. Your statements are false.

Abstract here: http://www.rsc.org/publishing/journals/EE/article.asp?doi=b809990c

Full article for download here: http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/revsolglobwarmairpol.htm


Energy Environ. Sci., 2009, 2, 148 - 173, DOI: 10.1039/b809990c

Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security

Mark Z. Jacobson

Abstract
This paper reviews and ranks major proposed energy-related solutions to global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security while considering other impacts of the proposed solutions, such as on water supply, land use, wildlife, resource availability, thermal pollution, water chemical pollution, nuclear proliferation, and undernutrition.

Nine electric power sources and two liquid fuel options are considered. The electricity sources include solar-photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave, tidal, nuclear, and coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The liquid fuel options include corn-ethanol (E85) and cellulosic-E85. To place the electric and liquid fuel sources on an equal footing, we examine their comparative abilities to address the problems mentioned by powering new-technology vehicles, including battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), and flex-fuel vehicles run on E85.

Twelve combinations of energy source-vehicle type are considered. Upon ranking and weighting each combination with respect to each of 11 impact categories, four clear divisions of ranking, or tiers, emerge.

Tier 1 (highest-ranked) includes wind-BEVs and wind-HFCVs.
Tier 2 includes CSP-BEVs, geothermal-BEVs, PV-BEVs, tidal-BEVs, and wave-BEVs.
Tier 3 includes hydro-BEVs, nuclear-BEVs, and CCS-BEVs.
Tier 4 includes corn- and cellulosic-E85.

Wind-BEVs ranked first in seven out of 11 categories, including the two most important, mortality and climate damage reduction. Although HFCVs are much less efficient than BEVs, wind-HFCVs are still very clean and were ranked second among all combinations.

Tier 2 options provide significant benefits and are recommended.

Tier 3 options are less desirable. However, hydroelectricity, which was ranked ahead of coal-CCS and nuclear with respect to climate and health, is an excellent load balancer, thus recommended.

The Tier 4 combinations (cellulosic- and corn-E85) were ranked lowest overall and with respect to climate, air pollution, land use, wildlife damage, and chemical waste. Cellulosic-E85 ranked lower than corn-E85 overall, primarily due to its potentially larger land footprint based on new data and its higher upstream air pollution emissions than corn-E85.

Whereas cellulosic-E85 may cause the greatest average human mortality, nuclear-BEVs cause the greatest upper-limit mortality risk due to the expansion of plutonium separation and uranium enrichment in nuclear energy facilities worldwide. Wind-BEVs and CSP-BEVs cause the least mortality.

The footprint area of wind-BEVs is 2–6 orders of magnitude less than that of any other option. Because of their low footprint and pollution, wind-BEVs cause the least wildlife loss.

The largest consumer of water is corn-E85. The smallest are wind-, tidal-, and wave-BEVs.

The US could theoretically replace all 2007 onroad vehicles with BEVs powered by 73000–144000 5 MW wind turbines, less than the 300000 airplanes the US produced during World War II, reducing US CO2 by 32.5–32.7% and nearly eliminating 15000/yr vehicle-related air pollution deaths in 2020.


In sum, use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, PV, wave, and hydro to provide electricity for BEVs and HFCVs and, by extension, electricity for the residential, industrial, and commercial sectors, will result in the most benefit among the options considered.

The combination of these technologies should be advanced as a solution to global warming, air pollution, and energy security.

Coal-CCS and nuclear offer less benefit thus represent an opportunity cost loss, and the biofuel options provide no certain benefit and the greatest negative impacts.

[Pavulon]

130. Now link one with instructions and timeline to implement

this is cold fusion. there is no storage capacity on the grid, no Z cell from energizer.

[KILL THE WISE ONE]

234. No but we have tons of fissionable materials to use up

We have already made most of the hazardous wast when we made the "bomb materials". Now the idea is to use them up. Then we will need to look for a long term storage solution. The thought behind that is it is better to store spent rods then highly refined materials.

Far from a perfect situation but we play the cards we were dealt.

[swilton]

27. The nuclear waste from reactors is toxic waste

that goes into depleted uranium weapons! Now that's what I call recycling! :sarcasm:

[Pavulon]

30. Or Nevada! The shit used to make hair dye is toxic.

lead is toxic. dig a hole in nevada and bury it. We already nuked them, they can deal with a waste site.

[neverforget]

221. Or maybe just dump it at Hanford. They're dealing with waste too.

Despite billions spent on cleanup, Hanford won't be clean for thousands of years

[Confusious]

34. DU is not nuclear waste

It is U238 uranium that has the U235 uranium removed from it.

U238 is not radioactive, or at least radioactivity that you should worry about. You get more of a dose from cosmic rays.

[Grinchie]

188. More misinformation from the "Experts"

Where do you guys come from? Mutantville?

Cheerleading for DU and making outrageous claims like that is nuts.

[Pavulon]

198. I handled it in the army, its MSDS is online

bottom line, heavy metal. Like lead, dont eat it. WHO concluded its use in Yugoslavia had no long term impact.

DU is a political issue.

[Confusious]

231. Correcting errors about it

Is advocating for it?

So I can't correct people about, lets say guns, because that would mean I'm "for" guns?

I can't talk about a disease because that would me I'm "for" disease?

I can't speculate on the motives of republicans, because that would mean I'm "for" republicans?


What's outrageous is your ignorance and willingness to let others be too:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium

[golfguru]

224. The waste from coal fired power plants is much more toxic

since it pollutes air by kilo-tons.
Nuclear waste is solid, and concentrated.
It can be encapsulated in concrete (which acts as
a radiation barrier) and buried in remote caves.

[Alias Dictus Tyrant]

236. Depleted uranium is the leftovers from the enrichment process.

In other words, the isotopes that don't really fission that get separated before it ever enters a reactor. You have your science backward.

Depleted uranium is pretty harmless. Many other common metals in your house are a greater hazard, both as radioisotopes and as heavy metals. It is "depleted" because they took all the nasty radioactive isotopes out of it.

[Technodaoist]

32. Uh... Outsourcing means they can't move here?

Plenty of Indians and Chinese willing to come work on our reactors for cheap with a work Visa. Plenty of companies 'outsource' this way already.

Clean? Until you need to store the waste in a cave in Yuma for a million years?

Solar technology isn't just "cells".

Import the wind turbines from the moon for all I care. Once they are up and rotating, it's free - TRULY clean - energy.

[Pavulon]

39. You think some wipro warm body can get cleared

to operate a reactor? Nope, hire guys and gals with engineering experience from the Navy and train people at college.

Any technology that can be made in china will be. Including wind turbines and solar cells. See it is cheaper to make stuff when you have no labor or environmental protections.

China does import american reactors, they dont have the technology to make them to our standards.

There is no grid for turbines. No infrastructure, nothing but pipe dreams. How many will it take to run 137 gigawatts consumed by the tri-state?

What is their baseline output and efficiency numbers? They will break, tens of thousands of distributed things to break and fix.

[Technodaoist]

48. So one power source has to provide all the power?

You can't diversify? You can't reduce the overall need for power by creating many smaller, cheaper, safer, decentralized sources?

You keep bringing up "137 gigawatts" like it's the bar tab and someone has to pay it all at once... Is all that being provided now by one source?

Keep believing that nuclear power is the only answer, but I think you do your obvious intelligence an injustice by denying any other options.

[Pavulon]

55. Build all the other sources you want. Just cover the base load with nukes.

the rest of the load can be covered with all the play technology.

[Technodaoist]

72. LOL

Thanks. I needed that.

I keep forgetting this is a play discussion.

[Pavulon]

78. 137 gigawatts.. Please list all the "alternatives"

that it would take to cover that..

[Technodaoist]

86. Thanks for playing

[Pavulon]

88. Oh thats just the tristate. Your lunch, I just ate it.

numbers like that are not coming from wind turbines or any solar available now or on in the pipe for release in 5 - 10 years.

[Technodaoist]

97. OM NOM NOM

You've made it obvious this was a contest to you and not a discussion.

Enjoy that lunch - it was making me ill.

[Pavulon]

99. 137 / x (where x is your power source)

please detail how many x are required to keep the lights on. Please feel free to add in stuff like how alcoa will melt aluminum, where said technology will be made..

THe real world requires a a little logic. You have coal, and nuclear power. Choose.

[kristopher]

115. Sure

Abstract here: http://www.rsc.org/publishing/journals/EE/article.asp?doi=b809990c

Full article for download here: http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/revsolglobwarmairpol.htm


Energy Environ. Sci., 2009, 2, 148 - 173, DOI: 10.1039/b809990c

Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security

Mark Z. Jacobson

Abstract
This paper reviews and ranks major proposed energy-related solutions to global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security while considering other impacts of the proposed solutions, such as on water supply, land use, wildlife, resource availability, thermal pollution, water chemical pollution, nuclear proliferation, and undernutrition.

Nine electric power sources and two liquid fuel options are considered. The electricity sources include solar-photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave, tidal, nuclear, and coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The liquid fuel options include corn-ethanol (E85) and cellulosic-E85. To place the electric and liquid fuel sources on an equal footing, we examine their comparative abilities to address the problems mentioned by powering new-technology vehicles, including battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), and flex-fuel vehicles run on E85.

Twelve combinations of energy source-vehicle type are considered. Upon ranking and weighting each combination with respect to each of 11 impact categories, four clear divisions of ranking, or tiers, emerge.

Tier 1 (highest-ranked) includes wind-BEVs and wind-HFCVs.
Tier 2 includes CSP-BEVs, geothermal-BEVs, PV-BEVs, tidal-BEVs, and wave-BEVs.
Tier 3 includes hydro-BEVs, nuclear-BEVs, and CCS-BEVs.
Tier 4 includes corn- and cellulosic-E85.

Wind-BEVs ranked first in seven out of 11 categories, including the two most important, mortality and climate damage reduction. Although HFCVs are much less efficient than BEVs, wind-HFCVs are still very clean and were ranked second among all combinations.

Tier 2 options provide significant benefits and are recommended.

Tier 3 options are less desirable. However, hydroelectricity, which was ranked ahead of coal-CCS and nuclear with respect to climate and health, is an excellent load balancer, thus recommended.

The Tier 4 combinations (cellulosic- and corn-E85) were ranked lowest overall and with respect to climate, air pollution, land use, wildlife damage, and chemical waste. Cellulosic-E85 ranked lower than corn-E85 overall, primarily due to its potentially larger land footprint based on new data and its higher upstream air pollution emissions than corn-E85.

Whereas cellulosic-E85 may cause the greatest average human mortality, nuclear-BEVs cause the greatest upper-limit mortality risk due to the expansion of plutonium separation and uranium enrichment in nuclear energy facilities worldwide. Wind-BEVs and CSP-BEVs cause the least mortality.

The footprint area of wind-BEVs is 2–6 orders of magnitude less than that of any other option. Because of their low footprint and pollution, wind-BEVs cause the least wildlife loss.

The largest consumer of water is corn-E85. The smallest are wind-, tidal-, and wave-BEVs.

The US could theoretically replace all 2007 onroad vehicles with BEVs powered by 73000–144000 5 MW wind turbines, less than the 300000 airplanes the US produced during World War II, reducing US CO2 by 32.5–32.7% and nearly eliminating 15000/yr vehicle-related air pollution deaths in 2020.

In sum, use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, PV, wave, and hydro to provide electricity for BEVs and HFCVs and, by extension, electricity for the residential, industrial, and commercial sectors, will result in the most benefit among the options considered.

The combination of these technologies should be advanced as a solution to global warming, air pollution, and energy security.

Coal-CCS and nuclear offer less benefit thus represent an opportunity cost loss, and the biofuel options provide no certain benefit and the greatest negative impacts.

[Pavulon]

119. An prayers cure cancer. No solar exists to fill the need.

please provide a nice paper that details implementation of this process. There is NO CAPTURE capability that comes close to reality now. Energizer does not make a Z cell yet.

[kristopher]

134. What are you babbling about? That's based on existing technologies.

Wind power is economically competitive with coal, and solar is competitive with natural gas. Nuclear is FAR MORE EXPENSIVE than either.

Estimates for new nuclear plants place the cost of delivered electricity at $0.25 - 0.30 /kwh.

A new study puts the generation costs for power from new nuclear plants at 25 to 30 cents per kilowatt-hour—triple current U.S. electricity rates!

This staggering price is far higher than the cost of a variety of carbon-free renewable power sources available today—and 10 times the cost of energy efficiency (see “Is 450 ppm possible? Part 5: Old coal’s out, can’t wait for new nukes, so what do we do NOW?”

The new study, “Business Risks and Costs of New Nuclear Power,” is one of the most detailed cost analyses publically available on the current generation of nuclear power plants being considered in this country. It is by a leading expert in power plant costs, Craig A. Severance. A practicing CPA, Severance is co-author of The Economics of Nuclear and Coal Power (Praeger 1976), and former assistant to the chairman and to commerce counsel, Iowa State Commerce Commission.

This important new analysis is being published by Climate Progress because it fills a critical gap in the current debate over nuclear power—transparency. Severance explains:
All assumptions, and methods of calculation are clearly stated. The piece is a deliberate effort to demystify the entire process, so that anyone reading it (including non-technical readers) can develop a clear understanding of how total generation costs per kWh come together.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/01/nuclear_power.html

There is a link to the study by Severance if you want to try and criticize it.

[Pavulon]

141. Your other link mentions storage. That is a fairy tale

does not exist. 7c a KWH in rtp to large customers.

Feel free to follow that link up with one stating how it can be deployed right now.

[kristopher]

149. What are you talking about, "how it can be deployed?"

We build 50 factories to manufacture technology like this: http://www.nanosolar.com/
To make products like this: http://www.solyndra.com/Products/Optimized-PV

And we'll produce far more electricity than if we spend the money on nuclear power. If you think storage is the issue, you simply don't understand the problem or the nature or the grid.


http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/01/nuclear_power.html

[Pavulon]

157. Thats a venture cap front.

no product specs no scale out. Just patents. China is busy buying AP1000 reactors (not vaporware) to run its grid.

What should we use to keep the lights on at night. Chinese made wind turbines.

Why would I manufacture a silicon product in the US when I can do do for 10% of the cost in China?

I can't find the link on their web site that tells me how many, much i need to generate 1400MWh of energy, please help.

[mbperrin]

249. No, but Duke Energy will in the next few months.

In my hometown:

http://www.duke-energy.com/news/releases/2009112402.asp

Duke Energy intends to match a $22 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to design, build and install large-scale batteries to store wind energy at one of its wind farms in Texas.

The batteries at Duke Energy’s Notrees Windpower Project in Ector and Winkler counties, Texas, will store excess wind energy and discharge it whenever demand for electricity is highest – not just when wind turbine blades are turning.

The prevailing technology used at wind and solar farms throughout the world allows electricity to be produced only when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining. The intent of the Notrees grant is to demonstrate how energy storage can help overcome this issue, often referred to as “intermittency.”

Meeting demand for energy with stored renewable power instead of electricity from conventional generation sites that burn coal or natural gas may also help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

“Energy storage truly has the potential to serve as a ‘game-changer’ when it comes to renewable power,” said Wouter van Kempen, president of Duke Energy Generation Services, a Duke Energy unit that owns and develops renewable energy assets. “Through this project, Duke Energy intends to show that renewables can play an even bigger role in our country’s energy future.”

This project represents one of the nation’s first demonstrations of energy storage at a utility-scale wind farm. The 95 wind turbines in operation at Duke Energy’s Notrees site can generate 151 megawatts (MW) of clean, renewable electricity. In April 2009, Walmart began purchasing energy directly from the Notrees project to power up to 15 percent of its stores and facilities in Texas.

[Technodaoist]

122. Thanks...

...but I wouldn't have bothered...

You didn't solve (137 / X)

Seems to be his whole argument.

[Confusious]

129. That is, pretty much, the whole argument

How to get 137 GW, and reduce carbon output.

[ThomThom]

169. there are a number of promising technologies coming along

if we would just fund them
some great science is being done to make solar much more efficient
lasers look very promising
fusion is coming along
even hydrogen from water could be made to power every household from their back yard
why go backward
we should be moving forwards

[Confusious]

220. Sorry to tell you this but...

Fusion, at least the first few generations is going to be radioactive, using deuterium and tritium for the reaction.


I think the key word is "promising". They had a report out by scientists saying we have to do something right now. "promising" doesn't sounds like it's ready for "right now"

"even hydrogen from water could be made to power every household from their back yard"

Where are you going to get the power for that? Splitting hydrogen from water takes a lot of power.

We're only going to be able to move forward if we have the power, which isn't going to come from renewables completely at this point.

[420inTN]

223. Hydrogen from water is a net loss

It takes more energy to crack a water molecule than you get from using the hydrogen.

From where would you get the power to crack the water?

[kristopher]

142. Yes it does. There is a link to the study, suggest you read it.

And the associated papers available from Jacobson at his Stanford website.

The resource, technologies and demand are all considered.

[Pavulon]

148. Summarize. Time to implement.

where is the solar made, where are the turbines made. (china by wage slaves) Where is the "storage" he mentioned and how is this done (does not exist). Unless he has info on some LLNL project this capability does not exist.

Bottom line, this can not be done with technology we have now. We can bring large capacity reactors online quickly using existing grid systems.

[kristopher]

152. I've provided a peer reviewed paper by a Stanford expert that says it can.

It is all in his papers. If you want to argue the substance of those papers, you need to do it in a much more specific fashion. All I see from you are a lot of unsupported hyperbolic opinionated nonsense.

[Confusious]

154. And you're still pushing that crap study

That included nuclear war as part of the carbon cost of nuclear power.

ppppppppppppppfffffffffffffffffftttttttttttttttt.

[kristopher]

162. Can you demonstrate where the logic used in the paper fails?

The risk of a nuclear exchange is real and quantifiable by the same type of risk analysis that proponents of nuclear power use to defend the safety record achieved in the US civilian program.

Since proliferation and nuclear power are inextricably entwined, explain how the inclusion of this factor is not appropriate?

You are like a fossil fuel fan that wants to ignore pollution when considering the cost/benefit equation.

[Confusious]

167. No, I'm not a fossil fuel fan, but nice try

Don't even really like cars. Would rather I didn't need one.

The one thing you don't need for a bomb, is a reactor.

You can build reactors that don't even create plutonium.

That's why it's a bullshit study.

I like the truth, whether it's in my favor or not. I don't think you care.

[kristopher]

172. In other words you can't provide support for your assertions.

[Confusious]

186. Cum Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc, your study in a nutshell

Graphic example.

[kristopher]

195. In other words you STILL can't support your assertions.

[Confusious]

212. Your study was a fallacy. Done proved that there.

The first bomb was made with U235. Don't need no reactor to get that.

Logical fallacy. Done proved that there.

[Confusious]

151. STill pushing that crap study?................n/t

[Turborama]

166. Sure...

http://www.biopowersystems.com/technologies.php">(Click on the pic) http://www.magenn.com/">(Click on pic for more info) http://www.regenedyne.com/">(Pic links to video)

[Pavulon]

174. You forgot the picture of the chopped up sea turtles. That is pipe dream stuff. Vaporware

lets just build lots of safe standards reactors while this technology actually comes into existence.

[Turborama]

184. Do you know the cradle to grave time & $ of a nuclear power plant versus

the cradle to grave time & $ of wind/wave farms, geothermal/hydroelectric power stations?

For a start, nuclear power plants take up to 10 years to build and therefore it's a myth that they are some magic wand that can instantly solve our energy needs.

I guess the Wright brothers' friends said they were just following a "pipe dream". Judging by your mocking replies, nothing will persuade you out of the 20th Century nuclear power paradigm.

The technology is already in existence for most of the renewable energy solutions I highlighted above and http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x203056">this, BTW.

[Pavulon]

192. Plants take forever to build because of the process

they were completing many plants a year in the 70's. They can be completed in 4 years. A nuclear power station is far less complex than a fast attack submarine, which can be completed in less than 4 years.

Lets start with technology that actually exists. geothermal will not work in all locations, nor will solar or hydro.

I will be happy to compare any numbers you have on output with the reactor up the road supplying 900mwh rain or shine. Long way to the ocean from here.

You are going to need a new power grid to go with your new distributed model. I am sure that is a simple matter.

[Turborama]

213. I was asking about the "cradle to grave" time & $

America needs a new power grid anyway, that would = a lot of jobs for one thing. The USDoE is already working on it: http://www.oe.energy.gov/smartgrid.htm">Smart Grid

Just in case you didn't go to the link I provided...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x203056">A solar farm 100 miles long by 100 miles wide could produce enough electricity for America

[Pavulon]

216. A half trillion solar boondoggle. You are aware nuclear power currently works

both here and in europe. It has worked for 30 years both here and western europe with an exceptional safety record.

Will have to wade through the cesspool of internet sources to find reliable date. Will start at the NRC and DOE (the ones who are looking at smart grid) for real numbers.

Not 45 billion dollar claims as posted by numbnuts on this thread.

[Confusious]

227. That's certainly nice of them

They advocate for nuclear power too.

http://www.americanenergyindependence.com/nuclearenergy.aspx

[HCE SuiGeneris]

74. It's not clean,the waste has a half-life of 10,000 years. Can we store that cleanness at your house?

[U4ikLefty]

87. Oh hell no!!! They would be the FIRST ones complaining about it and

asking that the waste be sent to the poor areas of the counrty.

[Arctic Dave]

173. Can't outsource but they can bring in visa holding employees.

You seem overly optimistic in the construction and maintenance of a nuclear plant. Do you think these thing are built by the lowest bidder just like anything else?

[Pavulon]

180. I know how the Navy does it. No WIPRO guys

guess the clearance could be an issue. I know westinghouse and GE make reactors and sell them to other countries. I have a little experience with contract fabrication with aircraft components. I can hazard a guess as to how it would work.

[Grinchie]

183. That's because people in India are smarter than Homer Simpson

D'oh!

[grahamhgreen]

190. Ha! That's what work visas are made for.

[Pavulon]

203. Never saw any H1B at Idaho but who known, thats been a while.

maybe they are all non citizens working on classified reactor designs.

Doubt the plants let anyone work in secure areas, but who knows.

[PSPS]

232. HAHA. I see. Nuclear power is now "Clean power." Never mind the toxic waste.

[Ecumenist]

239. +100. 0000, 0000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000,

Um, did I tell you I agree...COMPLETELY?

[texastoast]

5. ...

:puke:

[closeupready]

17. +1

n/t

[struggle4progress]

6. Article is somewhat misleading: several reactors, for which construction started prior to TMI,

continued construction and came on line afterwards; the most notable case is the Watts Bar reactor, for which construction started in 1973, with the plant finally becoming operable in 1996

[bananas]

26. Yes, and no reactors have been ordered since 1978, a year before TMI

TMI was a dramatic failure, but reactor orders crashed in 1974, five years before TMI.
They also started canceling reactor orders in 1974 (not shown in the graph).

Graph from http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/2009/0813/the-bumpy-road-to-nuclear-energy
which is a sidebar to http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/2009/0813/nuclear-power-s-new-debate-cost

[jtrockville]

10. Do we share the profits too? Or just the costs?

[Dr.Phool]

11. We just get stuck with the costs. Progress Energy. 30% rate surcharge.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/energy/group-sues-progress-energy-over-nuclear-plant-fees/1072871


I'm a plaintiff in the suit.

www.cfrpr.com

[jtrockville]

23. Maybe Obama should chat with Mark Cooper

From your tampa bay link:

...
Economist Mark Cooper, who writes about the financing of nuclear power reactors, told the state Public Service Commission that it is "not prudent" to continue plans to build Progress Energy's nuclear plant because energy efficiency and renewables would be more cost-effective and practical.

If we're going to finance something, shouldn't we finance something that's cost-effective and practical?
If we're going to finance something, shouldn't we share the profits as well as the costs?

Unbelievable!

Good luck on your suit.

[grahampuba]

41. from Coopers report "The Economics of Nuclear Reactors"

The report finds that it would cost $1.9 trillion to $4.1 trillion more over the life of 100 new nuclear reactors than it would to generate the same electricity from a combination of more energy efficiency and renewables.

Titled “The Economics of Nuclear Reactors,” Cooper’s analysis of over three dozen cost estimates for proposed new nuclear reactors shows that the projected price tags for the plants have quadrupled since the start of the industry’s so-called “nuclear renaissance” at the beginning of this decade – a striking parallel to the eventually seven-fold increase in reactor costs estimates that doomed the “Great Bandwagon Market” of the 1960s and 1970s, when half of planned reactors had to be abandoned or cancelled due to massive cost overruns.

The study notes that the required massive subsidies from taxpayers and ratepayers would not change the real cost of nuclear reactors, they would just shift the risks to the public. Even with huge subsidies, nuclear reactors would remain more costly than the alternatives, such as efficiency, biomass, wind and cogeneration.

[jtrockville]

46. ..."just shift the risks to the public"

That one clause says it all, doesn't it?

[ProudDad]

267. AFAIK, there aren't any nukes in USamerika that have made a profit (n/t)

Certainly the pieces of shit build in California never did...

[madrchsod]

13. current estimates put nuke plants at 15-20 billion each

this does`t include the tax payers picking up the operating insurance.

japan has the only forge in the world that can make containment vessels and as of now there`s a 5 year wait.

we do not have the machining capacity in the usa to make the bits and pieces.

[Pavulon]

14. Cite that source. Progress and duke run two that have been long term in NC

neither cost 20 billion.

[grahampuba]

22. decomissioning costs?

Ill cite Peter Bradford with a figure of $6-7 billion for start-up.
lets add up total costs over a 30 year lifespan and then we can start talking about real money.

I hope Obama pledges at least that amount ($18 billion) for wind/solar/geothermal.

[Pavulon]

24. that shit will be low bid made in china

trash. can't outsource that 80k tech job, or the fab to china or india.

[grahampuba]

36. never mind the US solar industry..

the only reason China is making it over there is because of subsidies. They are essentially eating our lunch by turning out the technology that was pioneered here.
Invest in the next generation of solar panels and batteries here maybe.

[Pavulon]

63. No technology is ever made here. We pioneer it, they make it.

not having labor restrictions or giving a shit about the environment makes it really easy to make stuff cheap. However that does not work for stuff that kills people when it fails. Like the westinghouse reactors they buy from us.

[grahampuba]

33. lowballed

caught Bradford speak last week actually.

FL and GA have had failed attempts to realize reactors after licensing.

http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/business/realestate/housekeys/blog/2009/10/nuclear_power_critics_urge_flo.html

this one in FL is coming in at $35 billion.

that much money dumped into nuclear will halt conservation and other renewable funding

[twitomy]

90. 35 Billion per reactor?

Hmm, that 700 billion "stimulus" could have built 20 reactors, and would
have been a helluva lot more "stimulative"...

[Pavulon]

98. Holy fuck, how does the navy float? Bullshit out the ass numbers

the navy operated hundreds of reactors with tens of thousands of hours or safe operations at a cost far below the insanity passing as fact here.

People have lost their minds.

[grahampuba]

103. we should take your word then?

Bullshit because it was pitched at some lowball rate to garner public support, then when the true costs come out..
and said energy company has to sink more money.. rates for anyone in their service jumps by 30%.

Bait and Switch.

Yeah, an ex NRC regulator is just pulling number out of his ass.


they dont square with you so they must be bogus?

[Pavulon]

107. Umm , I earned a living doing work on Naval contracts

that dealt with reactor technology. It does not cost 30 billion to design a reactor CLASS that runs highly enriched fuel, under specialized conditions, that is virtually silent, and can be operated by 18 year olds with a GED.

take my word for that.

[Technodaoist]

117. You're a blue link on an internet forum from here...

[Pavulon]

121. ohh, ohh post it post it!!

[Technodaoist]

123. dam - it changed to purple

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4270354&mesg_id=4270705

[Pavulon]

124. figure our how many solar farms and turbines to run tristate yet?

or just going to stick with coal and sink money into technology that has no track record of base load generation.

[kristopher]

171. The the close proximity offshore wind resource alone is more than enough.

[Pavulon]

177. Numbers are great. For example.

Sharon Harris generates 900mw. Rain or shine. Progress wants to build a westinghouse ap1000 reactor on the site. Hope they do.

How many solar cells to generate 900mw, please factor in its actual operating time. IE it only works when the sun is up..

[kristopher]

193. And that is a meaningful metric because....

It sounds good?

1 GW worth of panels/year and each panel will last 40 years. Run the factory for 20 years for 20 GW. Facility cost? 3/4 billion dollars.
So for the price of one nuclear plant that might start generating in 15 years, we can build 14 plants like this in one year and produce 14 GWs of panels per year for 20 years.

For the entire 50 billion we could build 67 of them.

67 plants producing 1 GW worth of panels per year times 20 years = 1340GW of capacity.
Feel free to figure out how that works out in kwh of electricity delivered.
http://www.nanosolar.com/technology


Unless you want to figure it out, I've let production costs for the panels balance out the operating, fuel and disposal costs for nuclear.





Sharp Announces New Thin-Film Solar Cell Plant in Sakai; Horizontal Deployment of Thin-Film Technology for TFT LCDs, Annual Production Capacity on 1 GW Scale.
JCN Newswires | March 27, 2008 | COPYRIGHT 2009 Japan Corporate News Network K.K. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

Tokyo, Japan, Mar 27, 2008 - (JCN Newswire) - Sharp Corporation has made a total capital investment of approximately 72 billion yen to build a thin-film solar cell plant in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture that is capable of boosting annual production up to a scale of 1 GW per year.

Production will begin by March 2010 with a 480 MW initial production capacity for solar cells. Combined with the 160 MW capacity of the Katsuragi Plant (Nara Prefecture), this will expand Sharp's global total production capacity for thin-film solar cells to 1 GW in April 2010.

[Confusious]

201. How big are each of the panels?

What total space will they take up?

What is the total amount of sunlight per year that the area they will be placed in gets?

Really, the only place in the country that gets sunlight a majority of the year is the southwest. I'm sure all the people in Arizona would LOVE to have their beautiful desert vistas chopped down to make way for 67 solar farms.

Oh, of course, if it's all in the southwest, we'll need about 20% more for the amount that gets eaten up by transmission to the east coast.

[kristopher]

204. Every rooftop in the country will do just fine.

Nuclear is a very poor choice for our energy security and climate change needs.

[Pavulon]

207. Better choice than a venture cap company

with no scalable production designed and it beats designing a whole new grid for a technology that only works when the sun is up.

[Confusious]

214. Ever lived anywhere else in the country?

I don't think you have. I've been through most of it.

You're living in a pipe dream.

Seattle, winter: cloudy 99%

Michigan, winter: cloudy 99%

northern states, winter: cloudy above 50%

How you going to power them?

On Edit: Forgot Alaska, but they get no sun 9 months of the year, so solar really won't work there.

[420inTN]

229. My roof won't work

Too many trees shading my house.

unless of course, you want me to clear cut my lot.

[grahampuba]

132. we'll all get submarines then.

then there are no distinctions between a sub and a power reactor?

$35 billion might be inflated, but lets revisit that in 5 years when the reactors from this years licenses go online.

$6 billion is the going rate at the moment, and that is construction only,
add mining, maintenance, de-commissioning, waste disposal, and any other unforseens.


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/29/business/energy-environment/29nuke.html

"After four years of construction and thousands of defects and deficiencies, the reactor’s 3 billion euro price tag, about $4.2 billion, has climbed at least 50 percent. And while the reactor was originally meant to be completed this summer, Areva, the French company building it, and the utility that ordered it, are no longer willing to make certain predictions on when it will go online...

And of the 45 reactors being built around the world, 22 have encountered construction delays, according to an analysis prepared this year for the German government by Mycle Schneider, an energy analyst and a critic of the nuclear industry. He added that nine do not have official start-up dates."

[Pavulon]

138. Sub reactors are not subject rules that prevent their deployment

in any reasonable amount of time. they are also far more complex than reactors used in civilian plants. Westinghouse makes a nice reactor that would fit the bill for a standard reactor unit for us plants. They have decades of sub experience as well.

[Alias Dictus Tyrant]

237. +1 Pearls before swine. n/t

[madrchsod]

136. there are people who are advocating using naval sized reactors

but they are not giant work projects...

[Pavulon]

144. I advocate the standards based reactor

the navy uses reactor classes that share the cost of development but standardize safety and operating procedure. Westinghouse and GE both make stuff in the 1400MWh range that would cover this need.

[madrchsod]

125. byron il plant was started in 75 and finished in 80-5.4 billion...

adjust for inflation. the source was a business week magazine that i read in a clinic waiting room. the article was about these plants in ga. no one will insure these plants so the cost will be on the customers. where i live we had many machine shops that made parts for byron and other illinois plants. they are gone along with the machinists,assemblers,and the engineers.

[bbinacan]

15. Good n/t.

[KoKo]

20. Time to get your "ANTI-NUKES" Riot GEAR outta the CLOSET!

I think it's cool that Obama only supports THREE Nuclear Plants... Test Case?

[Technodaoist]

25. Gonna have to disagree with Obama on this one...

Too many reasons this is a bad policy decision outweigh the reasons this is a good one IMHO.

[KoKo]

28. Burke County, GA...needs the work...and before long we will accept ANYTHING

whether it pollutes or produces pollution that needs to be carted away or dumped in the Ocean...by ANYONE!

Maybe soon we will accept China's Nuclear Waste and all of Europes so that we can deal with our "Balance of Payments" deficit. We might collect fee's to be the "Dumping Grounds" for NUKE WASTE all OVER THE WORLD!

But, Hats off to those folks in Georgia who didn't vote for Obama. He's showing REAL SPUNK by giving them not ONE but TWO NUKE PLANTS!

:rofl: FUCK YOU GEORGIA! You got it!

[BeatleBoot]

35. Why the French like Nuclear Energy (PBS)

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/readings/french.html


Civaux in southwestern France is a stereotypical rural French village with a square, a church and a small school. On a typical day, Monsieur Rambault, the baker, is up before dawn turning out baguettes and croissants. Shortly after, teacher Rene Barc opens the small school. There is a blacksmith, a hairdresser, a post office, a general store and a couple of bars. But overlooking the picturesque hamlet are two giant cooling towers from a nuclear plant, still under construction, a half-mile away. When the Civaux nuclear power plant comes on line sometime in the next 12 months, France will have 56 working nuclear plants, generating 76% of her electricity.


In France, unlike in America, nuclear energy is accepted, even popular. Everybody I spoke to in Civaux loves the fact their region was chosen. The nuclear plant has brought jobs and prosperity to the area. Nobody I spoke to, nobody, expressed any fear. From the village school teacher, Rene Barc, to the patron of the Cafe de Sport bar, Valerie Turbeau, any traces of doubt they might have had have faded as they have come to know plant workers, visited the reactor site and thought about the benefits of being part of France's nuclear energy effort.


France's decision to launch a large nuclear program dates back to 1973 and the events in the Middle East that they refer to as the "oil shock." The quadrupling of the price of oil by OPEC nations was indeed a shock for France because at that time most of its electricity came from oil burning plants. France had and still has very few natural energy resources. It has no oil, no gas and her coal resources are very poor and virtually exhausted.


French policy makers saw only one way for France to achieve energy independence: nuclear energy, a source of energy so compact that a few pounds of fissionable uranium is all the fuel needed to run a big city for a year. Plans were drawn up to introduce the most comprehensive national nuclear energy program in history. Over the next 15 years France installed 56 nuclear reactors, satisfying its power needs and even exporting electricity to other European countries.

<more>

[jtrockville]

61. France's nukes aren't as rosy a picture as they like to paint.

Nuclear contamination even threatens the twin sacraments of French life, wine and cheese. In May 2006, Greenpeace reported that low-level radioactive waste from a nuclear dumpsite had been found in the groundwater near the Champagne vineyards of eastern France. A report released earlier the same month on contamination from an older nuclear waste facility in La Hague, Normandy showed radioactivity more than seven times the European safety limit in local underground aquifers, which are used by farmers for their dairy cattle in a region renowned for its Brie and Camembert.

...Several studies have found elevated levels of childhood leukemia around the Normandy site.

(quote taken from an excerpt of a MotherJones article found here: http://www.whytraveltofrance.com/2008/07/31/is-exporting-nuclear-power-to-the-us-such-a-good-idea )

Why would anyone consider nukes to be a viable source of energy? They're costly and they're dangerous.

[BeatleBoot]

73. Well, if GreenPeace said so...

I'll bet PETA weighed in, too.



:rofl:

[jtrockville]

83. CRIIRAD and ASN said so too

CRIIRAD = Commission for Independent Research and Information on Radioactivity
ASN = French Nuclear Safety Authority

I think anyone willing to build these should pay for them without public funds, and insure them without public funds. Oh right - they can't. There isn't an insurance company on the planet that will insure a nuclear plant.

[Snazzy]

257. what kind of sleazy broad brush association is that? Greenpeace is not Peta

In fact they've been working on France and nukes (plants and weapons) longer than anyone I'd expect. I was working for them when the French government blew up our ship in the 80's (protesting as well as documenting and analyzing French Atmospheric nuke testing). They hire scientists to do things like study the ground water samples mentioned above. Typically in situations where communities or government will not conduct those tests.

Anyway, could do without the broad brush smears, thank you.

[twitomy]

262. Sounds like the French people

are far more "progressive" in their attitudes toward nuke power..

[bamacrat]

38. I may be in the minority here but I'm for this.

It's domestic we have tons of nuclear material and need a way to curb fossil fuel consumption. Jobs in America for America. May not be ideal but I think its good. I get my electricity from wind power and that would be the way I'd rather see the country go but we need jobs and energy independence. It's clean and domestic.

[humbled_opinion]

96. You should stick to your principles...

If you get your power from wind why wouldn't you call on a government subsidy to put a wind turbine in every backyard in America? A complete solar tiled roof on every house, an off the grid solution, can you imagine the jobs you create if you do that? Can you imagine never having to pay for electricity again?

I would rather create Millions of green jobs then a couple of hundred jobs building a few, dangerous Nuke plants which by the way ... YOUR STILL GOING TO HAVE TO PAY FOR THE POWER, someone is still going to have to store and dispose of the WASTE for thousands of years.

Your support only perpetuates the taxpayers getting screwed over again and again..

So again Taxpayer dollars get handed over to greedy corporations to produce a product that they will then SELL, SELL, SELL back to the American consumer at a profit.

NO, NO, NO, .... That is part of the problem. Why would you fall for this farce?

Just say NO.

[NecklyTyler]

43. The money could be better spent on clean, renewable energy sources

Eighteen billion dollars would go along way in a full scale research and development project to create sources of renewable energy like wind and solar. The list of renewable sources of energy is long, all that is needed is investment to make them productive

[Taverner]

50. Yeah yeah yeah if that's what we gotta do to get off fossil fuel then so be it

[Dave From Canada]

53. I wish Canada would do the same thing. Europe gets a lot of its electricity from nuclear, it seems

to work well.

[diane in sf]

54. Big waste of money for very expensive, dirty power, hopefully the locals will

stop these from being built in wherever their backyard is.

[Pavulon]

100. Feel free to add one more in RTP

cheap power pulls high dollar head count out of california.

[proteus_lives]

56. Good news.

Jobs and power.

[mdmc]

59. booo!

[wisteria]

68. This does not bother me. This is one way to end some of our dependency on foreign oil.

My husband has worked in the nuclear industry pre-Three Mile Island and he did clean up there. Since that accident our government has tightened regulations and regularly does spot inspections. Sure there is always a risk, but that risk is very,very,very low. And, with everything in life there is always a risk.

[romanyiv]

76. Nuclear

I had to register tonight to leave a comment on this thread. I'm all for solar and wind - where it makes sense. But solar and wind cannot provide base load - the amount of energy that has to be produced all of the time. What most people do not understand: we have no way of storing large amount of electricity - there is no giant battery that you can charge up when the sun in shining or the wind is blowing - you HAVE to have that power available 7X24X365 - or you have brownouts or blackouts. I sorry - I LIKE my power reliable and constant...I work for Duke Energy - 30 years now. We operate 3 reactors near Clemson, SC - since 1973. We have 2 reactors (Catawba - south of Charlotte) and another 2 reactors - McGuire - north of Charlotte. Mcguire and Catawba went on-line in the early 80s. These 7 reactors normally run over 400 DAYS non-stop. They provide safe and reliable power - with 0 emissions....if you really wanted to put a dent into green house gases - set a target to replace ALL coal burning plants - which Duke has a lot of - with a mixture of nuclear and renewables...

[Pavulon]

84. Grew up around one of those.

decades of no problems. Really cheap industrial power here in RTP.

[kristopher]

114. You are wrong.

There are two different grid designs possible. The one designed around centralized thermal generation and the one designed around distributed renewable generation. Just because you only know one model doesn't mean the other doesn't exist or that it is inferior.

In fact, a distributed, renewable grid is much better at meeting user needs than a centralized thermal grid.

Look it up.

[Pavulon]

133. One exists, the other is a pipe dream.

you can just look up on your way out the door at the network of power lines you see. And the lack of magic distributed grid. Reality is something we all should take into account.

[mbperrin]

251. Why don't you know that your employer is spearheading a design to store energy from wind?

Right here in my hometown:

http://www.duke-energy.com/news/releases/2009112402.asp

Duke Energy Receives $22 Million Federal Grant for Wind Power Storage
November 24, 2009

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -
Note: For media inquiries, please use the contact information above. For all other inquiries – including business inquiries – please e-mail our Wind Energy group directly at [email protected].


Duke Energy intends to match a $22 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to design, build and install large-scale batteries to store wind energy at one of its wind farms in Texas.

The batteries at Duke Energy’s Notrees Windpower Project in Ector and Winkler counties, Texas, will store excess wind energy and discharge it whenever demand for electricity is highest – not just when wind turbine blades are turning.

The prevailing technology used at wind and solar farms throughout the world allows electricity to be produced only when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining. The intent of the Notrees grant is to demonstrate how energy storage can help overcome this issue, often referred to as “intermittency.”

Meeting demand for energy with stored renewable power instead of electricity from conventional generation sites that burn coal or natural gas may also help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

“Energy storage truly has the potential to serve as a ‘game-changer’ when it comes to renewable power,” said Wouter van Kempen, president of Duke Energy Generation Services, a Duke Energy unit that owns and develops renewable energy assets. “Through this project, Duke Energy intends to show that renewables can play an even bigger role in our country’s energy future.”



Duke is neither a startup company nor new to energy. They are doing it. NOW are there any questions about storage of intermittent supplies of electricity?

[humbled_opinion]

80. What about Principle?

What exactly is our ECO platform anymore? Remind me because I forgot, are we all about the drill baby drill and creating conditions for massive devastation in the event of a meltdown now? Is this what we have become? If a Repub President tried this crap we would stand in lock step but since its Obama we are told we have to support it...

YUCK I just threw up a little bit in my mouth. I will not abandon my principles and I will not support Obama on this. I am writing my congressman now and telling him to block this effort at all costs.

What would I do you ask....

How about for starters promoting solar panels on every roof or Wind turbines in every yard.. Imagine if the Government said its time for every house in America to have a green power source and to make that a reality we are going to subsidize through direct tax credit based on an income curve i.e., everyone making less then 40K subsidy is 100 percent and then graduate up from there.

Easy sell if you make your own power you don't have to buy it anymore, you won't rely on a power grid to run your house and power outages would be history the system would pay for itself instantly with a government subsidy.

Imagine the jobs from this, imagine the technology boosts from this, imagine the cost savings, imagine the petro savings, imagine the cleaner environment, imagine the possibilities, now that is the change I believe in and it is such and easy sell.

The private sector growth of wind and solar to get off the grid once all private houses are off the grid...

http://www.oksolar.com/roof/

[romanyiv]

93. You don't have a clue

Hey - what happens when the sun's not shining - and the winds not blowing? How long are you going to power off of the storage capacity of a few car battery....You don't have a clue buddy. If you want to use the same amount of energy as Obama's brother you should unplug from the grid now...

Texas has a lot of wind mills....lots of winds - lots of empty space....couple of years ago the winds across the state died for a few hours - that lost of power was felt on the grid as far away as Canada. If you had something like that happen on a larger scale you could bring down a big junk of the grid....

[Name removed]

102. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[mbperrin]

252. Please provide a link that says the wind died in a state 700 miles wide and 1000 miles north to

south.

I have lived right here in west Texas my entire life; thousands of these wind generators are within an hour's drive of my house, and I can assure you that the trees here lean from south to north for a reason: the wind always blows. Period.

[Confusious]

146. Yea I imagine it at night

In my city, when the sun isn't shining, and the wind doesn't blow more then a few miles an hour.

MMMMMM trying to sleep at 120 degrees. What fun! reading by candlelight, well not every night, but most of the year.

Have to get all my washing and drying and everything else done before the sun goes down.

Whoopee!

[humbled_opinion]

159. OK then stay on the grid

But use the solar and wind as a source to lower your grid consumption. The broader point which you failed to acknowledge is that Obama is giving away taxpayer money to fund the creation of private sector Nuke reactors. These aren't going to be govt run reactors providing power for free to low income families, no, these are going to FOR PROFIT corporations that get the bonus of taxpayer funded subsidy to get it up and running and then the luxury of gouging the American People with prices based on their ability to MAKE A PROFIT.

Sorry but that is bad, bad, bad... No difference there then Bush giving Oil companies Subsidies... It is exactly the same thing.

[CRH]

82. 18.5 Billion, and another 54 Billion loan guarantees in 2011 budget, ...

How many billion have been set aside to study the nuclear waste disposal problem?

Why is it they will throw money at building new plants, but nothing toward the research of one of the nuclear power industry's largest problems?

It seems to me leaky, earthquake prone, Yucca mountain, was considered by many a poor solution to this problem years ago. Not to mention shipping thousands of casks on the rail systems that hub in major cities, coast to coast. What were the estimates, nuclear waste would regularly pass 100 million people, on its way to Nevada?

If I remember right, there were tens of thousands of trips needed to transport the majority of accumulated waste, from the east coast to the west. There was something like three times the waste east of Nebraska. Can anybody get anything right, tens of thousands of times in a row?

Even without potential terrorism activities, sooner or later a train will derail, or a tunnel catch on fire, or a land slide, or earth quake, or even possibly human error; and will the federal government even have an efficient containment plan ready at a moments notice?

Has any recent research into this problem been undertaken, or is this more federal government business as usual, ... trust us! Or perhaps, trust us if you don't live down wind.

edit: spelling

[saigon68]

95. Rahm and the boys "Swilling at the Public Trough"

[CRH]

106. Sounds like it,

because if they don't have a viable well researched solution to more than ten thousand years of storage of radioactive waste, then they are saddling the future with a solution that might or might not be environmentally possible.

I somehow do not think Rahm and the boys will be swilling from the public ground water trough anywhere near the Yucca mountain sight, after a few hundred years of degrading casks.

[enough already 2]

108. WTF???

What the hell is Obama thinking?

[yourout]

109. Hopefully it's a molten salt reactor.

Many advantages over light water reactor.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor>

Uses Thorium instead of Uranium. Thorium is one of the most widely available fuel scources on the planet.

Low pressure operation so a Chernobyl like event would be impossible.

The Thorium would likely be suspended in the Floride salt coolant so loss of coolant or failure of coolant pump would result in automatic shutdown of the reactor as the reaction would be contigent on the Thorium moving through the reactor.

much cleaner: the amount of waste fission products is 10 times less (per GWh) and requires containment for 100 times shorter time (300 years vs. tens of thousands of years)

[kristopher]

127. You need to dig deeper if you think breeder reactors are the answer to our energy problems

Look for the drawbacks, not just the positive hype.

[Confusious]

131. Thorium reactors are not breeder reactors

You should look at reality, not ideology.

[kristopher]

160. That is going to come as quite a surprise to India

From the World Nuclear Association
Nuclear Power in India
(30 January 2010)

...Fast neutron reactors
Longer term, the AEC envisages its fast reactor program being 30 to 40 times bigger than the PHWR program, and initially at least, largely in the military sphere until its "synchronised working" with the reprocessing plant is proven on an 18-24 month cycle. This will be linked with up to 40,000 MWe of light water reactor capacity, the used fuel feeding ten times that fast breeder capacity, thus "deriving much larger benefit out of the external acquisition in terms of light water reactors and their associated fuel". This 40 GWe of imported LWR multiplied to 400 GWe via FBR would complement 200-250 GWe based on the indigenous program of PHWR-FBR-AHWR (see Thorium cycle section below). Thus AEC is "talking about 500 to 600 GWe nuclear over the next 50 years or so" in India, plus export opportunities.

In 2002 the regulatory authority issued approval to start construction of a 500 MWe prototype fast breeder reactor (PFBR) at Kalpakkam and this is now under construction by BHAVINI. It is expected to be operating in 2011, fuelled with uranium-plutonium oxide (the reactor-grade Pu being from its existing PHWRs). It will have a blanket with thorium and uranium to breed fissile U-233 and plutonium respectively, taking the thorium program to stage two, and setting the scene for eventual full utilisation of the country's abundant thorium to fuel reactors. Six more such 500 MWe fast reactors have been announced for construction, four of them by 2020. Two will be at Kalpakkam.

Initial FBRs will have mixed oxide fuel or carbide fuel, but these will be followed by metallic fuelled ones to enable shorter doubling time. One of the last of the above six is to have the flexibility to convert from MOX to metallic fuel (ie a dual fuel unit), and it is planned to convert the small FBTR to metallic fuel about 2013 (se R&D section below). Following these will be a 1000 MWe fast reactor using metallic fuel, and construction of this is expected to start about 2020.

[Confusious]

176. So tell me again

How does a breeder reactor equal a thorium reactor?

If you had read more carefully, you would have realized that they are putting thorium in a standard reactor ( uranium ). It is not a thorium reactor.

U233 cannot be used to make a bomb, either.

Just playing fast and loose with the facts again?

[kristopher]

178. India has the world's most advanced "thorium reactor" program

That is the description of it according to the very nuclear power friendly World Nuclear Association.

Plutonium is such pleasant stuff...

[Confusious]

194. Well, you don't either

A. understand the difference between a breeder reactor and a thorium reactor

or

B. Don't care.

[kristopher]

199. Take it up with the World Nuclear Association and India

From the World Nuclear Association
Nuclear Power in India
(30 January 2010)

...Fast neutron reactors
Longer term, the AEC envisages its fast reactor program being 30 to 40 times bigger than the PHWR program, and initially at least, largely in the military sphere until its "synchronised working" with the reprocessing plant is proven on an 18-24 month cycle. This will be linked with up to 40,000 MWe of light water reactor capacity, the used fuel feeding ten times that fast breeder capacity, thus "deriving much larger benefit out of the external acquisition in terms of light water reactors and their associated fuel". This 40 GWe of imported LWR multiplied to 400 GWe via FBR would complement 200-250 GWe based on the indigenous program of PHWR-FBR-AHWR (see Thorium cycle section below). Thus AEC is "talking about 500 to 600 GWe nuclear over the next 50 years or so" in India, plus export opportunities.

In 2002 the regulatory authority issued approval to start construction of a 500 MWe prototype fast breeder reactor (PFBR) at Kalpakkam and this is now under construction by BHAVINI. It is expected to be operating in 2011, fuelled with uranium-plutonium oxide (the reactor-grade Pu being from its existing PHWRs). It will have a blanket with thorium and uranium to breed fissile U-233 and plutonium respectively, taking the thorium program to stage two, and setting the scene for eventual full utilisation of the country's abundant thorium to fuel reactors. Six more such 500 MWe fast reactors have been announced for construction, four of them by 2020. Two will be at Kalpakkam.

Initial FBRs will have mixed oxide fuel or carbide fuel, but these will be followed by metallic fuelled ones to enable shorter doubling time. One of the last of the above six is to have the flexibility to convert from MOX to metallic fuel (ie a dual fuel unit), and it is planned to convert the small FBTR to metallic fuel about 2013 (se R&D section below). Following these will be a 1000 MWe fast reactor using metallic fuel, and construction of this is expected to start about 2020.

[Confusious]

230. OK, once again,

The fast breeder or fast breeder reactor (FBR) is a fast neutron reactor designed to breed fuel by producing more fissile material than it consumes. The FBR is one possible type of breeder reactor.

A thorium reactor on the other hand, does NOT produce more fissile material then it consumes, and even has a problem maintaining criticality. That's why it's called a sub-critical reactor.

A subcritical reactor is a nuclear fission reactor that produces fission without achieving criticality. Instead of a sustaining chain reaction, a subcritical reactor uses additional neutrons from an outside source. The neutron source can be a nuclear fusion machine or a particle accelerator producing neutrons by spallation.


It's not their problem, it's yours. You have once again proved you don't know what you are talking about.

[kristopher]

233. One possible type...

That is why I included the information from India, which is the world's most ADVANCED PROGRAM AIMED AT USING THORIUM FOR FUEL.

You on the other hand, are trying to pass off pie in the sky bullshit as something realistic, which India PROVES it is not.

[Confusious]

259. Your entire post is a condradiction

I'm trying to "pass off pie in the sky bullshit" which "India proves it is not" pie in the sky bullshit?

India has massive amounts of thorium, which they will be using in the thorium reactors. Why do they need U233 in the first place if they aren't going to use it to start a thorium reactor? It doesn't work well in bombs, might as well burn it off, unless you're going to use it for something else.

"The head of the Mumbai reactor design and development group, Ratan Kumar Sinha, spoke to IEEE Spectrum about India's Thorium reactor design and plans. The Thorium reactor will have less waste (unburned fuel) than current reactors and is designed to operate for 100 years instead of 30-60 years for current reactors."

I'm not the one with pie in the sky bullshit, you are. India's doing right now what we should be doing, but instead, we're twiddling our thumbs and falling behind.

[bananas]

242. U233 can be used to make a bomb - the US did it back in the 50's

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium-233

It is also possible to use uranium-233 as the fission fuel of a nuclear weapon, although this has been done only occasionally. The United States first tested U-233 as part of a bomb core in Operation Teapot in 1955.<2> Uranium-233 compares roughly to plutonium-239: its radioactivity is only one seventh (159,200 years half-life versus 24,100 years), but its bare critical mass is 60% higher (16 kg versus 10 kg), and its spontaneous fission rate is twenty times higher (6×10E−9 versus 3×10E−10) — but since the radioactivity is lower, the neutron density is only three times higher. A nuclear explosive device based on uranium-233 is therefore more of a technical challenge than with plutonium, but the technological level involved is roughly the same.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weapons-grade

A weapons-grade substance is one that is pure enough to be used to make a weapon or has properties that make it suitable for weapons use.

<snip>

Weapons-grade uranium

U-235 is made weapons-grade through isotopic enrichment. It only makes up 0.7% of natural uranium, with the rest being almost entirely uranium-238 (U-238). They are separated by their differing masses. Highly enriched uranium is considered weapons-grade when it has been enriched to about 90% U-235.

U-233 is produced from thorium-232 by neutron capture. It can be made highly pure because it can be chemically separated from Th-232 rather than by mass, which is far easier. Therefore, there is no weapons-grade concentration for U-233. Since it can relatively easily be made pure, it is regulated as a special nuclear material only by the total amount present rather than by concentration or concentration combined with the amount. Uranium-232 is a contaminant that is present only in small amounts, but whose highly radioactive decay products like thallium-208 make handling more difficult.

[Confusious]

260. Ok, I was wrong about that

It is more difficult to use as such though, otherwise, we would be using it right now for bombs.

[BlueCollar]

120. My only concern here

is that the reactors will be built by the lowest bidders in the south...

Low bidding is a problem...

Southern regulators are an equal problem...


On the other hand, if they "***k" it up, it will be in a red state...

[Pavulon]

128. the NRC is federal, westinghouse AP1000 is slated to go into RTP

and I live in the south. Not like everyone here is a moron. More PHD's per cap where I live than anywhere in the US.

Reactors are build by a very small group of companies. GE and Westinghouse have long records of good design and fabrication.

[grahampuba]

164. westinghouse?

take the 'W' out and you get a three eyed not smiley face.
reminds me of blinky from the Simpsons episode..

also,
Westinghouse was sold to Toshiba in '06

The reactor they put in Prarie Island, my backyard, in '73 was engineered for a thirty year life cycle. They just applied for a twenty year extension..
The last safety report they had was the worst on record i believe,
had to ask for extensions for the dry cask storage down there also.

[Pavulon]

175. Because they cant store waste offsite.

westinghouse fabricates reactors here in the US for the Navy. Every old reactor should be replaced with a standards based system. One or two reactor types make life easier.

[SlingBlade]

135. Mr. Change meet Mr. Corporatist ! Drip, Drip, Drip, Drip ...

I aint seen this much dripping since ....

[madrchsod]

140. well he`s a big coal guy also....

we have more high sulfer coal than iraq has oil...

[harun]

137. Excellent, battery powered cars are going to need them.

[defendandprotect]

139. And why was it we elected Obama . . . please remind me -- !!???

[ThomThom]

143. Has he not read or heard about the new information that just came

out last week or the week before that has been hidden and covered up for years. About leaking problems at almost half of the existing plants with major ground water contamination in Vermont. He took money from their lobby and now they get their pay back. This is totally insane. I think I read about in our science forum.

[BlueJac]

196. Who cares who gets hurt.......

money is being made and we insure it!

:sarcasm:


Maybe there will be hugh profits for the greedy elite!!!

[Pavulon]

211. And a first day 80k a year job for a Navy vet, or kid from nc state

working as a technician.

[defendandprotect]

145. $18.5 billion in loan guarantees, but we can't afford MEDICARE FOR ALL???

Presumably we're also assuming all the risks -- ??

Nuclear -- a good way to kill the future --

[Pavulon]

150. Because the US navy is an ecological disaster. Daily criticality events

Nuclear will kill the entire human race for sure. Its called the sun and it will destroy us all, thats a promise.

[ozone_man]

155. Sounds like a concession to the right for Brown Senate win.

It's one more rightward shift by Obama, but, one that won't end well for him, that Republican-lite strategy. He has to stand up as a leader in the way FDR did in difficult times. The trouble is that he's not a executive like FDR, he negotiates away his political advantage until it's neutralized. He had the opening, the mandate, but gave it all away.

[varelse]

156. Hmmm - Burke, Georgia?

I get the feeling NIMBY may not have much of a presence there

:/

[tpsbmam]

179. I don't tend to be a NIMBY but in this case, Obama....

not in my fucking backyard! I know there are some progressive proponents of nuclear power.....I'm not only of them. At least this isn't inconsistent with his campaign statements -- he's always supported nuclear power. And I've always disagreed with him on it. What about some wind, solar & other energy projects that AREN'T FUCKING OUTSOURCED???!!!!!

[Pavulon]

182. Cant outsource nuclear. You really thing a silicone product

that is not part of a nuclear weapon will be made in the US. No way. Same with the turbines, will all be built by wage slaves in china with no environmental oversight. Thats why it is always cheaper to make crap there.

Now stuff that kills you when it fails, mmm, not a great idea for that model.

[BlueJac]

187. More Obamarama.........

I can't take much more.....Change, what was said about that? Oh I get it, it was just sloganism for us poor people.

[Ozymanithrax]

206. Unless we can go back to 1880 in population...we have to develop sources of power.

There is no such think as clean power, so any power source is a compromise.

Building nuclear power plants is a good idea, and the wastes can be more easily controlled than coal or even natural gas.

Carbon based power systems are being made obsolete with the end of oil. Unless people here are willing to give up electricity for the simple life, they will have to accept some compromises.

[jmowreader]

217. Okay on one condition

He ALSO announced financing to buy the Crawford Pig Farm and turn it into the repository for all the nuclear waste these three plants will create.

[bertman]

219. Here we go again. Too Big To Fail. These nuke outfits and their backers are rich as four feet up

a bull's ass but now the gummint has to help them finance the construction of two nuke reactors. If these things are such a great bet why aren't there investors falling all over themselves to get in on the action?

Then, once the babies are built, the gummint (THAT'S YOU AND I, FOLKS) will be Insuring them since NO Insurance Company will touch that radioactive hot potato with a ten foot cooling rod.

I do believe that President Obama is determined to give every fucking penny in the U.S. Treasury to some corporation or cartel in the name of saving America.

[nealmhughes]

226. First, where to start -- Oh where to start?

Nuclear power has absolutely nothing to do with nuclear weapons save the fission.
One has to have a high security clearance to get Vital Area Access, which is impossible for anyone but a trustworthy US citizen who is highly trained to obtain. Nothing would be outsourced at all. GE and Westinghouse make US reactors and also ones for the world. The steel is "nuclear grade" and like SubSafe in the USN: pedigree from mine to the welders. I can guarantee it would be made in the US, welded in the US and fit in the US, by US workers in their unions.
TMI was a flawed old design. Chenobyl was a bomb factory that made electricity as a side product and lacked containment.
One can and does handle the new fuel when it goes into the reactor vessel with only cotton gloves on -- to keep oils from one's skin off the cladding of the fuel rods. The radiation is no more than background. DU, is indeed, natural U238 from enrichment, and not really radioactive at all. Slight Beta emission over tens of thousands of years, but it is stable, almost as stable as lead or gold.
Civilian nuclear plants are not highly enriched at all. I cannot and will not tell you the enrichment levels nor that of USN reactors, but they are very different.
Naval reactors have never had an accident. Ever. Civilian reactors have only had minor incidents in comparison to test reactors and Chernobyl.
The majority of the people who work in operations in civilian nuclear plants are USN nuclear veterans. They learned their craft the hard way: fail one test and you're out of school, no coveted silver dolphins and no getting to sit in the maneuvering room. I have known one foreign engineer who was not allowed access to the control room or anywhere within the radiation area of the plant. He was a US citizen and had an MS in nuclear physics. That is out of several thousand who I know by name or sight. Why? Because he had no business to be in the radiation area or in the control room just as the plant manager's secretary could not be inside.
Oh, by the way, the "baby reactors" someone mocked in a previous reply that the Navy runs: they make nearly 100 MW thermal on 4 turbines, 2 electric generating and two for propulsion.
They are small because they have to be for weight and they are highly enriched, not at all like a civilian reactor. You would be shocked at how fast one can go from cold steel to underway -- not passing the heatup rate curves is the effective limitation. In contrast, it takes a week to start up a commercial plant.

Vitrification is the obvious solution for our nuclear waste, but no one wishes to address where to store it. Might I suggest the basement of the local coal powered life drainer?

[Confusious]

228. Nice post..n/t

[Mari333]

244. better use UNION people on that job

my husband was a union pipefitter and he had to weld the inside of the containment units on nuclear reactors. believe me, you want qualified UNION people on those jobs, or you can kiss your ass goodbye. those places have to be made PROPERLY, not haphazardly by non union personnel. every weld has to be tested and x rayed and pass inspection.

[Pavulon]

246. Yep. That is the point. Reactor technology can NOT be low bid.

it requires highly paid people to build and maintain. That is one of the benefits of the technology.

[kristopher]

256. That doesn't solve the problem.

http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/nuclear_power_risk/safety/davis-besse-retrospective.html

Davis-Besse Retrospective

Davis-Besse: The Reactor with a Hole in its Head

On March 6, 2002, workers repairing a cracked control rod drive mechanism (CRDM) nozzle at the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station in Ohio discovered a football-sized cavity in the reactor vessel head.<1> Their finding is linked to two other discoveries 15 years earlier. On March 13, 1987, workers at Turkey Point Unit 4 in Florida discovered that a small leak of borated water had corroded the reactor vessel head. Their revelation prompted the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to require all owners of pressurized water reactors, including Davis-Besse, to take specific measures to protect plant equipment from boric acid corrosion.<2> On March 24, 1987, the NRC learned that control room operators at the Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvania had been discovered sleeping while on duty. That revelation prompted the NRC to issue an order on March 31st requiring Peach Bottom Unit 3 to be immediately shut down.<3>

The three findings spanning 15 years are intertwined. Turkey Point demonstrated that a small amount of boric acid leaking onto the reactor vessel head corrodes carbon steel at a high rate. Had the FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company, the owner of Davis-Besse, remembered Turkey Point's lesson, the serious damage at Davis-Besse would have been averted. Peach Bottom demonstrated that a pervasive safety culture problem creates unacceptable conditions for operating a nuclear power plant. Had NRC remembered either Turkey Point's or Peach Bottom's lesson, they would have issued the order they drafted to shut down Davis-Besse. It would have been the first shut down order issued by the agency since the Peach Bottom order. But both FirstEnergy and the NRC forgot the past and relived the wrong event from March 1987 by having yet another reactor vessel head damaged by boric acid corrosion.

Many individuals, from both within and outside the NRC, have accused the agency's move towards risk-informed decision-making as the reason for its failure to issue the order to shut down Davis-Besse. On the contrary, the NRC's handling of circumferential cracking of control rod drive mechanism (CRDM) nozzles as reported by the Oconee nuclear plant in February 2001 was a successful demonstration of proper application of risk-informed decision-making ¾ with the sole and significant exception of its mistake in not issuing the shut down order for Davis-Besse. But even that mistake, as bad as it was, does not impugn the risk-informed decision-making process for the simple reason that the NRC deviated from that process. Had the NRC adhered to its risk-informed decision-making process, it would have issued the shut down order for Davis-Besse and capped off a stellar example of how this process can and should be used.

In February 2001, the NRC learned of a new aging mechanism, the circumferential cracking of stainless steel CRDM nozzles ...

Full article at Union of Concerned Scientists website: http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/nuclear_power_risk/safety/davis-besse-retrospective.html

[gauguin57]

255. Boooooooooooooo! Terrible news.

I don't want to get into a kerfuffle with all the pro-nuke folks on this board, but this is terrible, terrible news.

Nuclear power will never be totally safe, for many reasons ... including: because human beings build and run the plants. Try living in southcentral PA for a while -- near 2 nuke plants (including Three Mile Island) where we keep hearing stories about security lapses and technicians sleeping and playing cards when they're supposed to be running the plant. Then, every couple of years, they say, "Hey, git in line for yer free potassium iodide tablets! Protect your thyroid when the big one hits!"

When the inevitable next nuke disaster happens ... the land around that plant will be f*cked for generations to come. And, oh, the cancer.

Just ask the farmers of rural Belarus, who will long be growing crops in land that sends the Geiger counter readings over the moon.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4485003.stm

[berttheturk]

258. Georgia is a very RED state. They will WELCOME nuclear power. n/t

[Hosnon]

261. I live nearby, and I am thrilled about this. nt.

[tabasco]

265. Excellent news.

We can build safe nuclear plants and stop destroying our mountaintops.

[ProudDad]

266. Great idea, Barry

Let's just piss away a few more billions of U.S. Taxpayer dollars on a "power source"...

That's DIRTY AS HELL -

when you include the entire process from extraction of a DEPLETING RESOURCE

through construction and refining of uranium into a usable form

to transportation...

and the INSANE amounts of rapidly depleting fresh water required...

to make a shit pot of electricity...

HALF of which is pissed away in transmission lines ...

The remainder used to power 500 channels of SHIT on cable and satellite TV...

and a bunch of useless toys...

and way too much fucking air-conditioning...

and all the other stupid, wasteful crap that China makes for USamerican idiots to consume...

Way to go, Barry...you have now officially passed Slick Willie and taken the crown of "best republican pResident that money can buy!"

:puke: