Nuclear Power Primed for Comeback: Demand, Subsidies Spur U.S. Utilities

Source: Washington Post, Page One


By Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 8, 2007; Page A01

CHEROKEE COUNTY, S.C. -- Two decades ago, after Duke Energy abandoned its partly built nuclear power reactors here, the site was sold and turned into a movie set. Director James Cameron used it to film "The Abyss," a 1989 movie about civilian divers who encounter aliens while trying to rescue a stricken nuclear submarine. Cameron filled the unused nuclear containment building with water and hauled a section of an oil rig, a tiny submarine and fiberglass rocks inside to make convincing underwater scenes.

Now there's a new twist in the plot: The nuclear power industry is trying to come back from its own abyss. With natural gas prices volatile and people anxious about climate change, the nuclear power industry is touting its technology as a way to meet the nation's growing energy needs without emitting more greenhouse gases. Over the next two years, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission expects applications to build as many as 32 new nuclear reactors.

Duke Energy could be among them. It reacquired the Cherokee County site and has been tearing down old buildings so it can ask the NRC to let it start all over again. On a hot mid-September afternoon, a giant wrecking hammer was prying huge chunks of concrete from the walls of the old containment facility. They dangled from steel reinforcing rods like stones tottering from the ruins of an ancient coliseum. Inside, the props for "The Abyss" lay covered with dust.

Other utilities and independent power companies are also laying the groundwork for a new wave of U.S. nuclear plants. On Sept. 24, NRG Energy filed the first full application for a new nuclear unit since the partial meltdown of Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island plant in 1979. Then the Tennessee Valley Authority approved plans to build two new reactors in northern Alabama, where it abandoned two mostly finished units in 1988 when electricity demand failed to meet forecasts. Earlier, Constellation Energy Group filed a partial license application to add a nuclear unit to its existing site in Calvert Cliffs, Md.

NRG Energy chief executive David W. Crane proclaimed "a new day for energy in America."...

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/07/AR2007100701324_pf.html

I prefer not to glow in the dark...

Solar energy can create soot I'm sure...if you're a bug and you get stuck on one of those panels you'd get fairly crisp I'd imagine...

But NONE of those alternatives involve GLOWING IN THE DARK is there's an accident...

To fully satisfy US power needs, you'd need to either pave over the entire state of Nevada with solar cells, or you'd need to build and place 10 million 300-foot tall wind turbines--roughly three such turbines on every square mile of the United States.

...or you could just build more nuke plants and hope that no-one flys planes into them, or that Homer Simpson isn't at the control panel.

Me? I'll stick with the "Non-glow in the dark" option.

As compared to coal, which has NEVER operated safely for even one single day. Me, I'd rather take the slightly distasteful option, rather than live with the one that's killing tens of thousands a year in the belief that someday the problem will just go away if I just keep repeating the solar power mantra to myself over and over.

If we need 10 million turbines, then that's roughly how many nuke plants we need.

How much nuclear waste would that generate?

Nuclear plants continuously operate at maximum rated capacity. They don't require the weather to be right, the sun to be shining, or the wind to be above a certain speed. To provide all our electrical need, we would need an additional 220 plants of average size.

US reactors consume >62 million tons of yellowcake per year.

The US produces ~2 million tons per year.

When current US uranium stockpiles are exhausted, the US will have to import virtually all its uranium - and compete with Japan, France, China, UK, Germany, South Korea, Sweden etc. for dwindling global uranium supplies.

Bottom line: the US nuclear industry is unsustainable...

You'd rather be energy dependent on Saudi Arabia and Iran than on Canada and Australia? Because that's the alternative. Show me a method being implemented on wide-scale right now that can produce all our power from wind and solar without ridiculous investments into the trillions of dollars. NOT some overly glowing press release or media puff piece about some "breakthrough" technology that's never going to be heard from again because it doesn't work. You won't be able to.

Less than 2.5% of US electricity is produced from oil - we will NOT be dependent on Saudi Arabia for our electricity.

How do you implement large-scale wind? With the current 1.8 cent per kWh production credit - and make sure the anti-wind anti-solar GOP assholes don't take it away. That's all the US wind industry needs to deploy thousands of MW of new wind turbine capacity each year ...

clue: the US will commission 3000 MW of new wind turbine capacity this year that will produce the same amount of electricity as a large nuclear plant. US wind power installations are growing exponentially at ~30% per year with no end in sight.

How do you implement large-scale solar??

With a federal feed-in law, federal renewable portfolio standard, federal homeowner tax credits, renewable energy credits and state tax credits and rebate programs.

Federal solar feed-in law tariff - 50 cents per kWh for the next 20 years.

A federal renewable portfolio standard of 25% by 2025.

Tradable renewable energy credits for all new and existing wind, solar, biomass, biogas and geothermal systems.

A 50% tax credit on all new residential and commercial building solar, wind, biomass, biogas and geothermal systems.

A 50% tax credit on all Energy Star rated appliances and other products (ex. windows and doors).

Establish and maintain state solar/wind rebates with a 35 cent per month residential and $5 per month surcharge on electricity.

Accelerated depreciation on all solar systems >1 MW

No need to spend trillions of dollars - like we would need to build new nucular plants and dispose of their *dangerous* nucukar waste.

No, we're not dependent on SA for our electricity, but we are dependent on fossil fuels. Some of that comes from overseas, some of it comes from right here. But frankly, I don't see coal as being preferable just because it's mined here at home.

Further, availability of electricity makes electric vehicles more attractive, which DOES reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

"How do you implement large-scale wind? With the current 1.8 cent per kWh production credit - and make sure the anti-wind anti-solar GOP assholes don't take it away. That's all the US wind industry needs to deploy thousands of MW of new wind turbine capacity each year ...
clue: the US will commission 3000 MW of new wind turbine capacity this year that will produce the same amount of electricity as a large nuclear plant. US wind power installations are growing exponentially at ~30% per year with no end in sight."

And at that rate of growth, we'll have our energy needs met in only about 40 or 50 years. In the meantime, though, we'll have continued to pump out megatons more dangerous toxic waste and CO2 directly into our atmosphere. By all means keep producing turbines, but that's not fast enough.

"How do you implement large-scale solar??
With a federal feed-in law, federal renewable portfolio standard, federal homeowner tax credits, renewable energy credits and state tax credits and rebate programs.
Federal solar feed-in law tariff - 50 cents per kWh for the next 20 years.
A federal renewable portfolio standard of 25% by 2025.
Tradable renewable energy credits for all new and existing wind, solar, biomass, biogas and geothermal systems.
A 50% tax credit on all new residential and commercial building solar, wind, biomass, biogas and geothermal systems.
A 50% tax credit on all Energy Star rated appliances and other products (ex. windows and doors).
Establish and maintain state solar/wind rebates with a 35 cent per month residential and $5 per month surcharge on electricity.
Accelerated depreciation on all solar systems >1 MW
No need to spend trillions of dollars - like we would need to build new nucular plants and dispose of their *dangerous* nucukar waste."

You're missing my point. The raw cost of that much deployment is in the trillions of dollars. It doesn't change just because you create tax credits for it. We're talking about the basic cost of manufacturing and installing the hardware. Further, you can have all the tax credits you want, but it doesn't address the core engineering problem, which is quantity of generation and storage.

Looking at nuclear, however, even if you take the figures from the 1980s after costs skyrocketed due to pretty much continuous litigation, it would cost us about $375 billion to completely replace all other electricity. That's less than we've wasted in Iraq. It's less than six months' budget for the Defense Department. It's not cheap--it's over $1000 to every man, woman, and child in the United States. But it's doable as an investment in the future of the environment, whereas the almost three times higher cost for a solar solution is not. Waste storage, even assuming that we don't start reprocessing (which we should do) is only another $62 billion over 100 years.

to build and operate.

New NRC safety rules - not "nonstop litigation" - were to blame.

$375 billion to replace all existing (1,067,019 MW) US generating capacity?

Do you just make this stuff up?

The last nuclear plant actually built in the US cost $6.8 billion - over $5000 per kW

To replace all US capacity with new nuclear plants would cost $7,200 billion.

Better check your maths again...

My best guess is that when we hit the wall and can't import enough oil and gas at any price to maintain our current infrastructure and economy (much less build an entirely new infrastructure from scratch!) then a lot of these wind installations are going to be abandoned. When the people who service windmills can't buy enough diesel for their trucks to get to where the windmills are they're not going to maintain them. And if the electric network they are attached to is down (even if it's a local network) then they are just spinning uselessly.

The sort of society that can support such grand visions of clean wind and solar energy will no longer exist. As natural gas becomes scarce we are going to be very hard pressed to maintain the coal and nuclear electric capacity we now have. Most of the load is going to be shed by demand destruction -- retail and office space will be empty, and industries will shut down. Most people will end up living in houses that are too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. Many of them will be hungry.

I think we've got the brains to build a society that works without coal or nuclear power, but it won't look anything like the society we now live in. Energy efficient appliances, wind and solar powered residences, and electric cars are not drop-in replacements for fossil fuels. The changes we make in our infrastructure on the path to sustainability are going to come with considerable pain over long periods of time.

We blew it way back in the 'seventies, and part of the reason we did is that we were dazzled by promises of alternative energy sources while we ignored the fossil fueled disaster we were creating. For every nuclear plant that wasn't built, a coal or natural gas fired plant was. That's an indisputable fact.

How many coal and natural gas fired power plants have been built around the world since Three Mile Island? That's a number that will be in this civilization's postmortem. We could have taken different paths, nuclear or not, paths that were not at first as easy as fossil fuels, but we didn't and now we are in a bad neighborhood after sundown in a car sputtering out of gas.

Pollyanna visions of a solar powered utopia are not at all helpful, and anti-nuclear activism seems sort of pointless. I doubt there will be any great rush to replace existing coal plants with nuclear plants before the twentieth century fossil fueled economic machine grinds to a halt. What happens after that is not going to be mitigated with nuclear power plants, wind turbines or solar panels.

...m'kay?

Just say NO to nukes.

Where's your counter to that?

If a wind turbine breaksdown nothing bad happens. If a nuclear plant breaks down THOUSANDS of people for GENERATIONS will have bad things happen to them...

But keep telling me how Chernobyl is a strawman...:eyes:

One incident, which required half a dozen individually improbable or no longer possible preconditions, does not represent the day to day reality of nuclear power the way you seem to think it does. I suggest that you do some reading on Chernobyl--real information, I mean, not the bullshit that Greenpeace puts out.

Imagine if, for reasons of both bad engineering and incompetance on the part of the people working on it, a big wind turbine fell over and crushed an office building, killing a whole bunch of people. Would it make sense to then say that all wind turbines were unsafe, and should be gotten rid of because they could fall over and crush buildings? Of course not. It would ignore the fact that every other wind turbine in the world operated safely every single day. Further imagine that because of this accident, things were learned which guaranteed that it was no longer possible for a wind turbine to fall over on a building. Yet, a certain group of people continued to irrationally insist that we should abandon all wind turbines, and instead create our electicity with hand cranked dynamos.

The fear of nuclear power is an irrational fear. It's based on scaremongering by interest groups and oft-repeated stories which are nowhere near factual. In reality, your odds are better of being killed and eaten by a cannibal dwarf during the full moon than they are of being harmed by a nuclear plant.

Again: coal and oil based power plants kill about 40,000 people a year in the US alone. That's ten times the total number killed by Chernobyl, EVERY YEAR. Magnify that by an order of magnitude around the world. And yet, nobody seems to care at all about the use of coal-based power, but talk about nuclear and everyone screams. This despite the fact that nuclear power can be done safely, and coal cannot. Here in the US, there's never been a single fatality from civilian nuclear power.

Wind turbines and solar are a red herring. You'd need thousands of turbines to equal the output of one nuclear plant. By all means keep building them, but they're not going to solve our energy problems any time soon. That's just the reality of the situation. Our civilization is such that an energy dense solution is required, and solar/wind are not energy dense solutions. Neither one has, in its entire history of production, generated a total of one exajoule of power, which is roughly all world energy needs for a year. Nuclear does that about every five years.

Do you think it's a coincidence that they safely and cleanly run nuclear power in Europe, where the oil and coal industries have less weight, whereas here in the US we have an entire industry built on scaring people away from nuclear and back to the status quo? The fossil fuel industry is only too happy for people to talk about wind and solar power. It means decades more of uninterrupted profits for them.

Use of nuclear power would mean we could be off fossil fuels completely in less than ten years. You simply can't say that about any other currently available technology.

..glad it;s so easy for you to dismiss the effects of Chernobyl though...

But thank you for showing that you can't actually prove I'm wrong, because I'm not.

And you wonder why you get accused of strawman arguments.

So lets say that wind and solar power generated one half of one percent total U.S. needs. That would mean we need two hundred times the current wind and solar power plants we currently have. Would that really cover the entire state of Nevada? Or are you simply exaggerating?

To fulfill all US power needs you'd need to absorb the sunlight hitting an area 218 miles by 218 miles. That's about 50,000 square miles, or a little under half the size of Nevada: 110,000 square miles. Next, you'd need to account for access roads, paths, maintainence facilities, etcetera spread out over that 50,000 square miles. Augment it by, say, 15%. 57,500 square miles. Next is the thing that none of the solar people want to talk about: storage. Solar only produces maximum power for four to six hours per day around solar noon. The rest of the day, we're going to need some kind of storage system that's capable of holding thousands of gigawatt-hours of energy and dispensing it back into the grid. There is no current technology that's capable of doing that. Period. But let's pretend that there is, because otherwise the entire scenario falls apart. Then you need more space for storage facilities, enough for 8,100 gigawatt-hours of energy--and that's just to get the US through one day. Assuming a density of, say, 750 watt-hours per square foot--roughly equivalent to a 20 pound model of the very best battery we can make--then that's another 400 square miles of area to store power for one day. If we're going to be able to survive a cloudy day without the entire country being blacked out, we need to greatly increase both storage, and the catchment area: say, an additional 20% on the solar cells. That'll allow for one day out of every five to be cloudy, without stopping all service to the country, as well as giving us a tiny bit of room for power demands to grow. Just a tiny little bit, though. Then add room for some more storage: say, another four days worth, for a total margin of 120 hours. That brings us up to 71,000 square miles, which is about two thirds the size of Nevada.

Last but not least, don't forget the massive strip-mining you'd have to do to build all those solar panels, and the massive increase in industrial manufacturing to build them all, and the tens of thousands of square miles of wilderness you'd have to flatten in order to deploy them. The fantasy of solar power as a perfect green alternative is just that, a fantasy. Wind power is vastly more efficient, but still suffers from variable yield, meaning that you need to have several times the rated output in plants in order to guarantee a power supply.

It simply can't be done. If you replaced every light in America with fluorescents, every TV with an LCD, every desktop computer with a laptop, then you might get somewhere. But when you talk conservation, you're usually talking about a drop of single digit percentages. If you implemented all possible power saving measures, maybe closer to 20%. That doesn't get us past the issue of production and storage.

The Electric Power Research Institute calculated that ( with '80's vintage technology) the US could reduce its electrical demand by 24-48%.

Most American households could reduce their electrical demand from 25 to >60% by replacing their existing inefficient appliances with Energy Star models.

US homes in the Northern Tier of states could *economically* provide 100% of their hot water in the summer and >50% in the winter with existing solar hot water systems. In the South, these systems would provide 100% of domestic hot water all year round. These systems already have storage systems and have payback periods of <4-7 years.

nice try though

Oh, and you do know that the Electric Power Research Institute is a pro-nuclear organization, right? After all, you don't trust them when they calculate that either a reactor itself or a spent fuel storage pod would hold up under an accident or terrorist attack equivalent to 9/11, but you trust them on this.

As for solar hot water heaters, pay-back times are actually more like 10-15 years in most areas, even where such things are subsidized by state governments. And it's an irrelevancy, because even if you installed a solar hot water heater in every home in America, you still wouldn't save enough power to significantly alter power demand. Assuming that there are 75 million homes in America, and they all have electric water heaters--not likely--then we can rather generously estimate that the power burn from that is about 360 gigawatt-hours per year, or a little over two weeks production at a small to mid-size nuclear reactor. That would be lovely to get rid of, but it's not the kind of order-of-magnitude decline in demand that would be required to make solar practicable.

I'm not against conservation at all. Matter of fact, I've put a lot of effort lately into minimizing my home's electrical demands. But the reality is that you'd need to cut our national energy needs by more like 99% before you could even seriously think about solar power--and even then, you would need to trump all prior solar deployment by a factor of ten.

Modern civilization and energy demands go hand in hand. That's not something that you can change, and it's not just a symptom of some kind of decadence. We can do a hell of a lot to increase our efficiency--that's not in doubt. But we still require a dense energy source.

I reduced me household electricity consumption by >50% with new Energy Star refrigerator, washer and dryer (and I use a clothesline in the summer months).

My brother and his family achieved a 60% reduction with Energy Star appliances.

A neighbor of mine is putting in a large solar hot water system (water and heat) with a payback of 4 years - not 10-15.

A 99% reduction before we "seriesly" consider solar???

:rofl:

For all that you talk about solar power, and how simple and easy it is, solar power generates one tenth of one percent of all our energy. If it's really as reliable, cheap, and foolproof as you claim, surely someone should have by now been willing to invest in a nice huge stretch of the desert, installed solar, and sat back to rake in the profits as a one-man power company.

No?

We're arguing over a red herring. Solar isn't a viable option.

and there hasn't been a new reactor ordered in the US since 1973.

In contrast, global renewble energy capacity additions out-paced new global nuclear power additions by a wide margain for the last year....

Global new wind power installations = 15,197 MW (name plate capacity)
= 5,319 MW (after 35% capacity factor correction)

http://www.nawindpower.com/naw/e107_plugins/content/con...

Global new photovoltaic installations = 1744 MW (name plate capacity)
= 436 MW (after 25% capacity factor correction)

http://www.solarbuzz.com/News/NewsNACO542.htm

Total new wind and PV = 16,941 MW (name plate capacity)
= 5,755 MW (accounting for capacity factors)

Global additions of new nuclear capacity 2006 = 1490 MW (name plate capacity)

Global reactor retirements 2006 = 2236 MW (name plate capacity)

Net growth in global nuclear capacity = -746 MW (name plate capacity)

http://www.iaea.org/programmes/a2 /

Summary:

Global wind and PV added the equivalent of ~6 new 1000 MW power plants in 2006.

Global nuclear capacity experienced negative growth.

So much for the "solar isn't viable" argument...

and better tell these guys...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=106630

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=105803

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=105800

http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy03osti/32529.pdf

http://css.snre.umich.edu/css_doc/CSS03-12.pdf

Using PV modules with a 10% conversion efficiency, a 100 x 100 mile area of Nevada - not the "entire state" - could provide all of the electricity for the US.

PV modules currently on the market have conversion efficiencies of up to 22% - only a 50 x 50 mile area would be required with these modules.

New concentrating PV systems have demonstrated 40% efficiencies - only a 25 x 25 mile area would be required.

PV works *everywhere* in the lower 48 - not just Nevada.

Development of *existing* brown fields could provide all of the nation's electricity using high efficiency PV modules
*already* on the market.

Wind farms covering 6% of the lower 48 could also provide 1.5 times current US electrical demand - 4% could provide 100%...and that doesn't include offshore wind potential. These would be located at favorable sites only - not "three turbines per square mile".

nice try though...

Sometimes the sun doesn't shine. Like at night or cloudy days. Wind does not blow at a constant rate either.

So for every watt of solar/wind capacity there has to be a watt of coal/natural gas/hydro/nuclear/and any other I forgot capacity built in for constant power.

Also, I know of power storage schemes such as that reservoir in Michigan, compressed air, giant flywheels, etc. None of these work now but hopefully we get more of this in the future.

I support nukes from a practicality standpoint.

Conventional back-up with existing hydro or biomass power plants.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=88992

Flywheel storage

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=65173

Underground compressed air storage

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=89003

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=78361

Electrolysis hydrogen

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=99200

Sodium sulfur (and vanadium flow batteries)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=112497

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=102970

...and from a practical standpoint, there is currently no solution to the problem of disposing spent reactor fuel...

I suggest you try independently doing the math. The problem with those numbers is that they don't factor in the unreliability of solar and wind power. Wind turbines only produce at around 20-35% of rated capacity, and solar is even worse, producing peak power for only a handful of hours a day. Sure, that 100 x 100 mile area could produce electricity for the US at noon, but past three or four in the afternoon, you're completely screwed.

Wind turbines produce power 65-80% of the time...

http://www.ifnotwind.org/we101/wind-energy-basics.shtml

PV systems produce power during the daytime hours when daily electrical demand (especially A/C loads) is the greatest.

PV systems deployed over the entire US would generate electricity that could be wheeled east-west or west-east to meet demand over the entire day - from before dawn in the West (using East Coast PV systems) to after sunset in the East (using West Coast PV systems).

New solar thermal electric plants capture and store solar energy for nighttime power production.

In the Pacific Northwest, existing hydroelectric plants work synergistically with wind farms to store and produce electricity when needed - 24/7/365. Elsewhere, distributed biomass power plants could operate at night and during periods of low wind or sunlight to compliment wind and PV systems.

Solar and wind generated hydrogen systems are in operation *today* that provide renewable electricity 24/7/365.

Large scale (several MW) sodium sulfur batteries are coming on line *today* to store electricity from wind turbines in the mid-Atlantic region. They will be scaled up to >1000 MW over the next few years.

Hundreds of thousands of domestic rooftop solar hot water systems capture, store and distribute solar energy every day in the US and world-wide.

FYI

Yes, a turbine can produce power much of the time, but lower wind speeds VASTLY decrease the available energy. An excellent site for a turbine is considered to be one which produces power at roughly 30-35% of the rated load. In shorthand, it can be said that a really good turbine produces power up to a third of the time.

Also, sodium sulfur battery banks are promising, but they're only capable of power in the range of 50 Megawatt-hours. You'd need to build roughly a half a million such banks to store even a single day's power for the US. It's not practical. Grid supplements, yes--generation replacements, no.

Wind farms do not produce electricity 3 days out of 10, they produce power 6-8 days out of 10 but below their rated capacity - that's how they are engineered and that does not make them "inefficient".

74,000 MW of current global wind turbine capacity speaks volumes in this department.

NaS batteries can store large amounts of electricity and bridge power production among a diverse portfolio of renewable energy sources wind, solar, biomass, hydro, tidal and geothermal - and storage mediums - it won't be "all solar" or "all wind" or "all NaS batteries" or all "compressed air"....but it's "all doable"...

Yes, 76 gigawatts of capacity is impressive, but global power demand is 1,700 gigawatts.

And you're talking about taking technologies like compressed air and NaS that are untested and placing them in life-critical roles.

http://www.caes.net/mcintosh.html

as have NaS batteries...

http://www.aep.com/newsroom/newsreleases/default.asp?dbcommand=displayrelease&ID=956

Solar would require something like a 90 by 90 mile square of desert.
New technology for storage of heat allows solar to be available
24/7.
http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/19440/

AS for Wind, given average of 2 MW per turbine,
500 turbine farm = 1000 MW or 1 Gw
USA power usage about 1000 Gw
1000 x 500 = 500, 000

current plans include many offshore turbines, of course,
which may be at least 5 mw in size, and operate
with much greater productivity.
http://powerelectronics.com/news/ge_wind_turbine/

Pressurized air storage now allows new wind plants
to be available 24/7.
http://watthead.blogspot.com/2007/07/texas-wind-power-mega-project-announced.html

This, plus introduction of the "smart grid" and vehicle
to grid power, which will shave peak power needs and
add capacity and stabilization, new lighting standards which
will avoid the need for 80 power plants, plus "decoupling"
utilities from their former business model of build, build, build,
(a strategy that helps California use 55 percent of the
per capita electricity compared to the rest of America..)
http://greenlineblog.com/2007/10/05/utility-decoupling-demystified-by-bill-clinton/
and you have a real possibility of powering America
in a near total "Green" mode.

Certainly there will be some applications where
only a central generating station will work.
For these, there may be a limited use for C02 sequestered
coal or natural gas.
In addition, we have deep earth Geothermal coming on as
a new option over all parts of the country, which should
be demonstrated in the coming decade.


Of course, the real solution will not be just one type of
energy or another, but will involve many different plants
and approaches appropriate for particular locations.

"Solar would require something like a 90 by 90 mile square of desert."

No, it wouldn't. Look at the storage issue--this 90 x 90, or 100 x 100 claim has been debunked.

"New technology for storage of heat allows solar to be available
24/7."

At only a small fraction of full efficiency, requiring several times the rated capacity, therefore needing much more square area.

"AS for Wind, given average of 2 MW per turbine,
500 turbine farm = 1000 MW or 1 Gw
USA power usage about 1000 Gw
1000 x 500 = 500, 000"

No. You're making the mistake of looking at the rated power. Remember that wind turbines only operate between 20 and 30% of the time, and almost NEVER reach their rated capacity. Also, 2 MW is a ridiculously large wind turbine. Even taking a 1 MW rated example, you'd need closer to 2.5 million turbines operating at a time, which means 10 million available turbines.

"Pressurized air storage now allows new wind plants
to be available 24/7."

Again, at HUGE loss of power in the storage process.

"This, plus introduction of the "smart grid" and vehicle
to grid power,"

That requires there to be millions of electric vehicles plugged into the grid. There aren't.

"which will shave peak power needs and
add capacity and stabilization, new lighting standards which
will avoid the need for 80 power plants, plus "decoupling"
utilities from their former business model of build, build, build,
(a strategy that helps California use 55 percent of the
per capita electricity compared to the rest of America..)
and you have a real possibility of powering America
in a near total "Green" mode."

Not with just solar and wind. Not for at least 50 years or so.

I visited a nearby wind farm last month, the turbines were modest, just
1.65 mw. Since you didn't read the links I posted, I will post again.
"Wind turbines being manufactured now have power ratings ranging from 250 watts to 5 megawatts (MW)."
(awea -http://www.awea.org/faq/wwt_basics.html#How%20much%20electricity%20can%20one%20wind%20turbine%20generate

"GE expects the turbine to produce 5 MW to 7 MW of power, nearly double the capacity of GE's largest commercial wind turbine. "
http://powerelectronics.com/news/ge_wind_turbine/

On solar and wind, the storage issue is being addressed. Again, read the links in the previous post.

I recognize the issue of rated power, and the storage technology largely
addresses that.

Nuclear needs backup as well - it has to shut down for 6 weeks every 18 months for
refueling, so, by your logic, double any of your estimates for nuclear.
(estimates are that 8000 nuclear plants would be needed globally - average
construction time, 10 years, (as opposed to 2-3 years for a wind farm, time is money..)
and they'll have to do something that no nuclear
plant, ever, anywhere, has ever done, come in on time, at cost...)

Don't get me wrong. I'm not for outlawing nuclear. I say, let everyone line
up, take away the subsidies, add a carbon cap and trade, and say "go".
I just say that those companies vested in nukes will lose their shirts, just
like they did in the 70s and 80s. Now more than ever, this is a future
technology whose time has passed.

"I visited a nearby wind farm last month, the turbines were modest, just
1.65 mw. Since you didn't read the links I posted, I will post again.
"Wind turbines being manufactured now have power ratings ranging from 250 watts to 5 megawatts (MW).""

The actual wattage isn't very relevant, because scaling it up simply produces a bigger turbine, and a larger tower. It doesn't make it cheaper, or more plentiful in the same size. Is there really a significant difference between 10 million 1 megawatt turbines and 2.5 million 4 MW turbines, if you quadruple the cost and the size? Yes, you can increase efficiency, but that doesn't fix the underlying problem with the numbers and the production time.

"On solar and wind, the storage issue is being addressed. Again, read the links in the previous post."

All the proposed storage methods for solar power are absurdly lossy, with the net result being that you get even less power density than it already had.

"Nuclear needs backup as well - it has to shut down for 6 weeks every 18 months for
refueling, so, by your logic, double any of your estimates for nuclear."

Don't be an ass. MY numbers are actually based on facts, if you care to look at them.

"(estimates are that 8000 nuclear plants would be needed globally - average
construction time, 10 years, (as opposed to 2-3 years for a wind farm, time is money..)"

Actually, construction time is closer to 7 years, even with the extensive hurdles in the US. And please do tell me how we can manufacture 1000 gigawatts of actual wind power in less than a decade, when our entire installed capacity to date is about 1 80th of that. At current rates of growth, that'll take six hundred years. Or, if you put it in terms of expenditure, a 1 megawatt wind turbine costs about $1 million. Even given generous numbers, that we'd only need three million turbines, that would still be a pricetag of about $3 trillion dollars. We could raise that much money nationally, but to do so, we'd have to sell Texas, California, and the US Navy.

"and they'll have to do something that no nuclear
plant, ever, anywhere, has ever done, come in on time, at cost...)"

You're misinformed.

"Don't get me wrong. I'm not for outlawing nuclear. I say, let everyone line
up, take away the subsidies, add a carbon cap and trade, and say "go".
I just say that those companies vested in nukes will lose their shirts, just
like they did in the 70s and 80s."

Actually, they didn't lose their shirts, even though new plants got blocked by the black propaganda arm of the coal industry.

Don't get ME wrong--I'm not against wind or solar power. But the reality is that "renewables" are not going to solve our energy needs, period. There's simply not enough energy density in them to produce really sufficient power, and the solutions for producing enough power are unacceptable in both financial and environmental terms, and pretending like solar and wind are going to fix the problem just makes everything worse. The problem is coal, and oil. Throwing out the ONLY currently viable alternative to fossil fuels for mass power generation is foolhardy, particularly when it's based on false myths that are planted and encouraged by the coal and oil industries.

As long as some of those 500 turbine farms are not off the coast of Nantucket, you would get Sen Kennedy's support. The NIMBY syndrome will slow these types of projects up for decades to come.

Just when it looks like the next Democrat President will end the illegal war in Iraq and stop the flow of money to the rich defense contractors ...
A new conduit for cash opens up.

Now the nuclear energy contractors will have their hands in the public treasury.

First the government will give them money to build dangerous nuclear reactors.

Then the government will spend billions to make them safe and regulate them.

And last the government will spend Trillions to dispose of them.

It is taxpayer money, why should it go to support a few rich nuclear contractors and provide no benefit to the public?

at trying to find ways to make taxpayers be the bail out option when the nuke plants default on their loans (which they will if they don't have to pay them).

It was written by the nuclear power industry behind closed doors.

It provided >$12 billion in direct and indirect subsidies for 6000 MW of new nuclear generating capacity (six new 1000 MW nuclear plants) - including a 1.8 cent per kilowatt hour production tax credit - up to $2 billion per new reactor.

It's a fucking scam....

It will cost billions to build them

It will cost trillions to keep them safe

It will cost $??? to dispose of them

This looks like a river of cash going to a few companies for many years to come.

It's another scheme to funnel huge amounts of money into the bank accounts of the Haves and the Have Mores -- those generous benefactors of both the Dem and republican establishment.

The government has rigged the system so that "Bigger is Better" and the little guy is locked out. It is even worse with nuclear power generation because only government approved companies can get radioactive fuel and the necessary licenses to build and operate a generating plant. This is a formula for the rich insiders to manipulate the government officials through campaign contributions, economic favors, kickbacks, and plain bribes.

People with money and power get to make more money and obtain more power while the entrepreneurs get nothing. The entrepreneurs don't even get a chance in this environment.

Why do you really think MSNBC has taken a more liberal slant in the recent year? Propaganda, GE is in the nuclear power industry and stands to make tons of money off of new nuclear power plants or old ones being retrofitted.

Do you think they're running their renewables division as a charity?

all the big fucking multi-national fucks are doing it...

:puke: :puke: :puke:

Deadly Deception: General Electric, Nuclear Weapons, and Our Environment

http://www.newday.com/films/DeadlyDeception.html

The Bohemian Grove and The Nuclear Weapons Industry: Some Connections

http://www.sonic.net/~kerry/bohemian/grovenukes.html

USAmerikan Capitalism -- anything for a buck, even if it kills You!

thank you.

but i still think i'll choose nuclear over oil.

But, you'll probably get your wish -- the corporate capitalist fucks are in charge...

because there's no safe place to put that crap.

It's called Yucca Mountain.

n/t

Hint: a lot of those studies about how dangerous Yucca Mountain would be are paid for by Big Oil.

Here's some alternative reading: do a Google search on the natural fission reactors at Oklo, in Gambon, and how despite just sitting in the soil the fission byproducts remained trapped there for a couple billion years.

these radioisotopes are geochemically highly mobile, highly radioactive and readily enter the human food web,

...and they will NOT be retained "for billions of years" at Yucca Mountain.

Also, over that 1.7 to 2 billion years, the surviving byproduct--specifically, plutonium--never moved more than ten feet.

Please feel free to read up on it.

Oh, and I should take this opportunity to note what you don't seem to acknowledge, which is that the Caesium 137 and Strontium 90 produced by a nuclear reactor don't last very long in the grand scheme of things. Their half-life is 30 years. As much squacking is done about how the wastes last "millions of years," people forget to mention that the radioactivity decays by about 90% in 100 days, and 97.5% in less than three years.

Cs and Sr to migrate - these ions are chemically very different than plutonium ions and are highly mobile.

Furthermore, geological conditions in Yucca Mountain are very different than the Oklo site and the two cannot be compared.

Nuclear plant operators will provide only $28 billion of this.

Guess where the other $35 billion (or more) will come from????

(clue: not from nuclear plant operators/owners)

n/t

and by using all of the available technology one can considerably reduce the volume of nuclear waste.

The reason we don't squeeze every bit of useful fuel out of nuclear waste is, ultimately, nuclear proliferation issues. At some stage in the use-it-up process one would be separating out and burning plutonium. It isn't possible to build a bomb with ordinary reactor fuel, but you can build one with plutonium, even suboptimal plutonium of the sort one would likely see used in rectors. Additionally the older reprocessing plants were poorly designed and managed and endangered both their workers and the community. Reprocessing isn't inherently reckless, but it has a pretty bad track record in the US.

I have mixed feelings about nuclear power. But I do think that failure to use up as much fissionable material as possible is a mistake. Security issues should be addressed in some manner other than by maintaining an open ended, wasteful, fuel cycle that only exacerbates the problem of nuclear water. Either use it up, or don't do it at all.

and cannot use the un-fissioned 235U as it is contaminated with 232U and 236U.

Spent fuel reprocessing is dirty, unsafe and uneconomic.

Check out the entire nuclear "power" infrastructure.

A HUGE accident just waiting to happen.

Anyone remember Chernobal????

And the most UN-Democratic way to produce electric power...

I'd put my time, effort and money on Decentralized Solar!!!

is like comparing the Titanic to modern cruise ships...

We've come Sooooooo far in the last 20 years... :sarcasm:

Has Greed been eliminated from the human equation since the Titanic went down?

Comparing Decentralized Solar to nuclear power

is like comparing

The current political system of Corporate Money Ubber Alles to a real democracy.

Nuclear can only be implemented by HUGE corporations enjoying GIANT subsidies and protection from liability. (Gee, why would they need blanket immunity from liability -- nuclear's sooooo fucking safe).

It is very expensive and monopolistic.

It is very susceptible to the greed/profit motive which will inevitably cause more catastrophes.

I'm sure the government wouldn't be able to regulate anything involving nuclear materials, or even be in charge of the production of energy itself. we've never done that before have we... :sarcasm:

not in the last 45 years.

What makes you think it's going to happen now with corporate Dems and republicans in charge of the system?


Case in Point:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3020062

yes, i believe that one hundred percent.

"Comparing Decentralized Solar to nuclear power
is like comparing
The current political system of Corporate Money Ubber Alles to a real democracy."

No, it's like comparing Peter Pan to a history book.

"Nuclear can only be implemented by HUGE corporations enjoying GIANT subsidies and protection from liability. (Gee, why would they need blanket immunity from liability -- nuclear's sooooo fucking safe)."

Actually, they don't have any immunity from liability at all. The only thing they do have is the guarantee of the government for assistance with any claims over ten billion dollars. It's never been implemented, and probably never will be.

"It is very expensive and monopolistic."

No, actually it's very cheap: less than one fifth even the most optimistic price for solar power. As for monopolistic, any kind of significant power production is going to require capital investment. That doesn't make it monopolistic.

And as for Chernobyl, pull up an encyclopedia article. You'll find out a few important facts. Notably, that the reactor was based on a badly flawed design; that it was built without a containment structure; it was being used for an unsafe test; and the people operating it had no idea of what they were doing. It was only the combination of all of these things that allowed the accident to happen, and even then it killed less people than pollution kills in the US in one month.

Solar is READY NOW...

Nuclear -- they still haven't FUCKING FIGURED OUT WHERE THEY'RE GOING TO HIDE THEIR RADIOACTIVE WASTE...

It's you nuclear zealots playing Russian Roulette with the Earth's survival that more resembles Peter Pan...

I've heard this nuclear savior shit for over 50 years -- it's just that bullshit. It never caught on because it's too fucking dangerous and it's an environmental NIGHTMARE...

God forbid that you should listen to what I'm saying. You call me brainwashed? You're the one who keeps chanting "solar, solar, solar," without actually bothering to do the most basic math. ANY kind of knowledge of engineering would tell you that to provide for our energy needs using solar power is completely impossible.

I'm sick of the anti-nuclear scaremongering. France uses mostly nuclear with few problems, they recycle the nuclear waste. We need to use a variety of energy sources, ranging from nuclear to solar to wind, both centralized and decentralized energy generation. Now is not the time to be dogmatic about what we use to replace coal and natural gas. If nuclear is too "centralized" for your anarchistic sensibilities too damn bad.

"If nuclear is too "centralized" for your anarchistic sensibilities too damn bad." So, FUCK ME, eh?

You're another fan of huge multi-national corporations too, right?


And WTF is wrong with decentralized solar power.

If we didn't piss away hundreds of BILLIONS on another round of nuclear waste generators, we'd have democratic power in a couple of decades.

"huge multi-national corporation"

Who exactly is the huge multi-national nuclear power corporation that you're so scared of?

And Enron, White, etc. etc.

They've totally FUCKED US OVER and picked our pockets in California for decades!!!

It's there, it's clean, it's cheap(ish), and it's Democratic!!!

So there.

..not just in potential death an destruction from plants engineered and built by the lowest bidder, but also the highly toxic waste that lasts for thousands of years...

It is FAR too expensive on so many levels...

Solar costs, under the most ideal scenario, about 25 cents per kilowatt-hour. Coal or gas is 2.5 cents, nuclear is 3.8, and wind is 4.

industrial demand required nuclear energy. Lived near a nuke plant for 18 years, no incident. Cheap power.

Technology is used in Europe extensively.

That's what they do today - no need to use wind turbines (which *can* be used to smelt Al by the way...)

demand continuously. Nope. Hydro is great where it is possible.

Nuke is great anywhere there is a need and a port. Nuke can generate massive power loads to feed industry.

It it THE ONLY realistic technology currently available.

Decentralized solar doesn't produce even a fraction of the power we require, and it never will, no matter how much money is wasted on it. We've been trying to make solar into an energy-dense power source for fifty years. It just isn't.

and Chernobyl was in Russia, not the United States. Our reactors are much safer than theirs, to have something like that happen in the United States, based on the improvement of the technology since then would be ridiculous, at best.

I'm all for solar and wind generated power, but in the meantime, until the development makes them more practical, I think nuclear power is our best bet.

Do your homework.

There have been major breakthroughs in solar panel design and battery design in the last couple of years that will bring the price per kilowatt down LOWER THAN NUCLEAR CAN POSSIBLY GENERATE POWER within 5 years.

It needs a push -- like some of the HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS in your subsidies that you're advocating go to a dangerous, expensive, un-democratic form of power generation...

But, Decentralized Solar can't be controlled by one major power company. Once you install your solar system and plug in your electric urban vehicle -- they can't own you!!!

That's why they brainwash you with visions of nuclear, hydrogen and other myths...


Fucking nuclear was billed as the magic bullet to take care of all energy needs. It was supposed to be "too cheap to meter" according to the hokey Reddy Kilowatt movie I saw in 6th grade.

Well, how's that working for us?

"There have been major breakthroughs in solar panel design and battery design in the last couple of years"

No, actually there haven't. There have been people CLAIMING that there are breakthroughs. That doesn't mean that they actually pan out--that means that somebody wanted to try and attract venture capitalists.

"that will bring the price per kilowatt down LOWER THAN NUCLEAR CAN POSSIBLY GENERATE POWER within 5 years."

And we heard that five years ago, and five years before that, and five years before that. Solar is still, under the most optimistic scenario, five times more expensive than nuclear or pretty much anything else.

The myth that's being propagated is that solar is practicable. That's why the anti-nuclear groups get funding from the coal and oil industries--because they're not afraid of solar.

do your fucking homework...

http://breakfornews.com/my/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=491
http://www.energy.gov/news/4503.htm
http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=20812
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070502143631.htm
http://people.tribe.net/vimanaboy/blog/7aaa4b2d-0bd7-4916-b53a-b9a2cdbcb0f1
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/40971.html

As for storage batteries, economies of scale will bring the prices down but for now:

http://www.teslamotors.com/

But you keep pushing that dangerous, creaky old dinosaur nuclear...


"No, actually it's very cheap: less than one fifth even the most optimistic price for solar power."

Go ask the PG&E customers who've been paying and paying for that FUCKING Diablo Canyon reactor that got shut down YEARS AGO -- and they're still paying!!!

I've heard that tired line for over 50 fucking years...Still ain't happened...

"As for monopolistic, any kind of significant power production is going to require capital investment. That doesn't make it monopolistic."

Capital investment for Solar for an average 1200 Sq. Foot House -- $13,000 --

in my state with rebates from Feds (too fucking tiny),
the state (tinier yet -- republican leg) and
the local MUNICIPAL Power company (NOT for PROFIT - PUBLIC POWER) the lion's share --

$7000 net.

And you never have to pay another fucking electric bill...

Unlike, say for example, the natural gas fired monstrosity at Moss Landing which will be the economic ruin of California when the U.S. dollar stops attracting natural gas imports.

Perhaps you mean Humboldt? That was basically an experiment during the early days of nuclear power. PG&E used to tell a great many fibs about that plant, as Southern California Edison did about San Onofre One, as Sacramento Municipal Utility District did about Rancho Seco, but the anti-nuclear people countered with their own bigger lies which have in many cases have mutated into an utterly bizarre mythology.

Oh well. I was a participant at the anti-nuclear Diablo Canyon rallies. I got into quite a bit of mischief as an anti-nuclear activist. It was interesting, but I don't think it's going anywhere. From my perspective there are far better ways to save the world than worrying too much about nuclear waste. It's toxic, but so are a lot of other pollutants that are not radioactive and just as invisible, for example, agricultural chemicals.

"do your fucking homework..."

Press releases don't count. None of those things you listed are actually available: they're the same as the cancer breakthroughs you hear about on the news, then never hear about again because it turned out that they didn't really work. It's easy to make something sound good when you haven't actually tried to implement it under real world conditions. We were hearing those same promises five years ago, and five years before that.

Also, I appreciate the rudeness. It does your cause so much good.

"As for storage batteries, economies of scale will bring the prices down"

No, they won't. Not when you're talking about GIGAWATT HOURS or energy. There is NO KNOWN TECHNOLOGY capable of storing energy like that. It simply does not exist, unless you want to pump water uphill into a reservoir for hydroelectric--and even that would pale in comparison to what our demands would be.

"but for now:
http://www.teslamotors.com /"

I'm all for Tesla Motors. I'd love to get one of the Whitestar sedans they're planning. However, even an electric vehicle doesn't store NEARLY enough power to be a grid backup for solar.

"Go ask the PG&E customers who've been paying and paying for that FUCKING Diablo Canyon reactor that got shut down YEARS AGO -- and they're still paying!!!"

Uh, the Diablo Canyon reactor isn't shut down. Both cores are operational and producing power, 2.2 gigawatts continuous.

"I've heard that tired line for over 50 fucking years...Still ain't happened..."

Yes, it has. Amortizing startup and shutdown costs over the life of the plant, nuclear power costs 3.8 cents per kilowatt hour. That's admittedly not as cheap as coal and gas, at 2.5 cents, but personally I'd rather have the extra few bucks on my power bill for the sake of the atmosphere. Compare to solar, which--again amortizing--costs around 20 to 25 cents per kilowatt hour.

"Capital investment for Solar for an average 1200 Sq. Foot House -- $13,000 --
in my state with rebates from Feds (too fucking tiny),
the state (tinier yet -- republican leg) and
the local MUNICIPAL Power company (NOT for PROFIT - PUBLIC POWER) the lion's share --
$7000 net.
And you never have to pay another fucking electric bill..."

Unless you live like a monk, or the Amish, you probably will. I investigated a solar system when I re-roofed my house. Net result was that it would only provide about one third of my total power requirements. I decided to reduce my electrical demand instead. It's had about the same impact on the bill, and it was vastly cheaper.

Further, residential power is only one small portion of the energy grid. Streetlights, businesses, factories, radio transmitters--those things aren't going to run on a solar cell up on the roof.

That's just plain stupid and wrong...

I'm not saying it's all of them, but don't you ever wonder how all these little groups spring out of nowhere, always with lots and lots of money to buy lawyers and skewed science reports?

Ever noticed that a lot of these "environmental" groups care ONLY about nuclear power, never about coal or oil? You don't see a lot of protestors picketing the local coal-fired plant. I don't always agree with Greenpeace, but I've got to give them props here: they protest coal and oil power too, and their founder has finally come out and acknowledged that it was a bad mistake to oppose nuclear power back in the 70s and 80s. But many of these groups quietly get cash from the corporations which have a vested interest in protecting the status quo.

Patrick Moore believes that global warming and GMO food crops are "good things".

He also believes that the best way to protect forests is to log them.

P. T. Barnum was right...

And it's an open secret that oil and coal money goes to a lot of anti-nuclear causes, both the people on the ground and the "think tank" types. They fund anti-nuclear and anti-alternative fuel groups and studies to spread FUD and keep people convinced that there's no other option.

he's a certified loon..and a highly paid shill for the chemical and nuclear industries...

Greenpeace co-founder praises global warming

http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2006/Jan/13/bz/FP601130327.html

Global warming and nuclear energy are good and the way to save forests is to use more wood.

That was the message delivered to a biotechnology industry gathering yesterday in Waikiki. However, it wasn't the message that was unconventional, but the messenger — Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore. Moore said he broke with Greenpeace in the 1980s over the rise of what he called "environmental extremism," or stands by environmental groups against issues such as genetic crop research, genetically modified foods and nuclear energy that aren't supported by science or logic.

<snip>

The event was sponsored by the Biotechnology Industry Organization. Sponsors included Dupont, Carghill and the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism, which spent $15,000 to support the conference.

In direct opposition to common environmentalist positions, Moore contended that global warming and the melting of glaciers is positive because it creates more arable land and the use of forest products drives up demand for wood and spurs the planting of more trees. He added that any realistic plan to reduce reliance on fossil fuels and the emission of so-called greenhouse gases should include increased use of nuclear energy.

<more>

mo' ho'in here...

http://www.cleansafeenergy.org/Home/tabid/36/Default.aspx

He's an excellent spokesperson for the corrupt nuclear industry...

if the environmental movement didn't destroy it in the 70s. who funded most of those groups like the sierra club? oh, it was the oil barons.

Even 92 square miles, as opposed to 92 miles square, is completely beyond the realm of engineering and practicality, assuming that you could find a way to transmit the power to the rest of the country in the first place from places where solar energy is actually collectable.

The scale is absurd.

just more Big Corporate Bullshit.
Go Solar!:bounce:

He also famously ran on a platform that chided Eisenhower for not building enough nuclear weapons and missiles...

Not a good example of progressive thought.

his economic program was based on development of technology and maximizing production of the american economy to create a sustainable growth indefinitely.

his biggest opponents, were the so called "corporate" folks you are speaking of.

It's called corporate capitalism and it's what Kennedy's class was all about...

The situation and technology has changed a little since then!

make for good management of reactors -- !!!

PLUS . . . there is the little business of human error --

No to nuclear power!

electricity generated by nuclear power.

Additionally, France uses a standard design for all of their plants with 3 different variations depending on output, all designed by the same company.

If we would adopt the tried and true french design, I would welcome the addition of more nuclear power plants in the USA.

However, if we are looking to subsidize engineering firms to 'recreate the wheel' with new designs then nothing doing.

If there aren't even any terrorists in the US capable of planting a bomb in a shopping mall, why should I be more afraid of them being able to blow up a nuclear plant than I am of the thousands of tons of ash and toxins being pumped into the air by coal plants?

..oh wait, that's right...they didn't....Still managed to have a pretty profound effect though no?

Because otherwise I don't see how a one-time sneak attack, the kind that by definition can't be used again, is relevant to the discussion.

Oh, and a couple years ago, they ran a test in Japan to see what would happen if a fully loaded jetliner were to be deliberately rammed into a nuclear reactor's containment building. The result was some concrete chips spalled off the inside of the wall. No damage to the reactor, and the containment structure itself wasn't compromised.

..in NY?

Gimme a break...

As a hardened bunker that's designed to be able to contain the equivalent energy of a nuclear bomb?

I don't think anyone would like to see Chernobyl repeated -- or even 3 Mile Island ---

Global Warming will create hazardous weather -- earthquakes, tornadoes, cyclones -- emergency situations -- more frequent flooding.

These weather conditions don't necessarily supply six months' warning ---

Then again, those aren't going to do anything to a nuke plant, so I don't really see the argument.

Two of the hijacked 9/11 jets overflew the Indian Point NY reactor with impunity.

That should be a wakeup call...

with the loss of life comparable to a nuclear plant accident/terra attack yet they haven't been hit by these 'boogeymen terrorist' or shutdown due to their 'danger potential'.

No, France has a very good design and their track record in the nuclear electric generation industry bears that out.

....I don't see THAT happening anytime soon....

... and more pain to everyone else in the world ... no surprise there then!

and left them with little more than leaching unsafe defunct uranium mines.

A dirty little secret they like to keep from prying eyes...

Enough of the hysterics, it's time to bring this technology into the 21st century.

It is here. ESPs are already issued. Get with the times.

Oh, and as we said during our duck and cover exercises in the 50s -- grab your ankles and kiss your ass goodbye...

:nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke:

:crazy:

caculated then and it is still economically feasible.

From a little lower down in the article:

"Among the biggest reasons for renewed interest in nuclear power are the tax breaks, loan guarantees and other subsidies in the Energy Policy Act of 2005."

Yes, indeed, let's cut SCHIP cause some middle class folks are "cheatin'" the system, but by ALL MEANS, let's PAY GOVERNMENT MONEY so that private industry can make some $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$!

If it makes real economic sense, let 'em build them on their own. I'd just as soon subsidize lamps made of human skin - less environmental impact and smaller to dispose of when they become passe. And no, I am not gonna use a sarcasm icon because anyone who can't tell deserves to be mightily offended. I'm offended that they breathe my air....

with natural gas in depletion in North America- the ONLY OTHER OPTION in many parts of the country is to burn filthy coal.

That's an inescapable fact.

It follows therefore that the anti-nuclear crowd is actually PRO-COAL.

And that's what they should be called.

They may not like it, but that's the truth borne out when you run the numbers.

Puts them in the same camp with global warming deniers.

"the anti-nuclear crowd is actually PRO-COAL" is total bullshit and you know it!!!

Solar is READY NOW -- just needs 1/10 the nudge that nuclear needs to get the economies of scale working and to help folks get past the capital hurdle...

Solar works VERY well in the entire lower 48 and Hawai'i...

There's plenty of running water, geo-thermal possibilities and wind in the 49th state.

Nuclear power is an important part of the solution to global warming, like it or not. It must grow. Serious conservation must grow along with innovation regarding renewable energy sources.

just to pick a few power companies

... fwiw ...

first a snip from a NYTimes 2004 article

The consortium first announced its interest in building a nuclear power plant on March 31, but it plans to tell the Energy Department on Monday that it has added two big partners, the Tennessee Valley Authority and Duke Power, a unit of Duke Energy. It will also provide a firmer budget for its work.

The group, which has named itself NuStart Energy Development, initially included Exelon Nuclear, a unit of the Exelon Corporation; Entergy Nuclear, a unit of the Entergy Corporation; Constellation Energy; the Southern Company; and EDF International North America, a subsidiary of Électricité de France, which owns shares in reactors in the United States.

The consortium also includes General Electric and the Westinghouse Electric Company, a subsidiary of BNFL, which was formerly British Nuclear Fuels Limited.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C06E6D6133AF935A15757C0A9629C8B63&n=Top%2fNews%2fBusiness%2fCompanies%2fExelon%20Corporation

and, a Sept 2007, Dallas Business Journal article snip

Monday, September 24, 2007

NRG Energy seeks nuke expansion

Dallas Business Journal

NRG Energy Inc. and the South Texas Project Nuclear Operating Co. filed a formal application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build two new nuclear reactors.

http://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/stories/2007/09/24/daily10.html

now, a look at campaign donations of 3 candidates receiving the most money:

Top Contributors - Hillary Clinton

DLA Piper $293,400 lobbying firm
Citigroup Inc $160,500
EMILY's List $138,953
Skadden, Arps et al $134,960 (a lobbyist for Entergy)
Goldman Sachs $134,050
Cablevision Systems $116,575
Kirkland & Ellis $116,550
Morgan Stanley $113,700
Viacom Inc $102,500
Greenberg Traurig LLP $100,200 (wasn't Abramoff involved with them?)
Time Warner $98,100
Blank Rome LLP $96,500
Merrill Lynch $96,100
Patton Boggs $88,600 (lobbyist for Entergy)
Bear Stearns $87,450
JP Morgan Chase & Co $84,500
NRG Energy $83,250
Credit Suisse Group $81,750
Avenue Capital Group $80,400
Ernst & Young $78,250

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.asp?id=N00000019&cycle=2008

Top Contributors - Barack Obama

Goldman Sachs $311,228
Lehman Brothers $226,550
Exelon Corp $189,350
Sidley Austin LLP $187,750
Citadel Investment Group $168,650
JP Morgan Chase & Co $156,580
Citigroup Inc $152,750
UBS AG $136,000
Jones, Day et al $133,325
Skadden, Arps et al $112,650
Harvard University $109,100
Kirkland & Ellis $102,601
Jenner & Block $101,772
University of California $97,108
Time Warner $92,400
WilmerHale $91,060
UBS Americas $90,480
Morgan Stanley $87,000
Viacom Inc $80,200
Mayer, Brown et al $80,130

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.asp?id=N00009638&cycle=2008

Top Contributors - John Edwards

ActBlue $1,651,027
Fortress Investment Group $187,850
Stearns, Weaver et al $94,700
Lerach, Coughlin et al $91,850
Goldman Sachs $77,400
Beasley, Allen et al $61,400
Watts Law Firm $61,000
Skadden, Arps et al $55,200
Whitten, Nelson et al $52,300
Deutsche Bank North America $48,100
Brent Coon & Assoc $43,850
Sidley Austin LLP $42,700
Citigroup Inc $42,350
Brayton Purcell $36,900
Girardi & Keese $36,800
Kramer, Dillof et al $36,400
Motley Rice LLC $36,200
Weitz & Luxenberg $34,600
Morgan & Morgan $34,200
Baron & Budd $32,840

Entergy's lobbyists 2006 (look for lobbyist names when researching who's giving to whom)

Entergy Services
Quinn, Gillespie & Assoc
Daryl Owen Assoc
Patton Boggs LLP - top 20 contributor to Clinton's 2006 campaign
Entergy New Orleans
Ryan, Phillips et al
Capitol Hill Consulting
Hunton & Williams
- top 20 contributor to Clinton's 2006 campaign

http://opensecrets.org/lobbyists/clientsum.asp?txtname=Entergy+Corp&year=2007&format=Print


NRG lobbyists 2006

Strategic Energy Initiatives
Alpine Group
Scherder & Assoc
Rhoads Group
Fleishman-Hillard Inc

http://opensecrets.org/lobbyists/clientsum.asp?txtname=NRG+Energy&year=2007&format=Print

Exelon lobbyists 2006 top 20 contributor to Obama 2004 campaign, as was Kirkland & Ellis and Skaddon, Arps

Washington Group
Bluewater Strategies

http://opensecrets.org/lobbyists/clientsum.asp?txtname=Exelon+Corp&year=2007&format=Print


explore around on your own

ELECTRIC UTILITIES

Industry Profile, 2007

http://www.opensecrets.org/lobbyists/indusclient.asp?code=E08

Top Lobbying Firms

http://www.opensecrets.org/revolving/top.asp?display=L



fwiw ... never hurts to do a little research

Akin, Gump is a fun to one to observe (other main players include Strauss, Hauer & Feld ~ Strauss being the former DNC chair and now Poppy Bu$h trustee); Bill Clinton's buddy Vernon E. Jordan Jr.
works for them
http://www.opensecrets.org/lobbyists/firmsum.asp?txtname=Akin%2C+Gump+et+al&year=2007

In March 2007, it was announced that Kenneth B. Mehlman was rejoining Akin Gump as a partner.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Akin,_Gump,_Strauss,_Hauer_%26_Feld

bipartisanship in DC is amazing when it comes to making money

Kirkland Ellis is another big lobbying firm.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Kirkland_%26_Ellis
are they contributing to any candidates you know?


the people are so far out of the money-power loo;