An introduction to Nuclear Power - Climate Progress

[kristopher]

http://climateprogress.org/2009/02/04/an-introduction-to-nuclear-power/

I wanted to have in one place a post that links to all my discussions of nuclear power and its various limitations:

* Prohibitively high, and escalating, capital costs
* Production bottlenecks in key components needed to build plants
* Very long construction times
* Concerns about uranium supplies and importation issues
* Unresolved problems with the availability and security of waste storage
* Large-scale water use amid shortages
* High electricity prices from new plants

A good place to start is:...

Go here for all the links:
http://climateprogress.org/2009/02/04/an-introduction-to-nuclear-power/

[NNadir]

1. Um, after 50 years of nuclear operations, we don't need an "introduction."

It is a well understood form of energy, producing about 30 exajoules of energy, making it the world's largest source of climate change gas free energy.

The costs of nuclear energy were described in O&M terms, not by mystics but by energy experts in a simple graph more than 10 years ago, which was before there were anti-nukes here telling us that we could be complacent about dumping dangerous fossil fuels in the atmosphere because "solar energy prices are soon going to be competitive with coal"



The source is here: http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/analysis/nuclearpower.html

"Fossil Steam" is coal. "Other Fossil" is gas.

The only reason that these two fossil fuels are reported as low a price as they are is that they are free to dump their wastes into the environment, whereas nuclear plants are required to store theirs forever - something that is entirely possible, given nuclear's vast energy to mass ratio, and impossible for any other energy industry, including the failed solar and wind industries which after decades of blather, cannot produce on the entire planet one exajoule of the 500 exajoules of energy that humanity uses.

The only impediment to building nuclear power is "public skepticism" which is totally a function of a vast disinformation campaign large paid for, wholesale, by gas interests around the world, be they RMI and its spin-offs, or Gazprom and Nabucco in Europe. They'd like to see gas O&M hit 15 cents per kwh, more money for them.

The gas/solar/wind interests here are full of shit on costs. Even the solar industry, AS OF FEBRUARY 2010, after 50 years of "solar will become affordable" bullshit talk, report residential solar costs as 35.08 cents per kwh, "commercial" as 25.03 and industrial as 19.50 (not that there really is such a thing as "industrial" solar energy: http://www.solarbuzz.com/SolarPrices.htm

This is from the Energy Information Agency, not a dumb little "let's frack all of the world's rock digging for the last shred of gas to burn and dump in the atmosphere because someday the SUN God will save us."

The EIA has also provided something called "data" showing that nuclear energy has been the fastest growing form of non-climate change gas releasing energy consistently for 30 years.

If you don't know what you're talking about, you can cruise self referential websites, or, as is more typical, just make stuff up.

[kristopher]

2. More distortion and false information, eh, dude?

We are discussing the cost of technologies to replace fossil fuels. Using numbers based on nuclear power plants that have had their costs wiped from the books by repeated bankruptcies (more corporate welfare for those investors who had loan guarantees) tells us nothing about the costs going forward.

The fact is that nuclear is THE MOST EXPENSIVE OPTION BY FAR.

It is one of the very worst solutions to climate change and energy security needs.

[madokie]

3. I've been reasured by a few here that nuke plants don't use any more cooling water than coal plants

"Large-scale water use amid shortages"

I felt I was lied to then. One of my real worries is the amount of cooling water that makes its way through a nuke plant to be returned to the rivers and lakes with who knows what is tagging along. The nuke boys, (spelled with a small b,) will lie like a rug about that and they are the ones who reassured me on the few times I've asked that very question. They lie, with big guy one of the worst offenders. Believe nothing that the nuke industry says and also question what you actually see that might indicate otherwise. I've been on this rodeo circuit a long long time and its always been the same way. :hi:

[bananas]

4. You were lied to - I remember that discussion

I posted some information in that thread showing that nuclear plants use significantly more water than fossil fuel plants for the same amount of power.
I don't have time to search for that thread right now, maybe later.

[kristopher]

5. Kick