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Naturally they are err-ing on the safe side. The restrictions placed on exposure are no where near the fatality rate. Light radiation sickness begins at about 50â"100 rad (0.5â"1 gray (Gy), 0.5â"1 Sv, 50â"100 rem, 50,000â"100,000 mrem). High fatality rates occur at ~400 rems.* The EPA sets a 25 to 75 rad restriction on workers involved in emergencies (such as these). They do not want to go past light radiation sickness. The plants did spike to a rather high amount on the initial day (~700 mrem). However, that has come down extremely quickly. This morning it was measured at 75mrems just outside the front gate. Used fuel storage typically emits 2mrems per hour. While the lack of water is a concern, it is not nearly as bad as the claims make. The average dose on workers has been high enough to push them into the EPA restrictions, the public dose has been significantly smaller. While it is cause for concern, it really isn't that bad. http://www.nei.org/resourcesandstats/documentlibrary/newplants/factsheet/faq---japanese-nuclear-energy-situation/ * http://www.ornl.gov/sci/env_rpt/aser95/tb-a-2.pdf

World Nuclear News This site is fantastic.

Nuclear Energy Institute's site

Atomic Insights Blog

An Engineer In DC

But I'm a little biased for the last one ... that's me.

I work in the power industry and I keep a pretty close eye on this. There are a number of nuclear plants that are coming.

This link lists the currently planned plants for nuclear alone. (see the .xls on the right)
http://www.nei.org/resourcesandstats/documentlibrary/newplants/graphicsandcharts/newnuclearplantstatus/

This link discusses the progress of the NRC to implement nuclear options.
http://www.nei.org/keyissues/newnuclearplants/

I work in the power industry and I keep a pretty close eye on this. There are a number of nuclear plants that are coming.

This link lists the currently planned plants for nuclear alone. (see the .xls on the right)
http://www.nei.org/resourcesandstats/documentlibrary/newplants/graphicsandcharts/newnuclearplantstatus/

This link discusses the progress of the NRC to implement nuclear options.
http://www.nei.org/keyissues/newnuclearplants/

Licensing costs are too expensive to justify anything but the 1600 MWe behemoths using standard fuel cycles with proven technology.

Citation needed.

Here's my own, The average non-fuel O&M cost for a nuclear power plant in 2009 was 1.46 cents / kWh. That includes licensing. Or this:

Issue #1: The New Licensing Process [ppt]

• The Mythology: The old licensing process was a major factor in the collapse of nuclear power in the U.S.
• It has now been repaired by changes in law and regulatory policy, paving the way for the renaissance.

As if that's not enough here are some more links:

1. Hooked on Subsidies...
   "How do France (and India, China and Russia) build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don't. Governmental officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors."
2. Is it time to press reset on nuclear?
   "Cost overruns, delays in building reactors are sapping a nuclear revival"
3. Study warns of cost overruns at proposed reactors - MarketWatch
4. Cost Overruns at Finland Reactor Hold Lessons
5. Boiling The Frog: Nuclear Optimism Hides True Costs Till It's Too Late
   "The Frog Jumps: The Ontario Story. Last week the Ontario government put plans to build 2 new next-generation reactors on hold, after it received bids "more than three times higher than what the Province expected to pay", according to a story in the Toronto Star. The only "compliant" bid -- one where the supplier would be sufficiently at risk if costs exceeded the amount quoted -- was reportedly a $26 billion quote from Atomic Energy of Canada, Ltd, equal to roughly $10,800 per kW."
6. Nuclear construction delays in Finland's Olkiluoto 3
7. Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant

"but there are good reasons to subsidize them: they're better, and will cost the public less in the long run once we're converted to using them predominantly."

I challenge your statement. Show that they're better and cost the public less in the long run than Nuclear? You can't just make such a statement with no argument, evidence, or proof.

First, how are they 'better'? True, they don't use radioactive fuel, but that is a manageable problem - we can reprocess and re-use the 'waste' in breeder-reactor plants, and the final 'waste' products will be material which only remains radioactive for about 300 years, which we can safely store, and which should not cost us too greatly to store for a few centuries (the huge costs associated with storing nuclear fuel, I believe, only is incurred if you are trying to store waste for 100,000 years, but we DO NOT NEED to store it that long if we burn it off first.

If for no other reason than dealing with our current nuclear waste 'problem', we really need to start building breeder-reactors (or some other technology [maybe thorium nuclear?] which can burn off the long-lived waste). Building enough reactors to burn off the waste would, conveniently, also provide us with nuclear power for 200-500 years, according to estimates I've seen.

We know from 50 years of operational experience that U.S. Nuclear plants have about a 90% capacity factor (Source: Nuclear Energy Institute ) - that is the industry as a whole, will on average, generate 90% of the theoretical maximum 'faceplate' energy during the sample period (individual nukes do get shutdown for maintenance and refueling periodically, which is why the capacity factor isn't 100% - during operation they will, I believe, typically run at or near 100 percent, and for long periods - 3 to 4 years at a time with no outages). We also know that most plants that actually get built do pay for themselves and make a profit in the long run (I think TMI is the only exception, but not positive about that), all while selling electricity at competitive prices with other sources (coal is about the only one which, if you don't consider the environmental costs, is cheaper than nuclear, I believe).

Nuclear Plants are expensive, but when you look at the total lifetime power produced, they *do* make financial sense. If we can get the price of building nuclear plants down, which should be possible, that becomes even more true.

In operation, everyone agrees they produce almost no carbon dioxide (I think you can account a small amount of CO2 to a nuke plant for things like vehicles and grounds maintenance equipment [tractors, mowers, wheedwackers, etc], and emergency diesel generators to power the control and safety systems at a plant when outside power is lost), but it's pretty small.

Of course, operation isn't the only carbon we have to account for when considering carbon footprint: I found this article at Nature.com, which discusses the topic a bit.

There is the CO2 that would be generated in manufacturing the materials for the plant, transporting materials to the plant for construction, doing the actual construction (cranes, diggers, etc), which might add up to quite a bit of carbon - I'd like to find a source for what that is - but I don't think the carbon for building nuclear is worse than the carbon needed to build an equivalent generation capacity of wind farms - it takes lots and lots of wind turbines, since they run at about 30-40% capacity factor, to be equivalent to a 1-2GW nuke), and of course there is carbon for decommissioning of the plant (again, need to find a source for that number). There may also be carbon emissions associated with the mining, processing, and transportation of nuclear fuel.

Now what I'm about to say applies equally to any power source who's actual operation does not produce

1. people can get over it.

2.Plane + nuclear plant != chernobyl.
http://www.nei.org/newsandevents/aircraftcrashbreach/

3.Most of that spent fuel can be used as fuel. We need modern designs not old style fear.

Nuclear power does not create all the much waste. Unlike coal, we know where the waste goes.

Nuclear Waste: Amounts and On-Site Storage

"Over the past four decades, the entire industry has produced about 62,500 metric tons of used nuclear fuel. If used fuel assemblies were stacked end-to-end and side-by-side, this would cover a football field about seven yards deep. "

Regarding your non sarcastic points:

2. to have the owners of the plant fully pay for waste storage costs

It already works like that.

3. to have the owners of the plant assume full liability for damages from accidents

The NRC gives out some pretty hefty fines for events that have a chance of causing issues. Despite this, the bigger whammy is when the plants are forced to shut down and fix those issues. They lose something close to $1,000,000/day when they aren't generating electricity, so having that suddenly happen is a decent incentive for said owners to avoid accidents.

If you want evidence of this being a good incentive, perhaps you should look at the capacity factor of different types of power generation facilities. For your reference, nuclear's capacity factor in 2008 was 91.5%, versus the other baseload technology (coal) which ran at 70.8%.

Guess which industry takes safety and reliability more seriously.

My point is that nuclear is cheap in the long run. It's still fairly cheap in the long run if you add the costs of the plant. I'll cite a source. It's environmentally friendly too (scroll down to the External Costs section).

Nuclear power plants are required by the NRC to put aside funds for their decommissioning during operations. Companies work with federal and state regulators to ensure enough money is set aside. These funds are not under the direct control of the companies and cannot be used for purposes other than decommissioning.

It then lists the types of decomissioning funds in page 3. I assume the issue here is they put the money into an external sinking fund invested in a trust fund. Then the market bottom fell off. Ah, the wonders of capitalism.

1. If a Primary coolant pipe leaked it would be contained because it is would be in the containment building that is one of the reasons you have them.

2Whoosh..
Even bringing up the Titanic is yet another simple minded attempt to bring fear into this.
What did it have anything to do with anything. It was silly.
But if you want to work with it I will your bringing up that Chernobyl when talking about a modern western light water reactor is kind of like someone bringing up that Titanic as a reason for not going on a modern cruise ship!
"Lets go on a cruise."
"No it is too dangerous remember that Titanic."
"But this ship will have enough lifeboats unlike the Titanic."
"No remember the Titanic it could still sink too fast to get in the life boats!"
"But it has Radar and GPS and satellite communications so it can avoid storm, reefs, and even icebergs!"
"But it could run into one that is totally under water!"
"But we are going on a Caribbean Cruise! There are no icebergs!"
"Just because nobody has ever seen one doesn't mean that they are not there"!
Bringing up Chernobyl or the Titanic when talking about a modern western reactor is NOTHING BUT A FEAR TACTIC.
The both have the same validity to the subject. Nothing at all.

Okay want some sources that disagree with yours
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf02.html
http://www.nucleartourist.com/basics/costs.htm
http://www.nei.org/keyissues/
Of these are pro nuclear sites but before you dismiss them just realise this. If there where studies of nuclear power that positive results wouldn't pro-nuclear sites post them?
Also wouldn't anti-nuclear sites dismiss them?

Plus you know that France gets the majority of their power from nuclear, Japan gets a lot of from Nuclear, and China is planning on building more reactors "made by GE no less". I find it hard to believe that those nations are being "taken in" and building plants that are no economic to build and run.
And your source isn't a journal of technology, physics, engineering, or economics!
It is a journal of sociology which can include some economics but would probably lack the technical expertise in the subject of Nuclear Engineering or even power generation.
I have seen similar studies. They all use older US plants as the source of their cost data. That is going to give you skewed data because those plants are all over 30 years old in design and each of them was a custom design. The had huge cost over runs because of that. Add in the problems with regulators after TMI and the costs are terrible. If you use modern standardized reactor designs like those used in France and China the costs totally different

Oh and here is one final article but not a study.
It is from one of the founders of Greenpeace about why he was wrong about Nuclear and now supports it along with the reasons.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/131753?GT1=43002

Simple fact seems that you fear nuclear power. No study or history of safe plant operation in the West will convince you because you have made up your mind. Anything that confirms your fear you will embrace and that which contradicts you will reject.
The West had decades of experience running nuclear power plants with France getting something like 80 of it's power from nuclear and Sweden getting around 50% all with reasonable costs and very good safety. The US also has a very good safety record even with TMI.

Insurance pools have paid approximately $71 million to date in claims and litigation costs connected with the Three Mile Island 2 accident. http://www.nei.org/keyissues/safetyandsecurity/factsheets/priceandersonactpage4/ A quick google search shows you're off by a bit. But still, good point, TMI was a non-event.

At a cost of $5.85 billion, and assuming a lifetime of 40 years, an interest rate of 6%, this nuclear plant will have an annual mortgage of $389 million. With a nameplate rating of 1100 MW, if it runs 92% of the time, it will produce 8.9 billion kWh per year, so the capital repayments will amount to $0.044/kWh, assuming it doesn't go over budget. Assuming an optimistic cost for fuel around $0.005/kwh, this gives a total cost of $0.049/kWh, neglecting the cost of maintenance, waste disposal, and any risk of contamination or weapons proliferation.

Now let's look at a new wind farm. A 50 MW wind farm would cost around $96 million (at $1923/kW), which yields an annual capital repayment of $7.5 million (assuming a lifetime of 25 years). If the plant runs at a 35% capacity factor, it will produce 153 million kWh per year. So the total cost will be $0.049/kWh.

So, which would you rather spend $0.049/kWh on -- a nuclear plant that might go over budget, might leak radiation at some point during its life, whose waste will need to be carefully controlled and permanently stored somewhere that hasn't yet been identified; or a wind farm whose costs are much more certain and which comes without all those ancillary risks?

Yes, any individual wind farm will not provide a firm supply of power. But if a lot of wind farms are used, and they are combined with solar, geothermal and other renewable resources, they will provide a fairly stable power supply. There is also a lot of potential for reshaping electricity loads to match the supply of power (e.g., recharge electric vehicles when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining). And finally, if you must have a firm supply of power, you can convert a wind farm into a completely firm supply (at 35% of its nameplate rating) by spending about 10% extra and building rarely-used natural gas peaker plants ($634/kW * 35% = $222kW).

>Nope. It's the cost thingy. It costs big bucks to build a nuclear plant. As a result the power is expensive.

Excuse me, but the cost of nuclear power, even with the annualized construction, operation, mining, and supply management averages at or slightly less than coal (not clean coal). Here's a lovely article to add to the mix: Nuclear Cost Per Kilowatt Hour

http://www.nei.org/newsandevents/usednuclearfuel/

From the EPRI:
Computer modeling on aircraft impacts conducted by EPRI in 2002 confirmed the strength of used fuel storage facilities, and the worst-case scenario approach taken by the NAS on events with very low probability does not lend itself to informed decision-making by policymakers. State-of-the-art computer modeling techniques applied in the EPRI aircraft study determined that typical nuclear plant containment structures, used fuel storage pools, fuel storage containers, and used fuel transportation containers at U.S. nuclear power plants would withstand these impact forces despite some concrete crushing and bent steel.

Of course, it begs the question: How much of our current resources will it take to create/maintain these plants?

When they say '6 to 8 cents per KWh', it generally covers construction, O&M costs. Resources generally abstract out to dollar costs.

Basically, they generally assume you get a loan with a payoff duration of the expected lifespan of the plant. Say 20 years. They figure O&M will cost so much per year, and so many KWh will be produced. Simple division gives you O&M cost per KWh. Then you figure in the annual loan payments*. Divide and you get an expected infrastructure cost for the plant per KWh. Add the two. 6-8 cents per KWh isn't actually that bad. It'd be economical in California, for example, if not quite there for North Dakota(besides the whole 'less sun' thing).

Let's do a bit of comparison with what I think we need more of, nuclear plants.
$1 Billion, 1 Gigawatt plant. 90% load factor. Let's say 4% interest, plant life 40 years.
The interest and capital will be $50 million per year. (4.18M per month)
Random webpage says $50M for Operations
NEI says 1.26 cents per KWh, including fees for eventual disposal and decommisioning.

We can expect our plant to produce about 8B KWh a year. This translates to $100 million O&M per the NEI. I'll use this one.

This all translates to nuclear being around 1.9 cents per KWh. In comparison, I wouldn't say that this would be economical. Even if you knock the nuclear plant down to 20 years, it only increases the cost pre KWh to 3 cents.

*I often use a mortgage calculator that you can punch in duration, interest rate, and amount and it gives you monthly payments. It's intended for houses, but works equally well for cars and billion dollar nuclear plants. ;)

According to this: http://www.nei.org/newsandevents/1999productionrecords/ the 103 commercial nuclear reactors in the US provide 20% of the nation's electrical energy, and wikipedia asserts that a typical nuke plant produces 1 GW of power. So presumably about 100 GW of electrical generation is 20% of our electrical needs.

Also from wikipedia, the Nevada Solar One project makes 64 MW from 400 acres of land, or about 0.62 square miles. So if we wanted something like Nevada Solar One to replace the roughly 400 GW of our non-nuclear electrical energy production, it would require (400 GW / 64 MW ) * 0.62 = 3875 square miles of solar power plants all across the country.

That's a mind boggling amount of land - a square about 62 miles on a side - but since the total amount of US land is 3,539,225 square miles, it represents about 0.1% of our land mass. That's not cheap, but it's not impossible either.

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.

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.

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.

Operators do pay into a disposal fund. Unfortunately politicians have been dipping into that fund for non-disposal purposes.

As one of those who would like to see hundreds of new nuke plants, I'll point out that nuclear power has actually slipped slightly below coal for production costs. In addition, new pollution control requirements and the possibility for CO2 sequestration requirements substantially increase the cost and slightly reduce efficiency in coal plants.

I try to always point out that I'd use the nuclear power to replace coal power, which takes nearly as long to cycle up or down, not to try to replace more responsive power systems such as gas-turbine or even hydro. For peak leveling, I'd suggest using the plant's excess power output during non-peak times to produce hydrogen or ethanol or whatever, so you do have that spinning reserve.

Let's do some math!

"For bituminous coal it is assumed that 16 pounds of mercury per trillion Btus is emitted; for anthracite coal, 18 pounds per trillion Btus (USEPA 1997a);"
www.epa.gov/nrmrl/pubs/600r02104/600r02104chap4.pd f

"1 BTU = 0.00029307107 kilowatt hour"
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox- a&channel=s&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs= ooc&q=BTU+to+kilowatt+hour&btnG=Search [google.com]

293,071,070 KWH per 16 pounds Hg, that makes 18,316,942 KWH per pound of HG,
that makes 40.3819444 KWH per milligram Hg released from coal-burning utilities in the US

So, one 15watt CF lasts 6000 hours, conservatively, and so compared to 60 watt incandescents, it saves 45 watts * 6000 hours = 270,000 watt hours or 270KWH of juice,
270 / (KWH per mg Hg released) = 6.6861565 miligrams of Hg not emitted to power the CF (as compared to an incandescent, and assuming that your power comes from coal)

This is 270 KWH generated (i.e. raw BTU content of coal), and Hg "emitted" (unsure if scrubbers and cleaned coal have been accounted for)

Assuming that coal to your light socket involves a 50% loss, then it's more like 500KWH saved, or 12 miligrams of Hg kept out of the environment.

"The mercury content of compact fluorescent bulbs varies between 2 and 15 mg per bulb, depending on the model."
http://www.productstewardship.net/productsMercuryF luorescentFAQ.html [productstewardship.net]

So, I'm not convinced that even if you just throw your CF in the trash that you have actually put more Hg into the environment than you've taken out. Of course, we should dispose of CF's responsibly (I'm sitting on a pile of about 6-7 dead bulbs).

And yeah, Steve Milloy is a troll.

More links:

According to
http://www.nei.org/doc.asp?catnum=2&catid=106 [nei.org]
it takes 1 pound of coal to generate 1 kilowatt hour

According to the DOE, one kilowatt hour from coal releases 2 lbs of CO2
www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/page/co2_report/ co2report.html

"according to Environmental Protection Agency figures released in 1984, average values of uranium and thorium content have been determined to be 1.3 ppm and 3.2 ppm"
http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/ colmain.html [ornl.gov]

"Approximately 75 tons of mercury are found in the coal delivered to power plants each year and about two thirds of this mercury is emitted to the air, resulting in about 50 tons being emitted annually" (which, in turn, is about one third of all domestic mercury emissions)
http://www.epa.gov/mercury/control_emissions/index .htm [epa.gov]

Let's do some math!

"For bituminous coal it is assumed that 16 pounds of mercury per trillion Btus is emitted; for anthracite coal, 18 pounds per trillion Btus (USEPA 1997a);"
www.epa.gov/nrmrl/pubs/600r02104/600r02104chap4.pd f

"1 BTU = 0.00029307107 kilowatt hour"
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox- a&channel=s&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs= ooc&q=BTU+to+kilowatt+hour&btnG=Search

293,071,070 KWH per 16 pounds Hg, that makes 18,316,942 KWH per pound of HG,
that makes 40.3819444 KWH per milligram Hg released from coal-burning utilities in the US

So, one 15watt CF lasts 6000 hours, conservatively, and so compared to 60 watt incandescents, it saves 45 watts * 6000 hours = 270,000 watt hours or 270KWH of juice,
270 / (KWH per mg Hg released) = 6.6861565 miligrams of Hg not emitted to power the CF (as compared to an incandescent, and assuming that your power comes from coal)

This is 270 KWH generated (i.e. raw BTU content of coal), and Hg "emitted" (unsure if scrubbers and cleaned coal have been accounted for)

Assuming that coal to your light socket involves a 50% loss, then it's more like 500KWH saved, or 12 miligrams of Hg kept out of the environment.

"The mercury content of compact fluorescent bulbs varies between 2 and 15 mg per bulb, depending on the model."
http://www.productstewardship.net/productsMercuryF luorescentFAQ.html

So, I'm not convinced that even if you just throw your CF in the trash that you have actually put more Hg into the environment than you've taken out. Of course, we should dispose of CF's responsibly (I'm sitting on a pile of about 6-7 dead bulbs).

More links:

According to
http://www.nei.org/doc.asp?catnum=2&catid=106
it takes 1 pound of coal to generate 1 kilowatt hour

According to the DOE, one kilowatt hour from coal releases 2 lbs of CO2
www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/page/co2_report/ co2report.html

"according to Environmental Protection Agency figures released in 1984, average values of uranium and thorium content have been determined to be 1.3 ppm and 3.2 ppm"
http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/ colmain.html

"Approximately 75 tons of mercury are found in the coal delivered to power plants each year and about two thirds of this mercury is emitted to the air, resulting in about 50 tons being emitted annually" (which, in turn, is about one third of all domestic mercury emissions)
http://www.epa.gov/mercury/control_emissions/index .htm

NEI report - Average production costs: 1.83 cents/kwh nuclear, 2.07 for coal

UK report:
Gas-fired combined-cycle gas turbine 2.2
Gas-fired open-cycle gas turbine 3.1*
Nuclear fission plant 2.3
Coal-fired pulverised fuel steam plant 2.5
Coal-fired circulating fluidised bed steam plant 2.6
Coal-fired integrated gasification combined cycle 3.2
(* Open-cycle gas turbines are usually used for short periods to meet peaks in demand, so a more realistic cost is around 6.2 p/kWh when used for only 15 percent of the time.)

" "Cheap power" is becoming more scarce with no entity will escape the harsh reality. "

Which is why locating in states with nuclear power might have appeal.

Found via Googling, of course!

http://www.nei.org/documents/states_sc.pdf

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/at_a_gla nce/states/statessc.html

Other than France, NO country is truly dependent on Nukes (America is 2'nd largest user at only 19%).

Wow, that's a skewed use of statistics if I've ever seen one. The way you put it, only one country generates more than 19% of its energy from nuclear power. But I think you're quite wrong: Countries generating the largest percentage of their electricity in 2005 from nuclear energy were: France, 78.5 percent; Lithuania, 69.6 percent; Slovakia, 56.1 percent; Belgium 55.6 percent... these are the countries that are doing it right. Sure, France isn't completely dependent on nuclear energy, but I think almost 80% is a damn large number. In fact if you shut off all the other types of plants in France, the economy would take a hit but the society could keep running. The number two position is Slovakia at a respectable 70%. If America is the world's second largest user of nuclear energy by megawatts (and not percentage of total energy production) and yet that energy only supplies 20% of the nation's electricity needs, it would seem to indicate we have a problem with consumption. While we certainly need to switch to cleaner ways to make energy, we also need to find more efficient ways to spend it.

If you think nuclear electricity generation is not mature then you are grossly mistaken. Nuclear produces more then 20% of US electric power, and has been around since the 1960's. We have gained huge amounts of experience in designing and operating plants in that time, plants today are much cleaner and are exceeding 98% availability. There is no comparison between western plants and soviet plants.

I think that you misread me. That's the renewable energy subsidy if we gave wind power the same 'subsidies' that are 'given' to nuclear power. This system was set up by the Price-Anderson act

Thanks for the link. I didn't know the industry paid for insurance. I went ahead and both saved it to my hdd and bookmarked it.

Many people have battery banks to store the energy their solar, wind, or hybrid systems generate.

Don't get me wrong, but while people do it, it's not globally economic to do so. Most people who do these systems do so to avoid the expense of running line power to them. Meanwhile they do things like run special refridgerators and use hydrocarbon method of accomplishing tasks such as heating their home, water, and cooking. For example, solar power will make sense much more quickly in Sunny california with high electricity costs than ND with it's cheap electricity.

First, North Dakota isn't good for solar as you say but the state is a great site for Wind Gennies. As is SD and Minneasota. MN, where I live now, generates several megawatts of power by Wind Gennies. While it may be mostly those living off the grid in the US who's doing it, it's not the only place solar panels and batteries are used. The same think is done in the third world. In Africa one or more NGOs are going into small villages where they setup solar panels and battery backups to power lights, radios, refrigs, small tvs, and such. The lights allow children to read and do homework for school while it's dark. The refrigs allow medicine to be stored, and the radios and tvs keep the people informed about the world. They are also used for educational purposes. The IEEE's Spectrum had an article about how some people started a business in South Asia building solar energy systems they then sold in remote locations and other places without electricity. The business created jobs manufacturing them, it also allowed those who bought a system to improve education as well as earn more money. One example was of a person who ran a repair shop, he was able to use lights so he could work when it was dark thus he increased his income. In another Spectrum article they described how a group of EEs went into a remote village; in Cambodia, Thailand, or Veit Nam, I don't recall which, and setup a transceiver with a tower for the antenna so they could have radio communications with the outside world. Using a "home built" PC and a bike converted into a generator, the group was able to offer the village internet access as well as voice radio. If they wanted to power the system all they had to do was pedal the bike. If they had setup a solar panel the bike could of been for backup.

Fact is you only have a few years to make back the investment because the batteries degrade, eventually needing replacement.

Sure, the batteries eventually need to be replaced, however batteries today last longer than the deep cycle batteries of yesteryear, and they're cheaper. Batteries can now have 10 year warranties with 20 year life expectancies. Here's one with 7 year replacement(pdf), and 3 year prorated warranty for a total of 10 years. As for solar panels, they can be rated 20 years or more. The same with the chargers.

Ok this site has batteries inteneded for renewable resources for sale. The L-16HC seems to be the best deal, for the amp-hours. It's a 6 volt battery that has 420 amp-hours of capacity. That's 2520 watt/hours. Divided by it's cost of $288, that's $114 per kw/hour of capacity, and it's only rated for 3-6 years of 20% daily discharge.

I know of no government guarranty to wind power such as this, can you provide a link?

I think that you misread me. That's the renewable energy subsidy if we gave wind power the same 'subsidies' that are 'given' to nuclear power. This system was set up by the Price-Anderson act

Many people have battery banks to store the energy their solar, wind, or hybrid systems generate.

Don't get me wrong, but while people do it, it's not globally economic to do so. Most people who do these systems do so to avoid the expense of running line power to them. Meanwhile they do things like run special refridgerators and use hydrocarbon method of accomplishing tasks such as heating their home, water, and cooking. For example, solar power will make sense much more quickly in Sunny california with high electricity costs than ND with it's cheap electricity.

Magazines like Home Power show just how people are doing it. Fact is is more and more people are going Off the Grid. And because they are off the grid they have to store energy in battery banks. It may seem expensive to setup such a system but the payback period can be as little as a few years

Fact is you only have a few years to make back the investment because the batteries degrade, eventually needing replacement.
If I set up a tiny system, conserve like all get out, sure it might be cheaper for me.

and that doesn't take in inflation, the cost of electricity going up. Once the system's cost has been recovered what's left is "free energy". Even the costs of maintance is less than the cost of electricity used if bought from the power company.

Assuming you don't have to replace the batteries very often.

Ok this site has batteries inteneded for renewable resources for sale. The L-16HC seems to be the best deal, for the amp-hours. It's a 6 volt battery that has 420 amp-hours of capacity. That's 2520 watt/hours. Divided by it's cost of $288, that's $114 per kw/hour of capacity, and it's only rated for 3-6 years of 20% daily discharge.

The 4-KS-21P ends up costing $174 kw/h of capacity, but it's rated for 3.2k 50% cycles. Or about 10 years. 3.2k of 50% cycles(.5kw/h produced)At 8 cents/kwh, it'd make available 1.6k kw/hs. On the other hand, at 8 cents/kwh(my local electric rate), that'd be $128 of electricty. Even if I got my solar panels/wind turbine for free, it'd be cheaper for me to buy power from the grid during non-usage!

Feel free to check other batteries if you want, but that's what I came up with.

...Fire and multiple collisions, for example.

Before approval, containers must meet rigorous engineering and safety criteria and be able to pass a series of hypothetical accident conditions that create forces greater than the containers would experience in actual accidents. The same container must, in sequence, undergo (1) a 30-foot free fall onto an unyielding surface, (2) a 40-inch fall onto a steel rod six inches in diameter, (3) a 30-minute exposure to fire at 1,475 degrees Fahrenheit that engulfs the entire container, and (4) submergence under three feet of water for eight hours. Also, by a separate test, containers are submerged under 50 feet of water for eight hours.

The NRC must approve containers used to transport used nuclear fuel. Before the agency certifies container designs, the containers must meet rigorous engineering and safety criteria. In addition, the container designs must be able to pass a sequence of hypothetical accident tests involving forces greater than the containers would experience in actual accidents.

These test conditions have included:

        a 30-foot free fall onto an unyielding surface, which would be equivalent to a head-on crash at 120 mph into a concrete bridge abutment

        a puncture test allowing the container to fall 40 inches onto a steel rod six inches in diameter

        a 30-minute exposure to fire at 1,475 degrees Fahrenheit that engulfs the entire container

        submerging of the same container under three feet of water for eight hours.

Containers also are subject to separate testing under 200 meters of water for eight hours.

In addition to the tests required for NRC certification, engineers and scientists at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico conducted a wide range of tests on used nuclear fuel transportation containers in the 1970s and 1980s. These tests included:

        running a flatbed tractor-trailer carrying a container into a concrete wall at 84 mph

        placing a container on a rail car that drove into a concrete wall at 81 mph

        placing a container on a tractor-trailer broadsided by a train locomotive traveling at 80 mph.

In all cases, post-crash assessments showed that the containers, although slightly dented and charred, would not have released their contents.

The NRC also conducted a study in 1987 to evaluate further the ability of used fuel transport containers to withstand real accidents. Using data from severe accidents of all kinds, the NRC concluded that transport containers designed to NRC requirements would withstand actual accidents.

Other Sandia tests evaluated a terrorist attack, subjecting a container to a device 30 times more powerful than a typical anti-tank weapon. The test resulted in a quarter-inch-diameter hole through the primary containment wall.

The NRC estimates that such a hole would have resulted in the release of less than 10 grams--about one-third of an ounce--of used fuel.

In combination with actual testing, transportation container manufacturers use computer programs and scale models to evaluate the containers' protective capabilities and verify--with a substantial margin of safety--that the containers meet NRC requirements.

NRC regulations also require the establishment of a security plan to ship used nuclear fuel safely to the used fuel repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., and implementation of this plan before shipments begin. The NRC will track and monitor these shipments carefully over the entire route. The agency must review and approve the plan and procedures to protect against radiological sabotage or theft in advance.

I'm generally not a link kind of guy. Having said that, finding these is not hard at all. Google for "Yucca Mountain Survey". Also, wikipedia has a number of links. I can honestly say I do not know exactly what you will find as I tend to read as I stumble on things and rarely bookmark.

You'll find that Yucca Mountain is known as the "most heavily studied real estate on earth."

Obviously, this link is a "position" page (pro-nuke, which I found by simply googling on the topics provided), but it does seem to provides hard facts: http://www.nei.org/doc.asp?catnum=3&catid=907

Although Greenpeace still opposes all nuclear power -- a Google search for them showed a victim of Chernobyl, with no mention of the less-glamorous pollution you cite -- one of the group's founders has called nuclear "an environmentally sound and safe choice." As I understand it the nuclear plant designs have improved considerably over the last few decades; I'd rather live near a newly-built nuke plant than near a coal plant.

Re: environmentalists opposing wind power, I recently saw an article about this. One argument they made was that the windmills would kill birds -- can't use a power source that harms any living thing in any way! Worse, it just so happens that Sen. Ted Kennedy opposes a wind farm that would spoil the view from his mansion. It's not even a reasonable aesthetic complaint -- the windmills are neat-looking. "More than 17 government agencies" are involved in the permiting process.

Looks like Fast Breed Reactors would be a great idea if not for their perceived violation of Nuclear Non-Proliferation (see third pillar). These would work with existing nuclear power plants.

On the other hand, this report contrasts the "benefits" of the above, also showing that nuclear is more expensive in the kWh arena. Of course, the comments about cancers can itself be contradicted with this study.

Apparently there are political winds blowing about energy everywhere.

No problem : here you have an emissions comparison for all widespread methods and various pollutants

http://www.nei.org/index.asp?catnum=2&catid=260

"Comparative Measures of Power Plant Efficiency

Economic Efficiency is the most important measure of efficiency because it measures how a plant uses scarce resources and what the value of those resources is. Economic Efficiency is measured using production cost. Production cost is the cost of operating the plant--including fuel, labor, materials, and services--to produce one kilowatt-hour (kWh) of electricity. Nuclear power has the lowest production cost of the major sources of electricity, with production cost of 1.68 cents/kWh. Coal has a cost of 1.9 cents/kWh, natural gas 5.87 cents/kWh, and petroleum 5.39 cents/kWh. Hydro has a production cost of 0.5 cents/kWh, wind .2 cents/kWh and solar 2.48 cents/kWh.

Operational Efficiency measures how efficiently a plant's capacity to produce electricity is utilized. Operational Efficiency is measured using a measure called capacity factor. Capacity factor is the ratio of the total electricity that a plant produced during a year compared to the total potential electricity that would have been produced if the plant operated at 100 percent power during every hour of the year. It is essentially the percentage of electricity that a plant produced compared to the electricity that it could have produced operating constantly at peak output. Nuclear plants typically have the highest capacity factor of any generating source with capacity factors of about 90 percent. Fossil fueled plants have lower capacity factors; coal typically has around a 70 percent capacity factor, natural gas plants of different types can vary from 14 percent to 50 percent capacity factors. Many renewables have low capacity factors. Wind and solar generation typically average around 25 percent capacity factors.

Energy Efficiency measures the amount of energy in the raw fuel needed to produce a specified amount of electricity. These fuels include natural gas, coal, oil, and uranium for nuclear energy. Energy Efficiency is measured using a measure called the heat rate. The heat rate is the amount of energy (Btu) in the fuel needed to produce one kilowatt-hour (kWh) of electricity. The lower the heat rate the more energy efficient a plant is. Plants that use a steam cycle such as coal, nuclear energy, and some natural gas plants tend to have heat rates of around 10,000 Btu/kWh. Some natural gas plants using the combined cycle technology have heat rates of around 7,500 Btu/kWh. Heat rate is not applicable for wind and solar plants, since they do not use fuel in the traditional sense of the word."

Everyone's aware that nuclear power accounts for 80% of electrical production in France, right? 16 countries get more than 25% of their electrical production from nuclear power.

Maybe in the U.S.
...but is that because of 3MI?

Why aren't new nuclear plants under construction in the U.S.?
Nuclear- and coal-powered plants are "baseload" facilities that operate continuously. Few
baseload power plants have been built in the United States since 1980 because much of the
country has excess electricity. Many utilities have only built "peaking" plants: small
facilities, generally fueled by oil or natural gas, that quickly can be turned on and off,
according to swings in demand.

More are now being planned.

http://www.nei.org/index.asp?catnum=4&catid=318
http://www.ans.org/pi/ps/docs/ps54-bi.pdf

Read those for a better view than the often politicized and sometimes misleading wikipedia. A max of $400 million per plant per incident as stated by the parent's author in discussion was not correct. The PAAA supplies a pool of funds paid into by nearly every site containing DOE fuel, excluding accelerator operations. The current pot is up to around $11 billion. This isn't car insurance that you pay $600 bucks into every 6 months, because if you don't make a claim that would recover those funds, they're just being thrown down a hole. As you quoted, the sites would need to pay more than $3 billion annually to fully insure their operations. Should every site be required to pay a cost of $3 billion per year, that's more than the site. That in mind, it would negate the financial benefit of operating a plant, and thus the cost of energy would skyrocket since nuclear power produces the baseload of energy in many parts of the country. The idea behind the act is for each site to pay a certain amount per year to create an overly large pool of funds for cleanup/compensation in case of an accident. The chances of multiple sites requiring those funds at the same time is miniscule given nuclear power's track record, so the fund just grows each year since every site pays into the pot. The real question to ask is $11 billion a good amount to cover cleanup. To that I say, yes it is. The site with the worst reputation for mismanagement and contamination issues was Rocky Flats in Colorado, the DOD site that manufactured plutonium and bomb materials for defense purposes. The site was cleaned up for a contract of $11 billion. The site doesn't exist anymore since it was truly a success from the standpoint of cleanup of waste. The PAAA's fund of $11 billion would cover a cleanup of that magnitude for a commercial or DOE site quite easily

You might have a point, except that the basic design came from Germany (then West Germany) in the 1980s. I know I saw a special about the reactor that used "golfball sized ceramic fuel pellets" on some science show in the 1980s. So far the only reference I can find is this but I'm quite confident that the basic idea came from the Germans, not the Chinese.

Newest nuclear plants/year:

1996/June - Watts Bar 1; Tenn.-Tennessee Valley Authority; 1,128 MWe
1993/Aug. - Comanche Peak 2; TXU Electric Co.; 1,124 MWe
1990/Aug. - Comanche Peak 1; TXU Electric Co.; 1,084 MWe
1990/Aug. - Seabrook 1; N.H.-North Atlantic Energy Corp.; 1,161 MWe
1990/Jan. - Limerick 2; Pa.- Exelon; 1,143 MWe

About 17% of mine comes from nuclear power produced at the the Crystal River Nuclear Power Plant in Florida.

Maybe it would be helpful to point out the specific leftie factions that have been very vocal about it... It's the Eco-nazi wing of your party that has the problems.

These people didn't exactly vote for Reagan.

Now in deference to you, and the previous like minded posters, I googled a little to find some specific vocal anti-nuclear groups, and I stumbled across this link:

PDF

It was prepared by the Nuclear Energy Institute, and their findings seem to indicate that opposition to nuclear energy has reduced over the years, even among left-leaning and environmental groups. (From the source, you may consider this propaganda, but I sincerely hope it's true. I'd love to tell the Middle East we don't need their oil any more, so have a nice Jihad without us.)

I sincerely hope that during this second Bush term, we can find an increased role for nuclear energy in a coherent and comprehensive energy policy. (Even if we still relied on oil for gasoline, how great would it be if we didn't need any oil at ll in the production of electricity?)

... in a study prepared for the Nuclear Energy Institute, that is. I'm sure that Microsoft's studies show that everyone loves Microsoft too ...

Your arguement assumes that an attacker happens to know the time and place, and vehicles containing the nuclear material. Let's assume that somehow they do.

Having said that, there are standard safetly precautions set for transport of hazardous materials, such as:

n Type B packages for materials with the highest levels of radioactivity--such as used nuclear fuel. They are designed to provide radioactive protection and nuclear safety under accident conditions. These packages must survive simulated accident conditions--water immersion, a 30-foot drop onto an unyielding surface, severe penetration and extreme heat--and must also prevent a nuclear reactionduring normal and accident conditions.

...

Stringent Requirements For Used Fuel Shipments

The structural integrity of shipping containers for used fuel has been verified in several tests well beyond regulatory requirements. Representative containers have been loaded onto a truck that was made to crash, first at 60 mph and then at 80 mph, into a 700-ton concrete wall backed with 1,700 tons of dirt.

The containers have been broadsided by a 120-ton locomotive traveling at 80 mph and dropped from a height of 2,000 feet onto extremely hard ground. Additionally, they have been burned in a pool of aviation fuel for 1½ hours at temperatures of more than 2,000 F. While dented and charred, the containers were neither ruptured nor significantly damaged.

From here

In the 80s my dad told me that the reactors' containment mechanisms were designed to withstand an airplane impact and I thought, "man, are they paranoid." Now I think, "I wonder if they could really take it."

In December, 2002, the Electric Power Research Institute released an analysis entitled Aircraft Crash Impact Analyses Demonstrate Nuclear Power Plant's Structural Strength in which they ran computer models of a Boeing 767-400 crashing into a nuclear plant containment building, spent fuel pool, dry spent fuel storage container, and spent fuel transportation container. In all cases, there was no release of radionuclides to the environment.

Although it is an advocacy group, the Nuclear Energy Institute is a good source of technical information about nuclear power. It can be found at www.nei.org.

I work at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station in Arizona. It is a Combustion Engineering "System 80" plant. The "System 80 Plus" design is one of three that has been certified by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as a standardized design. This will save a ton of money and time if any company ever gets up the courage to build another nuclear power plant. Right now everyone is crazy about throwing together natural gas fired power plants, regardless of the fact that all the natural gas will be gone in a few years (I've heard that there's only 30 years of natural gas left in the world).

The reason we don't dry our clothing outside in Arizona is because the sunshine would fade the colors too much.

103 Commercial nuclear reactors with operating licenses at 64 sites in 31 states

Nuclear energy provides about 20 percent of the United States' electricity and is its number one source of emission-free electricity.

# Percent of worldwide electricity: 16% from 441 reactors. See 2002 World Nuclear Power Generation and Capacity.

Uranium is also abundant, and technologies exist which can extend its use 60-fold if demand requires it. World mine production is about 35,000 tonnes per year, but a lot of the market is being supplied from secondary sources such as stockpiles, including material from dismantled nuclear weapons. Practically all of it is used for electricity.

It occurs in most rocks in concentrations of 2 to 4 parts per million and is as common in the earth's crust as tin, tungsten and molybdenum. It occurs in seawater, and could be recovered from the oceans if prices rose significantly.

103 Commercial nuclear reactors with operating licenses at 64 sites in 31 states

Nuclear energy provides about 20 percent of the United States' electricity and is its number one source of emission-free electricity.

# Percent of worldwide electricity: 16% from 441 reactors. See 2002 World Nuclear Power Generation and Capacity.

Uranium is also abundant, and technologies exist which can extend its use 60-fold if demand requires it. World mine production is about 35,000 tonnes per year, but a lot of the market is being supplied from secondary sources such as stockpiles, including material from dismantled nuclear weapons. Practically all of it is used for electricity.

It occurs in most rocks in concentrations of 2 to 4 parts per million and is as common in the earth's crust as tin, tungsten and molybdenum. It occurs in seawater, and could be recovered from the oceans if prices rose significantly.