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1. In the US, at least, we do. It's called Yucca Mountain. it wasn't politically acceptable to the previous Administration for #UNKNOWNREASON, but the current Administration would probably be fine to use this purpose-built facility for what it was built for - long-term storage of nuclear waste.

No. It wasn't acceptable to the DOE who specified that the geology should be part of a concept for the facility called "Defense in Depth". As it stands the facility is built into a porus pumice mountain instead of into a granite facility. Tests of ground water at the facility found Chlorine 55 which originated from atmospheric test nuclear explosions which tells us that it takes less than 50 years for ground water to enter and leave a facility that is supposed to contain radio-isotopes for 100s of thousands of years.

The only *political* wrangling that occurred was to make building such facilities into granite illegal to keep those facilities out of certain states.

Fix that law if you are so sincere about supporting nuclear power and you can have a proper facility - such as the Swiss have.

2. Done. All nuclear plants already pay into a decommissioning fund that is controlled and overseen by the NRC.

Thanks for that information. According to attached reports: Amounts accumulated in the decommissioning trust funds for operating power reactors totaled approximately $53.4 billion as of December 31, 2016. which is woefully inadequate.

Shortfalls are reported and it represents an inadequate amount of money to properly decommission all of the reactors that are currently in service, which means it is inappropriate to discuss building new ones.

An idea I have seen floated is to convert 'end of service life' Nuclear plants to natural gas so that the site has a profit motivation and funding to maintain and slowly decommission the sites, which maybe a good way to get a further return on the energy invested into building the sites.

3. Every nuclear power plant buy insurance from the Government to cover people and property.

So, we're where you want to be (at least in the US);

The link you sent appears broken. I think you are referring to the Price Anderson Act which was established in 1954 until the nuclear industry proved itself safe to insurance risk assessors. It is still in existence so that does not say much for how professional risk assessors view Nuclear power.

what's the hold-up to rolling out more nuclear?

Mainly that there is no energy return on the energy put into it. Mining fuel for an AP1000 consumes 1/3 of the petajoules it produces over its service life. This is carbon based energy, a factor which is often overlooked when taking an idealistic view of nuclear power.

Before you refer me to the IPCC report, I'll point out that it references a study by Vatenfal, a producer of nuclear power plants, and the only way to produce the referenced carbon figure is to use in-situ acid leach mining which is illegal in Russia and the US because it produces megalitres of radioactive sulfuric acid.

Anyone who studies the Nuclear Power fuel cycle in depth will find that there are many reasons why Nuclear Power is not viable and that the hold up is because investors want to see a return.

Thanks for your links, further education is always welcomed on this subject.

1. In the US, at least, we do. It's called Yucca Mountain. it wasn't politically acceptable to the previous Administration for #UNKNOWNREASON, but the current Administration would probably be fine to use this purpose-built facility for what it was built for - long-term storage of nuclear waste.

No. It wasn't acceptable to the DOE who specified that the geology should be part of a concept for the facility called "Defense in Depth". As it stands the facility is built into a porus pumice mountain instead of into a granite facility. Tests of ground water at the facility found Chlorine 55 which originated from atmospheric test nuclear explosions which tells us that it takes less than 50 years for ground water to enter and leave a facility that is supposed to contain radio-isotopes for 100s of thousands of years.

The only *political* wrangling that occurred was to make building such facilities into granite illegal to keep those facilities out of certain states.

Fix that law if you are so sincere about supporting nuclear power and you can have a proper facility - such as the Swiss have.

2. Done. All nuclear plants already pay into a decommissioning fund that is controlled and overseen by the NRC.

Thanks for that information. According to attached reports: Amounts accumulated in the decommissioning trust funds for operating power reactors totaled approximately $53.4 billion as of December 31, 2016. which is woefully inadequate.

Shortfalls are reported and it represents an inadequate amount of money to properly decommission all of the reactors that are currently in service, which means it is inappropriate to discuss building new ones.

An idea I have seen floated is to convert 'end of service life' Nuclear plants to natural gas so that the site has a profit motivation and funding to maintain and slowly decommission the sites, which maybe a good way to get a further return on the energy invested into building the sites.

3. Every nuclear power plant buy insurance from the Government to cover people and property.

So, we're where you want to be (at least in the US);

The link you sent appears broken. I think you are referring to the Price Anderson Act which was established in 1954 until the nuclear industry proved itself safe to insurance risk assessors. It is still in existence so that does not say much for how professional risk assessors view Nuclear power.

what's the hold-up to rolling out more nuclear?

Mainly that there is no energy return on the energy put into it. Mining fuel for an AP1000 consumes 1/3 of the petajoules it produces over its service life. This is carbon based energy, a factor which is often overlooked when taking an idealistic view of nuclear power.

Before you refer me to the IPCC report, I'll point out that it references a study by Vatenfal, a producer of nuclear power plants, and the only way to produce the referenced carbon figure is to use in-situ acid leach mining which is illegal in Russia and the US because it produces megalitres of radioactive sulfuric acid.

Anyone who studies the Nuclear Power fuel cycle in depth will find that there are many reasons why Nuclear Power is not viable and that the hold up is because investors want to see a return.

Thanks for your links, further education is always welcomed on this subject.

1. In the US, at least, we do. It's called Yucca Mountain. it wasn't politically acceptable to the previous Administration for #UNKNOWNREASON, but the current Administration would probably be fine to use this purpose-built facility for what it was built for - long-term storage of nuclear waste.

2. Done. All nuclear plants already pay into a decommissioning fund that is controlled and overseen by the NRC.

3. Every nuclear power plant buy insurance from the Government to cover people and property.

So, we're where you want to be (at least in the US); what's the hold-up to rolling out more nuclear?

There are around 50 nuclear startups designing 4th generation reactors. Some were always going to fail. In fact most will probably fail.

No there are lots of them CLAIMING to be developing new reactor designs. Some of them might actually be working on the problem even. Curiously we've seen zero of these actually make it to market.

Some will succeed though.

There is no guarantee of that.

NuScale is the closest to market.

Maybe. Best info I can find says they hope to have an operational reactor in 2024 and that was their projection in 2013. That means optimistically they might have something to show 6+ years from now. Not exactly cause for excitement.

Their design has already passed NRC phase 1 review, and it has been certified as meltdown proof.

NRC phase 1 review is a "Preliminary Safety Evaluation Report (SER) and Requests for Additional Information". It does not mean it has been certified as anything.

They will be constructing their first 12 reactors in Idaho for Utah municipalities.

If that were true you would think they would post it somewhere on their website. Perhaps you are talking about this project?

Hopefully in a decade they will be mass producing them like airplanes.

While I wish them well I think this is a good approximation of impossible.

Hmm, as of 2008, rooftop solar has caused 0.44 deaths per TWh produced. Nuclear is at 0.04 deaths per TWh.

Solar power has caused ZERO deaths per Wh. Industrial accidents relating to solar installations have happened but the actual act of making solar power has literally zero deaths unless you can find some random guy that somehow got electrocuted. Nuclear energy undeniably has a body count attached to it. A low body count to be sure but the number is not zero. Construction accidents have happened with every form of power generation. Furthermore solar has not rendered any location permanently uninhabitable by humans unlike nuclear. This argument that there are more deaths from solar is some of the most contrived and cynical fanboy-ism I've every heard.

Well, we all know that nuclear is by far the most deadly form of power ever invented, so obviously, these numbers are fabrications....

Yes it is. Ask Japan especially in the neighborhoods of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nuclear power and nuclear weapons are not separable issues.

it should be noted that the short half-life stuff that makes nuclear waste, well, seriously radioactive is pretty much gone a week after shutdown of the plant.

Again this is complete bullshit according to no less an authority than the Department of Energy.

And the long half-life stuff? Not nearly so dangerous as airplane flight.

Completely wrong. See the link above.

Disclaimer: I went on a rant here... Parts of it is a bit offtopic, but this is not only a reply to the article, but about these types of misleading articles that gets posted.
Sorry for any spelling-errors or incoherence below, but this willful misleading and witch-hunt on anything with nuclear in it's name is irritating me.

I care about the environment, and i think we should continuously review our stand and plan to build things that will have the least amount of impact, but still allows our society to function.. Nuclear power, but maybe not the older plants in use, is a good way to do this for reducing the amount of CO2 and other pollution we release.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

So the top 3 there is related to nuclear weapons.. The remaining nuclear reactor disaster of Chernobyl was just a huge human screw-up where they disabled the safety systems on purpose and then doing that on a reactor that only had one of the most basic containment buildings around it.

Take hydro-electric..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Take coal.
https://endcoal.org/health/ ... Only around 800000 people per *YEAR* die prematurely..

For solar/wind do some research yourself, but don't forget to include the pollution created from producing those panels and batteries needed to keep us going..

So i would call nuclear power fairly safe compared to the rest..

One issue is that the public has been fed with incorrect information, like number of death's caused by chernobyl.
http://www.who.int/mediacentre...

5 SEPTEMBER 2005 | GENEVA - A total of up to 4000 people could eventually die of radiation exposure from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (NPP) accident nearly 20 years ago, an international team of more than 100 scientists has concluded.

As of mid-2005, however, fewer than 50 deaths had been directly attributed to radiation from the disaster, almost all being highly exposed rescue workers, many who died within months of the accident but others who died as late as 2004.

https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm...

The Chernobyl accident's severe radiation effects killed 28 of the site's 600 workers in the first four months after the event. Another 106 workers received high enough doses to cause acute radiation sickness. Two workers died within hours of the reactor explosion from non-radiological causes. Another 200,000 cleanup workers in 1986 and 1987 received doses of between 1 and 100 rem (The average annual radiation dose for a U.S. citizen is about .6 rem). Chernobyl cleanup activities eventually required about 600,000 workers, although only a small fraction of these workers were exposed to elevated levels of radiation. Government agencies continue to monitor cleanup and recovery workers' health. (UNSCEAR 2008, pg. 47, 58, 107, and 119)

But the numbers that has been fed to the public from organizations like Greenpeace:
https://www.greenpeace.org/arc...

31 workers died shortly afterwards. A total of between 600,000 and 800,000 men were involved in the clean-up operations in Chernobyl up to 1989. Of these men, 300,000 received radiation doses 500 times the limit for the public over one year. Today, the ones who still survive are still suffering from the damage to their health.

How many of them have died to date from the disaster is a controversial question. According to government agencies in the three former Soviet

I always like to remind people that this thing was older than Chernobyl. This was NOT a modern nuke plant with decent safety features that went meltdown. There is no comparison.

So often we've been reminded that the 'positive void co-efficient' safety feature of these reactors made a Chernobyl style explosion impossible, yet it happened. Rendered ineffective because TEPCO by-passed requirements to operate the reactors safely.

It's reasonable to remind people it's the same type of reactor installed at Fukushima is operating in many locations throughout the U.S.

oh and a sale of Uranium mining to Russia

Did U Know? That the "20% of US uranium deposits" never left the United States? Did you also know that it was never intended to leave the United States?

"NRC’s review of the transfer of control request determined that the U.S. subsidiaries will
remain the licensees, will remain qualified to conduct the uranium recovery operations, and will continue to have the equipment, facilities, and procedures necessary to protect public health and safety and to minimize danger to life or property. The review also determined that the licensees will maintain adequate financial surety for eventual decommissioning of the sites. Neither Uranium One nor ARMZ holds an NRC export license, so no uranium produced at either facility may be exported."

https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML103...

Russia can mine the uranium, but it has not, and can not, ever leave the United States.

Radiation exposure is well understand and extrapolated, and has been for years.

The public risk perception of radiation is so far from reality, it could possibly make us do stupid things.

Your perception of the risk from radiation is so far from reality, you've simplified the model to the point of being useless.

That's been my experience of your posts, that all of the knowledge gathered since the 1950s just doesn't exist. You don't understand :

• The difference between a radionuclide and the radiation it emits
• The difference between internal and external radiation exposure
• The difference between being exposed to radiation and having an emitter inside you exposing you 24x7
• What bioaccumulation is
• That detection in food and water is really hard
• That you can eat a radionuclide
• That you can drink a radionuclide
• That you can breathe in a radionuclide
• That some radionuclides appear like different types of micro-nutirents to a matabolism
• That it deposits in different parts of the body
• That it can be organically bound in the body and not excreted
• That organically bound exposure increases absorption of radiation
• That it can be chemically toxic
• That children are more susceptible than adults
• That an effect could be death
• That an effect could be cancer
• That an effect could be gene damage
• That an effect could be failed birth
• That an effect could be a birth defect
• That an effect could be transgenic disease that effect the next generation
• That an effect could be reduced brainweight of, and lower IQ in infants
• That there is still stuff we don't know

Then you:

• Ignore facts even when they are cited from reputable sources
• Don't seem to want to understand
• Continue to shill as if you have an agenda
• Claim everything is FUD
• Minimize the apparent harm
• Ignore data collected from unbiased sources
• Refuse to accept that some data *is* biased Nuclear PR
• Refuse to accept the impact of media blackout for Fukushima
• Refuse to accept the work of Ukrainian scientists studying Chernobyl

There is a reason the NRC uses ALARA, figuring out this stuff is complicated and the easiest thing to do so your brain doesn't explode from thinking about it is to keep the potential risk of exposure ultra conservative.

That's it, post a long list of stuff to mask the fact you have no actual data. Radiation risk data is readily available, why don't you ever bother to use it?

Radiation exposure is well understand and extrapolated, and has been for years.

The public risk perception of radiation is so far from reality, it could possibly make us do stupid things.

Your perception of the risk from radiation is so far from reality, you've simplified the model to the point of being useless.

That's been my experience of your posts, that all of the knowledge gathered since the 1950s just doesn't exist. You don't understand :

• The difference between a radionuclide and the radiation it emits
• The difference between internal and external radiation exposure
• The difference between being exposed to radiation and having an emitter inside you exposing you 24x7
• What bioaccumulation is
• That detection in food and water is really hard
• That you can eat a radionuclide
• That you can drink a radionuclide
• That you can breathe in a radionuclide
• That some radionuclides appear like different types of micro-nutirents to a matabolism
• That it deposits in different parts of the body
• That it can be organically bound in the body and not excreted
• That organically bound exposure increases absorption of radiation
• That it can be chemically toxic
• That children are more susceptible than adults
• That an effect could be death
• That an effect could be cancer
• That an effect could be gene damage
• That an effect could be failed birth
• That an effect could be a birth defect
• That an effect could be transgenic disease that effect the next generation
• That an effect could be reduced brainweight of, and lower IQ in infants
• That there is still stuff we don't know

Then you:

• Ignore facts even when they are cited from reputable sources
• Don't seem to want to understand
• Continue to shill as if you have an agenda
• Claim everything is FUD
• Minimize the apparent harm
• Ignore data collected from unbiased sources
• Refuse to accept that some data *is* biased Nuclear PR
• Refuse to accept the impact of media blackout for Fukushima
• Refuse to accept the work of Ukrainian scientists studying Chernobyl

There is a reason the NRC uses ALARA, figuring out this stuff is complicated and the easiest thing to do so your brain doesn't explode from thinking about it is to keep the potential risk of exposure ultra conservative.

that is all.

Long term storage of the fuel elements/rods should put most off https://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/...

"limited progress toward implementing long-term waste management solutions. This is partly because the timeframes in question when dealing with radioactive waste range from 10,000 to millions of years" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Nuclear plants are incredibly cheap. What is expensive is allowing the watermelons to abuse the regulatory process to multiply the time by a factor of 2x to 3x and the cost by a factor of 5x to 10x.

The current fad, by the way, is BDB - "beyond design basis". Not a bad idea, exactly, if done as a mental exercise or deep contingency planning. But I don't want my power bill to go up another 10% so that the local plant can actually be modified to withstand a flood twice as deep as design basis (the site's 500-year flood level + 20%) without triggering an Alert. I'd much rather that a small part of the safety fund go to figuring out how many sandbags, pumps and generators will be needed in a biblical-flood-based Alert and caching them in regional and national response centers.

Oh, and BDB can get out of hand pretty easily if the safety committee isn't heavy in pragmatic types. If the design basis of the secondary containment is to eat a fully loaded 747 for breakfast, where do you go from there? Two jumbo jets? A North Korean nuke?

Strontium-90 and cesium-137 have half-lives of about 30 years (half the radioactivity will decay in 30 years). Plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24,000 years.

Of course if the strontium gives you bone cancer or leukemia, your own biological half-life is substantially shorter. Then again, the cesium will kill you faster... so i guess the moral is: hope for just bone cancer. And that 24,000 years on Pu still doesn't make it safe.

I still don't know what the fixation with coal is. Yes, coal is very bad.... worse than nuclear. But, nuclear isn't "clean." Peoples attempts to minimize what damage it can cause, AND HAS CAUSED, makes me think they're fucking idiots... fucking idiots that need to take a remedial high school chemistry class to bone up on basic fucking knowledge.

Tell yah what though.... i'll stand here on my little piece of ground with all that thorium and uranium present, and you go over to Hanford and climb into one of their spent fuel pools, and let me know which of us got the better of the deal. That's rhetorical because you won't fucking be able to.... in short order you'll be a puddle of biological material even your dentist won't be able to identify.

Currently we take the "spent" rods (which are still 95% fissible material)

Fuel rods start at most 5% enrichment (enriched to 5% Uranium-235). Uranium-235 is fissile. The remaining Uranium is primarily Uranium-238. Uranium-238 is fissionable but fissile (meaning it requires addition of energy to make it split).

The fission process uses up Uranium-235, so end-of-use fuel rods are less than 5% fuel. The production of other fissile isotopes like Plutonium-239 does not offset this loss of Uranium-235.

We also generally store spent fuel rods on-site in interim storage facilities (until something like Yucca Mountain is developed). These rods have had time for short-lived isotopes to decay. These spent fuel rods are stored in high-integrity canisters where natural circulation takes away the remaining heat generated from additional decay of radioactive isotopes.

Some links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spent_nuclear_fuel

https://www.nrc.gov/waste/spent-fuel-storage.html

FYI, "emergency" is not a recognized classification. Considering the press's slavish attention to detail during the last election, I'm amazed that not even a single news report that I've seen so far has got it right.

According to the site's official website this is a Site Area Emergency, which is the higher of the two possible classifications. As shown on the NRC's website, both classifications are filled with weasel words. An event may occur that could lead to a significant release of radioactive materials, and the release, if any, could require off-site help to contain.

Triggering an event classification, or upgrading an ongoing one, causes various agencies and offices to take action. The specifics for this type of event will be in countless binders and charts in dispatch centers and EOCs around the region. On site, the priorities are typically 1) lockdown, 2) deploy survey gear, 3) evacuate non-responder staff when/if safe to do so. Staff are told not to eat or drink during lockdown in case there is any radioactive dust around.

Volunteers have probably been asked not to leave town in case they need to open an evacuee reception center. Local first responders with counterterrorism and radiological training probably picked up their DRDs. HAMs and nerds in the area probably turned on the public access feeds on the Geiger counters they keep in their attics.

From the sounds of things, 8 feet of shielding got moved a bit closer to some waste containers. If someone had thought to put it on the calendar, no one would ever have heard about it, but because the earth decided to do it without asking what the plant management thought, it automatically turns into a shitshow.

I'll raise a glass tonight to the guys in tyvek suits. I know exactly how unpleasant they are to wear, and I'll pray that everyone wearing one this week remains annoyed by them, and never thankful.

I've never seen an exact level, but it's been described as "well over 1000 times normal background radiation".

The thing about "normal" is that it isn't very normal. It varies widely, from areas with almost no background radiation, to areas with very high levels. People who live in pitchblende areas deal with higher levels, every day, 24/7.

Yes, walk a few feet away, and radiation from radioactive sources drops radically, so as you say, the low energy "reactor" next door has absolutely no effect - you probably wouldn't even be able to measure it. The radiation levels from living next door to a powerplant for a year is comparable to living two days in Denver.

Sure, radioactivity is dangerous. So is asbestos, lead, mercury and many other things. But common for them is that the level of hysteria is far more dangerous than minimal exposure.

With nuclear, there is no such justification. Nuclear is not getting more cost effective. It is getting worse. Building and running a nuclear plant today is way more expensive than it was 50 years ago.

Indeed! The Price Anderson Act was a temporary measure for the Nuclear Industry. It was originally set to expire in 1967 once the industry had proved itself safe. Evidently it hasn't.

When Dixie Lee Ray was the head of the Atomic Energy Commission she proclaimed that the disposal of nuclear fuel would be the greatest non-problem in history and would be accomplished by 1985, yet here we are in 2016, thirty years past that date and still there is no high level waste disposal site anywhere. The closest anyone has come is the Swiss and even their project is a multi-decade test project and extremely expensive.

However, this is the problem with the highly polarized dichotomy of this debate, it allows both "sides" loose sight of the other factions involved, that 'certain issues' exist in the debate. The first rudimentary core debate over nuclear power is storage of spent fuel. Why would oil and coal want that? It would promote more nuclear power. From their perspective such a facility is bad because it enables nuclear to eat into coal's market. It works for them that this is still an issue for nuclear.

You can see that played out in the document modified today. The Act they are talking about is the 2005 Energy Policy Act[warn:pdf]. It's a pretty interesting read. You can skip to SEC 600 for the stuff about the Nuclear Industry. I expect around SEC 613-625 of the Act will be the sections modified and there you will find funding for the owners of nuclear power plant, who are oil and coal interests building these reactors in the US.

Which, pro or anti nuclear aside, shows that a lot of these funds are simply going to Oil and Coal interests. With lobbying you can change the meaning of 'incentive' to 'welfare' for a lot less than building a nuclear reactor. I think it makes sense to be mindful of this additional dimension of the debate from the perspective of the taxpayer, that corporate welfare and political gain exists. Why is it the taxpayers responsibility that the operators can't meet the regulatory requirements and meet legal requirements in time?

I wonder how much 'spent fuel' infrastructure it would buy. How much spending on building railways from the many reactor sites to the repository. What about developing accelerator technology that transmutes non fuel waste products, how many STEM jobs there? That's a lot of jobs in a lot of places if science instead of politics is used to actually site the repository. Just some food for thought.

I see this is a loss for pro and anti nuclear folk, for different reasons. AP-1000 and EPR are the two approved reactor technology for the US. Nukkers aren't going to get their AP-1000s or EPRs any sooner because of this and everyone else is going to have their tax dollars sent to the oil and coal companies when it could be spent on solving nuclear infrastructure problems.

The rough translation is the Oil and Coal industry would like you to know, they're still in charge.

Three Mile Island was the only major commercial nuclear accident in U.S. history. Nuclear power in the U.S. has generated 24,196,167 GWh between 1971-2015. At an average price of 12 cents/kWh, that's $2.90354 trillion. So the approx $3.4 billion in cleanup and lossses from TMI is 0.117% of that. Or in other words, at a retail price of 12 cents/kWh, the historical cost of cleaning up nuclear accidents in the U.S. is 0.014 cents per kWh.

In contrast, subsidies for different energy sources are 23.1 cents/kWh for solar, 3.5 cents/kWh for wind, and 0.2 cents/kWh for nuclear. (Tables ES4 and ES4. Solar received $4.393 billion in subsidies while generating 19,000 GWh. Wind received $5.936 billion while generating 5,936 GWh, and nuclear received $1.66 billion while generating 789,000 GWh.) That's right. The subsidy for solar is 1650x more expensive than cleaning up nuclear accidents. The subsidy for wind is 250x more expensive.

Nuclear decommissioning costs are already paid for by the NRC's Financial Assurance fund. A portion of the revenue from electricity sales are placed into this fund.

The problem with insuring nuclear plants is just a quirk of statistics. The more times you roll the dice, the narrower the bell curve becomes and the more predictable the average outcome. e.g. A 1d100 has an equal chance to produce any result between 1 and 100 - the probability distribution function is a straight line. 2d50 produces a triangular PDF, with the values in the middle tending to be more likely. 10d10 produces an even more compact PDF - a narrow normal curve with results in the middle much more likely than the extremes. And 100d0.5 will always produce 50 - its PDF is just a single peak in the middle.

This is a problem for insuring nuclear plants - because they produce so much energy you don't need very many of them. Whereas there are thousands of coal plants, and (potentially) millions of solar installations, there are only operating 100 nuclear plants in the U.S. So insuring a nuclear plant represents a greater risk for the insurer. Even though the mean outcome will be that there is 1 accident every 30 years, the chance of a 2nd or 3rd accident is still significant and the amount the insurer has to pay out may easily surpass how much they've collected in premiums if they assume the statistically most likely outcome of a single accident.

The insurance company's response is to increase the premium to also cover that 2nd or 3rd event even though they're unlikely. In contrast, with thousands of coal plants they can be much more confident that there will be (say) only 10 accidents every 30 years, and 20 or 30 accidents is extraordinarily unlikely. So the premiums can be lower, even if the average risk (mean) is exactly the same. If there were some way to build thousands of small-scale nuclear plants instead of 100 large ones, private insurance wouldn't be a problem. You get around this problem by creating the largest insurance pool possible, which in this case would be nationalized insurance covering all 100 nuclear power plants.

Statistically, per unit of energy generated, nuclear power is the safest power source man has invented.

Can you honestly put your hand on your heart and say the true decommissioning costs of these nuclear plants are built into the prices today?

Decommissioning costs are built into the price today. The NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) requires utilities operating a nuclear plant to put aside a portion of their revenue into a decommissioning trust fund to cover decommissioning costs for the plants.

The placement of Nuclear facilities is governed by a Suitability Criteria that is an act of law.

It's ridiculous to think greenpeace, hippys in combi vans, NIMBYS or any one else for that matter has any influence at all as all of their concerns are addressed in Section C.9. The process and economics involved in proposing and building a Nuclear Reactor is complex.

Especially when you consider there has been a bunch of GenIII reactors proposed. Only approved reactor types can be sited and the companies who propose them can apply for compensation for construction delays(2005 US Energy Act, SEC 600 onward). It's an excellent way for oil and coal utilities to legally defraud ratepayers as the original act that prevented that behaviour, a part of the new deal called PUCHA, was repealed there in the end of the 2005 Act. Under the Act, IIUC, each operator can claim up to $500,000,000 per site in construction delays.

The NIMBY accusations are a complete ad hom argument when they are made.

The placement of Nuclear facilities is governed by a Suitability Criteria that is an act of law.

It's ridiculous to think greenpeace, hippys in combi vans, NIMBYS or any one else for that matter has any influence at all as all of their concerns are addressed in Section C.9. The process and economics involved in proposing and building a Nuclear Reactor is complex.

Especially when you consider there has been a bunch of GenIII reactors proposed. Only approved reactor types can be sited and the companies who propose them can apply for compensation for construction delays(2005 US Energy Act, SEC 600 onward). It's an excellent way for oil and coal utilities to legally defraud ratepayers as the original act that prevented that behaviour, a part of the new deal called PUCHA, was repealed there in the end of the 2005 Act. Under the Act, IIUC, each operator can claim up to $500,000,000 per site in construction delays.

The NIMBY accusations are a complete ad hom argument when they are made.

The placement of Nuclear facilities is governed by a Suitability Criteria that is an act of law.

It's ridiculous to think greenpeace, hippys in combi vans, NIMBYS or any one else for that matter has any influence at all as all of their concerns are addressed in Section C.9. The process and economics involved in proposing and building a Nuclear Reactor is complex.

Especially when you consider there has been a bunch of GenIII reactors proposed. Only approved reactor types can be sited and the companies who propose them can apply for compensation for construction delays(2005 US Energy Act, SEC 600 onward). It's an excellent way for oil and coal utilities to legally defraud ratepayers as the original act that prevented that behaviour, a part of the new deal called PUCHA, was repealed there in the end of the 2005 Act. Under the Act, IIUC, each operator can claim up to $500,000,000 per site in construction delays.

The NIMBY accusations are a complete ad hom argument when they are made.

A search for "TVA senior manager for the probabilistic risk assessment in the Nuclear Power Group from April 2010 to September 2014" returned Ching Guey. Inceed lists his work experience as "Senior Manager Nuclear Power Group - Chattanooga, TN April 2010 to September 2014 TVA" so that's almost an exact match, especially given his name. Matching the list of wikipedia to the info off NRC.gov, there is only Exelon Generation Co. LLC, or FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Co. Exelon owns 4 out of the 5. Then, there is the actual PDF of the indictment.

I don't get what is going on here. Presumably he has a licence from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, so why the secrecy ("secret" lab behind a bookshelf)? In a residential area?? The Youtube video crapped out on me BTW, so I hope his gear is more reliable.

NIMBY accusations are a complete ad hom argument when they are made. The placement of Nuclear facilities is governed by a Suitability Criteria that is an act of law.

It's ridiculous to think greenpeace, hippys in combi vans, hicks in pick up trucks or any other NIMBY has any influence at all as all of their concerns are addressed in Section C.9. The process and economics involved in proposing and building a Nuclear Reactor is complex.

Especially when you consider there has been a bunch of GenIII reactors proposed. Only approved reactor types can be sited and the companies who propose them can apply for compensation for construction delays(2005 US Energy Act, SEC 600 onward). It's an excellent way for oil and coal utilities to legally defraud ratepayers as the original act that prevented that behaviour, a part of the new deal called PUCHA, was repealed there in the end of the 2005 Act. Under the Act, IIUC, each operator can claim up to $500,000,000 per site in construction delays.

The taxpayer is the one that is being ripped off.

NIMBY accusations are a complete ad hom argument when they are made. The placement of Nuclear facilities is governed by a Suitability Criteria that is an act of law.

It's ridiculous to think greenpeace, hippys in combi vans, hicks in pick up trucks or any other NIMBY has any influence at all as all of their concerns are addressed in Section C.9. The process and economics involved in proposing and building a Nuclear Reactor is complex.

Especially when you consider there has been a bunch of GenIII reactors proposed. Only approved reactor types can be sited and the companies who propose them can apply for compensation for construction delays(2005 US Energy Act, SEC 600 onward). It's an excellent way for oil and coal utilities to legally defraud ratepayers as the original act that prevented that behaviour, a part of the new deal called PUCHA, was repealed there in the end of the 2005 Act. Under the Act, IIUC, each operator can claim up to $500,000,000 per site in construction delays.

The taxpayer is the one that is being ripped off.

NIMBY accusations are a complete ad hom argument when they are made. The placement of Nuclear facilities is governed by a Suitability Criteria that is an act of law.

It's ridiculous to think greenpeace, hippys in combi vans, hicks in pick up trucks or any other NIMBY has any influence at all as all of their concerns are addressed in Section C.9. The process and economics involved in proposing and building a Nuclear Reactor is complex.

Especially when you consider there has been a bunch of GenIII reactors proposed. Only approved reactor types can be sited and the companies who propose them can apply for compensation for construction delays(2005 US Energy Act, SEC 600 onward). It's an excellent way for oil and coal utilities to legally defraud ratepayers as the original act that prevented that behaviour, a part of the new deal called PUCHA, was repealed there in the end of the 2005 Act. Under the Act, IIUC, each operator can claim up to $500,000,000 per site in construction delays.

The taxpayer is the one that is being ripped off.

Long polls? I don't think you realize how long the polls would have to be.

You are also mistaking the buildings these things are in for simple, flimsy structures into which one can simply drill a hole and drop a cable.

http://www.nrc.gov/waste/spent...
https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/

It should be noted that 600 Rem in a short period is the point where you have a significant chance of dying

I would advise against betting your life on that as a cutoff point. The human LD50 for acute whole-body radiation exposure without medical intervention is about 350 rad. There will be cases of death for "only" 200-300 rad. A level of 600 rad is essentially LD100.

That's certainly what the Washington State Department of Health, Division of Environmental Health, Office of Radiation Protection believes, anyway. I would be inclined to believe they know what they are talking about. Hanford Nuclear Reservation is in Washington.

The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission pegs the LD50 at 400-450 without specifying whether or not medical intervention is made. If you want to be a little more daring, use that.

None of these figures even count deaths which take longer than 30 days following exposure to occur.

The NRC disagrees with you. To quote "A dirty bomb is in no way similar to a nuclear weapon or nuclear bomb." Sorry.

Original poster here, I was aware, but its a technical distinction irrelevant to the context. The public and the politicians will not care about such a subtlety. People will die like Hiroshima survivors. That is all that is relevant.

The NRC disagrees with you.
To quote "A dirty bomb is in no way similar to a nuclear weapon or nuclear bomb."

Sorry.

I noticed they were very careful not to mention even a hint of what those horrible evil dangerous life-threatening "make NYC glow in the dark" tritium levels.

Get smart on the laws and numbers before you panic:

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/...

I'll bet the levels they're shrieking about are WAY below what's being emitted in the subspace beneath my house.

PWRs are light water reactors, not heavy water --- so I'm still puzzled about the origin of the tritium.

There is intentional addition of Boron, in the form of boric acid, to the water in PWRs to act as a moderator for the reaction. Which is how the Boron crystals indicated the slow leak in the pipe in the filtration system for the refueling process which recently occurred, resulting in the tritium in the test well. When exposed to radiation, Boron tends to turn to Tritium.

It wasn't a big leak, and the company self-reported the leak. For comparison purposes, the amount per liter of water was still in picocuries; it we wanted to make it sound even scarier, of course, we'd measure it in bequerels, so that it'd be 37,000 times larger still. Or we could compare it to the naturally occurring radioactivity from the potassium already in your body, which is about 50 times higher.

See also: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/...

link "up 65,000 percent"

Agreed. Who talks like this?

I think they mean 650x but all those extra zeroes look so sp00ky!
Yea verily, it has increased by four gross, three score and a fortnight.
When I was going to St. Ives I met a man with thirteen eyes.
Each eye had five anime-glints.
How many anime-glints were traveling away from St. Ives?

8,000,000 picocuries/L ~ 1,500 mrem ~ about one full body CT scan per liter drunk.
Seriously high, but if every liter the water in this 'most contaminated' well was diluted with 399 liters of non-tritiated water it would be drinkable by EPA standards. (source)

“These values remain less than one-tenth of 1% of federal reporting guidelines,” the company said in a statement, adding the higher levels are “fluctuations that can be expected as the material migrates.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new...

And it's Tritium being leaked. Aka Relatively harmless

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/...

it's someone from UL trying to instill fear and drum up business for their private, for profit company.

I was going to drum up that UL is a not-for-profit, but it turns out that you're right and I'm behind the times. UL went 'for-profit' back in 2012. Though it seems that the for profit branch is still owned by the non-profit parent company. So I wonder how the hell that works out.

I mean, I like businesses. I like companies doing their best to make a profit. Part of the whole libertarian thing. But also as part of the libertarian thing, I'm extremely supportive of non and not-for profits like the UL used to be, cooperatives, and employee-owned companies. My ideal utility company, for example, is a cooperative not-for profit.

UL discarding their 'not-for-profit' status makes me uncomfortable. Before, while I wouldn't term them perfect, I could at least say that the company's primary concern was safety above all else. Sure, they'd charge money - but they needed to keep the lights on. Not needing to turn a profit, they would be mostly immune to the corruption of having to satisfy their customers by passing goods that might not actually be as safe as they could be.

I used to work for a nonprofit which had a for-profit consulting company associated with them. I was on the nonprofit side. The for-profit side had better pay and benefits, for the exact same experience level and job function. The workers on the nonprofit side envied the for-profit side.

There are some disadvantages to being a nonprofit. Legitimate ones. Like the allowable retirement plans under IRS guidelines are different than the ones for normal companies and may not be as favorable to workers. Pay has to be justified and approved in different ways than a for-profit. Sometimes these quirks of tax law make it harder to hire staff, especially in highly technical jobs such as the UL might have need for. Maybe that isn't the case with UL labs at all, and it was done for sleazy reasons. But there are legitimate reasons to go for-profit.

Check out "Benefit Corporations" (NOT 'B-corps, that is totally different). They are a very new idea and we haven't yet seen how they will impact society and capitalism. I am sure that they will be very popular once someone tells the millennials.

it's someone from UL trying to instill fear and drum up business for their private, for profit company.

I was going to drum up that UL is a not-for-profit, but it turns out that you're right and I'm behind the times. UL went 'for-profit' back in 2012. Though it seems that the for profit branch is still owned by the non-profit parent company. So I wonder how the hell that works out.

I mean, I like businesses. I like companies doing their best to make a profit. Part of the whole libertarian thing. But also as part of the libertarian thing, I'm extremely supportive of non and not-for profits like the UL used to be, cooperatives, and employee-owned companies. My ideal utility company, for example, is a cooperative not-for profit.

UL discarding their 'not-for-profit' status makes me uncomfortable. Before, while I wouldn't term them perfect, I could at least say that the company's primary concern was safety above all else. Sure, they'd charge money - but they needed to keep the lights on. Not needing to turn a profit, they would be mostly immune to the corruption of having to satisfy their customers by passing goods that might not actually be as safe as they could be.

The actual seed source is about as big as a pencil eraser, maybe a little smaller. Thus, it would be hard to repurpose as a dirty bomb - it's a lump and all it would do is fly somewhere else in an explosion.

Radioactive sources are lost all the time. This website from the NRC keeps a log of all lost sources. While losing a source like this in Iraq is unfortunate, it's not uncommon.

Ah, here's what I was looking for. From a US review of spent fuel, http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/..., a section entitled

5.1 IMPORTANT ISOTOPES IN SPENT NUCLEAR FUEL SAFETY ANALYSES (p) 31 5.2 (next section) (p)35"

Actually, my guesstimate of "hundreds" above is reduced on that table to a mere 41. Of course, a different authority would probably choose a different group that are "important" but "dozens" certainly seems a good starting estimate.

I found a second source, https://www.oecd-nea.org/scien... which has a similar list of 31 nucleides.

Tokamac reactors are the other end of the spectrum. Fissile material heated to the temperature of just a fraction of our own sun is very difficult to maintain.

Hydrogen is not fissile

You may have missed the point.

You're expecting mdsolar's posts to be anti-nuclear and, intentionally or not, he has done quite a good job of exposing the bias of the nuclear shills on /. by posting a report that is designed to support nuclear power. The authors are from IAEA, NRC, and big utility companies like Duke who operate 6-8 nuclear reactors.

The Nuclear shills are criticizing the report of an organisation whose founders state exists to strengthen global security by reducing the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, and also to reduce the risk that they will actually be used.. Who wouldn't want that, especially if you support nuclear power?

They're arguing against an initiative designed to improve the acceptance of Nuclear power supported by the US and Russians presidents.

They're criticizing a regulatory framework that the NRC has committed to implementing in conjunction with the DOE, FBI, DOHS that lays the regulatory framework for extending Nuclear power around the world.

This is what it looks like when Industry, in this case the nuclear industry, push government when *they* recognise a risk that they want legal frameworks to deal with. What Industry is saying to government is that they are lagging because of the lack of progress on international regulatory frameworks being in place to force *all* radiological materials handlers to comply.

It shows that our nuclear shill friends aren't examining or understanding what is presented and instead are relying on their internal bias and pre-conceived judgement. mdsolar has posted something pro-nuclear, that critiques government's lack of progress on international law required to secure Nuclear power. The appropriate response for a sincere supporter of Nuclear Power would be to say 'boo, government, bad, holding nuclear industry back get those laws in place' but they are too busy pointing fingers at anti-nuke NIMBYs in combi vans that have very little influence over the process. Their great anti-nuke conspiracy theory.

Intentionally or not, mdsolar has gotten the nuclear shills to criticize a report that supports the development of Nuclear power.

You may have missed the point.

You're expecting mdsolar's posts to be anti-nuclear and, intentionally or not, he has done quite a good job of exposing the bias of the nuclear shills on /. by posting a report that is designed to support nuclear power. The authors are from IAEA, NRC, and big utility companies like Duke who operate 6-8 nuclear reactors.

The Nuclear shills are criticizing the report of an organisation whose founders state exists to strengthen global security by reducing the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, and also to reduce the risk that they will actually be used.. Who wouldn't want that, especially if you support nuclear power?

They're arguing against an initiative designed to improve the acceptance of Nuclear power supported by the US and Russians presidents.

They're criticizing a regulatory framework that the NRC has committed to implementing in conjunction with the DOE, FBI, DOHS that lays the regulatory framework for extending Nuclear power around the world.

This is what it looks like when Industry, in this case the nuclear industry, push government when *they* recognise a risk that they want legal frameworks to deal with. What Industry is saying to government is that they are lagging because of the lack of progress on international regulatory frameworks being in place to force *all* radiological materials handlers to comply.

It shows that our nuclear shill friends aren't examining or understanding what is presented and instead are relying on their internal bias and pre-conceived judgement. mdsolar has posted something pro-nuclear, that critiques government's lack of progress on international law required to secure Nuclear power. The appropriate response for a sincere supporter of Nuclear Power would be to say 'boo, government, bad, holding nuclear industry back get those laws in place' but they are too busy pointing fingers at anti-nuke NIMBYs in combi vans that have very little influence over the process. Their great anti-nuke conspiracy theory.

Intentionally or not, mdsolar has gotten the nuclear shills to criticize a report that supports the development of Nuclear power.

Let's have a look at the NIMBY argument that is so often cited as a cause of obstructing the placement of Nuclear facilities.

Placement of Nuclear facilities is governed by a Suitability Criteria that is an act of law.

Environmental concerns are addressed in Section C.9 so it's pretty ridiculous to think that greenpeace, hippys in combi vans, NIMBYS or any one else for that matter have any influence at in the placement of these facilities.

When you consider there has been a bunch of GenIII reactors already proposed and placed blaming 'NIMBY's is just a big conspiracy theory for people unwilling to engage in a fact based argument. The concerns of any objections in to the placement of facilities have already been addressed and according to the Bills that are acts of law the only thing that can stop them being deployed is the expense of building them.

Pointing fingers is just a way to ignore the process and economics involved in proposing and building a Nuclear Reactor and supporting facilities.

Let's have a look at the NIMBY argument that is so often cited as a cause of obstructing the placement of Nuclear facilities.

Placement of Nuclear facilities is governed by a Suitability Criteria that is an act of law.

Environmental concerns are addressed in Section C.9 so it's pretty ridiculous to think that greenpeace, hippys in combi vans, NIMBYS or any one else for that matter have any influence at in the placement of these facilities.

When you consider there has been a bunch of GenIII reactors already proposed and placed blaming 'NIMBY's is just a big conspiracy theory for people unwilling to engage in a fact based argument. The concerns of any objections in to the placement of facilities have already been addressed and according to the Bills that are acts of law the only thing that can stop them being deployed is the expense of building them.

Pointing fingers is just a way to ignore the process and economics involved in proposing and building a Nuclear Reactor and supporting facilities.

Let's have a look at the NIMBY argument that is so often cited as a cause of obstructing the placement of Nuclear facilities.

Placement of Nuclear facilities is governed by a Suitability Criteria that is an act of law.

Environmental concerns are addressed in Section C.9 so it's pretty ridiculous to think that greenpeace, hippys in combi vans, NIMBYS or any one else for that matter have any influence at in the placement of these facilities.

When you consider there has been a bunch of GenIII reactors already proposed and placed blaming 'NIMBY's is just a big conspiracy theory for people unwilling to engage in a fact based argument. The concerns of any objections in to the placement of facilities have already been addressed and according to the Bills that are acts of law the only thing that can stop them being deployed is the expense of building them.

Pointing fingers is just a way to ignore the process and economics involved in proposing and building a Nuclear Reactor and supporting facilities.

We should use the facility that has been built, instead of letting one lone-wolf senator prevent that from happening. Yes, a national repository would be much, much safer than the status quo.

The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 was passed to create a national program to dispose of nuclear fuel safely. The bill arranged for utility companies to pay for the development of such a site, which technically was a fee payed for by customers, not taxpayers (though that's really not much of a difference). Congress in 1987 decided that Yucca Mountain was the site to use, and all that money was collected and spent to build the site.

I don't understand why Yucca Mountain even needs to be a permanent storage solution. At least storing our nuclear fuel in one location is magnitudes safer than storing it at hundreds of nuclear power facilities throughout the country. Because we all know how safe coastal power plants are, and there's no worry about rivers ever flooding them either. The only reason why we aren't in a panic about Yucca Mountain being shut down is because we haven't had an accident yet. But just getting lucky should be no basis of national policy.

Thank you so much pro-nuke extremists. Thanks to your inability to look at reality you overlooked that placement of Nuclear facilities is governed by a Suitability Criteria that is an act of law.

It's pretty ridiculous to think greenpeace, hippys in combi vans, NIMBYS or any one else for that matter has any influence at all as all of their concerns are addressed in Section C.9. Pointing fingers is just a way to ignore the process and economics involved in proposing and building a Nuclear Reactor. It is a complete ad hom argument when it is made.

Especially when you consider there has been a bunch of GenIII reactors proposed. So I don't understand how their or anyone else's vision has anything to do with what reactor technology is deployed.

It's like the safety problems with the Corvair had been left in the production of newer car and they added some new untested features but they think it's better.

Thank you so much pro-nuke extremists. Thanks to your inability to look at reality you overlooked that placement of Nuclear facilities is governed by a Suitability Criteria that is an act of law.

It's pretty ridiculous to think greenpeace, hippys in combi vans, NIMBYS or any one else for that matter has any influence at all as all of their concerns are addressed in Section C.9. Pointing fingers is just a way to ignore the process and economics involved in proposing and building a Nuclear Reactor. It is a complete ad hom argument when it is made.

Especially when you consider there has been a bunch of GenIII reactors proposed. So I don't understand how their or anyone else's vision has anything to do with what reactor technology is deployed.

It's like the safety problems with the Corvair had been left in the production of newer car and they added some new untested features but they think it's better.

Thank you so much pro-nuke extremists. Thanks to your inability to look at reality you overlooked that placement of Nuclear facilities is governed by a Suitability Criteria that is an act of law.

It's pretty ridiculous to think greenpeace, hippys in combi vans, NIMBYS or any one else for that matter has any influence at all as all of their concerns are addressed in Section C.9. Pointing fingers is just a way to ignore the process and economics involved in proposing and building a Nuclear Reactor. It is a complete ad hom argument when it is made.

Especially when you consider there has been a bunch of GenIII reactors proposed. So I don't understand how their or anyone else's vision has anything to do with what reactor technology is deployed.

It's like the safety problems with the Corvair had been left in the production of newer car and they added some new untested features but they think it's better.

It is the large current that overloads transformers, circuit breakers, and anything else that happens to be connected to the grid. So wrapping a transformer in a Faraday cage would provide no protection as the damage isn't from EMF.

It is not the current itself from the geomagnetic storm which damages the transformer.

What happens is that the low frequency common mode current from the geomagnetic storm moves the B-H curve of the transformer core toward saturation. When that happens, the inductance falls and the existing 60 Hz circulating current increases catastrophically causing failure do to high temperature in the copper windings. If power was removed before this happened, then the transformer would survive.

Unfortunately lead time for constructing the largest transformers is months to years and the US no longer even has the facilities to do so; they have to be imported. The example transformer which failed in the 1989 event was only replaced in a timely manner because there was an suitable unused transformer for a nuclear plant which was cancelled.

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/...
http://www.solarstorms.org/Spo...