First Concrete Poured On Leningrad II Nuclear Reactor.

(Leningrad?!? Whatever.)





The bold is mine. I especially like the district heating part, since this is recovered energy derived from the second law of thermodynamics. For comparisoon purposes the 9.17 TJ - the entire nation of Denmark produces just 22 PJ of energy from it's whirling pile of soon to be landfilled metal wind turbines - is all energy that would have been wasted, but is now being put to use. (This is the same sort of thing that most dangerous gasoline fueled cars use when one turns the heater on.)

Other reactors using this strategy include the Romanian Cernovoda reactors, the second of which was recently completed, and two others that will come on line this decade.

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-Construction_starts_on_second_Leningrad_II_unit-1904104.html">Construction starts on second Leningrad II unit.

The Russian VVER is a pressurized water reactor. It will replace RBMK reactors, the most notorious of which was the Chernobyl 4 reactor, which exploded 24 years ago.

Russia has been aggressively seeking to export the VVER, and is in talks with many countries around the world.

I am sad it has taken this long. Russian stupidity and poor designs has done more to hurt nuclear energy in last 3 decades than anything the anti-nuke protestors could hope to accomplish.

In 1970s Sierra Club was actually FOR nuclear power because it would have prevented fossil fuel plants. Chernobyl ended that (likely forever). Chernobyl could have been avoided if Russian had moved to PWR/BWR decades ago and/or built a containment structure.

problem is that?

I'm no fan of libertarian assholes - and what could possibly be more libertarian than distributed energy fantasies - but in holding to this position of refusing to understand the difference between an RBMK and a PWR, the Sierra Club is obviating the libertarian P.J. O'Rouke's comment that "Some people will do anything for the environment except open a science book."

I'm not real find of excusing people from ethical responsibility to humanity because they are ignorant and too damn lazy to understand the facts.

I lost my taste for the Sierra Club when they were almost taken over by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tortilla_Curtain">Tortilla Curtain type racists.

Their racism has nothing, of course, to do with their anti-nuke mentality, but both are ignorant.

The history of the Sierra Club is one thing - I applaud Muir's fight against the horrible Hetch Hetchy dam - but the reality of the present is quite another.

:thumbsup:

And is one reason they're so inefficient.

wise use of CHP.

CHP is a winner.