Nuclear power is going to "meet its maker"

from what I understand wall street, insurance co. no one will touch nuclear power.

the WH has proposed: President Obama today said that safe, new nuclear power plants are a "necessity" as he announced more than $8 billion in federal loan guarantees to build the first nuclear power plant in three decades.

so in other words it's the tax payers on the hook.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/02/obama-says-safe-nuclear-power-plants-are-a-necessary-investment.html

even after Japan the WH still believes in nuclear energy.

Michio Kaku was on Spitzer the other night. He said because Japan does not have natural resources they chose to quote "dance with the devil" and look at the result. He went on how the US does not have to take that course.
Spitzer cut him off saying it's obvious you disagree with nuclear energy.

The only way nuclear power happens in this country is on tax payer dollars to insure it.

What are you talking about?

Essentially they have their facilities insured. It isn't enough to cover harm to the public; unless, that is, you think about $90 per person will do it.


Do you think that is enough?

You can find the details in the Koplow subsidy paper published by the Union of Concerned Scientists under the analysis of the Price Anderson Act.

RENEWABLE ENERGY WORKS NOW

RENEWABLE ENERGY WORKS NOW

The nuclear industry would have you believe that we NEED nuclear power as a response to climate change. That is false. We have less expensive alternatives that can be built faster for FAR less money. This is a good overview of their claims:
http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Library/E08-01_NuclearIllusion

In a comparative analysis by another well respected researcher nuclear, coal with carbon capture and ethanol are not recommended as solutions to climate change. The researcher has looked at the qualities of the various options in great detail and the results disprove virtually all claims that the nuclear industry promote in order to gain public support for nuclear industry.

Nuclear supporters invariably claim that research like this is produced because the researchers are "biased against nuclear power". That is false. They have a preference,however that preference is not irrational; indeed it is a product of careful analysis of the needs of society and the costs of the various technologies for meeting those needs. In other words the researchers are "biased" against nuclear power because reality is biased against nuclear power. We hear this same kind of claim to being a victim of "liberal bias" from conservatives everyday and it is no different when the nuclear proponents employ it - it is designed to let them avoid cognitive dissonance associated with holding positions that are proven to be false.

The nuclear power supporters will tell you this study has been "debunked any number of times" but they will not be able to produce a detailed rebuttal that withstands even casual scrutiny for that claim too is false. The study is peer reviewed and well respected in the scientific community; it breaks no new ground and the references underpinning the work are not subject to any criticism that has material effect on the outcome of the comparison.

They will tell you that the sun doesn't always shine and that the wind doesn't always blow. Actually they do. The sun is always shining somewhere and the wind is always blowing somewhere. However researcher have shown that a complete grid based on renewable energy sources is UNQUESTIONABLY SOMETHING WE CAN DO. Here is what happens when you start linking various sites together:

Original paper here at National Academy of Sciences website: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/03/29/0909075107.abstract

When the local conditions warrant the other parts of a renewable grid kick in - geothermal power, biomass, biofuels, and wave/current/tidal sources are all resources that fill in the gaps - just like now when 5 large scale power plants go down unexpectedly. We do not need nuclear not least because spending money on nuclear is counterproductive to the goal of getting off of fossil fuels as we get less electricity for each dollar spend on infrastructure and it takes a lot longer to bring nuclear online.

In the study below Mark Jacobson of Stanford has used the quantity of energy that it would take to power an electric vehicle fleet as a benchmark by which to judge the technologies.

As originally published:
Abstract

This paper reviews and ranks major proposed energy-related solutions to global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security while considering other impacts of the proposed solutions, such as on water supply, land use, wildlife, resource availability, thermal pollution, water chemical pollution, nuclear proliferation, and undernutrition. Nine electric power sources and two liquid fuel options are considered. The electricity sources include solar-photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave, tidal, nuclear, and coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The liquid fuel options include corn-ethanol (E85) and cellulosic-E85. To place the electric and liquid fuel sources on an equal footing, we examine their comparative abilities to address the problems mentioned by powering new-technology vehicles, including battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), and flex-fuel vehicles run on E85. Twelve combinations of energy source-vehicle type are considered. Upon ranking and weighting each combination with respect to each of 11 impact categories, four clear divisions of ranking, or tiers, emerge. Tier 1 (highest-ranked) includes wind-BEVs and wind-HFCVs. Tier 2 includes CSP-BEVs, geothermal-BEVs, PV-BEVs, tidal-BEVs, and wave-BEVs. Tier 3 includes hydro-BEVs, nuclear-BEVs, and CCS-BEVs. Tier 4 includes corn- and cellulosic-E85. Wind-BEVs ranked first in seven out of 11 categories, including the two most important, mortality and climate damage reduction. Although HFCVs are much less efficient than BEVs, wind-HFCVs are still very clean and were ranked second among all combinations. Tier 2 options provide significant benefits and are recommended. Tier 3 options are less desirable. However, hydroelectricity, which was ranked ahead of coal-CCS and nuclear with respect to climate and health, is an excellent load balancer, thus recommended. The Tier 4 combinations (cellulosic- and corn-E85) were ranked lowest overall and with respect to climate, air pollution, land use, wildlife damage, and chemical waste. Cellulosic-E85 ranked lower than corn-E85 overall, primarily due to its potentially larger land footprint based on new data and its higher upstream air pollution emissions than corn-E85. Whereas cellulosic-E85 may cause the greatest average human mortality, nuclear-BEVs cause the greatest upper-limit mortality risk due to the expansion of plutonium separation and uranium enrichment in nuclear energy facilities worldwide. Wind-BEVs and CSP-BEVs cause the least mortality. The footprint area of wind-BEVs is 2–6 orders of magnitude less than that of any other option. Because of their low footprint and pollution, wind-BEVs cause the least wildlife loss. The largest consumer of water is corn-E85. The smallest are wind-, tidal-, and wave-BEVs. The US could theoretically replace all 2007 onroad vehicles with BEVs powered by 73 000–144 000 5 MW wind turbines, less than the 300 000 airplanes the US produced during World War II, reducing US CO2 by 32.5–32.7% and nearly eliminating 15 000/yr vehicle-related air pollution deaths in 2020. In sum, use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, PV, wave, and hydro to provide electricity for BEVs and HFCVs and, by extension, electricity for the residential, industrial, and commercial sectors, will result in the most benefit among the options considered. The combination of these technologies should be advanced as a solution to global warming, air pollution, and energy security. Coal-CCS and nuclear offer less benefit thus represent an opportunity cost loss, and the biofuel options provide no certain benefit and the greatest negative impacts.
http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2009/EE/b809990c

Mods this is the one paragraph abstract shown above reformatted by me for ease of reading.




Then we have the economic analysis from Cooper:
The Economics of Nuclear Reactors: Renaissance or Relapse
This graph summarizes his findings where "Consumer" concerns direct financial costs and "Societal" refers to external costs not captured in financial analysis.

Cooper A Multi-dimensional View of Alternatives

Full report can be read here: http://www.olino.org/us/articles/2009/11/26/the-economics-of-nuclear-reactors-renaissance-or-relapse

Another independent economic analysis is the Severance study:
http://climateprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/nuclear-costs-2009.pdf


The price of nuclear subsidies is also worth looking at. Nuclear proponents will tell you the subsidies per unit of electricity for nuclear are no worse than for renewables. That statement omits the fact than nuclear power has received the lions share of non fossil energy subsidies for more than 50 years with no apparent payoff; for all the money we've spent we see a steadily escalating cost curve for nuclear. When we compare that to renewables we find that a small fraction of the total amount spent on nuclear has resulted in rapidly declining costs that for wind are already competitive with coal and rapidly declining costs for solar that are competitive with natural gas and will soon be less expensive than coal.
http://www.1366tech.com/cost-curve/


In other words: subsidies work to help the renewable technologies stand on their own but with nuclear they do nothing but prop up an industry that cannot be economically viable.
Full report: http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/nuclear_power/nuclear_subsidies_report.pdf



CBO estimate on nuclear loan guarantees



Note the price - $2.5 billion was to be only for the first plant. Future plants were, according to the assumptions provided by the nuclear industry, expected to have lower costs as economy of scale resulted in savings.

In fact, since the report was written (2003), the estimated cost has risen to an average of about $8 billion.

Wonder what that does to the “risk is that … the plant would be uneconomic to operate because of its high construction costs, relative to other electricity generation sources”?

Now you have to ask yourself, does that risk diminish or increase when the price rose from $2.5 billion to $8 billion?

Planning for the transition

What plans are out there? Here is one where achieving 100% renewable energy is described:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-path-to-sustainable-energy-by-2030


Here is a PDF link for another such plan by:
The Civil Society "Beyond Business as Usual"
http://www.civilsocietyinstitute.org/media/pdfs/Beyond%20BAU%205-11-10.pdf

Their website has lots of information:
http://www.civilsocietyinstitute.org/


Also see these other papers by Amory Lovins
http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Library/E09-01_NuclearPowerClimateFixOrFolly


http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Library/E77-01_EnergyStrategyRoadNotTaken

Every nuke plant in the country is patrially insured by private sector insurance.
======================

The amount of insurance that nuclear utilities have to obtain from commercial
insurers was set by a "worst case" accident study by scientists at Brookhaven
National Laboratory.

Unless you can show some scientific expertise that surpasses that of Brookhaven
National Lab, I will defer to the judgment and calculations of the good scientists
at Brookhaven.

PamW

Your assertions regarding Price Anderson are misleading. The insurance held is basically enough to secure the assets of the nuclear industry. It effectively caps their probable liability for individuals seeking damages from a large scale accident at about $90 dollars per person.

That means the risk incurred related to making those people whole are transferred to the public sector. The way insurance works is that payments are made over time that reflect the total risk involved in a given activity.

When the largest part of the risk is transferred to the public, the payments to insurance that would otherwise be required are avoided by the industry. The PAA allows the industry to compete by avoiding costs that are levied on their competitors.

It is a very large subsidy that, if removed, would stop nuclear power in its tracks as no insurer would be willing (or capable) of assuming this risk.

If nuclear makes economic sense over its 40-100 year horizon, this subsidy would not be required.


Now about Brookhaven National Labs.

I have respect for the scientists there, but you are making a false claim to authority by invoking their work to support the contention that the PAA is not a subsidy. The very existence of the act itself is proof that the full costs of a worst case scenario resulting from use as intended of the nuclear industry's product are not insurable.

You are therefore misstating the import and design of Brookhaven's work that may (you are prone to making false claims about who did what as appeals to authority) underpin the PAA for if you were accuurate, PAA would not exist.

Dr. Greg could never provide proof of "his" assertions but perhaps you can. Would provide an analysis from an independent economic analyst specializing in subsidies to support your assertions?

They look like this:
http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/nuclear_power/nuclear_subsidies_report.pdf

Thanks for being on the right side of this.
While at times long worded and contrite, you have been a real champion for our team.

You done the best you could and now the truth is hitting the fan.
Rest assured that there are many who appreciate what knowledge you have brought to us as concerns nukes.

Things look awful bad as some of the worst fears are coming true.
And so I wish you peace and good luck.

in all fairness the issue of safety is the scale of consequences for a worst case case scenario; which may happen tomorrow or never. What has happened is going to make Japan a fundamentally different nation. The worst case is nearly unimaginable with 42 million people being so close.


What is important to remember is that have an urgent need to deal with climate change and the existing reactors are helping because if we shut them down, we lose the money already spent on them if we turn them off.

New build nuclear, however is stepping backwards on the carbon freedom march because it sucks money away from more effective technologies.

First coal.
Then natural gas.
Then nuclear.

But absolutely no more new nukes.

I'm made these same assertions on other occasions in the past. :thumbsup:

have respect for the scientists there, but you are making a false claim to authority by invoking their work to support the contention that the PAA is not a subsidy. The very existence of the act itself is proof that the full costs of a worst case scenario resulting from use as intended of the nuclear industry's product are not insurable.
=========================

The existence of the Price Anderson Act is not proof of anything. In the 1950s, the
USA was contemplating the use of nuclear energy for electric power production and
Congress needed to enact legislation in order to require / enforce the necessary
regulation of the industry. The mere existence of the PAA is not a proof of subsidy.

Think about it. The US Congress passed laws and regulations for the airline industry.
Is the mere existence of the laws that regulate the airline industry a proof that the
airline industry is subsidized?

You don't understand the history of the PAA and why they have a two tier system. Most of
Congress was willing to accept the Brookhaven calculations for how much Congress should
require in insurance. However, there were those in Congress, as today, that wanted to
kill the industry by forcing it to buy insurance in amounts that were beyond any realistic
estimate of potential damages. Those people claimed that the people wouldn't be protected
if the Brookhaven values were used.

So the pro-nukes in Congress called the bluff of the anti-nukes. They provided a mechanism
by which the public was compensated if Brookhaven were wrong. The overage would be paid
immediately by the Government, and then reimbursed by the industry.

That way the industry didn't have to pay premiums on insurance above the level of potential
damage. The anti-nukes in Congress couldn't admit that their real goal was to kill the
industry, instead of protection of the public. PAA protected the public without killing the
industry with unreasonable premiums. The anti-nukes were forced to vote for the PAA because
it did provide the protection that they claimed was their main interest, even though it didn't
kill the industry which was the anti-nukes' real hidden agenda.

When the experts in the field provide their results, the scientific community accepts
those results as the best available. I know the non-scientific community looks down
on "appeals to authority".

Science is different than other fields. In science, there is objective right and wrong.
Mother Nature is the absolute arbiter. No other field has Mother Nature to objectively
arbitrate, and hence right / wrong are "fuzzy" concepts in other fields, but not science.

PamW

Also, you don't even have your basic history straight. The Act was just reauthorized a few years ago.

Yes, science is different, but the PAA isn't about "science" it is about giving an anti-competitive subsidy to a donosaur of an industry that is trying to crowd out the competition.


http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/nuclear_power/nuclear_subsidies_report.pdf

The Koplow paper proves you wrong
===================================

Sorry, I don't recognize propaganda from the Union of Concerned Idiots
to be proof of anything.

You have a strange definition of what constitutes "proof".

You seem to think that "proof" is any old ill-founded claptrap nonsense
that comes from some activist group that supports your opinion as "proof".

Sorry, but I'm not impressed with activist groups like UCS in the slightest.

When I cite someone, I cite people with legitimate scientific credentials.

I cite the National Academy of Sciences. I cite scientists at national labs.
I cite recognized experts in their fields.

I don't cite ill-founded garbage from activists, and call it "proof".

PamW

You know if an insurance company won't sell a policy for it it is a terrible risk.
===============

You've fallen for the anti-nuke propaganda. It comes from a misreading
of the Price-Anderson Act. Why not read what the Price Anderson Act
actually says instead of having the anti-nukes interpret it for you.
Wikepedia has a fairly accurate write up.

Price Anderson provides that nuclear power plant owners must as a
condition of their license obtain insurance from a commercial underwriter
aka "insurance company" up to the first tier level. The first tier level
is an inflation adjusted "worst case" cost that was determined by a study by
scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory. In order to be sure their figure
was an over-estimate of the damage, they assumed that their hypothetical nuclear
power plant didn't have a containment building, plus other conservative assumptions.
This amount should cover any conceivable reactor accident.

However, Price Anderson provides that should an accident cause damage above the first
tier amount, the Government will step in and cover the overage as a "no-fault" insurer.
That means you don't have to prove negligence, if you sustain a loss, it is covered.

The Government then is reimbursed by the nuclear utilities pooling their assets.

So insurance companies do issue policies on nuclear power plants. ( It's been
good business in the USA, they haven't had to pay out. The only damages from Three Mile
Island were hotel bills for people who evacuated. The lawsuit against Three Mile Island's
owner Metropolitan Edison was dismissed without a trial. See:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/readings/tmi.html
Courtesy of PBS Frontline )

If the Government has to pay out to cover overages above the commercial insurance, the
Government is reimbursed. It's hardly a subsidy if it has to be paid back.

PamW

I doubt that either of the last ones construction has started on will ever produce a watt of energy. IMHO

What will the bill be there? $100 billion maybe?
Here the private liability is just $12.9 B

But that's ok. Here the nukers will just file bankruptcy.

But the invasion of Libya gives one cause to wonder.

One of a few we have.

When a proper accounting is done and as we decommission all the older nukes and we pay the bill which will exceed the the national debt, nuke plants will be decried by all except the looniest.

Who will want to see a large section of our country decimated by radiation poisoning. No other energy source even comes close to the danger that nuclear energy poses. We can do better and should be putting our time, money and efforts in developing those alternates.

But first we will have to pay for the decommission of at least 40 plants over the next few years.
Gawd, talk about a deficit!

I think we should round up all the pro-nukers and draft them to work on their problem.
Pay them grunt wages and maybe we can save some money? <grin>

We can't afford to ignore this problem any longer.
Obama should think of this as a New Deal type of jobs program.

And all us smart mofos can be hired to build the alternative energy infrastructure.

people who jam their supposed dominance of nature via US science and engineering down our throats.

people who jam their supposed dominance of nature via US science and engineering down our throats
==================================

It's not dominance of Nature, science tells you what Mother Nature will tell you.

For all the "feel good" renewable supporters that think they can ignore the
2nd Law of Thermodynamics or the "quantum efficiency" limit that limits the
efficiency of solar cells, it won't be the scientists that give them their
comeuppance.

It will be Mother Nature. Mother Nature just flat out won't let you violate her
laws of physics.

That's why you should be listening to the scientists, instead of dismissing them
because you don't like their message. You should listen to scientists for your
own sake.

It's Mother Nature that won't let your ill-conceived pipe dreams turn into reality.

PamW

since you seem to know it all :rofl: What a riot

There are ten thousand dead from the earthquake, and very few of them are connected with the nuclear event.

As usual, the stupid are going to look stupid.

The reactors proved to be far more robust under vast system stress.

Any one with an appreciation of science and engineering will be able to sort this matter out.

We're in Austrian cow territory.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/09/19/903294/-Post-Chernobyl-Radionuclide-Distributions-in-an-Austrian-Cow">Post-Chernobyl Radionuclide Distributions in an Austrian Cow.

Of course, one could lie around uselessly in an amoral and immoral wish for more nuclear related deaths, but if the reactor killed as many people as buildings in this disaster killed, it still wouldn't kill as many people as two days of the normal operations of the dangerous fossil fuel industry that so effectively uses the failed "renewable energy" fantasy as a fig leaf.

Did you ever have an idea that they were storing the spent fuel rods way up off the ground in pools that if somehow drained and not able to refill with water would blow the buildings sky high?

I don't ever remember any such science here from any of the nukers?
Why is that?
I mean, how f'n stupid can they be to store waste like that where the potential was so obvious?
And in that vein, why should we trust them ever again?

And how much will it cost to decommission such plants?
Or should we just bury those plants in concrete and forget about it?

Did you ever have an idea that they were storing the spent fuel rods way up off the ground in pools that if somehow drained and not able to refill with water would blow the buildings sky high?
==============================================

The altitude of the fuel pools in the building had nothing to do with the
problems. Once again the anti-nukes have totally misinterpreted the events.

The water in the pools didn't "drain" because they were up high in the building.
With the loss of electric power, the fuel pools lost their cooling systems just
like the reactor lost cooling. The water didn't "drain" away, it was boiled
away. The same thing would have happened if the pools had been on the
ground floor.

There have been many nuclear power plants that have been decommissioned and disassembled,
and the land released for unrestricted use. The USA's very first nuclear power plant,
"Shippingport" in Pennslyvania was totally dismantled. The "Elk River" nuclear power plant
in Minnesota was also disassembled. The total disassembly and disposal of a nuclear power
plant averages about $150 million in cost.

As a condition of their license, the power plant operator has to pay into an escrow fund
that is used to decommission the plant. By the time the plant is ready to be scrapped,
it will have earned all the money needed for its disposal.

PamW

If the rods were in the ground replenishing the pools would be simple.

Your stupid assertions aside, the costs for the waste alone is unknowable.

Why do you ignore this one simple fact: there is no known safe way to permanently store the waste.

WHY IGNORE THAT FACT?

Evidently you don't know that you don't have to permanently store the waste.
The spent fuel can be recycled. There need not be a long term disposal problem.

Courtesy of PBS's Frontline, here's an interview with nuclear physicist and then
Associate Director of Argonne National Lab, Dr. Charles Till:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/interviews/till.html

Q: So they go in, and then those are broken into fission products, or some of it is. Right?

A: Yes.

Q: And you repeat the process.

A: Eventually, what happens is that you wind up with only fission products, that the waste is only fission products that have, most have lives of hours, days, months, some a few tens of years. There are a few very long-lived ones that are not very radioactive.


If one recycles / repeats the process then the waste is short lived. As Dr. Till
states, "most have lives of hours, days, months, some a few tens of years." This is what
France, Great Britain, Sweden, Japan... all do with their waste and they are not looking
for a mountain to store the waste in for thousands of years.

The only country that has this thousand year storage problem is the USA. That's because
Congress, at the behest of the anti-nukes, outlawed the reprocessing / recycling of spent fuel
in 1978. The scientists that gave us nuclear power had always intended that spent fuel would
be recycled so we wouldn't have an intractable storage problem.

However, it was the anti-nukes that forced the long term storage problem on the nuclear industry
as a way to kill the nuclear power industry. It doesn't have to be that way

As for the fuel pools, then explain how having the pools on ground level helps cool them.
You do understand that the pools require "forced cooling". Natural convection won't do it.
If you don't provide adequate cooling, the temperature of the pools rises. It will rise
until it reaches the boiling point of water and then all additional energy goes into turning
100C (212F) water into 100C (212 F) steam.

It's just like a boiling pot of water on your kitchen stove. If you live on the ground floor
of an apartment building, is it somehow easier to prevent water on the stove from boiling than
if you are on the 10th floor? What science did you study?

PamW

From the same people who put nuke waste high up in the air so the tanks could drain and be hard to refill.

Don't blame us for the lack of the dream not coming true.
The nukers have run the show. The govt even subsidizes nukes.

Again just more bullshit from you.
Like your: "Altitude doesn't matter" crap.

Like your: "Altitude doesn't matter" crap.
==========================

If you are so smart, then why don't you explain it.

Tell us why the water in the fuel pool would not have boiled away
if the pools had been lower in altitude.

Be prepared to justify your claims with science

BTW I know my science, and if you don't have good scientific
justification, I'll show you to be conclusively wrong.

PamW

How fucking dumb is this shit? You actually wrote:

"If you live on the ground floor
of an apartment building, is it somehow easier to prevent water on the stove from boiling than
if you are on the 10th floor? What science did you study?"

If you have to carry water up 10 floors it is quite a bit harder to keep the pot full.

Gawd, Pam, you really are showing some backside here.
And you question what I have been studying? :wtf:

If you have to carry water up 10 floors it is quite a bit harder to keep the pot full.
========================

Normally one doesn't have to carry water up, one has a pressurized pipe.

However, in this case, it was actually an advantage for the pools to be
on the roof. When the roof blew away, the fire pumpers were able to
direct their streams up and onto the pools.

If the pools had been lower inside the building, you might not be able to
direct the fire pumper streams onto the pools.

The streams of water will drop by gravity, and you may not be able to get
a stream to the pool.

Evidently you don't know elementary ballistics. You do know that the farther
you want to lob a cannonball, the greater the angle you have to launch, right?
(up to a maximum, at which point angle works against you.)

However, if there is a ceiling, as there will be with the lower flows, the
ballistic trajectory will hit the ceiling. Then you're screwed. You can't get
a full ballistic arch.

It actually helped that the pools were on the top so that the area above them
was clear for the water streams, instead of being constrained by the height of
ceilings in lower parts of the building.

PamW

You should have been a comedian!

Again, a nuker makes up all kinds of shit just to save their deadly nukes.

"Good thing roof blew off"

"If you have a pressurized pipe"

I rarely use this, but here goes: ROFLMAO!

Thanks PamW, you really made me laugh!

We take up a collection and buy some one way tickets to Japan for some of them.
Heck, all of them.

pure arrogance.

we know how to make them safe
==============================

We do know how to make them safe. We use the laws of physics.
Ever hear of "inherently safe" or "passively safe" nuclear reactor
designs.

The IFR that Dr. Till of Argonne National Labs speaks about is one
such design. If you have an accident scenario, you just "walk away"
and let the laws of physics do the job of ensuring the reactor's safety.
The laws of physic always work, unlike pumps and cooling systems.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/interviews/till.html

Q: So it's inherently safe.

A: So it's inherently safe. It's a remarkable feature.

Q: And you in fact ran an experiment that was comparable to what happened at Chernobyl?

A: Yes, yes. Let me go on a little bit about that, ...


Read for yourself how the IFR benignly handled the Chernobyl scenario..

PamW

this meltdown in Japan that things will change, we need another direction.

At this point half the nuke plants in this country are dangerous, let's deal with that first.

At this point half the nuke plants in this country are dangerous, let's deal with that first.
---------------------------------

When an airliner crash, we take all the airliners of that type permanently out of service.
WRONG!!

BTW the number of BWRs with Mark I containments does not make up half the reactors in
the USA. Besides, these reactors worked fine until a tsunami hit them. How about we
consider only the Mark I containments that are in tsunami prone regions as dangerous.

The nuclear industry will study what went wrong, and learn from the mistakes the
Japanese made. Lots of their mistakes, like not burying the fuel tanks for the
emergency generators, the USA doesn't have to do anything about. US reactors are
already required to have their tanks buried, it didn't take a disaster for the US
utilities to figure that out.

No - this time next year, we will have the same number of operating nuclear reactors
in the USA as we have right now, the wailing of the "chicken littles" notwithstanding.

PamW

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Boy, there's a winning proposition, eh?