Energista - Nuclear - Comments

Well, here's the gist of it...

nobody — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 16:54:26 -0600

...when nuclear power can exist in the competitive market, without the taxpayer cost of government propping it up by research, insurance (taxpayers insure nuclear plants in the US via the Price Anderson act; private insurers won't touch the stuff, wonder why), transportation and disposal, when digging up uranium doesn't impact almost exclusively native lands (it does now, in Saskatchewan, Australia, and the Southwest US), let's talk about nuclear plants as a viable option.

Until then, we have far more reasonable, lower cost, proven resources in efficiency and clean energy technologies ready to go--that don't require us to plan tens of thousands of years ahead of time to manage the waste. What a concept.

Seems like a simple case of Accom's razor: the simplest solution is usually the best. And in this case, the simplest solution is addressing cost, planning, security, and toxicity by simply bypassing them altogether. Whoda thunk it.

I also don't think that shadoweye's contention that wind is only compatible with "major baseload backing" is correct. The coal industry uses "baseload" to refer to coal plants. The wind is always blowing somewhere, and it becomes an issue of transmission capacity. Powering the Plains did an exploratory trip to Germany and Denmark a couple of years ago, and both places have higher renewable energy goals but poorer resources than the Midwest US. I need to check my notes to see which country they were in, but at one point a person in the delegation asked if it was difficult managing so much wind power on the system. The system manager's attitude was, well, we figure it out.

More later, but the fact of the electricity system in the US boils down that we've invested largely in two energy generation sources: nukes and coal. A smart strategy for the future will be diversifying these sources, and putting as much investment into clean electricity technologies and efficiency as we have into coal and nuclear power. What a concept ;)

OK

nobody — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 05:38:38 -0600

Reasonable questions.

I hate to rummage through old links to bring a Greensider up to speed, it is well nigh impossible to counteract years of hyperbole, myth, and outright nonsense , planted via trusted progressive sources, but ultimately maliciously created as overzealous position-mongering agitation propaganda. If you care, try to search out this info personally. I have to go to work soon. If time presents itself during the day I'll rummage a bit on your behalf.

I'm not suggesting we make all aspects of society as safe as a nuclear plant's double regimes. I'm simply locating the source of whatever extra expense pertains to nuclear (the safety gizmos), and I'm suggesting that perhaps humankind has taken a great leap futurewise in the nuclear-handling field, a futurizing tendency that may point the way to other needed regimes---- breathalizers attached to convicted drunks' car ignitions, microchip remote reading implants in sex offendors, general explosive sniffing equipment at crowded areas, airports, etc. I expect the supposed "extra expense" to be soon matched in other areas (scrubbing equipment on coal plant stacks, for instance, or automated crash aversion controls in cars).

Shadoweyes is correct. There is no single solution. But this begs the fact that there is only one tested, viable, in-place, functioning solution, and that real world member of an otherwise imaginary group of peer technologies is nuclear.

I'll try to dig up the no-extra-power-to-make-uranium link for you. As to metal recycling, the lion's share of metal in the USA is recycled (I have a buddy who sells the metal shredding machinery around the US). Very little mining is going on. Tons of mined uranium exist, and reprocessing uranium is simply a portion of the entire reprocessing field-- albeit a part stupidly removed by Jimmy Carter. Carter's position then (that reprocessing would bring weapons proliferation) is now proved ludicrous, as weapons proliferate despite anything the US government does. We will not stop the proliferation, mark my words.

Could we have stopped the bronze age, or the iron age?

Why will we "need" energy?
Read up on China's vast lifestyle upgrade, into automobiles, electricity, modern urbanism, and trade, all done in a ten year period. The world's largest populations, (China, India, Indonesia, Iran, the middle east) all strongly crave western lifeways, and are hurtling forward, in an unstoppable flood, that will someday be given a historical name, as a great world change, but we as smug westerners do not wish to acknowlege it. Nevertheless, it's happening.

Note please, how irrelevant environmentalism seems to these populations. To them, It IS irrelevant. Sorry about that. In ten years, it will be clearly seen that America does not lead the international way, and environmentalism will be viewed as a sinister western oppressive scheme, to deny cultural justice to billions of wealth-craving asians. Again, mark my words.

In the USA, policy will be made by the new arrivals--legal or illegal--not by any old guard, such as you and I. The growth from 300 million to 500 million will happen right before your eyes, as poorer areas get repopulated from central american immigration, and as the open areas get bulldozered by development. As war , and sectarian terror make their asian home areas not desirable, the well heeled and the hopeful from all the world's more backward areas environmentally speaking will become our new professional class, with strong attitudinal ties to asia guiding their actions, and will happily fill up all the new macmansion cul de sac developments with brothers, parents, children, all imported out of the east, all absolutely uncaring about the status of America, except to glean its wealth, and then return home to asia,. Again Mark my words.

All these newbies, caring or uncaring, will need to be housed, fed, entertained, employed, and catered to. There's gonna be maybe 200 million of them.

They did not uproot themselves and leave home in a life-wrenching odyssey to be told "Keep your lights off 4 hours each day" They do not come here to enter a new secular religion of self-denial. They've had it with self-denial. They are here to get rich, live well, and overcome unjust former lacks. They hold strong indigenous religious attitudes, and are largely unswayable, by arguments such as yours (at least in the first generation).

That is why a lot of new energy will be needed. America is gonna get urbanized. America is gonna get colonized. And when it does, all these hungry new-rich people with accents, sending money home to asia, will be the new Americans.

Yes, they will enjoy taking the tour bus to Yellowstone, but after the trip, they'll want to take momma-san, poppa-san, and all the little sans back to a nice comfy 6000 square foot development home right near a convenient Walmart, probably all in a place that's just open fields right now. Again MMY.

Re: Being Wrong

nobody — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 19:01:34 -0600

I will admit, you seem to know much more about Indian Point than I do, although I have heard of the danger of its waste storage facilities to terrorism through many sources, including the New York TImes, though in much less detail than Kennedy presented. I do think that it is a little strange that you accuse the Riverkeeper and Kennedy of seeing "Science as Sin" - seeing as they are one of the biggest public defense anti-pollution agencies based on local monitoring of pollutants in the inner city neighborhoods of the NY metro area. I'm not idolizing him; he did make a stupid move on Cape Wind for example, but he's not a ridiculous source.

I think it's a bit absurd to argue that the safety precautions applied to nuclear would necessarily be universally applied to everything else. Obviously coal is even worse, an has tons of hidden costs, but it's not obvious why all energy sources require being 'safetied-up' from a current supposedly unsafe state. Please also let me know how you know that the primary cost of nuclear is safety.

Do we really want an energy source that requires that much defense anyway? I am quite aware of the process of reusing spent fuel - although the connection to weapons-grade plutonium and nuclear proliferation always seemed clear. Am I missing something?

Could you tell me where the myth of coal plants used to make uranium has been dispelled? I have not seen any such resources, so please excuse my uneducated position. If it is indeed ONLY the excess needed to make other minerals, that does not seem to be an excuse more than a further problem we need to solve - metals recycling start to sound feasible?

Why will more energy be 'needed'? Cutting waste, energy efficiency, and redesigning our society for less transport and more use of sunlight are not solutions we should just dismiss. There's one whole side of solutions people have been missing for ages: demand side. You mentioned it; demand, but where's the next step? We should look towards reducing that demand while eliminating our fossil energy dependence AND improving our quality of life as the best way forward.

We have to be ready for demand-side solutions - they are almost always cheapest (often saving money), and best - along with the vast array of supply-side ones. This effort will take dozens of initiatives; my point was not that nuclear is the mother of all evil - fossil fuels almost certainly have more widespread problems, but that we really have a wealth of even better alternatives; and it definately does not appear as if we should be backing this one with all our might.

Single Solution?

shadoweyes — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 08:57:37 -0600

America does not need a single solution, it needs multiple solutions. I am willing to have nuclear play a part of that because unlike coal, nuclear power did not kill any Americans last year. Coal is directly or indirectly responsible for deaths of thousands to tens of thousands depending on how indirectly you want to take it.

Nonetheless, higher efficiency is the most sensible. We are constantly cutting the amount of energy required to produce a unit of GDP - and that is without serious incentives to encourage it! We can do much better, but we will still need to produce more power.

Indeed, a solution of wind power is not viable right now without serious baseload backing it and I would prefer that to be nuclear right now than coal if given my options.

We still need to encourage DG where it makes sense and wind and research solar but we need to do something in the meantime, and I think nuclear makes sense given our options. That said, people are more afraid of radiation exposure than mercury poisoning or even global climate change, so I suspect we won't be getting more nuclear power plants soon.

You are wrong.

nobody — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 06:00:15 -0600

Any costs pertaining to nuclear plants are involved in the doubling and quadrupling of safety function, making these high energy centers benign, and not a danger. They are simply the first service to have been made "ultra-safe" in this way. Soon airlines will require separate cockpit units that can't be entered from the passenger side, trains will require sniffer portals to prevent bombings, schools will require cell phone blocking jammers and extra security, as well as weapons detectors. Eventually your entire civilization will be "safetied-up" in the way nukes are now, so get ready. The nukes just got there first.

About any coal plants needed to make uranium, its a myth, its been dispelled elsewhere, but here it is again. The energy to mine & refine uranium is no larger than the energy used to mine & refine dozens of other minerals, for instance the arsenic essential for solar panel construction.

The spent fuel pool at Indian Point, soon to be replaced with dry casks, is not an airplane target, because it is below ground, hidden behind other large structures including 345 kilovolt high tension lines, preventing any air attack ever occurring. It can only happen in your imagination, because apparently you DO NOT know as much about the place as you claim to.

A report just out by Dr Herschel Specter, the creator of the math used to determine fallout patterns, tells us that anyone beyond a 4 mile limit need not evacuate, and can not be harmed by the most extreme scenarios possible at Indian Point, he advises those not liking the evac plan, and living within 4 miles, simply walk away at a regular walking pace. He states that no emissions would happen until a 2 to 6 hour warming period after any plane crash, giving plenty of time to react. At 3 miles per hour, a walker is safe in about 20 minutes to 40 minutes.
All the "50 mile" exaggerations are simple Riverkeeper press agentry.

The National guard troop, the State police troop, the Buchanan police troop, and the Entergy private security force assigned to Indian Point would most likely take offense at your claim of lax security, and ask you to point out any factual instances, before throwing out an aside as if there were something you know about, when that cannot be, because security there is indeed very, very high. Somewhere in the neighborhood of $15 million has been spent since 2001, (in addition to security already in place in 2001) to build a series of inner fences, buried steel firing enclosures, 6 foot high by 6 foot wide reinforced concrete "Great Wall of IPEC" barricades preventing any vehicle entry, the removal of many roads & paths to prevent opportune use by attackers, installation of motion sensing radar, infrared, and biological-sniffing equipment, plus interlocking field of fire hardened automatic weapons firing towers, covering the entire local area.The jaded and inept Wackenhut security contractor, with all its union and morale problems has been fired, along with all its featherbedded pot bellied 65 year old guards, and a private Entergy security force is in place staffed with young, agile, satisfied , athletic young people, people excited about guarding the place. But you did not know, apparently, relying on third hand reports via Mr. Kennedy, who got them via a disgruntled ex-Wackenhut drunk, so what you write here does not apply, unfortunately.

The political amputation of the second half of the nuclear fuel cycle by a pandering Jimmy Carter in 1976, when fuel reprocessing was artificially cancelled, is the only act preventing efficient re-use of used fuel, as it was originally intended. Once fuel is allowed to be reprocessed, the bulk of waste is reduced to 1% of the former bulk, and the most toxic compounds are burned up in the process, and no longer exist at all.

You might visit the thoriumenergy website to learn of the latest technologies, not filtered through Mr. Kennedy's confused Roman Catholic "Science-is-Sin" philosophy.

At 300 million today, and undoubtedly 600 million within your lifetime, the American twenty first century population cannot rely on conservation and slick design to avoid the energy drain so many lives will create. Ten ot a thousand times the energy produced today will soon be needed.

Coal producers in Appalachia, with mines inactive since the 1970's have re-opened them, and re-staffed them , in preparation for the 124 new coal plants now in construction. That number is one hundred twenty four additinal coal plants. ( Ten in Texas alone). Why now? Those built now will be grandfathered at old pollution rates, before new caps go into effect in 2008. So the dirty corporations, with their stinking, smoking death machines are aware of the coming demand, the same demand Mr. Kennedy ignores, because it might cramp his vision a bit, and ruin his books.

The single solution to save America is, I'm afraid, our nuclear plants.

Have a nice day.

Don't generate the waste in the first place

Joe — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 17:51:40 -0600

There is an existing technology that would do away with the nuclear waste issue- reprocessing the waste. I think roughly 90% of the energy in spent fuel rods can be recovered. The problem with this technology is it creates weapons grade plutonium. Personally however, I am not that concerned about the proliferation risk in this country or other Western countries, anymore than I would be about terrorists storming a nuclear weapons facility. I believe France and other countries already use this technology- why can't we?

Nuclear Power

Tue, 14 Nov 2006 10:51:02 -0600

While I agree with "nobody" regarding the fact that it is inevitable that nuclear power will play a role in the future of energy, I am still concerned about nuclear waste. Does anyone know whether new technology has been developed to make its disposal safer or more reliable?

Locals

shadoweyes — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 22:21:04 -0600

Looks like the locals have no problems with the Monticello plant.

Nuclear Power

nobody — Sun, 12 Nov 2006 23:14:58 -0600

There is sufficient evidence that Nuc Power is Safe, Clean, Environmentally Benign and Economically viable Option. With depleting fossil resources and to preclude deforestation and Global warming Nuclear Power is an inevitable option. So let us join hands to enhance its public acceptability that is already rising.

I think there is more

Joe — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 11:09:46 -0500

I think there is more opposition in Norway, if only because there is less agricultural land and more wild/scenic/cultural areas. However, there are still people here, albeit a very small percentage of the public, who are opposed to wind energy because it kills a few birds or interupts their view (I'm thinking of Cape Wind in particular...)

Public Resistance?

shadoweyes — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 17:02:53 -0500

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by public resistance to wind. It seems to me that more than 75% of the population fully supports wind and a few industry groups and astro-turf front groups are pretending the general public doesn't support it.

Nukes in developing countries

nobody — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 13:04:41 -0500

It worries me slightly that the news release mentions the modularity of the new technology as an advantage for developing countries. I'm not a big fan of the prospect of more nuclear power in unstable countries...

Joe

Given your interests in

James Aach — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 19:32:00 -0500

Given your interests in energy issues, you might find http://RadDecision.blogspot.com of value.