McCain Backs Nuclear Power 1563
bagsc writes "Senator John McCain set out another branch of his energy policy agenda today, with a key point: 45 new nuclear power plants by 2030." So it finally appears that this discussion is back on the table. I'm curious how Nevada feels about this, as well as the Obama campaign. All it took was $4/gallon gas I guess. When it hits $5, I figure one of the campaigns will start to promote Perpetual Motion.
Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:4, Interesting)
There is a very limited supply of easily accessable fissable material on earth. The more plants we build the more the cost of *THAT* will go up.
People really need to start investing in sustainable renewable energy, things like tidal, wind, solar, and what IMO is the most untapped, geothermal. Seriously, we have all these active volcanos around the planet exerting kilotons of energy spewing gasses into the air and creating massive amounts of heat, why aren't we harnessing that more?
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)
And recoverable at what cost (money and/or energy)?
it doesn't help much if we have a 1000 years worth of fissionable material if the cost of mining a large chunk of it is so high it's not cost effective for most uses.
Not saying nuclear isn't an option, but while a number like "1,000 years worth" might sound high, it might also be very low if it's a measure of how long the materials will last at current usage levels.
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or with breeder reactors you basically have unlimited fuel. They're more complex to design perhaps but are certainly a solution to your claimed "problem".
Also - you probably read a few of the same articles i did about there not being enough fissile uranium around. The catch is it assumes a fixed (and rather low) cost as the ceiling. Once you increase that it becomes a non-issue even without breeder reactors. And before you compare tripling the price of uranium fuel to oil at $140 a barrel - the fuel cost for a nuclear plant is a rather small % of it's operating cost. It's not like they burn a trainload of uranium every few days like a coal plant.
I don't know the details of McCain's "backing" but if it results in more ecconomical and plentiful nuclear plants i'm all for it.
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_of_combustion [wikipedia.org]
Gasolene - 47MJ/KG
Kerosene - 46.2MJ/KG
Diesel - 45MJ/KG
Atomic Fission (U235)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_dioxide [wikipedia.org]
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/Hbase/nucene/u235chn.html [gsu.edu]
1KG of U235 has about 17.5KiloTons of Energy
17.5(4.184*10^12J) or
7.322*10^10MJ
Atomic Fusion p+B11 *now with less killing! (it's called Anutronic Fusion since it has no radiation) p +11Bâ'3(4He)+ 8.7 MeV (or 1KG of B11 can produce 17.7GWh of electricity)or 17.7(3.6*10^12J)which is about 63.7*10^10MJ
In terms of Energy:
1KG of U235 = 1.557*10^9KG of Gasolene
(that's 9 orders of magnitude better) 1KG of B11 = 13.55*10^9KG of Gasolene
So yes it's HORRIBLY efficent, not quite as efficent as Matter + Anti-matter however we haven't figured out how to build that kind of reactor yet, and we'd need a plentiful source of antimatter.
At $57/LB uranium is far cheaper than Gas. I'm pretty sure Borax is cheaper than Uranium.
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Informative)
However, your comment is still paranoia, not justifiable fear. What exactly would terrorists do to holding areas at nuclear power stations to make the eastern US uninhabitable for 5000 years? Fly a plane into a holding site for nuclear material or waste? That wouldn't disperse the material much at all. The worse-case scenario is someone in the US stealing the material and using it to make a nuclear weapon -- something that's already possible using other sources. Even trying to blow up a nuclear reactor would cause limited damage, and they're not trivial to blow up.
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Informative)
For example, you wouldn't get a Pripyat in the USA because all of our reactors are already contained in pre-constructed pressure buildings. Often it's a dome. It's designed to act as a second containment vessel in case the primary is breached.
Then there's the whole void coefficient thing.
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Interesting)
Radiation is essentially zero, safety is as great, and potential fringe benefits (could easily provide municipal steam/heat to a moderate community) make it an easy choice.
Let's compare the people killed *per year* by
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Informative)
But no, flying a fully loaded jet into a containment vessel would NOT breach it. They're specifically built and tested to exceed stresses just LIKE that.
Also - for those who don't "get it" - a nuclear *reactor* is not those huge white towers with steam coming out. Those are just heat exchangers for cooling the plant. The actual reactor is in a rather small (by comparison) boring building around the middle of the plant.
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Informative)
The ignorance on nuclear reactors tends to irk me. I remember reading an Iron Man comic once, where Iron Man goes into the cooling tower, pulls out the reactor core, and throws it up into space, where it blows up in a nuclear explosion.
Problems being, as you noted the nuclear core is not in the cooling tower, and nuclear cores can't blow up like a nuclear bomb. Nuclear Physics 101. It just can't happen.
Fission bombs are set off by the rapid forming of a critical mass, either by joining two halves of a critical mass together in a millisecond's time, or, as with plutonium, by rapid implosion, usually of a sphere, causing the material to rapidly condense into a critical mass. (roughly described - I am not a nuclear physicist, so don't go all picky on the fine details everyone). It's an incredibly precise thing to get right. It doesn't just happen. Form the critical mass too slowly, and you create a whole lot of heat and radiation, but no boom.
I imagine that most of the fearful public does not understand this, even on a rudimentary level, and equates nuclear reactors with nuclear bombs. How many people think that Chernobyl was a nuclear explosion? Most I talk to. The no-nukes zealots commonly exploit this fear and ignorance. They are not interested in science, but in their ideology.
The waste produced by a coal plant is more radioactive [sciam.com] than nuclear waste. We would have far less radioactive waste with nuclear power than with coal.
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
you know, the radium could be used in breeder reactors, and the thorium in thorium reactors
the problem is that coal companies just dump the stuff in mines and landfills, we could be using the results of burning coal for electricity to make important nuclear fuel, cheaply, that would allow more and more safe, practical nuclear energy, perhaps to create the 'hydrogen' economy to switch vehicles from burning oil, to either burning hydrogen, or to use fuel cells to produce electricity from hydrogen.
too bad we're putting radioactive materials into the soil and water, instead of using it to make more fuel, that would make nuclear power even more attractive. (imo, nuclear is the only attractive fuel source that isn't base on renewable green energy)
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes there's a risk but there are other needs as well. Like stop pumping carbon into the atmosphere by the megaton.
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you sure about that? I suspect even if the cockpit was locked they would have still had a good chance to carry out their plan. What got everyone on 9/11 was the surprise. The flight crew may well have opened the door when the terrorists demanded. The flight crew would have reacted to way they were trained, which is to do what they say(this is because before 9/11 all terrorist hijackings were usually not nearly as destructive). What has changed it the perception to hijacked amongst the population. In the past if a plane I was one was hijacked I probably would have done what they said and hope to get out of it. Now a would be hijacked would be torn to pieces by the passengers and crew... even if he had a gun. Notice that no other terror groups are hijacking planes these days. There is a reason for that.
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Informative)
It is not really your fault. It is the fault of the hysteria-spreading, anti-nuclear, tree-huggers. They spent years spreading anti-nuclear disinformation and succeeded in stopping the building of nuclear reactors. More money was poured into coal and petroleum for energy production.
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
http://hardware.slashdot.org/hardware/08/03/14/1238233.shtml [slashdot.org]
As for McCain...
Call me a cynic, but I can't imagine a nuclear plan is going to survive across multiple administrations without getting seriously screwed up. The only way it'd work is if hypothetical President McCain finds *all the money* for his program *now* and throws it in Al Gore's hypothetical lockbox.
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
And why not? We found a trillion+ for a pointless war in Iraq.
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Funny)
Nuclear is not financially sustainable when you factor in waste disposal and storage or waste reprocessing.
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
I just have a hard time accepting this "no we can't" mentality. Your whole argument boils down to what might happen, even though it never has in any Western nuclear power plant.
And how much more expensive is coal and oil when you factor in all of the aforementioned environmental impacts?
And how many of those windmills do you need to produce the same amount of power that you can obtain from one nuclear power plant? What will the environmental impact be of removing that much energy from the atmosphere? How many migratory birds does the typical nuclear power plant kill?
What do you think would happen to our economy in the case of a single accident in any industry that affects a large metropolitan area? Why are you singling out nuclear power but ignoring the chemical industry? It's not like their disasters [wikipedia.org] are any better.
Nuclear Waste (Score:5, Informative)
Reprocess most of it. Bury the rest of it.
There's no technical or economic reason to ban reprocessing. Up to 92 percent of spent fuel can be re-used if reprocessed. Current law bans the practice. That's a political decision, made by the Carter Administration, because reprocessing spent fuel rods creates small amounts of Plutonium as a byproduct, and the argument was "but terrorists might get the Plutonium!". Well, they wouldn't if you secured the Plutonium. It's a silly argument. If that's the reason, then a President could solve the problem with a stroke of a pen; simply mandate that the military takes charge of the Plutonium and is responsible for guarding it. For those of you that have served in the military, you know how fanatical security forces are about the nuclear weapons in their charge. Recent USAF screwups aside, try and approach a nuclear weapons storage facility and see what happens to you. The security argument against reprocessing is simply farcical. France supplies nearly all of their power with Nuclear, and they reprocess their fuel to minimize waste. To date, Al Qaeda or Islamic Jihad doesn't seem to have been able to steal the French plutonium.
As for what to do with the remaining waste, just store it. There's several ways to do it. The easiest thing to do is simply store it in a secure facility. Do you know what highly technical mechanism is required to store spent fuel rods? A pool of water, 3 feet deep. France stores all their remaining nuclear waste in one single building, in a pool of water.
If you prefer to bury it, just encase the rods in glass, and bury it in a place where there's no water table. For the people going "Gasp! Radioactive materials! Underground!"... where do you think we got the uranium from the the first place? We dug it up. Underground.
The utter hysteria over nuclear technologies far, far outweighs the actual risks of nuclear technologies.
Waste disposal (Score:5, Insightful)
Power plant equality, now!
Why not hold all power plants to the same standard?
The mercury from a coal plant doesn't decay. It stays toxic forever.
Vitrifying nuclear waste is already a better solution than the one used for coal plants, which is to dispose of the waste in the downwinders's lungs.
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Informative)
Yes and no.
Plutonium is a small part of the waste. And is more radioactive than Uranium. But you can shield yourself from the radiation from plutonium by wrapping the plutonium in toilet paper - it's an alpha emitter. Note also that "more radioactive" than Uranium isn't really saying much - unless you eat the stuff, or otherwise metabolize something containing plutonium, it's pretty much harmless (IOW not very radioactive at all).
That said, most of the radioactive waste or a nuclear reactor isn't plutonium. It's a diverse mix of fission by-products and irradiated structural material. Half lives of "nuclear waste" vary from seconds to millenia, with the overwhelming majority being in the seconds part of that range. As an example, the nuclear power plants I worked on a few decades ago had radiation levels in the millions of REM per hour when operating. Shutdown, they dropped to less than 0.1 REM per hour within a day. And to trivial levels (less than a milli-REM per hour) after three days.
That's how quickly nuclear waste becomes inert. What's left after that point is the long half-life stuff. But "long half-life" is identical with "not very radioactive". So what goes into the holding tanks as "nuclear waste" isn't really much more radioactive than the average brick. And can be shielded quite effectively by the water in the tank (or your clothes).
Where you have problems with "nuclear waste" is when the (slightly) radioactive material is metabolized (mostly impossible - if you eat a chunk of plutonium, you'll shit it out unchanged in a day), or when it is chemically combined with something you CAN metabolize (not impossible, but difficult), or when you breathe the crap in (possible only when the radioactive waste has chemically combined with something that can produce airborne ash when burned). This last possibility isn't especially likely to be a problem, mostly because the stuff is much heavier than air - most of us don't keep our lungs around our ankles.
Note, by the way, that we've never had a person die of exposure to "nuclear waste". Not even at Chernobyl. And noone died at all, or was even exposed to much radioactivity, at TMI.
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes. Natural uranium produces very little radiation. It isn't until it's enriched and undergoes fission that it gives off massive amounts of radiation. (Which is actually GOOD in this case, because we use those radioactive particles to heat the working fluid in the generators.)
After the uranium is burned via fission, a number of unstable isotopes remain. These isotopes will decay into other materials until they reach a stable state. This decay produces radiation of various types. Generally speaking, anything that's extremely "hot" will not remain so for very long. Since mass is being directly converted into energy, an isotope that gives off a lot of radiation will reach a less dangerous state faster than an isotope that gives off lower levels of radiation. This works to our advantage as contaminated areas can become safe for cleanup operations fairly quickly. (e.g. The wildlife in the Chernobyl area has already returned and adapted to the higher levels of radiation. In addition, the Chernobyl area is LESS radioactive than some areas of naturally occurring radiation where people are already present and thriving.)
As for what to do with the waste, the best solution is to burn it in a reactor. e.g. PU-239 is a natural by product of the U-238 that even highly enriched uranium contains. It's useful for implosion nuclear weapons (super-hard to construct), but it's also useful as a fuel to further power the nuclear plant. Once the fuels are no longer useful for power generation, they often become useful for a number of industrial, medical, and (*gasp!*) consumer applications. As a result, nearly all of the fuel can eventually be used.
Q: So why is there a problem with nuclear waste? A: Because politicians think that fuels like PU-239 are too dangerous because terrorists or foreign nationals might get hold of the materials and make an implosion bomb. (Did I mention that such bombs are incredibly hard to make?) As a result, they let the spent fuel rods sit in cooling pools where they pile up and become a disposal problem.
The odd part is that the government seems unconcerned that the Uranium fuel rods currently in use are very useful in creating a gun-type bomb. Gun-type bombs are easy to create. Any country with a strong enough industrial base could easily produce a gun-type weapon. Gun-type weapons are dangerous because the chances of the nuclear weapon going off by accident are fairly high in comparison to implosion bombs. But if your aim is to get the bomb by any means necessary, it doesn't seem like a big problem. Especially compared to the incredible amount of effort and testing that has to go into creating an implosion weapon.
Long story short: No, you can't put the materials back in the ground. Thankfully, there is no real reason to do so.
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Interesting)
And those people don't seem to mind that much that most of our energy comes from coal, and the largest powerplant, supplying 1/4 of energy, uses BROWN coal... But they still have a solution - waterplants. Problem is - they don't mention that, with our energy needs, we'd have to turn all major rivers into concrete waterways, and it still wouldn't be enough.
Perhaps now you see why I used "(anti)enviromentalists" at the beginning - those people do much more harm than good to the enviroment. Not only because of their direct actions, but also because they undermine authority of true enviromentalists.
And yes, I'm bitter. And...yes, YOU might have genuine concerns...but usually the most vocal, the ones pushing PR machine, are extremists with blind agenda (I remember TV show with one of their leaders vs. some academic; the first one painted catastrophic visions of his mind, caused by radiation of course; first question of the second one: "do you even know what radiation is?". Yeah, you call it sarcasm. But guess the answer)
PS. Well, we'll have to build nuclear powerplant anyway in the next 15 years...and you know what, the whole mess assocaited with it might end up pretty good for me - I had an idea of moving as close to it as I can. Not only it's very nice area overall (hilly lakeland very close to sea and one of most culturally interesting aglomerations), but also it's a rule in EU that areas around nuclear powerplants are actually the ones with most pristine enviroment/etc. Perhaps because people are fleeing the area and they are much more harmfull than any nuclear powerplant... And there's bonus: less stupid, ignorant people around.
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Oil not equal to nuclear (Score:5, Informative)
Well, in the northern US, it would/could make a big difference. For some reason up there...they use heating OIL to heat their homes during the long, hard winters.
Perhaps if we had more nukes providing cheaper electricity...we could get the heating done up north without so much oil usage.
I mean, if you think gas prices are bad now...wait till you have to buy oil to heat your house...something you REALLY can't go without....and be prepared for sticker shock...
Re:Oil not equal to nuclear (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, in the northern US, it would/could make a big difference. For some reason up there...they use heating OIL to heat their homes during the long, hard winters.
Perhaps if we had more nukes providing cheaper electricity...we could get the heating done up north without so much oil usage.
Re:Oil not equal to nuclear (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Oil not equal to nuclear (Score:5, Insightful)
Ideally, I'd like to put up enough solar panels and wind turbines to power my house, charge my car, and sell back to the utilities.
Re:Oil not equal to nuclear (Score:5, Insightful)
Ahh...perhaps it's that little thing called "cost?" Independence from the power grid really sounds like a neat idea until you consider how much it costs to do it. Sort of like electric cars, which sound neat until you consider the cost to acquire one versus the utility and flexibility you can extract from it vis-as-vis a gasoline-powered vehicle of similar cost.
I'm not trying to be a downer on such ideas, though. I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy of so many of the wealthy "treehuggers" out there who have the means to do something about their energy consumption yet continue to shuttle around in limos, private jets, and occupy 15,000 sq. ft. mansions with an energy consumption the size of a small town. Environmentalism seems great to folks until you ask them to put their money where their mouth is.
Re:Oil not equal to nuclear (Score:5, Informative)
To the best of my knowledge, the amount of mercury emitted by my car's exhaust is zero. Mercury is THE major problem with coal, and it receives far too little attention.
Re:Oil not equal to nuclear (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oil not equal to nuclear (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Oil not equal to nuclear (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oil not equal to nuclear (Score:5, Informative)
A little more about wind power in Germany: they're aiming for 20% in about the next 10 years. And their experience is interesting; it turns out that when you have large numbers of wind farms all across the country, the wind is always blowing somewhere, and the problem with intermittent output starts to go away. (Requires, of course, a power grid able to deal with shifting inputs, which may require expensive upgrades.)
WRONG (Score:5, Informative)
C8H18 + O2 --> energy + H2O + CO2 (modulo a little balancing!)
Take energy from the nuclear plant, CO2 from the atmosphere, and every time a car burns that fuel, it's simply returning to the atmosphere, that which was taken from it. Carbon neutral octane!
This is NOT a crackpot idea, it's something that a federal lab [nytimes.com] has already worked out, and it can provide that fuel for $4.60 a gallon (before brilliant people optimize the process even further). That's not much more expensive than gasoline is today. To make it competitive, all you'd need is a $.60/gallon tax, and it's probably already competitive if introduced in the rest of the world which has higher fuel taxes.
I have no idea why this idea is not more widespead.
Re:Oil not equal to nuclear (Score:5, Funny)
Why not, American cars are big enough.
Re:Oil not equal to nuclear (Score:5, Interesting)
It is only 'weaponization' of the fuel...IF you put it in a weapon.
Frankly, we've got enough nuke weapons now, and aren't really looking for a new source of fuel for those. If we look into IFR (Integral Fast Reactors) and the like...we can make very efficient use of the nuclear fuel...and reduce the amounts of waste, and possible weaponizable by products.
We do have pretty good scientific minds in this country, if we'd just use them, and stop playing politics with all this....our energy needs should be above petty partisanship.
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Solar and Wind are nice and all, but it's Nuclear power that's going to pull our eco-bacon out of the fire; it is the cleanest source of power per kwh that we've got. Once we start reprocessing the waste, we'll be able to sustain output for a long time.
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Funny)
See: Pompei
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Funny)
Wise population centers do not locate themselves near large volcanoes. FTFM.
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Funny)
Dirty pagans. We decent Christians blame it on St. Helen.
rj
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Informative)
-Ted
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)
However, the greatest untapped energy source is, and always will be the sun. Things like using solar panels at your house and being more energy efficient will be our greatest step towards solving our energy problems. People themselves need to start taking their energy use into their own hands. Their are entire neighborhoods in the US who are self sufficient and actually give energy back. There is no reason why this idea cannot spread to more of the US. So rather than relying on 3rd party for all your needs, start thinking of how you can help at home.
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
If it were economical to harness energy from all those sources, don't you think the greedy capitalists would've been all over it?
The reason nobody wants to harness those sources is because they are inefficient compared to coal and oil. Spending money to get energy from inefficient sources only makes mankind poorer.
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nukes could solve a lot of issues (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Nukes could solve a lot of issues (Score:5, Funny)
I'm not sure what those are, but that's clearly what he said.
I think it has something to do with dancing at a riot.
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
But i agree with you, it didn't really have the effect he was thinking.
However, i would go so far as to say while nuclear is an very important piece of the domestic energy puzzle and needs to be brought back on track, its just one piece.
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Interesting)
Also...let's start drilling for our own oil reserves!! We have bans on drilling off of the east coast, the west coast, and even the eastern part of the Gulf. We have the capability to drill safely these days. Who knows...we might hit the motherload like Brazil did recently that I hear of?
We have TONS of shale oil that is starting to get cost efficient to process.
Why not do all these that are possible now to help our oil needs WHILE putting tons of money and research into the other alternative fuels?? I'm excited about ramping up , wind, solar and biofuels (particularly the algae and other processes to make fuel out of waste)...but, we need more oil now to ease the pain till the switchover.
In the US, we have got to get over the NIMBY. The gulf coast has carried the 'burden' for the drilling and refining for decades...we have to start having the whole country contribute...repeal the bans on drilling....
And it's only taken 2.9 decades (Score:5, Insightful)
You know - the guy who thought that if the US didn't RECYCLE nuclear waste back into fuel (which would SOLVE the "nuclear waste storage" issue) it would be an "example" to tin-pot dictatorships and insane genocidal religious nations like North Korea, Pakistan, India, Iran, Syria, China... and they wouldn't try to get nuclear weapons. Yeah, how'd that work out for us?
The guy who coddled so-called "environmentalists" to the point where we haven't built SAFE, CLEAN electrical power generation anywhere because nobody can get past the permits process and NIMBY enviro-wacko whining.
Think about it - even the founder of Greenpeace [wikinews.org] (who long ago left the organization when it became obvious the commies and inmates were running the asylum and not interested in real, rational discussion) says we need nuclear energy because so-called "renewable" sources are inherently (a) unreliable and (b) limited in the scope of what we can do with them.
Not just that (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Here they go again (Score:5, Informative)
Your use of "enviro-nutjob" and somewhat ODDLY placed caps also tends to UNDERMINE your argument by casting your comment as just a plain, old, non-enviro nutjob with an axe to grind.
-Ted
Re:Here they go again (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Seriously, WTF? (Score:5, Interesting)
Nuclear is a great idea. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Nuclear is a great idea. (Score:5, Informative)
Now all we need... (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, the NIMBY (not in my nackyard) and BANANA (build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything) mentalities have held back nuclear power as much as anything else, especially after TMI. Getting local communities to agree to construction will be no small task.
Re:Now all we need... (Score:5, Informative)
The amazing thing about TMI is that, had everyone left things alone and let the automated safety systems do their job, a normal shutdown would have occurred. Instead, the human operators intervened and basically did everything they could to cause a meltdown. Nonetheless, the whole thing went out with a fizzle, with essentially zero radiation being emitted to the outside. You'd probably receive more radiation smoking a pack of cigarettes or flying across country than you would have sitting in TMI's backyard.
Nonetheless I'm sure when the general population hears TMI they think (OMFG! Meltdown!!!!!111)
Re:Now all we need... (Score:5, Informative)
Number of people dead due to TMI incident [wikipedia.org]: zero.
Number of health problems conclusively linked to TMI incident: zero.
Amount of radiation to residents: 8-100 millirem.
Improvements in power station design since 1979: lots [wikipedia.org].
Chance of same incident happening again: ~zero.
Wha-huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wind and solar are great, and I support them also. But, $4 gas or not, all energy options should be on the table. And they should've been for about the last 30 years.
$5 a gallon? (Score:5, Interesting)
We go thru this all the time with them, they push prices up to where they get worried we might actually go find an alternative, then bring it down just enough ( but higher then before ) to quiet us down and lose interest in alternatives.
Its a cycle that most people are too stupid to see, and thus we are stuck in it.
Re:$5 a gallon? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm always amazed to hear Europeans try and compare Europe to the United States. Do you have any idea of the scale of the United States? Mass transit simply isn't an option for a vast majority of this country. Most Americans (particularly those in rural areas) have to commute to work, to buy groceries, etc, etc.
Nice way to stereotype but at least half of this country doesn't have ANYTHING within a mile of where they live. Where I grew up it was a four mile drive into town.
Re:$5 a gallon? (Score:5, Insightful)
What you may not realize is that America is, in general, much more spread out and less densely populated than Europe.
There literally isn't a single business within a mile of my house. I purposely chose my home location to minimize my distance to shopping/work, and we're still talking multiple miles to get to any of the above in different directions. 20-30 mile commutes each way are typical in my area, not exceptional, and I know more than a few people with much longer commutes. Public transportation is poor at best. (It's better in some cities.)
I'm not saying any of this isn't our fault as a country, but the situation in general is a lot different than yours with respect to driving.
I'm all for this, IF... (Score:5, Interesting)
The current reactor design is antiquated and hobbled by President Carter's decree that we will not reprocess nuclear fuel [pbs.org]. So instead of extracting 90+% of the energy in the fuel and having 100 year nuclear waste, we extract 2% and have 10,000 year waste with the once-thru fuel cycle [wikipedia.org]. Real smart, Jimmy. And he was a 'Nucular Engineer'!
Clarifying (Score:5, Informative)
Let me help clarify a few things.
1. In the 70's, our technology was not sufficient for reprocessing. It is arguably that we might have the ability to develop the tech now.
2. The HLW (high level waste) from reprocessing is hotter longer after final use than once through methods.
3. 10,000y is a design specification for HLW storage facilities. HLW is less radioactive than the materials dug up to make it after only 700y.
4. Furthermore, since HLW is loaded with rare earths and lanthanides, and our knowledge of their special and sometimes unique chemistry grows every day, and HLW is actually the only reasonable source for some of these elements, its possible that HLW would enter its own reprocessing cycle after just 200y.
Regards,
Jerry
Global Warming (Score:5, Insightful)
McCain is ancient and he'll be dead in a few years (Score:4, Insightful)
It is just more obvious because of McCain's age. Don't get me wrong, nuclear is currently the safest, greenest option that is economically viable, but promising things 20+ years into the future is pretty bad.
No Republican Nukes (Score:4, Informative)
In addition to Carter, here's who to blame... (Score:5, Informative)
With the election of President Bill Clinton in 1992, and the appointment of Hazel O'Leary as the Secretary of Energy, there was pressure from the top to cancel the IFR. Sen. John Kerry (D, MA) and O'Leary led the opposition to the reactor, arguing that it would be a threat to non-proliferation efforts, and that it was a continuation of the Clinch River Breeder Reactor Project that had been canceled by Congress. Despite support for the reactor by then-Rep. Richard Durbin (D, IL) and U.S. Senators Carol Mosley Braun (D, IL) and Paul Simon (D, IL), funding for the reactor was slashed, and it was ultimately canceled in 1994. [Just 3 years before completion.]
Emphasis mine. See all those bold 'D's for Democrat? Uh huh.
No Silver Bullet (Score:5, Insightful)
Look, we (US) have enjoyed our luxury of cheap single source energy. Now it is time to get with the program. We need ALL options for energy started now. Think of it as a diversified portfolio. So, I say the following:
YES! Drill for more oil and make some more darn refineries
YES! Build some nuclear power plants.
YES! Explore better ways to use coal in existing power plants.
YES! Build huge solar arrays and start larger solar power plants
YES! Build wave generated power plants
YES! Build wind generated power plants
YES! Build electric-based "commuter" vehicles
YES! Explore better ways to make bio-fuel
The government needs to subsidize some of the projects and needs to throw some money at these problems. If we deploy all of these strategies we may not get cheaper energy but we will get stable energy and maybe, just maybe avert major crisis as population and demand increases exponentially over the next 10 years.
So the two parties' basic energy policies ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Democrats: nationalize the oil industry, price controls on gas.
I'm not going to post which I think is which, but one seems rational and reasonable, the other is pandering to the masses with a policy that is not only short sighted, but dangerous.
Japan holds keys to nuclear plant construction (Score:5, Informative)
There was an article covered a while back (http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/14/1238233 [slashdot.org]) talking about the 600-ton steel forgings required for a reactor containment vessel and the fact that on one company in Japan can, currently, make them. Given that their production rate is only 5 per year and their first open slot is in ~2015, the US would need 80% of their output from 2015 to 2027 to hope to meet that goal.
Unless the rest of the world stops building nuclear plants or someone else starts making containment vessels, all this is just talk.
Re:no American power plants burn Oil (Score:5, Informative)
You know why?
Economics 101: Price controls create shortages. Every. Time.
Re:no American power plants burn Oil (Score:4, Interesting)
Um no. Regulations is exactly why we are in this problem. In the US the red tape that you have to cut through to drill new wells or even just to refine oil prevents many companies from opening new wells and refineries. In the rest of the world (Chindia, Mexico, etc...), the socialist policies that have capped and subsidized gas prices have led to the continued high demand even while prices surged. In a normal market economy demand would have already slowed (as it has in the US) and prices would have come down. I'm expecting demand in China to finally slow when they start removing gas subsidies after the olympics.
Re:Obama better support this too (Score:4, Informative)
Means the same thing really; McCain pushed so-called "clean coal" at the same time as he pushed Nuclear, [washingtonpost.com] which is a bit more Republican of him, since coal states are red states, and big electric has no desire to stop building coal plants.
Nuclear is the best of a lot of bad options, and regardless of presidents, the return to nuclear power has already begun, as witnessed by the resurge in permit applications since last year. [msn.com]
Re:Obama better support this too (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Obama better support this too (Score:5, Insightful)
s/crawling/attacking/
Re:Obama better support this too (Score:5, Informative)
Re:$4 for gas, come on (Score:4, Informative)
9.50 USD per gallon.
I can't recall when we had gas for 0.68 per litre (=4 USD per gallon), that must have been like 10 years ago. Quit whining.
Re:yeah, but (Score:5, Insightful)
...and the other two points. Sure, those are true but they didn't just magically happen either. It wasn't just because these countries are 'small' - much as Americans are so very fond of thinking of Europe (while they themselves tend to move very small distances from where they were born, as a statistic) - it's because the governments of Europe imposed tax penalties on fuel.
This was done to hit demand and create a market for fuel efficient vehicles and other practises that curb demand. It's worked too, oil burned per capita of people in Europe is a fraction of what Americans use and the CO2 output per capita is even more stark.
America retained the love of huge fuel inefficient cars, SUVs etc while the lobby-driven politics ensured it was political suicide for anyone to grow a spin and impose fuel taxation or indeed any other significant measures to break the American love affair with burning oil.
Most cars people drive in Europe are smaller, designed primarily for running costs and not the sound that a large capacity engine makes (you've got to listen to the round-tabel panel on Ward's Top Ten engines for a clue as to just how important they believe this junk to be), but instead the engines are more expensive and technically advanced to improve economy.
So baring this in mind, it's pretty unfair to suggest that Europe just got handed all of these advantages. They were hard fought and hard won. We've been paying decades of tax on fuel.
While you're whining about $4 a gallon, we're paying $5 a gallon JUST IN TAX. We're already driving around fuel efficient vehicles and paying through the nose with road/green taxes, CO2-based taxes, expensive emissions standards driving up costs of vehicles and servicing costs and have been for YEARS. So you'll have to excuse us if we don't have vast amounts of sympathy for the complaints coming from the other side of the Atlantic right now.
Re:$4 for gas, come on (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:McCain making steps in the right direction late (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:And it's only taken 2.9 decades (Score:5, Insightful)
The 70's were a different world. Nuclear power meant nuclear weapons, and the public opposition then to nuclear power is hard to even imagine today. Don't blame Carter for the hysteria of the day.