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The Department of Energy site has a list of new commercial reactor designs, along with brief descriptions of the various types. The Toshiba is included. http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/analysis/nucenviss2.html

FTA: Under favorable wind conditions, the 160-square meter kite shaped like a paraglider is expected to reduce fuel costs by up to 20 percent or more ($1,600 per day) and cut, by a similarly significant amount, its carbon dioxide emissions.

I'd read that as saving $1.6k per day(under favorable conditions).

Time for research:
Daily fuel cost: 7,900 AUD ~ $6.8k. 20% of that is 1.36K. But then, it assumes heavy fuel oil at $130/ton, current prices look closer to $200. Then again, the dollar's value has dropped, so it'd skew stuff the other way.

Anyways, $1600 looks to be in the right range to be the savings. And only heading up, from what I've seen of HFO price trends on that site.

yeah ofcourse, say say something impopular, like your environmental policies suck, and get modded into oblivion, well guess what, in Sweden, we dont burn any fossil fuels or coal for energy production.
we do however use 90% fossil fuels in our transportation still, but seeing as the united states according to http://www.eia.doe.gov/environment.htmlDOE alone are responsible for 20.5% of the total world emissions of carbon dioxide, USA as a nation bear a huge responsibility, and whats most frightening, the biggest opposition to change.

Mod the parent up. Also, it should be noted that 50,000 acres is a whopping 72 square miles. Add to this that wind generation can be placed offshore, and I'm not precisely clear on why 72 square miles is "SO MUCH LAND!" How much land does a nuclear power plant use? Looks to me like almost 1000 acres per plant. How much land and __upkeep__ does it take AFTER the fuel has been spent?

"Yes, it is proven."

No it's not..

Nuclear reactors don't work so well as a peakers.
    They need to run at constant(24x7) power output range.
        This often entails using steam turbine bypass valves and dumping the extra heat energy into the local enviroment.

As for your 200,000 MW claim.. Bogus..

    Just how does the US's 104 reactors, with a rated capacity of ~100,300MW(e) (2006), actual 24x7 production @89,865 MW come even close to your claim.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/nuc_generation/usreactors2006.xls

quicky estimates based on info from slashdot posts:

2% of US acreage = about 200,000 square meters
solar panels = about $500/square meter for 16% efficiency panels means $100M I have no idea what the construction and transmission infrastructure would cost. This does not include any kind of motorization of the panels to track the sun.
power output = about 150W/meter2 (in the field, not in the lab, no gaps between panels) means 300 megawatts total
http://global.kyocera.com/

US power demand in 2006 = 760 GigaWatts
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epat3p2.html

I call shenanigans on the %2 acreage will meet our power needs claim.

Even with vapourware 40% efficient panels there is just no freakin' way that'll work.
If you were to build the suggested 'pump water uphill' battery mega-construction project you would need much more than double your peak load so that you can meet demand while 'charging' for overnight demand.
So just pave over %80 of the USA and you'll be able to power everything with solar! fantastic!

Not the mention that a pumped-water battery large enough to power the USA overnight would be by far the biggest construction project in history and would have massive environmental consequences.

I agree, watching people mature through an infusion of reality is always good to see.

Her mention of "base load" is interesting. Here is a bit of back of the napkin computation to place the idea of replacing fossil fuel with atomic power in perspective:

At the moment about 50% of electrical energy in the US is coal. A bit less than 20% is atomic. The rest is natural gas and hydroelectric, with everything else safely labeled "other". A credible reference for this may be found here (pp. 224). Fossil fuel accounts for more than 70% of base load power generation.

At this moment there are 104 operational reactors at 65 sites in the US. To eliminate fossil fuel from electrical power generation, we must increase nuclear power from the current 20% of supply to 90%. That means the US will need a total of 540 operating reactors at approximately 330 sites (assuming equivalent reactor output and the ratio of reactors to sites, both of which are entirely probable.)

540 reactors, or more than 10 per state... Is that politically feasible? Not unless a whole mess of anti-nuke folks pull similar 180s and begin vigorously campaigning for nuclear power.

Now consider this; we have so far only examined electrical supply and consumption. Electricity does not directly serve transportation in the US to any significant degree. About 30% of the total energy consumed is attributable to transportation. Let's say two thirds of that could be supplanted by electricity if we all buy Chevy Volts in the next decade (because we probably won't live to see electric airliners...) Now we need several hundred more nukes.

In the end, you (unless you're a farmer living in b.f.e.) will be within driving distance of a 1-3GW nuclear facility. Yes, you. You'll probably pass it twice a day going to and from whatever server room you nurse burning all that power.

At this scale we'll need more than traditional natural Uranium burning reactors. We'll need an advanced fuel cycle involving true breeder reactors.

There is no *waste* that lasts 100,000 years. Most of the isotopes currently viewed as waste are very good sources of energy. Current reactors are not even built to utilize most of the fuel but to generate nuclear weapons hence the so called *waste*. For example, UK now has a problem with all the *waste* Plutonium being generated by its power plants!! That is the insanity! Plutonium is a better power source than U-235 if you have a real energy reactor. One of the few truly civilian reactors are the CANDU reactors designed in Canada. They utilize heavy water and breed Plutonium and use it for energy at the same time. No Plutonium *waste* there. Heck, they are used now to get rid off the US extra nuclear stockpiles - stuff that can't be handled by US reactors mailing because of the Plutonium content.

Secondly, don't be freaked out about radiation so much. If you were transparent to radiation such that a Geiger counter would see all the radiation going off inside of you (where the damage is done), it will go into a nice high pitched, continuous whine. You sid/madam, contain enough radioactive radioactive potassium for about 5000 events per second. Add that nice trails of cosmic muons hitting out every 0.5-1 second (enough to go right through you and ionize LOTS of stuff), and you are positively glowing :)

Also, coal has 2-3 ppm uranium and about 5ppm thorium (means, 1,000,000 pounds of coal have 2-3 pounds of uranium and 5 ponds of thorium). Since US burns about 2200 times that http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/coal/page/special/feature.html, US alone is releasing about 5000 pounds of Uranium and 10,000 pounds of Thorium into the air. Ok, there are those precipitators, but only about 50% effective on these things (unlike soot). So, about 1 metric ton of Uranium goes poof, into the air *NOW* in the US.

Anyway, most of the so called *waste* can be recycled. You only end up with maybe one small barrel of waste per large nuclear plant per year. That is much cheaper to watch that one can for 10,000 years than letting all the mercury from the coal power plants pollute the lakes such that we can't even fish there anymore. Sad.

http://www.computare.org/Support%20documents/Publications/Fission%20Fuel%20Conservation.htm

BTW: Uranium is not HOT. ANYTHING that has a 10,000 year half-life, by definition, is NOT hot. HOT stuff has a life time of seconds or minutes or maybe up to a few days. Hot stuff is used in medicine.

I was under the impression that the total amount of U235 peaked millions or billions of years ago.

Time was, the concentration of U235 relative to total Uranium was about 3%, high enough to sustain natural nuclear reactors. It is now less than 1% here on planet Earth.

Actually some very smart people have been devoting a lot of thought to figuring out how to label nuclear waste. They start from the assumption that all human languages, all residual knowledge, etc. disappear, and they have to communicate with future humans with whom they have nothing in common culturally the idea that this place is dangerous. I can't find the details, but here's a page on the topic: http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/factsheets/doeymp0115.shtml

You still havent read the article have you?

If you had read my post you'd realize I did read it. Maybe you didn't comprehend that.

Maybe we will use a transporter to get it out... or... wait... what else could we do? Oh, I know! We can DRILL... DEEP! Sorry about the sarcasm... but I even quoted the article and bolded the relevant sections...

"Deep within" is NOT "Deep Drilling".

with today's technology, is a deep drill reservoir/plant combo. There isnt ANY other way. I provided a BUNCH of links in my other posts.

And elsewhere I provided links showing deep drilling isn't necessary. Another example that shows deep drilling isn't needed is Iceland. The same can be said of Yellowstone, Hawaii, and I'm sure there are many others such as along the Ring of Fire and near Hot Springs. One person used geothermal produced electricity for a resort. Here are more examples where geothermal can be used while drilling less than 10,000 feet, that's no where near the depth of the Mariana Trench. Maybe you have a different definition of "deep drilling" but that's not too deep to me. Here's a page showing 14 places in California that produces geothermal electricity.

Try again.

Actually Canada is the number one supplier of Oil to the U.S.

Source: http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/company_level_imports/current/import.html

Energy Information Administration: Official Energy Statistics from the U.S. Government

See these:

http://www.ntc.doe.gov/cita/CI_Awareness_Guide/S5improp/Ci.htm#Counterintelligence

By the Numbers:

http://www.ntc.doe.gov/cita/CI_Awareness_Guide/Treason/Numbers.htm#Espionage%20by%20the%20Numbers

Get this:

"Here are a few additional highlights from this database that give us additional understanding about motivations and situational factors leading to espionage:

        * Over 42% of the offenders are known to have been involved in drug or alcohol abuse. The actual figure may be higher, as there are many cases in which the unclassified record is insufficient to make a judgment on this subject. Those who were caught before classified information was even passed were more likely to be substance abusers than those who succeeded in committing espionage.

        * Of the 148 offenders, 6 were homosexual, 106 heterosexual, and the sexual orientation of the remaining 36 is not known from the unclassified record. Homosexuality is not known to have been a significant factor in any of the cases.

        * Volunteer spies were more likely to fail in their effort to pass information to foreign interests. Almost 40% of the volunteers were caught in the act, whereas only 7% of the recruited spies were intercepted before they could damage national security."

Repeat for emphasis:

        * Of the 148 offenders, 6 were homosexual...

I saw a flyer, around 1991, stating that of ALL the known cases of espionage, treason, and similar, some 98%-99% of the persons caught/convicted/shut down were:

-white
-make
-heterosexual
-Christian

This seems to turn on its head the "susceptibility of homosexual" prospects/targets.... But, don't have to believe me, just look at the section "By the Numbers" and look at drug abuser risk, etc.

It seems to me the DIA/NSA/DIS/NIS/et al can do all the searching they want WITHOUT dicking around in the private lives of scientists or military personnel. Just keep burning those who screw up, and let the others "be on the best behavior".

But, somehow I think the government is just pursuing this as another component of wrecking the public tenuous thread to rights and expectations of privacy and anonymity.

See these:

http://www.ntc.doe.gov/cita/CI_Awareness_Guide/S5improp/Ci.htm#Counterintelligence

By the Numbers:

http://www.ntc.doe.gov/cita/CI_Awareness_Guide/Treason/Numbers.htm#Espionage%20by%20the%20Numbers

Get this:

"Here are a few additional highlights from this database that give us additional understanding about motivations and situational factors leading to espionage:

        * Over 42% of the offenders are known to have been involved in drug or alcohol abuse. The actual figure may be higher, as there are many cases in which the unclassified record is insufficient to make a judgment on this subject. Those who were caught before classified information was even passed were more likely to be substance abusers than those who succeeded in committing espionage.

        * Of the 148 offenders, 6 were homosexual, 106 heterosexual, and the sexual orientation of the remaining 36 is not known from the unclassified record. Homosexuality is not known to have been a significant factor in any of the cases.

        * Volunteer spies were more likely to fail in their effort to pass information to foreign interests. Almost 40% of the volunteers were caught in the act, whereas only 7% of the recruited spies were intercepted before they could damage national security."

Repeat for emphasis:

        * Of the 148 offenders, 6 were homosexual...

I saw a flyer, around 1991, stating that of ALL the known cases of espionage, treason, and similar, some 98%-99% of the persons caught/convicted/shut down were:

-white
-make
-heterosexual
-Christian

This seems to turn on its head the "susceptibility of homosexual" prospects/targets.... But, don't have to believe me, just look at the section "By the Numbers" and look at drug abuser risk, etc.

It seems to me the DIA/NSA/DIS/NIS/et al can do all the searching they want WITHOUT dicking around in the private lives of scientists or military personnel. Just keep burning those who screw up, and let the others "be on the best behavior".

But, somehow I think the government is just pursuing this as another component of wrecking the public tenuous thread to rights and expectations of privacy and anonymity.

Similar thinking?

Maybe not. It's so obvious, and not many people caught on so far as I've been reading...

Sort of off topic, here's interesting stuff:

http://www.ntc.doe.gov/cita/CI_Awareness_Guide/Treason/Caught.htm#How%20Spies%20Are%20Caught

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=2&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fas.org%2Fspp%2Fstarwars%2Foffdocs%2Fitar%2Fp121.htm&ei=CHBLR_HPLofkggTg2tzyCA&usg=AFQjCNFXF9DJcUP6LmR7kpM-fY7jdRktaQ&sig2=QNpZKrtN_wSYJABnPPkuNw

So, in the aim to protect the country, I imagine a LOT of students working internationally could inadvertently be caught up in ITAR, as this research could entail defeating or reducing effectiveness of military apparatuses. I mention this because someone mentioned a contractor could use a $10,000,000 windoze-based computer vs Linux and bill the government for it and profit. Since Linux and Open Source seem to have disdain or political or bureaucratic borders, "home defence" could just end up hurting a LOT of people...

What is MOST CONCERNING: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_hydride_bomb
"Even with these apparent problems, the great physicist Edward Teller pursued the work and detonated two of these bombs, giving off only a power of 200 tons of TNT. This was a great disappointment and discouraged further work."
(Suppose any terrorist group would be content with 200 tons of (radioactive) explosive potential and they would likely engage into research of this bomb type.
NOTE: The 1995 Oklahoma City, OK Federal Building bombing was caused by roughly 2.5 tons of explosives.)

The link FTA and two quoted paragraphs: http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com/
"Safer and Self Contained
Often referred to as a "cartridge" reactor or "nuclear battery," the Hyperion hydride reactor is self- regulating with no moving parts to break down or corrode. The inherent properties of uranium hydride serve as both fuel and moderator providing unparalleled safety among nuclear reactors.
Sealed at the factory, the module is not opened until it is time for the unit to be "refueled," approximately every five years or so by the manufacturer. This containment, along with the strategy of completely burying the module at the operating site, protects against the possibility of human incompetence, or hostile tampering and proliferation...
Hyperion is Cleaner
Because of the inherent properties of uranium hydride, Hyperion is "cleaner," producing only a tiny fraction of the waste produced by other types of reactors. Water is not used in the process, so there is no danger of pollution to local water bodies. And certainly, operation of the Hyperion reactor does not produce any greenhouse gases and allows for a cleaner atmosphere. The energy per module generated is 27 MW."

IF Water is NOT used, what is this "Steam Generation" thing mentioned? .... even heat exchangers can do eventually leak...

This device appears to be a "Sealed" 'Uranium Hydride' Nuclear Reactor with a 'Deuterium Hydrogen Isotope' moderator or partial 'Nuclear Poison' to control the spontaneous fission reaction rate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_poison

The stoichiometric chemical equation for Uranium Hydride is noteworthy: (2)UH3 = U + (3)H2
Hydrogen is Extremely Flammable in our atmosphere (Deuterium is isotopic form of Hydrogen) and so is Uranium Hydride (UH3):
"Uranium hydride is a brownish-black or brownish-gray, pyrophoric powder." http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/healthguidelines/uraniuminsolublecompounds/recognition.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrophoric
The flammability of UH3 and fuel-air detonation potential of chemically-decomposing UH3 and the Hydrogen generated was enough of a concern that the US Department Of Energy (Oak Ridge, TN) published a detailed study of the handling of UH3 in "glove box" conditions: http://www1.y12.doe.gov/search/library/documents/pdf/ydz-2351.pdf

It is possible that Hyperion Power Generation's PR "Spin" of its 'sealed portable 27 Million-Watt Nuclear Reactor' as being as safe as a common 'sealed AA battery' is incorrect.
Also, the suggestion that these devices SHOULD be used in third world countries is of great concern.

As suggested on Hyperion's web page, the use of these reactors for remote steam and electrical generation for oil extraction from Bitumen Sands IS cost-effective and DOES reduce greenhouse gases emissions for that process.
(It's a good thing that most of the Tar Sands are located in Canada and not the Middle East or Africa.) http://en.wikipedia.org/

Coal is that cheap energy you enjoy. Even if it's not part of your electric plan, you're still using it when shopping for other goods and services that are using it. Unless you plan on replacing it with something as cheep, everyone will feel the pain.

I only ask this. Once the cost of electricity goes through the roof because you were in favor of getting rid of coal; don't bitch about it! If you and your supporters are ok with this ramification, then by all means go for it.

So what is the war in Iraq about? Non-existent weapons of mass destruction? A non-existent link between Saddam and 9/11?

If it was just about America stepping in and helping an oppressed, dying people, why isn't there an American army in Darfur?

This isn't some religious belief, it's a position based on the presented facts. If you present an argument as to why I'm wrong, I'll consider my position.

In large portions of the US, we use this new-fangled thing called hydro-electric power, and we supplement it with wind power.

The United States of America reached peak oil production in 1970, but there are still contries that have not peaked, but will eventually.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/txt/stb0501.xls

Yeah right. You'd have better luck arguing about Iraq being to enrich Bush's contractor buddies. We could have done Iraq very much differently and gotten the oil cheaper, safer, and more reliably if it had truly been about the oil.

As you say, Iraq isn't all about oil. It's also about making defense contractors like Blackwater and all the mercenaries they employee rich too. At the same tyme they avoid any prosecution for human right violations and other crimes. The US has been doing this for years, in Columbia contractors are used to spray herbicides on coca fields, but a lot of it is sprayed on villagers food crops. It would of been cheaper to just let Saddam run Iraq like he did in the 1980s while the Reagan and Bush Sr admins supported him. Back then he was spraying Kurds and March Arabs with chemical weapons, he gassed Iran, and did a bunch of other nasty stuff but the US's support only ended when he invaded Kuwait, a Sheikdom not a democracy.

This is also a false attack in the part that oil is a trivial source of electricity in the USA - Coal is #1, followed by Natural Gas, Nuclear, and hydroelectric. Petrochemical production is 1.6% - Mostly from standby generators.

But what effects one energy sector effects others as well. I don't understand it but someone else shared a link explaining, now I can't find it.

Name an electricity provider that gets 'billions' in subsidies other than solar/wind.

1. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - FEDERAL
   "USA, FEDERAL, Annual. (Multiple fuels). Green Scissors: Cutting Wasteful & Environmentally Harmful Spending. 2004 report. 2003 report. 2002 report. Summaries of wasteful government programs, including many in the energy area." "Subsidies evaluated worth $37 - $64 billion per year to U. S. energy sector."
2. Energy Subsidies How do energy subsidies distort the energy market?
3. Energy Policy Act of 2005
4. Ten most distortionary energy subsidies
5. No Need for Energy Subsidies
6. "Reforming Energy Subsidies"[pdf]
   In the United States, for example, renewables and energy conservation together receive only 5per cent of total federal energy subsidies, according to studies carried out by the Government in 1999."
7. Running On Empty: How Environmentally Harmful Energy Subsidies Siphon Billions From Taxpayers
   January 31, 2002
8. Federal Energy Subsidies
9. "Energy Subsidies: Lessons Learned in Assessing Their Impact and Designing ..."
10. "Energy Subsidies: A Call for Better Data"

I hope that's enough for you.

The US is spending billions of dollars daily in Iraq subsidizing oil.

Yeah right. You'd have better luck arguing about Iraq being to enrich Bush's contractor buddies. We could have done Iraq very much differently and gotten the oil cheaper, safer, and more reliably if it had truly been about the oil.

This is also a false attack in the part that oil is a trivial source of electricity in the USA - Coal is #1, followed by Natural Gas, Nuclear, and hydroelectric. Petrochemical production is 1.6% - Mostly from standby generators.

Fact is is big companies receive billions of dollars in subsidies yet people make a big thing about individual taxpayers getting less than $100,000 in subsidies.

Name an electricity provider that gets 'billions' in subsidies other than solar/wind. Heck, show some subsidies that aren't dwarfed by the taxes the companies pay. At least the Mineral Leasing Act was intended to spur economic growth.

As for the less than $100k to individuals, think about it this way: There are 300 million citizens in the USA. If we give this subsidy to 1% of them, that's $105 Billion in subsidies for it. For that price we could have 100 brand new gigawatt reactors, that would produce 788 billion kWh a year, about 20% of our electric needs.

To put that into perspective, even if we figure that the solar subsidy gets 4% of the population off the grid, that's still a fifth of those getting power from the nuclear system, even before we figure in that the solar panels only power homes, whereas the nuclear plant 20% figure is for all consumers - including businesses and factories, aluminum smelters, etc...

Now think for a moment of how much pollution we could prevent if, in turn, we turned off a similar amount of capacity of the dirtiest power plants still in use.

US Navy designs, while safe, are also expensive and maintenance heavy. If you go with the 4S, you have a design that needs hardly any maintenance.

Problem? It's more expensive per kwh, enough so that shipping power a ways is still cheaper.

Big, highly centralised power stations are expensive to construct (about 2 billion/reactor)

They're currently looking at 1.5 Billion, but oh well.

expensive to maintain (average $126 million per reactor per year)

Looks about right. Nuclear cost report I eyeball the chart on page 11 at around $120 per kw, or $120 million for a gigawatt plant.

Expensive compared to what? At 90% capacity factor and .05 per kwh, it'll sell $394 million of electricity. Enough to, in the first year, pay the $200 million of interest(@10%) for the loans to build the plant, and pay down the loan $68M.

Using a handy dandy student loan calculator(principals the same, I just used 'k' instead of 'm'), the loan would be paid off in 13 years and 10 months. If it ends up costing only 1.5B, we're down to 8 years and 3 months. 5 years 7 months quicker isn't bad.

have long construction lead times (10-12 years) and are expensive in fuel, particularly when waste disposal costs are factored in.

People figure that they have the construction lead times mostly solved. New plants are expected to take 5-6 years.

Refueling, about $40million for a gigawatt plant every 18-24 months, or .46 cents per kwh. It also says O&M at 1.26 cents per kwh. Totals, 1.72 cents per kwh, or 168 million for the year. Raises payoff to 21 yrs, 8 months. Still less than most houses. 11 years even for 1.5billion construction cost.

In the USA at least, nuclear plants have been paying uncle sam for years to take care of the waste, have ended up taking care of it themselves so far, and are still profitable.

In fully economically deregulated environments, nuclear power simply can't compete with other clean technologies. It may be suitable for a limited set of circumstances, but it's not a final answer that deserves trillions of dollars of commitment. We need to keep looking.

In fully economically deregulated environments, solar and wind would be slaughtered by nuclear.

Solar, even the more cost effective thermal designs: 11-13 cents a kwh. Hint: I pay less retail for my electricity. Common figures per watt of capacity is $6.
Wind: Even if it's only $1/watt, it gets slaughtered by capacity factor - some farms are as low as 7%, most average 30% - meaning a gigawatt of wind turbines will only generate a third of the energy a nuclear plant of the same maximum capacity would. That raises capital construction costs for an equivalent generation of power to $3 Billion, a billion more than the nuclear plant - That's an extra $100 million in interest the first year. Just killed the fuel savings over a nuclear plant, didn't it? And wind farms aren't free from O&M costs either. Good locations are limited - a wind farm takes up more space than a nuclear plant, probably even if you only consider the footprint of the towers.

One large reason why we don't use more nuclear power in the US is because of the NRC has made it extremely risky to build and operate a plant. In the past, a power company had to apply for a permit to build a plant. Once they finished building it, they had to apply for another permit to operate the plant. Just because the plant was built, didn't mean you automatically got to use it. That's a huge amount of capital investment that you have no guarantee that you can even use.

Things are changing though, and currently (soon?) power companies will be able to apply for the build and operate permits at the same time, making it a much less risky proposition. Because of this Entergy and Dominion Energy are both looking at building new nuclear plants here in the US.

Secondly, reprocessing. The US's main focus for reprocessing is wrapped up in the Bush Administration's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP). This is a freaking scam, and the National Academy of Sciences backs me up. Basically, the types of reactors envisioned require materials science that just isn't there yet, requires funding that just isn't there yet, and requires an infrastructure that Just Isn't There Yet.

The solution is to turn Yucca Mountain into a medium-term repository. Bury it, safely, for 100 to 200 years, let the exceptionally hot stuff decay away, and I'm pretty darned sure civilization will be able to find some use for the energy stored in there in 100 years. But until then, let the technology mature. The commercial industry (and, by extension, every person in the U.S. who pays for electricity) has been paying into the Yucca fund for too long not to see any return on that investment.

Oh, one more snarky comment. Please provide support via links for your assertions; it's not hard. I would like to see evidence that after 30 years, the spent fuel coming out of a burner like envisioned for GNEP is actually less radioactive than the original ore.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/page/co2_report/co2report.html#electric

check out table 3 -- i had no idea that nearly 69% of the west coast's energy is produced from non-fossil sources. this might give folks some idea about what would be powering the car in each of the major regions...

since they are just a means to transfer wealth from person, organization, corporation, nation, etc to another while not actually accomplishing the task of diminishing co2 output only shifting it from those who don't produce to those who do, and why is it that co2 gets a bad rap in the first place since water vapor is a much more powerfull greenhouse gases http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/alternate/page/environment/appd_d.html

It's not that unusual there is evidence that natural nuclear reactions have taken place like the Oklo: Natural Nuclear Reactors. If you read about criticality accidents, they can occure in labs when fissile reactant are poured into "geometricaly unsafe containers" so while I don't know how much they are talking about, it's obvious the amounts are less than 10's of kg.

A US DOE report (here) calls this

The resources of the Bakken Formation are defined by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) as unconventional "continuous-type" oil resources. This means the hydrocarbons within the Bakken have not accumulated into discrete reservoirs of limited areal extent. Other examples of "continuous-type" oil or natural gas resources are from low-permeability (tight) formations (e.g. Austin Chalk), shales, and coalbeds.

so that means it will get economical to extract once the oil price goes way up.

Optimistic estimate of its contents is 270 million barrels, which compared to the USA oil consumption in 2003 of 20 million barrels would mean exploitation of this expensive low-concentration shale field would give 2 weeks more of oil consumption.

I don't know what you'd have to do to get all the oil out of shale; dig it all up and boil out the oil, or what?

Hum, global warming provides a cause fo genocide. Gore points this out. Gore points out that we can do something to stop global warming.... When you change your lightbulbs you are saving yourself some money and also contributing to a solution to warming induced conflicts. You don't have to change your lightbulbs. You can waste your money, kill more miners and contribute to genocide, but Gore has persuaded others to do this and it is beginning to show. US carbon dioxide emissions decreased 1.3% from 2005 to 2006: http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/flash/flash.html. There is more to do, as I said in my original post, but Gore is making a contribution.

That's funny, the DOE is reporting a decrease of 1.3% in the total US CO2 output in 2006, due mainly to industrial reduction. In fact, US industry produces less CO2 than it did in 1991, while total industrial input has risen steadily. Industry has become a whole lot more energy efficient than it was 20 years ago. This is mostly because energy consumption has become a primary cost factor in that sector. The sectors with the fastest growing CO2 output are Residential and Commercial, although the growth for 2006 in both of these categories was marginal. Both of these sectors have highly regulated energy prices in most states.

It seems like high energy prices are actually more effectual than Kyoto Protocols. Look how sharply they affected CO2 output in just one year. After all, are we going to be regulating residential consumption as tightly as Kyoto proposes to regulate industry? That's what the energy market is for, isn't it? To prompt a reduction in consumption in response to high prices?

Are you prepared for a government bureaucracy to instead try to limit how much CO2 you produce? Can you imagine what such powers a draconian state would require would require? I sure as hell don't want that.

Coal is becoming cleaner. Nuclear is coming back. Wind and Solar are DOA. Gasoline is on the way out.

We're gonna make it, just don't go all wobbly on us.

It does seem to be less than the record there. But we can hardly fualt (har har) the team for not digging the full 50 miles to the asthenosphere. :)

Security made progress, that's granted, but nothing is absolutely sure.

There are numerous major accidents. Rarely a huge toll (here is an example: ship new to service, not a 2nd/34rd world country, 20 people KIA out of 89), because there are no more huge cruise ships nor massive advertising before their their maiden trip, therefore most go barely noticed. If, on the other hand, nuclear plants go more and more numerous and bigger (powerful) the global risk (and local cost) of an accident will rise.

>> Building a clean coal plant costs now approx the same as a nuclear one

> Are you just agreeing with what I said?

Yes, but please don't neglect that "'clean coal' approach is pretty new and disruptive, therefore there are margins for savings."

> 'Clean Coal'
> still has the increased fuel costs of coal

There is plenty of coal in the US (no strategic problem), its cost is much more stable (uranium price is now at least 5x times 2001's) and it produces no very dangerous waste.

> and that's before you consider CO2 sequestriation

As already written: nope, in the proposed case study (see IGCC)

> Oh, and your link states $1,500-$2,000/watt, not a 'very minimum 2000+ per kW.'

Nope. The Platts document states that:
-=-=-=-=
Generation II" nuclear power unit -- of the type China has built ((...)) $1,500 to $2,000 per installed kilowatt. The figures are even higher for Generation III plants
=-=-=-=-

Will somebody try to build a brand new generation 2 plant (less secure) in the US? Therefore it will be a G3, which costs are "Even higher" than $2000/kW, which is what I wrote (isn't "very minimum 2k" equivalent to "even higher than 2k"?)

> when it comes to retrofitting it frequently isn't, because it costs so much more

True on the short term, but when we have to switch a country retrofitting as soon and much as possible often makes sense because it also switches most of the existing chains (supply, skills...). Be keeping old stuff around one just makes it harder for all to switch. You are right in that most will not replace nearly new stuff, but incentives have to somewhat speed up the reform of at least middle-aged obsolete energy guzzlers.

> Homes can last centuries.

That's less and less true, helping insulating.

> IGCC still loses a couple efficiency points when you tack on sequestriation

True but marginal and could be coped in the coming years.

> As for the waste - like I keep saying, it's ~95% fuel still. The remaining 5% will reach ambient in a couple hundred years

All I know is that the DOE tries hard to ensure that the repository (Yucca) will be sure for 1 million years, by an EPA requirement.

> Decommisioning is paid for in the USA by a fund

In the UK the first major decommission campaign caused a shock: estimated costs were way, way underestimated. Let's bet that, at this point of time, taxpayer money will (as usual) cover deficient private companies.

> in seeking higher efficiencies they ended up sacrificing durability. Is saving a kw/h a week worth cutting 10-25% of a system's useful lifespan? Heck, for a while they were making homes so well sealed that many became chemical disasters from buildup of home cleaners/chemicals*.

I f

Are low-cost low-tech, not adequate for baseload.

> photovoltiacs are 4-10 times as expensive.

Again: the TCO is the only good measure. 10 times more expensive lasting 50 times more is a good deal. I'm not the one ignoring arguments, there.

> Biomass makes plenty of sense in some areas - Heck, my grandmother uses it to heat her house. Still, there's very little sense in trying to use it for electricity

One many usages it replaces gridpowered or oil-burning stuff.

> we're better off rendering it to ethanol or biodiesel

It may be true on a large scale.

> I've never liked Sen. Kennedy, but that was one of my head shakers. The current hypocrisy of many of the 'green' politicians irk me tremendously

I agree, but judging anything by the use most politicians have of it is often condemning it

>> That's one of the most weird assertion touted by the nuclear industry. It is not solid and leads to implicit very disputed "conclusions". Briefly: radionuclides emitted by coal plants are not very active nor concentrated.

> They're the same particles

Indeed. This was not my main argument

> studies of high-background radiation areas vs low-background radiation areas have found no increased levels of cancer.

Some found a relationship, that's why the linear model is the official one. There is also this radiation homeostasis thing. All this is pretty complicated, moreover we will only be able to count the harmed when the last nuclear waste will be cold. Putting abruptly "coal-plants emissions are more dangerous than nuclear ones" is absolutely ridiculous.

> Coal electricity generation is one of the larger producers of CO2 in the USA. Shutting them down, besides eliminating all the real pollution they produce, would drop our CO2 emissions by quite a bit. Cheap power can help to develop affordable alternatives to oil powered vehicles.

I agree, but some messages are at least understood by some as "nuclear power plants will solve the CO2 problem", this is ridiculous

> you could collocate an ethanol plant to help make use of the waste heat.

Co-generation is no specific to nuclear (it is much more rarely used in a nuclear plant because of some risk, induced or at least perceived)

> you'll never be able to convince me that nuclear power isn't safe

Chernobyl. TMI (no one knows for sure why it did not degenerate into a complete meltdown). Yeah, there are people saying that the tech is OK now, just as some said, before the disaster/incident that those Cherno/TMI plants were safe.

> I won't be able to convince you that it can be done safely.

Mostly because I somewhat know about security. In a word: there is no perfect answer nor absolute shield. Also: because the nuclear "camp" is one of the most secretive and propagandist (there is a bunch of plain liars, there).

> the highest target you've mentioned is 40% renewable In 2025, for a switch which began in 1997. That's 35 years. We now have 150 years of coal use, and 100 of oil use (with approx 70 of hard dependence). Given the ridiculous amount of R&D done on renewable those 30 last years (worldwide), this is an ambitious achievement.

> we'd still need to make up the remaining 60%

Coal produces 52% of US electricity (grid power). Let's add clean coal (it already started, at the federal and local level) and energy conservation, and we are done with the coal problem with no new nuclear plant.

If they can make this work I think it's great. The current U.S. consumption of oil is about 5.2 Million bb/d, and there is about 950 Million acres of farmland as of 2002. One barrel of crude equals about 42 gallons of gasoline according to this. So we can safely say that one acre is about a barrel of crude according TFA. I think that is very doable provided that it actually works. Much better solution than ethanol if you ask me, which has proven time and again that if we want to go with corn ethanol that there isn't enough farmland in the U.S. Now granted that 40kg is optimal so if we allow say 8 million acres for this I think we may even have a surplus of energy. That is the kind of idea I like to see.

One issue that has yet to be addressed in the emerging discussion about large-scale development of synthetic fuels is the enormous increase in primary energy use and carbon emissions inherent in conversion of gaseous and solid carbon sources to a usable liquid form, assuming the energy used to drive the process comes from burning coal or hydrocarbon fuels. Recent work by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory indicates that full fuel cycle greenhouse gas emissions for coal-based synfuels are nearly twice as high as their petroleum-based equivalent. Emissions of other pollutants are vastly increased as well, although many of these emissions can be captured during production.

An anon comment, referring to E.ON Netz Germany which is mainly (if not only) on shore. Let's forget about it.

> Wiki

Here it is: "Offshore ... Capacity factors (utilisation rates) are considerably higher than for onshore and near-shore locations"

Remember that even nuclear plants did not immediately reach their present impressive capacity factor: it took 40+ years

Offshore windfarms will gain from better site selection and more ambitious approaches enabled by technology enhancements.

On particularly favorable locations and in theory some can run an impressive 96% of the time (8440 hours per year), and at 5 MW full power 38% of the time. On an existing site: Since opening in 2000, the turbines at this wind farm have had an average capacity factor of 52% and, according to this report, in 2005 averaged a world record 57.9%..

Providing insurance costs, for example and to begin with the insurer have to maintain an allocation (reserve). To think otherwise is to deny the vast amounts of money involved in the insurance biz.

> Every claim against the nuclear energy industry, ever, has been paid out of the funds that are paid into by the industry.

Claims are only part of the big picture, and there are numerous cases of spent taxpayer's money. Secrecy hides many tricks, but not all.

The trick is simple: underestimating costs, then letting taxpayer's money pay the difference and compensations to the industry. If a real cost appears the company involved is no more around to pay.

Here is an application: the only potential solution for nuclear waste is now the "Yucca Mountain Repository". It is studied since nearly 30 years, scheduled since 20 and can only "solve" the problem (there is no consensus about this), at the current rate of waste production up to 2014. Worse: after many postponings it will not open before 2017 and most people concerned simply don't want this to happen and even citizen not affected by the "Not In My Backyard" syndrom don't want anyone to coerce them.

The DOE has to cope with the waste by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, which says "the DOE will cope with waste, thanks to money paid by the nuclear industry" (leading to the Yucca Mountain project).

We are talking about big bucks, there: a GAO report (established for the Congress), stated in 2001 (page 2) that "Estimates of the potential damages vary widely, from DOE's estimate of about $2 billion to the nuclear industry's estimate of $50 billion.". The footnote 11 (page 19) is also interesting: then (2001) "concluded that DOE's schedule for licensing, constructing, and opening the repository by 2010 was optimistic by about 2 years and that DOE's estimate of the total cost of the program over its 100-plus-year lifetime--$58 billion (2000 dollars)--was understated by about $3 billion.". Remember: the opening date is now 2017. This imply new costs/risks (project failure)/claims/temporary storage/... Don't worry: taxpayer's money will, as usual, pay!

And here is a case: during "Maine Yankee" nuclear power plant decommission, for example, there was a lawsuit: Maine Yankee owners tried to get the DOE (dept. of Energy) pay (isn't this a "claim"?) for part of fuel removing (by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act), and won (approx 75M bucks). Isn't DOE's money taxpayer money? Better: two companies exploiting the plant were also awarded, for a grand total of 152 million. Granted, those companies payed during years for temporary storage because DOE failed to tackle the task (which has an explanation: failure to receive approvals for Yucca, which postponed it and added to the costs), but AFAIK the balance between their temporary storage costs and those earnings is positive: Maine Yankee wins taxpayer's money because the DOE promised to take care of the waste, and failed. Here is the best part: the DOE will very probably, beyond the awards, be coerced into removing the fuel. Yep, the taxpayer (again) helps some easy accounting write-offs. Anything "costs less" when taxpayer money discreetly pays!

Moreover this decommissioning seems to be done by rubblization which "is in fact a serious abrogation of law and environmental policy as currently evidenced by Maine and Connecticut legislation mandating that there will be no "low-level" radioactive waste

We had some oil, but needed more, so we went to the Middle East.

Actually the US gets doesn't get as much oil from the Middle East as many think. Of the top 4 suppliers of oil Canada is the biggest supplier, Mexico is second, Saudi Arabia is third, with Venezuela fourth. Here's a list of the 15 top suppliers the US gets oil from. Three are Middle Eastern and another 5 in Africa. However because oil is traded on a world market the US feels anything that affects the world supply of oil.

Definetly no. The industry doesn't even represent the major electricity consumer anymore. That applies with some variation to any country in the world. Besides that simple fact... The statement that nowadays industrial proccesses are the state-of-art energy efficiency model is ridiculous. Sometimes entire proccesses rely on obsolete machinery and techniques. Many matters other than energy bills keep them from changing.

And you may have noticed the invasion of home hardware.

Turning off unneccessary household machinery is significant to prevent waste. Commercial and residence building projects can contribute to improve energy use efficiency.

And, unfortunately or not, waste is essential to keep alive modern economy.

All of these things are better than oil, especially given the foreign dependencies that entails.

We rely too much on natural gas and petroleum. The exporters of those feel their power and twist the arms of the importers. The money made from gas and oil are insane and they are the foundation of too many of the world's tyrants and lunatics-in-power. Cut their revenue streams and they will suffocate.

We rely too much on natural gas and petroleum. The exporters of those feel their power and twist the arms of the importers. The money made from gas and oil are insane and they are the foundation of too many of the world's tyrants and lunatics-in-power. Cut their revenue streams and they will suffocate.

We rely too much on natural gas and petroleum. The exporters of those feel their power and twist the arms of the importers. The money made from gas and oil are insane and they are the foundation of too many of the world's tyrants and lunatics-in-power. Cut their revenue streams and they will suffocate.

We rely too much on natural gas and petroleum. The exporters of those feel their power and twist the arms of the importers. The money made from gas and oil are insane and they are the foundation of too many of the world's tyrants and lunatics-in-power. Cut their revenue streams and they will suffocate.

Personally, the lower gas prices and less vulnerability to foreign energy suppliers are the two best reasons to switch to nuclear. If you're a peace activist, who doesn't like "Blood for Oil", again you should be giving your wholehearted support to nuclear energy.

Personally, the lower gas prices and less vulnerability to foreign energy suppliers are the two best reasons to switch to nuclear. If you're a peace activist, who doesn't like "Blood for Oil", again you should be giving your wholehearted support to nuclear energy.

he half-life of plutonium is about twenty-thousand years. Only a tiny speck of will start a fatal cancer if inhaled or ingested.

Michael, according to the US Department of Energy, the risk of plutonium is somewhat exaggerated:

As a note, the common myth that plutonium is the "deadliest substance known to man" is not supported by the scientific literature. It poses a hazard but is not as immediately harmful to health as many chemicals. For example, for inhalation - the exposure of highest risk - breathing in 5,000 respirable plutonium particles, about 3 microns each, is estimated to increase an individual's risk of incurring a fatal cancer about 1% above the U.S. average "background" rate for all causes combined.

How are we going to store the nuclear waste in such a way that no one is hurt by it? Who will guard this facility for a million years? How much will that cost?

First, there's no reason to dump large quantities of plutonium. It's viable reactor material. Second, we can vitrify (turn into glass) nuclear waste and fix most of it in place for geological periods of time. Third, it's irresponsible to worry about a material, 40 half-lives later. That's a decline in amount by a factor of roughly 10^12. Finally, it's not our responsibility to protect people a million or even a thousand years from now from a slightly elevated risk of death. This more rational approach is reflected in how we handled our other refuse. Where's the protection a million years down the road for our junkyards, garbage dumps, and other dump sites? These present a greater risk down the road since heavy metals have no half-life. Where's the giant concrete pylons of doom that will warn future generations for hundreds of thousands of years that CRTs, rechargeable batteries, and mercury thermometers lie herein?

I think that before any new nuclear facility is licensed, its operators should be required to pay in advance for the disposal of its spent fuel. I don't think it's right that the cost should be borne by the taxpayer.

I see this a LOT. The fact is, we import more oil from Russia, Algeria, and Nigeria than we do from Iraq. About 4% of our oil comes from Iraq. We use less than 25% of the oil that Iraq exports. Percentage-wise, the EU imports nearly twice as much Iraqi oil as the US.

Maybe we should just hand the bill to the EU for protecting their oil supplies... Oh, that's right. They had no problem violating UN resolutions and international law with the whole oil-for-food scandal...