Nuclear power costs too darn much. But not for long!

Mass produced in a factory. No chance for crooked and greedy construction companies to drag their feet or purposefully screw things up to stretch the construction schedule --and fatten their wallets in the process.

The only thing these companies would be allowed to do is dig a hole and put in the concrete pads and supports. Can't screw that up now, can you Nuclear Power Plant Construction Firms???

The days of thinking that one power plant is going to make you a billionaire are going to be long gone! And good riddance! Cost overruns and construction company shenanigans are one of the main reasons that the anti-nuke idiots were able to scuttle many of the plants in the 1970s and 1980s. Well, your greed just put you out of business! Good riddance to bad rubbish!!!

Mass produced modular nuclear power plants, produced in a factory under scrutiny of the QA inspectors and the NRC will bring costs down and put some of the biggest thieves out of business. Win, win.

What are the dangers, drawbacks?

How do you protect against situations like Chernobyl? Or can such an event not happen with small units?

What is something gets lost? What is someone who does not know what the unit is gets a hold of it?

In the early days when nuclear research was just beginning, there were some very strange events. How do you insure that no one steals the unit? I know that sounds absurd, but such things happened at one point in history before people were informed about the dangers of radioactive substances.

What about safety?

Could a unit of this kind be used to terrorize people? Or to commit crimes?

Pulled out of the air, doubtless. Link please. Prove your wild assertion. Or withdraw it if you like.

(the sheer sensationalism of your post tells me you will not be back with that link or any proof at all, I look forward to your refutation)

http://www.physorg.com/news145561984.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/nov/09/miniature-nuclear-reactors-los-alamos

http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com/
Hyperion Power Generation (HPG) has completed its first formal presentation of the Hyperion Power Module (HPM) to the United States' Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and related documents are now available through the agency's Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS).

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/nuclear/4273386

http://www.nextenergynews.com/news1/next-energy-news-toshiba-micro-nuclear-12.17b.html

Toshiba has developed a new class of micro size Nuclear Reactors that is designed to power individual apartment buildings or city blocks. The new reactor, which is only 20 feet by 6 feet, could change everything for small remote communities, small businesses or even a group of neighbors who are fed up with the power companies and want more control over their energy needs.

The 200 kilowatt Toshiba designed reactor is engineered to be fail-safe and totally automatic and will not overheat. Unlike traditional nuclear reactors the new micro reactor uses no control rods to initiate the reaction. The new revolutionary technology uses reservoirs of liquid lithium-6, an isotope that is effective at absorbing neutrons. The Lithium-6 reservoirs are connected to a vertical tube that fits into the reactor core. The whole whole process is self sustaining and can last for up to 40 years, producing electricity for only 5 cents per kilowatt hour, about half the cost of grid energy.

Toshiba expects to install the first reactor in Japan in 2008 and to begin marketing the new system in Europe and America in 2009.

The last link in your post, the 200kw Toshiba micro-reactor, was a hoax:
Toshiba micro-reactor a "hoax" http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x128003
It's not surprising people fell for it, considering all the other nuclear hype they fall for.

http://www.toshiba.co.jp/nuclearenergy/english/business/4s/introduction.htm

And thart dummy Bill Gates fell for it:
http://www.fastcompany.com/1594671/bill-gates-goes-nuclear-with-toshiba-tie-up

30MW - the lower of the 2 figures that Toshiba gives for its '4S' reactor (which is what bananas' quote talked about, and what you link to, and Gates talks about) is 150 times larger than the 200kW that the link HysteryDiagnosis quoted claimed. So, yes, it was a hoax, but, no, Toshiba denied it.

If that's all that you have to bring to the discussion then I am sure that DU can do without your "insights" and you can go back to yelling at the cat.

Refute the OP. Refute the links. Refute the science. Refute the economics.

But you can do none of those so you make a derisive comment and wash your hands of your culpability in the dire situation we find ourselves in right now --one that will only get worse as the decades advance. By doing nothing but tossing out a flippant, ignorant two-word comment you have firmly planted yourself in the side that is the problem. Why don't you think about becoming a part of the solution. Or just keep your comments to yourself maybe.

This is intended for municipal use. Of course, not all municipalities are sophisticated enough to handle even small nuclear reactors. And what happens 200 years from now when natural resources have been depleted even more than they are today and people cannot maintain all the security required for these reactors?

I think that nuclear energy is short-sighted. It is based on the assumption that the humans who live and work in the area around the nuclear sites will always have the resources, the knowledge and the social structure to be able to deal with the material.

Nuclear energy production requires lots of money and expensive technical know-how that only the wealthy corporations can afford. Getting the country to commit vast amounts of resources to nuclear energy ensures that the big corporations maintain a stranglehold on the U.S. economy for decades to come.

Solar and wind energy production is cheaper upfront to develop and maintain, and allows for new companies to enter the field and provide competition to existing power companies. This competitive environment will get better as the technology improves.

This is the reason for the current push to nuclear power.

You are wrong on a number of accounts.

Nuclear energy production requires lots of money and expensive technical know-how that only the wealthy corporations can afford.
Solar power plants and wind farms have to be very large to compete with the dirty fossil fuels. That means that only large companies can afford to do big solar farms or big wind farms. And offshore wind farms are even more expensive!

Getting the country to commit vast amounts of resources to nuclear energy ensures that the big corporations maintain a stranglehold on the U.S. economy for decades to come.
Did you even read the OP or the link therein??? I think not. These mini reactors bring down the costs to 10% of what the large reactors are --but they produce 25% of the power output-- that makes them less than half the cost of large nuclear power plants for the same output of electrical energy and/or process heat.


Solar and wind energy production is cheaper upfront to develop and maintain
You haven't researched the difference between "nameplate" capacity and actual energy output. When normalized for actual energy output to the grid, solar and wind cost just as much as traditional nuclear --and these mini reactors should tip the economic scales even more in favor of nuclear.


allows for new companies to enter the field and provide competition to existing power companies.
Small scale solar and wind are too expensive to allow these small companies to be cost competitive with the "big" players and therefore they rely on subsidies, feed in tariffs, advance rate payments from consumers, etc.

The current power companies push nuclear energy to maintain their control of energy production.
That may be the case with nuclear but it is equally true with solar and wind projects that are large enough to be cost competitive. That's just a fact of the landscape right now. That may change as solar PV comes down in price but the price of PV has been stagnant for 3 years now due to excessive demand from Germany and other countries that are giving excessively high feed in tariffs for people to install solar or wind generation.

stop wasting it on nuclear energy.

I honestly can't tell.

Your comments make me think that you don't know what makes a light bulb turn on when you flip the switch. Nobody can be that dense. Read the links before posting, maybe do a google search or two. That might help you to avoid looking like an unintelligent person.

The mini-reactors are meant to be mass produced. That means no construction company can rip off the electricity consumers --the way they have on each and every nuclear power plant that has been constructed since 1953 by cost overruns, construction delays and all sorts of crooked little crap they pull (like purposefully ordering a critical part the wrong size or shape so the entire staff has to sit idle, collecting full pay, while it can be manufactured. The nuclear power industry construction companies have treated each reactor as a custom construction project where each pipe and each weld takes a dozen-man committee to decide how to deal with it. It's the most wasteful and most idiotic way to build anything. It needs to stop and with factory mass produced nuclear plants those days are at an end.

The reactors are autonomous operation reactors --there are no little men inside the box that will shovel the nucleons inside the burner (or whatever it is that your mind envisions when you think of nuclear power). No human intervention once it's turned on. It generates clean, stable power until the fuel is used up and then it shuts itself down. The community can then order a replacement or have it removed and in either case the used up reactor is recycled and the fuel safely disposed of or burned up in an IFR.

They are buried several meters underground and cannot put out radiation into the surrounding area. The concrete bunker inside which it rests is strong and will withstand an impact with an airliner fully loaded with fuel. You could build your own bunker, right in your back yard, that is deep enough and strong enough that you could survive a near-direct nuclear bomb strike. Logic should tell you --if you had the opportunity to use some-- that the buried reactors are as safe as any piece of technology made by humankind.

Don't forget that your toothbrush can be sharpened to make a shiv, able to kill someone. Your automobile can be turned into a 3000 pound death machine if you plow through a shopping mall or a convenience store with it. Your television has within it enough deadly chemicals to kill your entire family --if you misuse them.

Stop hyperventilating. Engage brain and start thinking about the precarious situation we are in right now due to global climate change, resource depletion, political strife and instability, food shortages, pollution in the ground, water and air. Any and all of these can and will eventually kill you or your descendants.

and you will have a lot of energy especially if the current technology is rapidly improved. So much money has been wasted on nuclear energy. It will be a huge burden to our grandchildren and great-grandchildren who will be left to locate these ticking timebombs and disarm them at great danger to many people.

The problem is that each homeowner may be charged double or triple what it should cost. This will hinder the expansion of solar more than any other factor.

I keep getting quotes for 4kW and 5kW solar at my house that runs from $37,000 all the way up to $54,000. What a ridiculous crock of SH***T. If that situation isn't changed I WILL NEVER -NEVER- GET SOLAR ON MY ROOF.

The great thing about these mass produced nuclear power plants is the reduction in cost per kilowatt of *actual* output.
===> from the OP: they put out 1/4th the power but only cost 1/10th as much!!!

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.
MATH WARNING
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.
In order to get the same output as one of the largest nuclear power plants you would need 4 of these.
Multiply the cost by 4 and you see that these mini reactors are only 40% the cost.
Save money = more electricity at lower cost
???? How can anyone be against this ????

look like solar panels (but could possibly be windmills, however it is less likely). I will be watching to see whether they stay there. If they do, it will indicate to me that even smallish projects like that can be relatively safe and productive enough. We could do a lot of that in LA. The mechanisms don't look any worse than the oil rigs that you can still see around L.A.

These reactors are fully automatic. They need no local nuclear engineering experts.

That is what makes them the best solution. Well, that plus the fact that crooked and incompetent construction companies cannot stretch out the construction schedule so they can soak up millions of dollars.

The biggest problem with nuclear power today are the greedy construction companies and the simple minded local officials who think that they can trust the construction firms to be "honest" and "do their best job" even though 30 years of nuclear power plant construction has proven exactly the opposite.

The contracts need to be written so that they put all of the cost burden for delays onto the construction firms and not the rate payers. These factory-made reactors only need a stable concrete base to be set on and bolted to in order to work for decades with no further human intervention.

These are the perfect solution for small, large, and medium sized cities that want the benefits of clean and stable power but not the hassle of dealing with the thieves in the construction industry.

I worked as a programmer for many years and most of the software code written is abandoned because it is badly designed, doesn't work, and is unmaintainable.

What software is used is riddled with bugs, and the systems that run this software are constantly compromised by viruses, trojans, and worms, not to mention frequently hacked, and taken over.

You don't hear about most of these problems because the corporations, hospitals, and universities that are effected go to great lengths to cover up this situation. These problems are widespread.

Heck, we can't even obtain accurate vote counting machines, which are far simpler than any computer system needed to run a nuclear reactor.

Corporations mass producing nuclear reactors means a lot of reactor assemblies are going to be manufactured in China using teenage labor working 12-hour days for 75 cents an hour. The software will be written by second-year engineering students in a co-op class.

The biggest problem today is not "greedy" construction companies. It is greedy corporations run by technically ignorant executives whose only concern is next quarters profits, and what they can get in yearly bonuses. I witnessed how businesses work from the inside. I don't need to find an Internet source to link to verify what I saw for myself.

Just making crap up to cast dispursions on an industry that you *obviously* don't like. And that's the great thing about Democracy. We can disagree --without being disagreeable. But don't just pull crap out of the air.

As far as being made in china...

You do realize that china now makes --NOW MAKES, let me repeat-- 35% to 40% of the world's solar panels.

You do realize that most of the wind turbines for the latest American wind farms... wait for it... WERE MADE IN CHINA!!!!

I agree that we should be making all these things in America. The difference between solar, wind and nuclear power plants is that even these mini-nuclear-plants will be DAMN HEAVY, thus making it far more expensive to ship these from foreign factories. Is there any way to 100% ensure they'll be made in the USA? No. Just like the coffee cup you're drinking out of right now. Just like the tires on your car. Just like the shirt, socks, underwear, jacket, hat, etc., that you're going to wear today... 'Nuff said.

You may be familiar with computers, but you don't know anything about the control of
nuclear reactors or nuclear power plants. Nuclear reactors are not controlled by computers,
the NRC forbids it. All the controls are done by hard-wired logic. The computers at
nuclear power plants in the USA are used solely for logging - they keep a log / record
of what goes on.

However, they are not connected to any of the reactors controls. When a new reactor is
brought online, they put the reactor controls, and the reactor protection system, the
electronics that control safety features, through a series of tests. The reactor manufacturer
monitors those tests via computers.

However, the connection is made with electro-optic decouplers. The reactor systems are fitted
with little light-emitting diodes like the IR diodes on TV remote controls. The test computer
is fitted with receivers, like the IR receivers on TVs. The reactor system can "talk" to the
test computer via those lights - but there is no-way that the test computer can talk to, or
infect the reactor systems. Your TV remote can talk to the TV, but your TV can't talk to the
remote. The dialog is one-way.

Why would a reactor computer be connected to the net anyway? The computer is there for one
purpose which is to log the events. It doesn't need to know anything about the outside world.
So there's no reason for a network connection. You think the operators at Braidwood Unit 1
are fighting an online game with the operators of Byron Unit 2?

PamW

getting an SOER and SER from the regulator for an processor based system is just not worth the money and time you have to spend in my estimation.

I will go with the Analog/Dedicated digital approached every time, it is cheaper, and has a lot less hairs on it.

Don't confuse everyone with train separation and class 1e to non-1e isolation discussions, it will make them angry.

...either industrial civilization will have collapsed and we will have bigger problems to worry about, or we will be in possession of such incredibly advance technology the problem will have already been solved.

Your question assumes that nothing will change in the next 200 years, which is naive.

Nuclear waste can be burned up in an IFR.

Bioremediation can take care of the superfund sites. I just read that sheep have a bacteria in their gut that breaks down TNT (aka dynamite) into harmless precursors. A herd of 20 sheep will take 3 years to completely remove all toxins. Other options would be genetically enhanced bacteria that eat toxic chemicals.

These we can do today, given the political will -- which means we'll never do it as long as special interests run our government...

And in another 20 to 50 years, we should have nanotechnology sufficiently advanced enough to remove the poisons we've put into the land, sea, air and fresh water reservoirs, rivers, lakes and streams.

It's all hype, don't fall for it.
We went through this with the Generation III reactors.
Mass produced modular construction blah blah

There were and there are NO modular reactors.

We didn't "go through this with Gen III reactors." Each one of those were custom built, absolutely zero modular thought went into the design or construction of them. Likewise the 13 nuclear reactors currently given approval to start construction. Each of these are built custom, much like a Lamborghini sports car. Do you know why a Lamborghini is so expensive? Because they only build a few of them and each one is built custom, by hand.

Your knowledge of the history of the nuclear power industry and the shenanigans of the nuclear construction industry is woefully lacking. Let me know if I can help explain or post some links to historical criticisms of exactly how the existing plants were constructed. That should help you understand that if we were going to build nuclear plants in that same way I'd be one of the people on the picket lines fighting against them instead of championing nuclear power reactors as I do.

on edit: notice how I said you display ignorance. Ignorance is a lack of teaching, lack of learning, it can be fixed. Stupidity, or worse, willful stupidity (sometimes called willful ignorance) is not excusable.

We did just go through this with Gen III reactors, apparently you weren't paying attention.
I said "Mass produced modular construction blah blah"
The AP-1000 was supposed to have reduced construction costs because of its "modular construction techniques":

QED.

Curiously, that page is one of the first hits in a search for "ap1000 modular",
but it seems to only exist in google's cache now.
Dubya's "Nucular Power 2010" program was supposed to have the first AP-1000's online last year.
A lot of the pro-nukes here fell for it.

As far as the rest of your tripe: You'll find shenanigans in any industry, including the housing construction industry, the airplane construction industry, the highway construction industry, etc, yet we never stopped building houses, airplanes, highways, etc. The problems with nuclear energy go way beyond shenanigans in the construction industry, there are many serious problems with nuclear energy, and they are all show-stoppers. In your own words - you display ignorance of these problems. These problems have been brought up many times, maybe you are displaying willful ignorance (sometimes called willful stupidity). Not much I can do about that.

Marketing hype does not equal construction techniques.

None of the current reactor designs are being, nor have they ever been, manufactured using mass produced components. They must be counting the nuts and bolts or the electrical wiring that runs throughout the control structures (those are definitely mass produced).

Each nuclear reactor is a custom construction project. Never mind the fact that the plans for an AP1000 don't change (appreciably) from site to site --they are constructed like a custom home (McMansion that is). So using a one-off custom constructed reactor as a reason to be against true mass produced product is lunacy, and flies in the face of reality.

I'm no fan of construction companies, obviously. If these nuclear power plants could be built 100% by robots... I'd damn well be pushing for that. These mini reactors are the closest thing to that.

You should be in favor of these instead of throwing out irrelevant crap about business-as-usual nuclear plants.

The ignorance has it's own built in glow.

I for one will try to put that glow back in a box... tomb like... a sarcophagus like Chernobyl's.

Example number one. The 1983 IBM PC. It used a 4.77 MHz processor, 128k KB of RAM, a couple of 320 KB floppy drives, had a 9-inch monochrome monitor, weighed about 30 pounds, and cost around $5,000.

Today, one can buy a portable PC that has a 2 GB processor, 2 GB of RAM, a hi-res 15-inch color LCD screen, a 160 GB hard drive, a DVD drive, all for less than $1,000 and fit it into a brief case.

What part of my comment concerning smaller, cheaper, more numerous, and easier to steal escapes your imagination that requires me to provide you with a link?

Then you used positive examples of how mass production brings down costs, improves product reliability, increases a product's capabilities and increases safety all at the same time.

Your example counters your earlier statement.

edit to add: this is exactly the reason why I support mass produced components for nuclear reactors. There are thousands of examples of mass production not only bringing down costs but also making products better. You wouldn't be typing on this website were that not true.

Thank you for proving my point and thank you for showing us all why we should all be supporting these mini-reactors that are mass produced in a controlled environment and will bring nuclear power costs down greatly.

Vacuum tubes were mass produced and did not bring down size or cost of electronic components. It was new technologies that brought down the size and cost of electronic components.

Compact electronic systems were made possible by developments in solid-state electronics and totally new manufacturing techniques.

As I pointed out in another post, mass production of nuclear reactor components means a lot of reactor assemblies are going to be manufactured in China using teenage labor working 12-hour days for 75 cents an hour. The necessary software will be written by second-year engineering students in a co-op class.

How do I know? I worked in the electronics and computer industries for many years. The executives that run these companies are technically ignorant and are mostly concerned with next quarter's profits, and how much in bonuses that they can get.

It's like you're just randomly turning to a page in an encyclopedia and making your post about that. Please stay on point.

Your point was that mass production will not help reduce costs of these mini nuclear reactors.

Reality disagrees with you.

As to the idea of new techniques being incompatible with mass produced nuclear power plants, but simultaneously applicable to every other product known to Man, is just silly. Please look up the history of mass production for a bit more background info before you post again.

Well, maybe they were poo-pooing your pet project here a bit, but even so, I think all those concerns should be thoroughly addressed. You aren't going to make friends by huffing and puffing for someone to prove something. You want to see nuclear power? Fine. I'm all for it if it can be done safely. If you want to advocate for it, you're going to have sanely address people's "wild assertions" even if they are pulled out of the air. Because if it works, all the better for everyone. But you're going to have to quell people's fears about it, not ask them to prove you wrong. The ball is in your court on this one.

You do know that there are 104 commercial nuclear power plants operating as we speak, plus another dozen or so "research" reactors operated by DOE, ORNL, and a couple of others. Then there are the nuclear submarines which... wait for it... each have a nuclear reactor working away inside them --that is how they are able to stay at depth for up to 6 months: the third leg of the triad. And the Navy has many other ships with nuclear reactors on them, aircraft carriers perhaps and some of the smaller ships just for fun. All told there must be at least 200 nuclear power plants running at any one time --and that's just here in the USA.

Now, IF nuclear could be done safely I'd guess that those 200-some nuclear reactors would operate without blowing up. Right? But if one of them SHOULD blow up, you'd know about it wouldn't you. The press would be all over that. The story of the century!!! So, in the absense of such breaking news, shouldn't you be able to realize that nuclear power IS safe, that it IS working, that it IS everywhere -- probably there's a nuclear reactor very close to you and you might not even know it.

Embrace the Neutron, my friend. It will protect you from EVIL COAL. Believe it.

:hi:

PS, these nuclear reactors I speak of have been in operation since the 1950s, the last commercial reactor came online in 1984 if memory serves (almost 30 years ago). That's a pretty long time for something to be working day in and day out without an accident or disaster. THAT is the definition of safety.

Yes - one has to wonder what the anti-nukes require as a demonstration of safety.

The USA has had nuclear power plants for over half a century. The US Navy has had nuclear propulsion in many ships for over half a century.

In that time, there has been only a single accident of any significance in the US reactor program, and that was Three Mile Island. However, no member of the public
was killed or injured due to the accident at Three Mile Island. When some of the residents attempted to sue the plant's operator, Metropolitan Edison, their case was
summarily dismissed by the judge, an action that was upheld on appeal. The judge's decision can be read at:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/readings/tmi.html

"As is clear from the preceding discussion, the discrepancies between Defendants, proffer of evidence and
that put forth by Plaintiffs in both volume and complexity are vast. The paucity of proof alleged in support
of Plaintiffs, case is manifest. The court has searched the record for any and all evidence which construed
in a light most favorable to Plaintiffs creates a genuine issue of material fact warranting submission of their
claims to a jury. This effort has been in vain."

Nuclear power has been serving its purpose for over half a century with only a single incident with no consequence. But there's still a question of safety.

Compare the record of nuclear power to that of air travel. In the past 50 years, there have been not one, but many airliner accidents and crashes. Unlike nuclear power,
people have actually been killed due to airliner accidents. Yet we consider air travel "safe". It is. Compared to automobiles, air travel is many, many times safer. However,
people think nothing of their safety when getting in their cars, they do it everyday without fear.

The technology with the best safety record is the one that so many people keep wondering IF it is safe.

Both technologies have had an incident in which caution was thrown to the wind, and a serious disaster resulted. Those two cases where Chernobyl and the Hindenburg. But both those
incidents are aberrations that have absolutely nothing to do with the safety of modern day commercial nuclear power and commercial air travel.

If you told someone that you were afraid to fly in a Boeing 777 because of the what happened to the Hindenburg, they would laugh heartily at your abject ignorance and stupidity.
They'd be right in laughing.

PamW

What's your point? Someone is going to put one in their pocket, their backpack, or the trunk of their car?

that kills people. It won't kill people upon contact. Coal is not as dangerous to the touch or the presence as radioactive matter.

And at least at my coal power plant there's a mountain of the stuff. You could hop the fence at Martin Drake at Cripple creek and get off with hundreds of pounds of the stuff.

Or are you forgetting the millions of children who will grow up with illnesses such as asthma and other lung disorders, who will grow up with decreased mental capacity due to the lead that spews out of your beautiful and much-loved coal power plants. You are forgetting about the poisonous Mercury that spews out of your favorite coal plants each and every day, poisoning the waters, poisoning the fish that both I and your children eat.You are forgetting about the Arsenic that spews out of the coal plants. Arsenic is toxic and will kill you. But I guess you don't consider those weapons because the people whose lives and livelihoods are ruined by coal is just part of "the economic cycle" right?

How about the coal sludge that flooded that town just a month or two ago. Those people can never go back to their homes. The ground and water are now poisonous and probably will be for a thousand years.

Then there are the 58 TONS of Uranium that spew out of each and every coal plant every year. That's not a worst case scenario, that's a fact. Then there are the tons and tons of Radioactive Thorium that also spews out of coal plants, day in and day out. You say you are against radiation. You say that it's dangerous. -- why is the radiation coming from the coal plants any less dangerous??? Or is it that it's just not in your back yard?

But you go ahead and love coal all you want. The rest of us will wake up and realize what the real poison is: fossil fuels. And that we need to end the use of all forms of fossil fuels as soon as we can!

As a child, one of our houses was heated with coal. We children were sick all the time. I realize that coal is also very dangerous. I think that it is easier to move away from coal to solar and wind energy than it is to invest in nuclear energy as that intermediate step. Here in California, we have the potential to produce enormous amounts of solar energy. Our investments should go into that. We could provide energy for a surprising part of the nation's needs especially as solar energy is further developed.

I remember seeing a presentation on solar energy by scientists from MIT back in January 1974. I was very impressed with it then. They were heating a house in the Northeast of the US most days switching temporarily to gas on the worst days. That was 1974.

After the presentation there was a question period. A man behind me stood and stated that he represented the nuclear industry of Canada and that they did not want solar energy because with solar energy, they would have no product to sell.

The enthusiasm, the preference for nuclear energy as opposed to other renewable forms of energy, is inspired by greed, the desire to have a product that insures huge profits for a few people. That is why I oppose nuclear energy and coal. Both destroy the environment and the peace of nature to enrich a few people.

So, you can see, I do know about about various kinds of energy including nuclear energy. Please do not be so condescending. Are you familiar with the concept of hubris. My questions are based on my distrust of the motivations of the greedy nuclear energy industry.

The history of the world has proven this time and time again.

Maybe solar and wind will be cheap enough in 20 years so that will no longer be true. But until that time, each and every time a nuclear power plant is or has been canceled or stopped by activists or law suits or whatever, the local electrical utility had no choice but to build coal power plants. Those are the facts.

If you don't like facts then please choose another site to post on. Maybe foxnews.com or freeper-central would welcome your anti-facts attitude???

than nuclear (which is extremely expensive to maintain due to safety concerns and the constant monitoring necessary) is that the corporations prefer to invest in research on nuclear and coal. Even the playing field by reducing the tax breaks for oil and nuclear and coal, require nuclear energy to insure itself and cover the cost of the damages it may cost in the future, invest the taxes raised that way in further development of safe energy like wind and solar and you will see that solar and wind are far cheaper. The only reason that so much has been invested in nuclear is that with nuclear a very few people can control the production of energy. The new systems suggested in the OP would alleviate that problem somewhat. But they still remain dangerous. It is just not a good idea to have a lot of small quantities of nuclear matter circulating. People have been known to do crazy things with uranium in all its forms. We should shut down the nuclear energy industry as quickly as possible.

require nuclear energy to insure itself and cover the cost of the damages it may cost in the future,
==============================

Contrary to what the anti-nukes tell you, the Price-Anderson act requires insurance on nuclear power plants.

The plants have to get insurance from commercial underwriters up to a certain limit. Above that, the US Govt. steps in to provide
coverage the costs of which must be paid back by all the nuclear utilities pooling their assets.

Read the Wikipedia article on "Price Anderson". It is fairly accurate.

PamW

It still needs to be purified, which costs billions of dollars.

You can make a dirty bomb with it, however.

Oh wait, that's just "normal operation" - and the dirtiness is mostly CO2 that's invisible (to visible light) and acts as an ocean cleaner.

Reactor grade plutonium is going to be quickly detected, will kill anyone who handles it for a short period of time, and overall is the nastiest shit humans play with on a regular basis.

Anthrax, however, is in your every day soil and is relatively easy to weaponize.

The same can be said about the automobile you drive today. You feel pretty safe knowing that over 1 billion cars are on the roads of the world right?

What about the waste from the internal combustion engine? Where does that go? We can't capture it so it stays in the atmosphere forever. We're doomed!

What if your keys get lost?!? I don't want to even think about that!!!

How can you protect against a situation where a big truck goes through a red light at 50 mph and slams into you. Oh NO's.

Could an automobile be used to commit crimes? Well, only bank robbers, hit and run drivers, moonshine runners like on that TV show from the 1970s (oh, that Daisy Duke is a cute little thing, eh?).

What about safety. I might forget that it's a bad idea to turn on the engine in my garage and not raise the garage door. What about safety?

===============
Now your tooth brush:

What will we do with all the millions of plastic tooth brushes discarded each year? Will they end up in the waterways or a land fill, leaching out toxic chemicals for a thousand years???

==========

Now your television set:

What about safety? When there's an earthquake my big screen tv could fall down on top of me and crush my wind pipe. I'd die for sure!!!

What are we going to do with all the toxic chemicals and metals that are inside my tv right now, as we speak. Oh, NO's.

Could a tv be used to commit a crime? I guess so...

=============

How about your coal power plant:

What are we going to do with the toxic sludge that comes out of each and every coal power plant to the tune of hundreds of millions of tons each year?

What if the sludge pond wall breaks (like it did just a few months back) and floods a town with poisonous chemicals? The people there will be susceptible to diseases and maybe genetic disorders for hundreds of years.

What about the CO2, NOX, SOX, Mercury, Arsenic, Lead, Bismuth, and URANIUM and RADIOACTIVE THORIUM that come out of coal power plant smoke stacks every hour of every day???

===========

I think I've made my point. Your child-like innocence and lack of knowledge does not excuse that post you made. Please learn a little bit about the things that you use each and every day and what harm they do not only to the environment but also to your health.

Maybe I worked in that field. How would you know?

Instead of making assumptions, you should ask more questions.

Your breathless, quivering Glenn Beck recital of all the anti-nuclear talking points makes it impossible for anyone but the most naive to assume that you know anything about nuclear power, nuclear waste, disposal, or the comparative amounts of URANIUM and RADIOACTIVE THORIUM that streams out of each and every coal power plants day in and day out.

Your simple question reveals a simple thought process.

environmental protections that we now have. I assure you. I know more about the topic than you would ever believe.

Your actions --on this board-- prove to me that your claims of great knowledge are incompatible with reality.

Please continue to state emphatically that you know all about nuclear --a continued "appeal to authority" that is easily proven false.

that oil and coal cause. And I know how the markets for energy from oil, coal and nuclear facilities can be rigged.

Think about the BP spill. What if something comparable happened at a nuclear facility -- say one of the small facilities that is discussed in the OP. These things happen. No one would ever have thought that a rig in the ocean could cause so much terror, so much economic disruption, so many problems. And I assure you, we have not seen the last of the toxicity that was released in the ocean over the course of the months of the incident.

Focusing simply on the costs and ease with which something is used is not enough. We also have to think about the potential incidental costs like contamination, injuries, explosions, fires, and all the unexpected things that happen, yes, rarely, but that do happen. When one of these accidents happens on a wind or solar farm, the damage is minimal. But when one happens at an oil refinery or in a coal mine or at a nuclear facility, even a small nuclear facility, the damages can be catastrophic for the people involved. And as you know, the nuclear industry has special dispensations with regard to liability for such events.

You may know a great deal about the construction of a nuclear power plant, but clearly the history of the war waged on our environment by our hunger for energy is not something you are familiar with.

In many parts of our country, our water contains levels of percolate (used in dry cleaning), for example, that are too high. Just a few blocks from me, there is a vacant lot on which there used to be a filling station. It can no longer be used due to contamination. This is not often discussed, but is, in fact, common across the country. Imagine having empty lots contaminated by nuclear units neglected by the owners. The damages caused by small incidents some of which are not recognized when they occur and just neglect over a period of years can be enormous.

So that is the end of things I know -- the dangers, the costs to the environment of just little accidents over a period of years. And because of my knowledge of that end of things, I oppose nuclear energy.

This is what your argument has boiled down to - proof by "baseless assertion". You have an endless string of "suppose ...suppose ... suppose..."
Nothing factual to back up these assertions.

You "suppose" that there is no consideration given to the potential for accidents. Why do you think that nuclear power plants have containment buildings? For fun?
Because they look "cool? Those buildings are there precisely because the engineers that design the plant are considering the potential for accidents contrary
to your ill-founded assertions.

The nuclear industry doesn't have any "dispensations" with regard to accidents and liability. I proffer this falsehood is engendered by a poor and faulty understanding of
the provisions of the Price-Anderson Act.

What the irresponsible disposal of perchlorate by the comparatively lightly regulated dry cleaning industry has to do with the practices of the heavily regulated nuclear industry
is beyond rational comment. Is the syllogism, if ( dry cleaners irresponsibly dispose of perchlorate ) then ( nuclear industry will irresponsibly dispose of nuclear waste ) QED ????

Why don't you spit in your left hand, and "suppose" in your right hand, and then tell me which one you have the more of.

PamW

generated from coal combustion not enough for you?

There's plenty of that "sequestered" in your tissues and organs by now.

But if it means that much to you, I'm sure we could arrange to have the nuclear waste from the reactors sent to you instead of re-processed. :shrug:

Coal plants are responsible for levels of toxic metals --WITHIN THE BODIES OF PREGNANT WOMEN-- and we have absolutely no idea how much damage it will cause. It is obviously not good.

Thank you for pointing that out. I hope you will be more active in bringing truth to discussions like this one!!!

:hi:

What are the dangers, drawbacks?

How do you protect against situations like Chernobyl? Or can such an event not happen with small units?

What if I know more about nuclear accidents than you do?

Maybe I worked in that field. How would you know?
================================

Your own words betray you as someone who is not very knowledgeable
in the field of nuclear reactors. Consider the following analogy:

"Don't fly on that Boeing 777. One little spark of static electricity and the whole thing
will blow up in 30 seconds. That Boeing 777 could "go Hindenburg" on you. You'd better
listen. How do you know that I didn't work in the aircraft industry and that I'm an
expert in aeronautical engineering and safety?"

A Boeing 777 is not the Hindenburg, and someone talking like the above surely betrays
the fact that they are uneducated in aeronautical engineering.


Scientists and engineers knowledgeable in the field of nuclear reactors know that a
Westinghouse PWR is not anything like the Chernobyl RBMK reactor and it is physically
impossible, the laws of physics prevent it, for a Westinghouse reactor to do what the
Chernobyl RBMK did. From the professor's course note from a course taught at MIT (page 6):

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/nuclear-engineering/22-05-neutron-science-and-reactor-physics-fall-2006/lecture-notes/lecture30.pdf

"The Chernobyl reactor was of such a different design (positive coefficient of reactivity,
slow control rod system, lack of containment) than the reactors of other nations that it is
not reasonable to conclude that such an accident could occur elsewhere."


No your statements show that you've uncritically accepted the anti-nuke "Kool Aid".

As per above, another Chernobyl can't happen in one of these small reactors just as
it can't happen in any of the large reactors. We know what the design defects of the
Chernobyl RBMK reactor are that caused the accident, and those defects are not in
Westinghouse PWRs, just as Boeing 777s don't have large bags of hydrogen gas like the
Hindenburg.

Nuclear waste is a non-issue, and not a long term problem if one reprocesses and recycles
like the French, British, Japanese, Swedes... You don't see any of them looking for the
likes of a mountain in Nevada...

PamW

and the cost estimates kept getting worse and worse every year.
Here's the comments from "pro-nukes" on the Nuclear Energy Institute propoganda blog when the Keystone report came out in 2007:

And those 2007 estimates are now known to be way too low.
You just can't believe the nuclear industry.

process? Nuclear energy is neither, cheap, clean and most of all safe. I've got a lung condition that really can't be monitored to where I'm ensured of treatment at the earliest time due to the fact that even at my 62 years old the risk is too great from the radiation to do those numbers of scans needed. Even at this age where it is expected that I may otherwise live at most another 20 years even if this condition wasn't there the risk are still too great. If I was a 20 year old my chances of surviving another 42 years to get me where I am today would be slim and none for two reasons, one is the highly suspected to turn cancerous growth develops into full blown lung cancer and the other would be the dangers of the scans that would be needed to monitor growth creating the cancer I so worry about. This is what my pulmonary doctor treating me told me straight up. The best I can hope for is due to the number of scans I've already had is to watch for the tell tell signs of lung cancer which there are signs other than just spitting up blood, of which I don't now have so on that front all is good. What I'm saying is if radiation was so safe, so safe as to be scattering a bunch more of these reactors around the country and the world then why is it I can't have the scans needed to watch this pre-cancerous growth in my chest.

I will reiterate what you just said and what I've been saying all along: You just can't believe the nuclear industry.

When PSO was planning to build a nuclear power plant a few miles from me here years ago and we had to go to the streets to get that stopped that was when I realized the nuclear industry will say and do anything necessary to advance their mission of building more nuclear power plants no matter the truth. They were lying to us like there was no tomorrow.

Remember a while back when the industry was proposing to build small underground reactors and all of a sudden the talk of that stopped, I suspect the same thing will happen here when these 'so called too little to be dangerous' factory jobbies are scrutinized a little bit closer.

To build the numbers of nuclear power plants necessary to stop this co2 growth we see today would only increase the co2 created and spewed into the atmosphere which would accelerate the percentages of co2 that is killing us today, in other word hasten our demise

No more nukes, go ahead and keep the ones we have now running until their designed age is reached then start the process of cleaning the sites up as much as possible (considering that we don't have many options for the safe disposal of the highly dangerous waste,) since we are going to have to do that anyway and hope that we don't have a major meltdown that kills thousands early on and many more as time goes by and that will leave a large dead zone IE Chernobyl. Many of the existing nuke plants are near large metropolitan areas which makes this scenario even more likely to happen. Shit happens

A nuclear power plant emits much more heat into our water than what is emitted by other forms of energy production evidenced by the place where they site these heat hogs and the fact that the industry on many occasions have had to shut a reactor down due to not enough water to keep the core from melting down.

All I've said here can be verified pretty easily or argued agains depending on whether one wants to learn something or argue and its as simple as that.

Believe the nuke boys at your own peril.

To each their own but I'll take my chances with the search, discovery and development of alternates to nuclear and fossil fuels myself.

I know how difficult it can be. And my mom suffered from COPD and had to have an emergency oxygen tank near at all times (she never smoked). So I commiserate with you about the lung condition.

But then you turn around and launch into a diatribe against nuclear???

Coal spews all the crap into the air, so do cars and buses and trucks, then there are industrial processes that put particulates into the air and will harm your lungs (asbestos, cement, fiberglass if the vents fail, etc.).

Your health situation is not caused by nuclear. Quite the contrary. If the idiots hadn't been able to stop nuclear power plants there would hundreds fewer coal power plants and your lungs might not have gotten so bad. Your case is not unique. COAL KILLS. Believe the coal boys at your peril.

Nuclear power is the solution to air pollution and global climate change. We all need to wake up and stop listening to the coal industry and start taking concrete steps to get off of coal and all the other fossil fuels -- ASAP.

But if you're mass manufacturing these things in China...

But fuck Gen III+, I'd rather we have SMR LFTR.

This is exactly the problem as I see it. The construction contractors are the major problem with the ever spiraling costs for new plants. I think that the owner of the construction company gets a "CHA-CHING" moment at some point and thinks this is their ticket to becoming a billionaire. We need to end this practice. Contracts for the construction of nuclear plants need to put the cost burden for all mistakes and failure to meet milestones squarely onto the construction company --with a personal financial stake by the owner of the company. Perform or become a pauper.

This is exactly the situation that my OP is addressing! The business-as-usual construction practices need to stop. And, hey, it isn't only nuclear power plants. I read about a high school in California that was quoted at around $100 million but by the time the construction company got done it ended up costing over $700 million --for a single high school building!!! This is the problem with construction companies --they seem to have no moral compass and manage to get the contracts written up so that they have clear incentives to screw things up, slow the whole process down, make "whoops, did I do that??" f**k ups that the customer has to pay for. How in the hell did we get to this point???

The "big dig" was an expansion of the subway in Boston, the GC made idiotic errors --and the taxpayers footed the bill!
Why in the hell aren't the government officials and the construction management company, Bechtel, being held financially accountable and/or criminally liable?!?

Here is a historical perspective on the outrageous jump in nuclear power plant construction costs:
The article goes on to cite inflation, labor costs, materials costs and stricter government regulation as the "excuse" for these monstrous cost increases --but you can see that none of these would even serve to double the plant construction costs --yet they are 30 times as expensive to build?!? What gives!!!

The above article continues, stating that next generation reactors and small, modular reactors will bring costs down. This I agree with but the article does not state how these cost savings will be achieved.
http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter10.html

The OP clearly details how the costs can come down, by mass producing the reactors and ending the idiotic business-as-usual construction practices.

yup thats me being a wise ass :-)

Whoops! I'm sorry. I didn't mean to point out the obvious flaw in your logic, nor did I mean to insult your favorite energy forms (the ones that are killing us slowly right now).

The dirtiest and most dangerous electrical producing mechanism known to man, and now it will spread around the world!!

For those who want humans wiped off the face of the earth this is their dream come true!! Buy stock!! Live larger!

You should invest in a dictionary, my friend.

Have any nuclear pipelines exploded recently? No. Oh, wait. Those were OIL PIPELINE EXPLOSIONS.

How much pollution comes out of coal plants and cars and trucks? Oh, wait. About a million or 10 million times as much as what comes out of a nuclear power plant. And the nuclear waste is all contained and safely stored under the plant.

But let's not bring *facts* into your little anti-nuke fantasy, right?

Chernobyl is still effecting the environment. One of how many nuke plants? And are any contained? Containable for the 1,000 years of radioactivity? You gonna stick around and make sure? No, You will burden someone else for a 1,000 years.

Safely stored waste? What are you smoking? Stand next to the waste that comes from a nuke plant and you will be glowing in a few minutes.

"""But let's not bring *facts* into your little anti-nuke fantasy, right?""""

See how easy it is to get nukers frothing at the mouth? Hmmm, why is that? The facts are evident, nuke plants are the most dangerous. Why fly a jet into a coal plant when you can do a million times more damage into a nuke plant.

Why do you bring Chernobyl into a discussion of inherently safe, mass produced reactors in the USA? Straw man alert!!!

You need to read a little history on exactly WHY Chernobyl happened, I'm not going to be your kindergarten tutor --you need to provide your own education. Ignorance of history and the facts are no excuse!!!

Your post is full of lies, ignorant myth, hype, and hyperbole. Good job cramming all that crap into just a few sentences!!!

"Stand next to the waste from a nuke plant and you will be glowing in a few minutes" == you have no facts at all. People "stand next to" that waste all day long!!! The waste is kept in pools of water to remove the heat that is naturally given off by the decaying matter. People are walking right on top of and next to these cooling pools all day long.

If there were a deadly outcome to that then WHY HAVEN'T WE HEARD OF IT --- after 50 years!!! Are you saying that the entire journalism profession are in collusion with nuclear power plants to HIDE this terrible cancer/death risk!!!! That is pure fiction, unsupported by any facts and not worthy of a reply (I'm taking pity of you because you seem to be an earnest person --you just need to learn a little bit before formulating your opinions... and posting on something that you know very little about).

You state that nuclear will "Burden someone for 1000 years?!?" --what the hell do you think happens with coal right now??? How about the pollution coming out of the car you are going to drive today?!? Nothing that humans do right now is helpful to generations of the future. If you want a contained source of pollution that is kept in check and cannot ruin the environment --you want nuclear power. If you want uncontrolled spewing pollution that includes Mercury (toxic), Arsenic (toxic), Lead (toxic and harms the mental development of children), Particulates (harms the lungs), Uranium and Thorium (spewed out of coal burning plants with all the other harmful materials) --then you want coal. And don't forget the CO2 --the gas that is going to kill your grandchildren and make life a living HELL for people for 10,000 years!!!

I'll take the nuclear, thank you. You are free to choose your poison, however. That is what Democracy is all about.

/EDITED TO CORRECT SPELLING AND GRAMMAR.

You can walk around the pools holding the waste!!

But the waste is handled by robots because the actual waste is dangerous.
And it will last a 1,000 years.

Sure, coal waste and emissions are some nasty shit. But nuke is nastier.

As for atmospheric co2 I guess you are in favor of stopping all air flights, right? No?
Airplane emissions put that stuff up there where there is no way for it to be filtered.

In all these things one must be careful about all the changes forced on the environment.
Worked many a day to get better laws and better regulation of coal plants.
And will always oppose nukes because of the danger they present to future humans.

I always find it interesting that some folks think we can't do anything about co2, but we can control nuke wastes.

We can control co2, we just can't afford it, and we damn sure can't afford nukes. Heck, private investors run away from nuke plants because of the liabilities. They can't afford it.

So, you darn right I want to end airline flights! Or make them switch to bio fuels.

"We can control co2, we just can't afford it" --that says all we need to know about you, senior Koal. My opinion is "WE CAN'T AFFORD NOT TO CONTROL CO2."

I guess we're looking at some "dead men walking?" Oh, wait. That was a different movie...

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=&imgrefurl=http://www.alphabetics.info/international/%3Ftag%3Dradioactive-waste&usg=__6JwWCxrnzikhymb2RTy_4ENi-4E=&h=295&w=450&sz=40&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=59zacRjD06P3zM:&tbnh=141&tbnw=203&ei=P2FPTYG_EsH58AbbxompDg&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dnuclear%2Bpools%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1264%26bih%3D572%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=344&vpy=299&dur=1831&hovh=182&hovw=277&tx=154&ty=103&oei=P2FPTYG_EsH58AbbxompDg&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=19&ved=1t:429,r:14,s:0

What a crock.

You do know, don't you, that personnel in the core of some sections of nuke plants are limited to a certain amount of time because of the radiation levels present? You do know this, right? You know they wear these tags that list the amount of REMS and that once full of REMS are not allowed back in, right? And that robots are used to move the heavy waste because of the well founded fear that exposure to the waste is deadly to humans, right? You know all that yet you persist in telling me "No Problem".

You do know don't you that the flight crews of airliners get more radiation exposure due to cosmic rays and the fact that
they have 6 miles less of air shielding them. You do know that the radiation that airline flight crew get exceeds
the radiation that nuclear power plant workers get by a significant factor <1.5X - 2.0X> You want to ban airline flights?

PamW

I do know that nuke plant workers are closely monitored for exposure.

I think airline flights are a major contributor to co2 deposition problems in the atmosphere. But I have no real proof. Just makes sense, eh?

Oh, you are not trying to tell me nuke wastes are safe for humans, are you?

Everyone dies at the end of the story.

Rational people would make rational risk/benefit decisions. I have met very, very few truly rational people in my life. They were pretty dry folks, not much given to arguing on the Interweb.

There have been many people whose lives came to an abrupt end by virtue of their close proximity to nuclear wastes and processes. Nasty deaths, those.

All the while, they were told: "Don't worry, it's safe." Now, if there are going to be humans surviving our collapse, we are foisting upon them the possibility that 500 years from now they will meet a nasty death all because we needed electricity in our otherwise inconsequential desires.

I prefer not to foist upon future humans this derelict and ultimately destructive waste stream and no amount of cajoling will ever convince me that I should support such nasty, long lasting and life killing detritus.

Having said that, I am well aware that I have contributed to such and only hope and pray that it does not bring harm to others 500 years from now. That's all I got.

Personally, I'm rooting for the rapid collapse of industrial civilization within the next few decades, starting now. That doesn't make me very popular at parties, but it's the most probable "solution" as well as being the kindest from the POV of the rest of life on this planet. It also keeps our children safer from both global warming and teh nucular...
But I digress... :evilgrin:

If we create even more nuke waste then whoever does come after us - including the flora and fauna - then our impact will be even greater. That is not something I will support with my mind or my heart.

Rooting? Isn't that what pigs do? <grin>

that's why I've pulled myself up short on promoting any more nuclear power, and am instead back to promoting the only real solution to the problem posed by all forms of waste, nuclear or otherwise.

Rooting: Pigs and Packer fans... :evilgrin:

....I have a feeling will soon resolve itself. Mother Nature Bats Last.

Until then I am done with moaning and groaning about it. I intend to continue to limit my impacts but until I am back to ashes my contributions will make a difference.

Oh, you are not trying to tell me nuke wastes are safe for humans, are you?
=============================================================================

Fire is not safe for humans. If you stood unprotected next to a fossil fuel ( coal / gas ) fire as in your local electric power plant, then
you would be cooked or burned. It's not safe for humans to be next to fire. But we don't stand next to fires. That fire in the power plant
is inside a furnace / boiler. People work around that boiler everyday without harm from the fire.

Likewise, standing next to spent nuclear fuel without protection would be hazardous. But we don't have people standing next to spent fuel
without protection any more than they stand next to fire unprotected. The spent fuel is handled underwater. Water provides all the shielding
you need.

You might consider visiting the reactor at a University like Kansas State or Texas A&M. You can stand above this pool of water and look
down at an operating reactor with no harm. Here's a picture from a reactor in Australia:

http://www.ansto.gov.au/discovering_ansto/anstos_research_reactor

PamW

Nuke wastes will be around long after we are gone.

We don't have to deal with the fires from the Romans, but if they had nukes we would be standing next to that 1000 year old 'fire'.

But I'll be danged, you actually did try to tell me nuke wastes are safe!!!

It could be called Carbon Capture and Sun-Bound Storage

CCS-BS

I think you've come up with a really good idea there! Nice work!

ON the list of possible targets of the 9/11 terrorists!

Think of what kinda freak show 9/11 would have been if they had gone after four nuclear power plants on the east coast.

n/t

So building 1,000 more of them doesn't change anything at all.

Not that running a plane into one of them would likely be as significant an event as knocking down the WTC... but that's another discussion.

The chances of actually hitting the target and doing enough damage to actually cause a reactor incident at all comparable to Chernobyl are quite slim. Each of the two towers was a more significant event than a similar attack on a reactor is likely to be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nwklTQwWGs

No... it's not a large passenger jet, but it also can't miss... and passenger jets aren't as easily attainable as they once were.


All of which is entirely irrelevant to the point. Those scores of reactors already exist. The risk doesn't go away even if you shut them down (since the spent fuel is still a target and isn't going anywhere). Building another reactor (or 50 or 500) doesn't add to the risk.

Chernobyl was a relay big dirty bomb. Fallout is fallout.

The post I gave should be manditory viewing for anyone that lives near a nuke plant.

For all its faults (no containment, using a flammable core material, not enough control rods, inadequate metering devices to allow control room personnel to know exactly where a fault lies), the disaster at Chernobyl was not caused by the horrible design. It was caused by some idiot with a dream of career advancement who ordered all the safety systems shut down!!! These safety systems (even on a crappy reactor such as Chernobyl) would have prevented the disaster. The design of the Chernobyl reactor is unlike anything we have in the west (and in America, just in case you don't know the meaning of "the west"). Our nuclear plant personnel would never conduct such an ignorant and dangerous test as the one attempted at Chernobyl --that is why they had to shut off the safety systems: because they kept shutting down the reactor when this idiot manager tried to do his testing!

You have time and again been patiently explained this. Yet you constantly refuse to learn anything. Why?

Chernobyl WILL NEVER HAPPEN IN THE USA. It cannot. It will not. NEVER. CANNOT. CANNOT. CANNOT. Got it now?

Do 'ya know what that means?

Number two: no American reactor has ever melted down. And the Gen IV reactors have inherent safeguards that today's reators do not have.

You should join me in demanding that all 104 of our currently operating reactors be replaced ASAP with Gen IV reactors, Pebble Bed Modular Reactors, and the Westinghouse mini-reactors, Bill Gates' Traveling Wave reactors, etc.

WE NEED TO GET RID OF THE OLD REACTORS --they are not as safe as the Gen IV reactors.

"Nuclear" is scary stuff... and it's invisible!

Anything nuclear is really the same thing as Chernobyl.

Or Hiroshima.


I'd still love to see someone take a shot at why this terrorisn canard means anything at all.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/energy/cracked-wall-to-keep-progress-energys-crystal-river-nuclear-plant-off-line/1053210
The gap, on the left of this image next to cylindrical tendons, is about 9 inches deep inside the containment wall at the Crystal River nuclear plant. A graphic shows the extent of the gap...
The gap is known as a delamination, which means part of the wall has separated into two layers. The gap between those two layers is about 9 inches below the outer surface of the wall, which is 42 inches thick.

The void was discovered as workers cut a 25- by 27-foot hole in the containment wall so two huge steam generators could be removed and replaced. The utility cut the hole because the reactor building's regular equipment hatch is too small for the generators, which weigh 550 tons each.

UCS -- Aging Nuclear Plants -- Davis-Besse: The Reactor with a Hole in its Head
http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/nuclear_power/acfnx8tzc.pdf







All images here:
http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/ops-experience/vessel-head-degradation/images.html

Scapegoating of Davis Besse by NRC
http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/federal-agency-scapegoating-0141.html

Retrospective
http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/nuclear_power_risk/safety/davis-besse-retrospective.html

NRC Davis Besse index page
http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/ops-experience/vessel-head-degradation.html


We are 15 years into the process of review for Gen3 reactors and they are just now getting ready to finish up. Your call for Gen4 is a a call for Business as Usual for the next 20+ years while designs are finalized and reviewed. That time doesn't even include figuring out a way to deal with supply chain security and quality control.

And only THEN will we have an idea of the actual economics of Gen4.

Since we have a completely viable and safer alternative in renewable energy sources, from the climate perspective your call for nuclear is nothing short of irresponsible.

You might try it some time.

A drawing of the containment vessel



Whats left of the containment vessel and its lid that was blown off

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/chernobyl/inf07.html

Neither graphic depicts a containment vessel.

You can continue to pretend that Chernobyl was really not all that different from the most common US types... but you can't do so honestly.

...is a containment vessel.

Here's a more relevant image:



Notice the difference?

It had a 1000 tun concrete & steel lid it blew off. It was a dirty bomb when it went off.


How thick were the walls?

The walls of a reactor containment are several feet thick. The Pentagon has windows!! How thick do you think the walls are around the windows?
They are a few inches; and not several feet. Would anyone build a window in a concrete wall several feet thick? ( You'd have to look down a tunnel. )

The Pentagon was not designed to take the impact of a plane crash. In fact, the only buildings that are designed to take airplane crashes are
nuclear power plants:

http://www.public-action.com/911/jmcm/USYDENR/

"Only the containment building at a nuclear powerplant" is designed to withstand such an impact and explosion, says Robert S. Vecchio,
principal of metallurgical engineer Lucius Pitkin Inc., referring to the hijacked Boeing 767 airplanes, heavy with fuel, that slammed
into each WTC tower. "

PamW

What the Chernobyl version lacked was a containment building surrounding the reactor assembly itself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Containment_building
A containment building, in its most common usage, is a steel or reinforced concrete structure enclosing a nuclear reactor. It is designed, in any emergency, to contain the escape of radiation to a maximum pressure in the range of 60 to 200 psi ( 410 to 1400 kPa). The containment is the final barrier to radioactive release (part of a nuclear reactor's defence in depth strategy), the first being the fuel ceramic itself, the second being the metal fuel cladding tubes, the third being the reactor vessel and coolant system.

http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/chernobyl.html
1. The 16 RBMK reactors, of which the Chernobyl plant was one, are built without containment shells. In other reactors, the containment shell will keep almost all radioactive material from spreading in case of an accident.
2. RBMK reactors were intended to produce power and also to produce plutonium for military use. This required that it be possible to remove fuel rods for reprocessing by means of a crane on top of the reactor at short intervals in order to get Pu-239 without substantial admixture of Pu-240. These facilities made the reactor too tall for a containment structure used in Western and other Soviet reactors.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/readings/chernobyl.html
All the Chernobyl reactors were of a design that the Russians call the RBMK--natural uranium-fueled, water-cooled, graphite-moderated--a design that American physicist and Nobel laureate Hans Bethe has called "fundamentally faulty, having a built-in instability." Because of the instability, an RBMK reactor that loses its coolant can under certain circumstances increase in reactivity and run progressively faster and hotter rather than shut itself down. Nor were the Chernobyl reactors protected by containment structures like those required for U.S. reactors, though they were shielded with heavy concrete covers.

The lid to the Chernobyl containment structure weighs 1000 tons.

Just because it was not like the typical American containment dome doesn't mean that there wasn't one.

Sorry Dude, it failed.

...and it's great that you're at least trying to learn this stuff... but you're still making it up as you go along.

The term that we were discussing was "containment vessel", which is not the same thing as the containment building. Reactors have multiple layers of containment and the terms actually mean something.

Just because it was not like the typical American containment dome doesn't mean that there wasn't one

Yeah, actually... that's exactly what it means. There wasn't one.

One is a sealed substantial vessel. The other is a heavy lid. The difference is massive.

Both have a containment building (though they are not entirely comparable), but that isn't the same thing as the containment vessel (which Chernobyl lacked). They couldn't have the sealed vessel because their design intended to access fuel rods individually without shutting down the reactor. The design had some advantages, but the additional risk obviously left too much to chance.

Still waiting for an attempt at a rational explanation for how any of that is at all related to a potential aircraft attack on a US reactor. Not that I'm holding my breath you understand.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/chernobyl/rbmk.htm

It certainly didn't work.


http://www.eoearth.org/article/Light_water_graphite_reactor_(RBMK)

You were asked whether you had ever heard of a containment vessel... and informed that Chernobyl didn't have one (and that they make a difference).

You would have saved us all a lot of time if you had just said "no".

From your final link:

"Containment: There is no secure containment in the sense accepted in the West. The reactor core is located in a concrete-lined cavity that acts as a radiation shield. The upper shield, or pile cap, above the core is made of steel and supports the fuel assemblies. The steam separators of the coolant systems are housed in their own concrete shields. "

You can say ours have better containment structures, but you cant say Chernobyl didn't have one
========================================

Evidently you don't understand what a "containment" is. Just because you have some concrete walls / shields doesn't mean you have a
"containment". Your diagram doesn't show what is above the reactor. You can see that in this picture of another Chernobyl-style
RBMK reactor in Lithuania at the Ignalina power plant:

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

( Look at the picture at right with the caption "Ignalina RBMK reactor tube tops" )

See all the light coming in at the right hand side. That light is coming in through windows.
You don't have what anybody would call a "containment" when the only thing you have between the top of the reactor ( seen in the picture )
and the outside world are a bunch of windows.

Additionally, from a course taught at MIT ( from page 6 ):

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/nuclear-engineering/22-05-neutron-science-and-reactor-physics-fall-2006/lecture-notes/lecture30.pdf

"The Chernobyl reactor was of such a different design ( positive coefficient of reactivity, slow control rod system,
lack of containment) than the reactors of other nations that it is not reasonable to conclude that such an
accident could occur elsewhere."

PamW

One is a sealed substantial vessel. The other is a heavy lid. The difference is massive.
=======================================================================================

You are correct that the difference is massive. In my other post, I showed that the operations floor above the reactor has windows.

It would be like putting a thin glas outside window in a bank vault. You can scream all day about the thick vault door on the inside and
how heavy it is. However, if the bank vault has a thin glass window to the outside world, then that big door doesn't make any difference
whatsoever. The crooks will bypass the heavy door, break the window, and steal the money.

All the nattering about the vault door is meaningless if the vault has a weak spot, namely a window. It's not really a vault.

Likewise, a heavy top, or a thick wall here or there doesn't make a containment. If there is an accident, the high pressure gas will go around
heavy walls or tops if there is an alternate way out like a window.

The RBMK reactor was "over-moderated" and unstable, and therefore able to generate pressures that can move heavy lids and blow down walls.

US reactors are "under-moderated" and stable, and can't generate the type of pressure to do that type of damage. They shutdown in an accident.
The problem US reactors have is dealing with the "after heat". Just like your slide projector or movie projector; you have to cool it after
you turn it off. That was the problem at Three Mile Island, the operators turned off the pumps that take care of the "after heat".

PamW

Thick brown lines don't make "containments".

Evidently you still don't understand what is meant by a "containment".

A containment has to be able to withstand the pressure build up from an accident. That, by the way, is why the containment around US reactors
have domes. Dome-capped cylinders like US containments are very good at withstanding the pressures. Just because you have a thick
wall does not mean you have a sealed building.

Lots of buildings have concrete walls. The Pentagon has masonry walls, but it is not a sealed building. A containment building has to be
able to seal air-tight and then withstand any pressure build-up.

Chernobyl did not have such a structure.

PamW

It's not pertinent whether the moderator is water or graphite. What is pertinent is whether the core is over-moderated or
under-moderated. Over-moderated cores, like Chernobyl, are unstable. Under-moderated cores, like US reactors are required
to be, are stable.

Scientists and engineers knowledgeable in the field of nuclear reactors know that a
Westinghouse PWR is not anything like the Chernobyl RBMK reactor and it is physically
impossible, the laws of physics prevent it, for a Westinghouse reactor to do what the
Chernobyl RBMK did. From the professor's course note from a course taught at MIT (page 6):

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/nuclear-engineering/22-05-neutron-science-and-reactor-physics-fall-2006/lecture-notes/lecture30.pdf

"The Chernobyl reactor was of such a different design (positive coefficient of reactivity,
slow control rod system, lack of containment) than the reactors of other nations that it is
not reasonable to conclude that such an accident could occur elsewhere."

PamW

Graphite does.

Repeating an incorrect assertion.

Repeating an incorrect assertion.

There. Does repitition make what I said any more right (or any more wrong according to your perspective)?

edit: with only terrorists on board of course, no innocent people, etc.

Oooh-kay.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25vlt7swhCM

Obviously, your argument holds no water.

And you have apparently forgotten that nuclear power plants here in the USA all have thick containment vessels which can withstand a direct collision from a fully loaded Boeing 747. Specious argument on the one hand, disastrously short-sighted on the other, and clearly lacking a grasp of the world we actually live in.

Good day sir!

"And you have apparently forgotten that nuclear power plants here in the USA all have thick containment vessels which can withstand a direct collision from a fully loaded Boeing 747. Specious argument on the one hand, disastrously short-sighted on the other, and clearly lacking a grasp of the world we actually live in."

I don't know what a 747 weighs fully loaded but its several hundred thousand pounds and add 500 or so miles per hour to that and I don't for a minute believe that the 3ft or so thick reinforced concrete containment can stop that. I've been around a lot of concrete as I finished my work career as a finisher and I can tell you that concrete has flaws like most building materials do. Take the weight of the plane coupled with the speed and you have a lot of energy there.

The test I've referring to has been posted here on DU if you care to search for it. I'm not sure how to make a search like that or I'd do it for you.

Good luck getting through solid earth.

The statement was made that the containment domes on the present nuke plants are 747 proof and I was referring to that.

Since you have extensive experience in concrete then you must know about admixtures, right?

The gist of your comment is that humans can make things that are flawed. I can't disagree with that but what the OP is about are mass produced nuclear reactors that can have as many QA inspections as they need. Every worker is on camera just like in all factories and workers can't "slack off" or "cut corners" like you can at a job site.

I'm sure you have seen, as I have, the GC call for ignorant and dangerous corners to be cut (just to save THEM a buck). This will not happen in a mass production environment. My OP is about taking the incentive to screw things up or cut corners OUT of the equation.

Oh, and the reactors will indeed be surrounded by more than 3 feet of concrete --and the whole thing will be buried. They take no human intervention after they are put in place and buried.

Here's a representation of one proposed design -shows everything is underground:
http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com/product.html

Columbia is hosting a conference on SMRs ("small to medium reactors"):
They're buried under ground.

Again, they are buried.

Admixtures changes so fast that I'm not sure my experience or knowledge would lead you in the right direction as I've been out of the concrete world going on 7 years now. My advice would be to talk to someone who is current on the issue rather than me act as if I know everything, if you get my gist.
I was responding to the concrete domes over current reactors and the flawed verification of their strength compared to a missile with the weight and speed of a 747. That I stand with. :hi:

Kinetic Energy

Kinetic energy is energy of motion. The kinetic energy of an object is the energy it possesses because of its motion. The kinetic energy* of a point mass m is given by

Kinetic energy is an expression of the fact that a moving object can do work on anything it hits; it quantifies the amount of work the object could do as a result of its motion. The total mechanical energy of an object is the sum of its kinetic energy and potential energy.

For an object of finite size, this kinetic energy is called the translational kinetic energy of the mass to distinguish it from any rotational kinetic energy it might possess - the total kinetic energy of a mass can be expressed as the sum of the translational kinetic energy of its center of mass plus the kinetic energy of rotation about its center of mass.

*This assumes that the speed is much less than the speed of light. If the speed is comparable with c then the relativistic kinetic energy expression must be used

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/ke.html

I brought up the subject of admixtures because I have been studying how to build my next house. I'm doing as much of the work myself as I can (be my own GC), to avoid the shoddy/shitty work I constantly see from the construction companies --it's sickening that they hire the lowest common denominator then pay even that person so little that they don't give a shit about the work they do!!!. If I see one more flaw in houses that some unsuspecting family paid over $200k for I swear I'm going to puke!

That is why I know just enough to say that admixtures can change the properties of the concrete greatly, some will make concrete 100% water tight, some will make it several times more structurally sound, some just add color and others add insulation (R-value).

But you are talking about the existing nuclear reactors, the 104 currently running nuclear power plant reactors in America. If I said I want to shut them all down as soon as possible, would that surprise you? Well I do.

I want to replace them all with modular reactors, LFTRs, Pebble Bed Modular Reactors, and Thorium cycle reactors. I do not want a single one of the existing reactors running after 2020. If I had my 'druthers that is.

/edited for typo and extra ")"

The vulnerability of nuclear power plants to an suicide airplane — has been known for some time.
=====================================

That's the popular misconception. Intelligent scientists and engineers know otherwise
and have been attempting to disembue the nation's leaders of the above fallacy. For
example, the ASME, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the professional society
for mechanical engineers attempted to inform Congress right after 9/11:

http://www.asmenews.org/archives/backissues/jan02/features/nucbrief.html

"Tests conducted by Sandia National Laboratories indicate that America's 103 nuclear power
plants provide a significant level of protection against terrorist attacks, experts said
last month during an ASME-sponsored briefing on Capitol Hill."

PamW

Twentieth-century thinking at its best -- mm-mm, factory nukes!

And this quaint belief that ooh-shiny tech will save our non-negotiable way of life... geek gospel at its purest.

How about those of us who don't happen to share that belief? Not a "win-win" for everybody, then, is it? Comforting to know that anti-nuke idiots have plenty of idiotic company on the pro side.

When it comes right down to it, I'm on your side of the fence. I expect a situation within 20 years when a lot of currently-modern places aren't going to be able to keep sanitation sewers and water treatment facilities running. Do we really want to be introducing a lot of maintenance-heavy uber-high-tech into that picture?

CO2 is the big kahuna, but there is still no technological path that I can see that gets us from here to lower CO2, nuclear power or not. The only thing that has shown any ability to lower our CO2 output is global recession. I expect the global economy to implode permanently in the next decade or two, whether it happens stepwise or in one big gush remains to be seen. The descent has already begun. In addition (and perhaps as a precipitating factor), Peak Oil has happened. So all things considered, CO2 output is going to be declining within 10 years anyway.

Maybe we ought to consider putting the money and energy we're spending on nukes and windmills away for a rainy day, rather than just using it to rearrange steel and concrete into fancy shapes.

I'll have my electric lights, HDTV or 3DTV, surround sound system in every room, voice activated home automation system that will allow me to call my house and control any light or the environmental controls,etc. My electric car will be in the driveway and my daughter will call me on the newly invented hologram communication system. We'll laugh and have a great time talking about how warm and comfortable we are, how the conveniences of 21st century science has made everyone's lives safer and happier.

You can live in your YURT, in Austin. Keep warm by a fire. Burning old phone books should keep you warm for a few nights then you'll have to go hunt for kindling and firewood. I don't know where you'll find any in downtown Austin. But I wish you the best, honestly I do. Maybe your daughter will make the thousand mile trek on horseback once a decade to see you. I sure hope so. I'm sure you love your daughter just as much as I love mine.

Isn't that the name of a new theme park?

Cornucopialand, MadMaxland, Twentyfirstcenturyland, Fantasyland. Ah, the power of narrative!

Sounds like you've placed your bets, but I'm still hedging mine. Hope your crystal ball is nice and shiny -- mine certainly isn't. But one thing's for sure, if I'm burning phone books, you and your daughter will be too.

But then, whether it all turns out one way or the other is not really up to me, is it? Nor is it to you.

That's not entirely accurate.

If we all worked our hardest to stop all nuclear power plants, fight environmental regulations, keep huge solar power plants from being built in the desert southwest, fought tooth and nail to stop every wind power farm we possibly can, block the advancement of electric cars and their batteries, then --after 20 years of that-- the world will turn out far different than if we all did the opposite. In that scenario we'd have the status quo --and all credible scientists call that a global disaster scenario.

If, instead, we work our hardest to promote any and all non-fossil energy sources, if we all bought or at least promoted electric cars, if we did everything we can to lower our energy "footprint" like putting in as much insulation in our house as we could afford, sealing all cracks around doors and window, using the power of the sun to heat our water and (as much as possible) heat our homes, getting rid of incandescent light bulbs and use either LED or CFL (be careful in disposing of these)... we would be in a far different world 20 years from now.

It's our choice. It always has been. And we make that choice each and every day in the products we buy, the tripe we spew on the interwebs, whether or not we write letters to the editor/the president/CEOs of large corporations, etc.

First, "we all" would have to agree, and history has shown how often that works out.

What I don't agree with is the proposition that attempting widespread deployment of nuclear technology will sustain our present consumer-industrial business as usual. It's not a feasible project on that scale.

I don't even agree that that is a desirable goal to strive for.

YMMV.

When I said "we all" I meant each of us, acting independently. Reread my post and maybe that will become clear. Deflecting the debate into an "it's all hopeless 'cause we'll never *all* agree on anything" topic is a red herring.

Here it is in a nutshell: every time you pull money out of your wallet YOU ARE VOTING FOR SOMETHING.

If you purchase a product that is made in a way harmful to the environment then you have just become part of the problem.

If, instead, you buy a product that is (at least mostly) not harmful to the environment then you have become part of the army fighting against the problem-makers.

It can't be any more clear than that. Consumers have the power to put companies out of business --by NOT buying their products or services.