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"an apparent insider sabotage of a diesel generator at the San Onofre nuclear facility in California"

Federal nuclear regulators investigate failure of backup San Onofre diesel generator during testing

San Onofre - how did coolant end up in emergency diesel generator oil system?

http://www.nuclear.com/n-plants/index-Floating_N-p lants.html says

July 30, 2005

Floating plant by 2011, Russia sez

Russia's Federal Nuclear Energy Agency has said it will complete the first of several floating nuclear plants by 2011 and put it into operation at the northern port of Severodvinsk, on the White Sea. Construction will start next year. Each 70-megawatt plant is designed to last 40 years and will cost about $200 million US.

it goes on to say this is being funded by China.

Chris

Okay let's say the pro-warming folks are actually right. The evidence is not there. And computer models don't prove shite. To say they have been wrong before would be an understatement. And we're about to run out of the stuff (fossil fuels) soon anyway. But let's just say that the amount of human produced CO2 is affecting our climate, perhaps even enough to cause the extinction of some species, including humans, before the fossil fuels run sufficiently low to make them economically unfeasable. Seems like science fiction to me. But let's just suppose all of this really would come to pass.

What precisely is it that you folks are proposing we do about it? Seriously. If we really are going to be extinct within the next 50-100 years (before fossil fuels run out), then perhaps it is worth trying to introduce a worldwide death penalty for any sort of combustion. After all, it is to save our entire species. In fact such an extreme measure might even work. Would you be in favor of that? And as far as enforcing it worldwide, surely The Ministries of Peace of most countries would be willing to go to war, perhaps even nuclear war to enforce these requirements against any rogue nation. Again, we are talking about the exctinction of our species. Surely it would be justified. Also, you can't possibly be thinking that the majority of the human population would be willing to voluntarily go back to pack animals and sails as the sole methods of transportation.

I could see nuclear fission plants as being a possible solution, albeit a stopgap one since uranium ore also will not last forever, especially as the sole source for human energy needs. I believe nuclear airplanes have been shown to be possible. And cars and trucks could reduce their range and be powered by batteries recharged by nuclear generated electricity. I particularly like the idea of safer (but less efficient) nuclear tech like pebble bed reactors. Needless to say we would need some place to put all that nuclear waste. And more than a handful of serious nuclear accidents around the globe could also cause the extinction of our (and many other) species. Still the problem with nuclear fission (or even fusion, assuming it will ever be feasible) as a solution is that if combustion is still a cheaper method of energy production, stopping it will still require the use of a World Police State to enforce the global ban on combustion, since the majority of people will still choose the cheapest option.

Which is why we should be building nuclear reactors to produce cheap hydrogen *now*, not 10 years from now. Maybe small ones on boats, that could also distill potable drinking water, as well as produce electricity for local consumption. and so why not hydrogen for non-local (fuel) use, too?

Interested? more information here

but is there much R&D on synthetic or renewable natural gas substitutes?

Actually, yes. Several landfill operators have installed gas capture devices and retrofitted their heavy equipment to run off of methane. Many have found that the landfill was capable of producing enough methane to sustain its own equipment, and even after those landfills close to new trash, they will be able to continue to produce methane. Other general biomass conversion projects exist along these lines (using certain crops or cows or whatnot).

There's also coal gassification, though that probably qualifies as moving from one scarce fuel to another.

From: http://www.nuclear.com/n-plants/index-Floating_N-p lants.html :

* A floating nuclear power plant design, under development by OKBM in Russia, uses the KLT-40s reactor system, and involves a "special-purpose non-self-propelled ship" (a barge) intended for operation in a protected water area. There are plans to build a nuclear heat and power generating plant with a floating power-generating unit in the area of Pevek, Chukot Peninsula, in northeastern Siberia, and in Severodvinsk (Archangelsk region). The technical and economic characteristics of this power plant are:
* Electric power - 60 MW
* Heat output - 50 Gcal/h
* Number of reactor systems and main turbogenerators - 2
* Overall plant lifetime - 40 years

These power plants are multipurpose in terms of possible applications, since they provide electric power generation while also providing heat supply for various purposes, including seawater desalination.

[Source: Georgy M. Antonovsky (Chief Specialist, OKBM-the Experimental and Design Bureau of Mechanical Engineering, in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia) et al., Table IV - "Technical and economic characteristics of a floating nuclear power station with the KLT-40s", in "PWR-type reactors developed by OKBM", Nuclear News, March 2002, p. 33]

* The KLT-40s is based on the KLT-40, which the US DOE has called a proven, commercially available, small PWR system because its design is based entirely on the nuclear steam supply system used in Russian icebreakers. The KLT-40 is a portable, floating, nuclear power plant intended mainly for electric power generation, but it also possesses the capability for desalination or heat production. The reactor core is cooled by forced circulation of pressurized water during normal operation, but in all emergency modes, the design relies mainly on natural convection in the primary and secondary coolant loops.

The KLT-40 is mounted on a barge, complete with the nuclear reactor, steam turbines, and other support facilities. It is designed to be transported to a remote location and connected to the energy distribution system in a manner similar to the Mobile High Power nuclear power plant operated by the U.S. Army in the 1970s. The designer and supplier of the KLT-40 is the Russian Special Design Bureau for Mechanical Engineering (OKBM).

Fuel for the KLT-40 is a uranium-aluminum metal alloy clad with a zirconium alloy. 200 kg of U-235 gives a core power density of 155 kW per liter on average (that's relatively high for a reactor, according to the DOE report), and the fuel may be high-enriched uranium (U-235 content at or above 20 percent). The fuel assembly structure and manufacturing technology are proven, and its reliability has been verified by the long-term operation of similar cores.

The KLT-40's primary system involves four coolant pumps feeding four steam generators. The secondary system uses two turbogenerators with condensate pumps, main and standby feed pumps, and two steam condensers. As much as 35 MWt energy can be transferred from the condensers to a desalination plant via an intermediate circuit.

The KLT-40 includes a steel containment vessel designed to withstand overpressure conditions. A passive-pressure suppression system condenses steam that might escape into the containment building.

The KLT-40 has a variety of "inherent safety characteristics". One involves the prodigious use of "burnable poison" in the fuel such that cold shutdowns are assured (because any increase in core temperature results in a lowering of core power -- it's what's called having a large negative temperature coefficient for the reactor core).

The KLT-40 is designed using a plug-and-play philosophy. It gets built at the factory and is able to be transported over water to remote locations. Although the KLT-40 requires refueling every two to three years, the transportability of the entire plant to maintenance centers provides enhanced pro

Brazil Leads Drive to Biodiesel 'Clean Fuel' http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_vi ew.asp?no=224467&rel_n

BIODIESEL - BRAZIL RESEARCH: SOYBEAN, CASTOR, PALM, SUNFLOWER, PEANUT, AND COTTONSEED OILS, PLUS RECYCLING AND JUNGLE FRUITS http://www.nuclear.com/archive/2004/09/01/20040901 -002.html

Brazil Opens Another Biodiesel Plant; Wants to Be Largest Renewable Fuel Supplier http://www.greencarcongress.com/2005/05/brazil_ope ns_an.html

Some people reported some research cars running on certain mixtures of Biodiesel as smelling of French fries. Well, better than gasoline combustion...

The nuclear "battery" - fully contained, sealed and autonomous. Its designed for remote areas.

The vessel is buried in the ground (thus explosives, car bombs wont touch it), and the nuclear material is sealed under a massive cap that would require very large heavy equipment and alot of time to get at.

The most modern of fission reactor designs are passively safe, meaning they require little to no active safety systems (ie, working cooling pumps) in order to operate.

Toshiba is working a design which requires no crew even. You build a housing, put the reactor in the ground, and in 30 years replace its core fuel element. Several of these put together can power entire towns.

http://www.nuclear.com/n-plants/index-Small_modulr _reactr.html