Meltdown, USA: Nuclear Drive Trumps Safety Risks and High Cost (E action)

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.beyondnuclear.org/actnow/

ActNow! Don't React Later!

ActNow! Special Update!

While NRC continues to look the other way on reactor safety concerns and routinely renews licenses for aging reactors, the White House is pushing for even more money for toxic loan guarantees for new reactors. The latest news is that the Obama administration wants to triple the already $18.5 billion appropriated for new reactors. That's a cool $54.5 billion, a tab that will end up being paid by us, American taxpayers. We can't let this happen. Please help prevent this needless and obscene giveaway. Sign our ActNow! petition today. Then call the White House (202-456-1111) and Congress (202-224-3121) and ask them to:

Stop toxic loan guarantees for new reactors and other nuclear projects!

Phase out existing reactors!

Conduct a full investigation of the NRC!

And please help us as we continue to campaign against nuclear expansion here and around the world. Make a donation to Beyond Nuclear on-line today. It’s as easy as one click here!

Thank you.

The Beyond Nuclear team

Yes, I want to see an investigation of NRC! No loan guarantees or taxpayer subsidies for more nuclear facilities! Phase out the existing U.S. nuclear reactors! Our country needs clean, safe renewable energy and energy efficiency, not dirty, dangerous and expensive nuclear power.

[ensho]

1. every year the odds get closer to a nuke disaster here in the US

nt

[hunter]

2. I disagree.

Shut down the coal plants first, then we can talk about nuclear...

:evilgrin:

[FBaggins]

4. Exactly,

It's ridiculous to talk about safety risks while ignoring the people who die every year from other forms of power directly (natural gas explosions, etc)... and particularly ridiculous to ignore the millions upon millions who die earlier than they should because of polution pumped out by these dirty plants.

Getting power to hundreds of millions of people necessarily involves some safety risk (yes... including solar/wind/hydro). There isn't any way to avoid that.

Nuclear has a far safer track record than coal. Yes... including Chernobyl.

[kristopher]

16. MIT has identified safety as one of 4 reasons nuclear should not be deployed.

MIT identified 4 areas of concern that must be addressed before nuclear is ready to deploy. The study was part of a plan pulled together by DOE and industry in 2002 that aimed to prove nuclear power's viability by building at least one nuclear plant by 2010 in the US. Industry representatives claimed they could build 5.

With no public opposition as a consideration, none have even started construction - they have failed.

Safety is clearly an issue to judge nuclear by, and that includes the worst case scenarios. Calls to ignore the potential costs in worst case scenarios are a dishonest attempt to distort the outcome of evaluation. The term is "data trimming" in academics, and "cherry picking" by others.

Cost - nuclear power cannot compete. It costs too much.

Waste - there is no solution to waste. Without that, increasing the rate of production of waste is simply stupid.

Proliferation - another nuclear arms race in a volatile part of the world is an inevitable consequence of deploying today's technologies.

No further plants should be built and the present fleet should be eliminated at the end of their design life span.

[WatsonT]

7. But nuclear plants put out all that radioactive waste

while coal plants emit kittens and unicorn breathe . . . .and even more radioactive waste than nuclear plants:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste

[Statistical]

3. A loan guarantee doesn't cost taxpayers anything unless the utility defaults.

Much like all the woes about the insurance guarantees (Price-Anderson) which has cost taxpayer nothing over the last 50 years.

[kristopher]

17. A question on that.

CBO estimate on nuclear loan guarantees

For this estimate, CBO assumes that the first nuclear plant built using a federal loan guarantee would have a capacity of 1,100 megawatts and have associated project costs of $2.5 billion. We expect that such a plant would be located at the site of an existing nuclear plant and would employ a reactor design certified by the NRC prior to construction. This plant would be the first to be licensed under the NRC’s new licensing procedures, which have been extensively revised over the past decade.

Based on current industry practices, CBO expects that any new nuclear construction project would be financed with 50 percent equity and 50 percent debt. The high equity participation reflects the current practice of purchasing energy assets using high equity stakes, 100 percent in some cases, used by companies likely to undertake a new nuclear construction project. Thus, we assume that the government loan guarantee would cover half the construction cost of a new plant, or $1.25 billion in 2011.

CBO considers the risk of default on such a loan guarantee to be very high—well above 50 percent. The key factor accounting for this risk is that we expect that the plant would be uneconomic to operate because of its high construction costs, relative to other electricity generation sources. In addition, this project would have significant technical risk because it would be the first of a new generation of nuclear plants, as well as project delay and interruption risk due to licensing and regulatory proceedings.

Note the price - $2.5 billion was to be only for the first plant. Future plants were, according to the assumptions provided by the nuclear industry, expected to have lower costs as economy of scale resulted in savings.

In fact, since the report was written (2003), the estimated cost has risen to an average of about $8 billion.

Wonder what that does to the “risk is that … the plant would be uneconomic to operate because of its high construction costs, relative to other electricity generation sources”?

So the question is, does that risk diminish or increase when the price rises from $2.5 billion to $8 billion?


Your assertions regarding Price Anderson are similarly misleading. The insurance held is basically enough to secure the assets of the nuclear industry. It effectively caps their probable liability for individuals seeking damages from a large scale accident at about $90 dollars per person.

That means the risk incurred related to making those people whole are transferred to the public sector. The way insurance works is that payments are made over time that reflect the total risk involved in a given activity.

When the largest part of the risk is transferred to the public, the payments to insurance that would otherwise be required are avoided by the industry. The PAA allows the industry to compete by avoiding costs that are levied on their competitors.

It is a very large subsidy that, if removed, would stop nuclear power in its tracks as no insurer would be willing (or capable) of assuming this risk.

If nuclear makes economic sense over its 40-100 year horizon, this subsidy would not be required.

[wtmusic]

5. Union Leaders Praise Obama’s Support for Nuclear Plant

"Union leaders praised President Obama’s announcement yesterday of federal loan guarantees for the construction of two advanced reactors at the Plant Vogtle nuclear power station in Georgia. They said it is a major step forward in addressing the nation’s energy needs as well as creating badly needed jobs. And they urged the president to ensure all the components used in the plant are made in America.

Obama made the announcement during a visit to an apprenticeship training facility in the Washington, D.C., suburbs that is jointly administered by Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 26 and local electrical contractors. Check out a video of the announcement here.

IBEW President Edwin Hill said:

The loan guarantee for construction of a nuclear plant in Georgia is a prime example of what needs to be done to address the jobs crisis in our nation. The public and private sectors must work together. The jobs must go to people in the local areas so that their wages can be pumped back into the local community. And the fact that the project will help address our critical need for clean, reliable, safe energy is a major plus."

http://blog.aflcio.org/2010/02/17/union-leaders-praise-obamas-support-for-nuclear-plant/

Every facility will create 3,500 construction jobs, 800 full-time operational jobs, and will allow us to retire US coal plants which are responsible for 30,000 deaths/year.

How many deaths was nuclear power responsible for last year?

[madokie]

6. Indirectly or directly

"How many deaths was nuclear power responsible for last year?" Same thing with coal plants you can make an educated guess but the true numbers are not to be found. The difference is with coal and nuclear one has a tendency to lie and accept no responsibility whatsoever so their numbers are hard to come by. The other one we can see the emissions so we can't be fooled by the bastids running the plants so to answer your question it would depend on who you want to believe. I chose to believe the coal industry because they don't deny anything they're just trying to fight tighter controls. The other one on the other hand denies any and all things that can be construed to be bad so how do you get any meaningful numbers there, answers answered even?

[WatsonT]

8. That's an entirely emotion based argument

Those people tend to lie.

We can't trust anyone.

They're all evil.

[madokie]

11. Thats 50 years of watching the industry

nothing emotional about any of what I typed. also I didn't say that you can't trust anyone either, nor did I mention in any way shape or form that they're all evil but you go ahead and project. Pretty much explains what I said actually.

[wtmusic]

9. Do you believe the Vermont Dept. of Health?

In their view a contributor to the power grid of the entire Northeast, as well as a major employer for the state of VT, was closed for no valid health reason whatsoever:

"On February 4, 2010, Vermont Yankee reported that groundwater samples from a newly dug monitoring well at the reactor site were measured at about 775,000 pCi/l (more than 37 times the federal limit). On February 5, 2010, samples from an underground vault tested positive for 2.7 million pCi/l.<21> On February 14, 2010, the source of the leak was found - a pair of steam pipes inside the Advanced Off-Gas (AOG) pipe tunnel - and stopped.

Samples taken from the river and other drinking water sources by the Vermont Department of Health have shown no detectable levels of tritium. The New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services made a similar statement after several tests of the river.

During the course of searching for the source of the tritium leak, other radionuclides were found in the soil at the site. Levels of cesium-137, were elevated, three to ten times higher than background levels. Silt in a pipe tunnel had higher levels yet, but the contamination outside the pipe tunnel was limited to a small volume, about 150 cubic feet (4.2 m3), of soil. According to the Vermont State Department of Health, there was no health risk from the cesium, as the quantities were small and it had not migrated. As a fission fragment, cesium-137 is an indicator of a fuel leak, but in this case, the consensus is that the cesium-137 probably leaked from defective fuel assemblies during or prior to 2001, when the last such type of leak was reported by Vermont Yankee. Such problems with fuel rods were not uncommon in the 1970s and 1980s.

The levels of cesium-137 detected in the silt on site were 2,600 picocuries/kg. For comparison that many common foods contain higher levels of radioactivity; bananas may contain 3,500 pCi/kg."

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

To sum up: you're in more radioactive danger from eating a banana than eating the silt - not from the Connecticut river - but from the leak site itself.

You're certainly entitled to not believe the Vermont Dept. of Health, or the New Hanpshire Dept. of Health and Human Services, or Wikipedia, or Entergy - but at a certain point it seems prudent to ask yourself what is the likelihood that all of these entities have been bought off, of that no one in these departments cares about the health of the people in their state. A pretty tall order.

[PamW]

10. Fear of radioactivity is hyped

To sum up: you're in more radioactive danger from eating a banana than eating the silt - not from the Connecticut river - but from the leak site itself.
=====================================================

Correct. This is another example of baseless scare tactic being used against nuclear power.

How many here enjoy alcoholic beverages? Did you know that your alcohol must be
radioactive by law or it can't be sold in the USA? If your alcohol comes from recently
grown living matter, then it is radioactive. The only way for your alcoholic beverage not to
be radioactive is if the alcohol came from petroleum provided by the oil companies.

Go to Amazon.com and look up the book "The Instant Physicist" by Professor Richard A Muller of
the University of California-Berkeley Physics department. Click on the image of the book
on the Amazon site. Amazon provides what they call a "look inside". Go to page 12 ( the
page numbers are at the bottom ) and start reading.

Then I would suggest buying the book. Of course, the anti-nukes are going to be too
apoplectic to do anything when they read what the good Professor has to say.

PamW

[Omaha Steve]

12. Kicked by Japan today!

[AtheistCrusader]

13. Hope you aren't embarrassed. The Fukushima Daiichi site reactors are like Vermont Yankee.

We shall see how it plays out. Pretty much worst case scenario at this point, for the conditions facing the plant. Let's see how the GE Mark 1 BWR design holds up.

[Omaha Steve]

14. Well the E action talks about the US lack of being able to find problems

Like a back up pump that couldn't work and went undetected for over a year. And Japan still is fighting to get control of their multiple problems. So I'm not embarrassed at all. Seeing that they have the same design scares me.

[wtmusic]

15. Not supporting IBEW on this one? nt