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Is more R&D into advanced GenIV designs like MSR, VHTR, or small modular reactors, and a less punishing regulatory review process. We are abdicating our leadership to China, India, and Europe.

We don't need that research becaus Nuclear is perfectly safe already. We need laws forcing building plants before any other power source is considered. Except for coal. Coal needs plants built before nuc except where nuc plants are built before coal.

While that might sound sarcastic, it is the basic premise of Trump's concept.

By the way - if we declare that coal and it's mining is a critical defense need, what happens to the 88 million metric tons that we exported in 2017? https://www.platts.com/latest-... What the hell kind of country exports that much of a critical strategic product? Sounds like aiding and abetting possible enemies of our country. This must end and end now! America's future is at stake.

This has precisely nothing to do with renewables and everything with an artificially created Albanian mafia state being a part of the European grid.

https://www.platts.com/latest-...

France still plans to reduce nuclear to 50% - just not already by 2025 as planned by the old government.

http://www.mining-journal.com/...

While France exports a huge amount of electricity, this is mostly cheap surplus electricity at times of low demand. At times of high demand or many plants are down (e.g. during heat wave), it often critically depends on imports. In contrast, in the last years this was never the case for Germany.

http://energypost.eu/france-ca...
https://www.reuters.com/articl...

But even in total, Germany is about to overtake France as the biggest electricity exporter - especially with all the trouble France had with its nuclear plants this year.

http://www.worldstopexports.co...
https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/...
https://www.platts.com/latest-...

Apparently, they are already using Azerbaijan. Since they rely on a precarious Georgia pipeline and a pipeline in Turkey apparently susceptible to attacks, this might not be ideal for the west to hang their hat on. And that's without pointing out that Russia has full control over the Caspian.

I support nuclear power, but don't mistake it for being inexpensive. Some nuclear units in deregulated markets in the US for example are getting shutdown because they can't compete with combined cycle natural gas units. Some units are being saved by bailouts.

Since nobody has come up with a final solution to the waste problem, the costs are infinite.

Could I say, "Until we come up with a solution to the wind-doesn't-blow-all-the-time problem or the ice-storms-can-fuck-em-up-completely problem... the costs are infinite?

Half of the 'final solution' is to fast-burn all the old waste and make energy from it.
The waste will sit there patiently until we can do this.
The other half of the 'final solution' is a new generation of reactors that do not generate long-lived waste.
The basic concept for this was developed 60 years ago by Weinberg.
In the world I live in we consider these to be problems to solve.
What kind of world do you live in??

Discussing energy topics in these forums is beginning to feel like trying to explain to Elmo why he can't have Christmas every day . "But Santa Claus, Elmo wants Christmas every day! Santa gave Elmo three wishes. They're Elmo's wishes! And Elmo wished for Christmas every day!" Elmo wished for wind and solar power, he thinks the storage problem will solve itself with GrapheneOrSomethingSomehow(tm), Elmo thinks fusion is tomorrow, Elmo wants hydropower in Arizona, Elmo wants to place an iron cap over Yellowstone.

And Elmo hates nuclear energy --- because his parents hate it --- or because they don't. Elmo has not researched the matter.

___
Please see Thorium Remix, collected rants on Slashdot and these letters on energy,
  To The Honorable James M. Inhofe, United States Senate
  To whom it may concern, Halliburton Corporate
Also of interest, Faulkner [2005]: Electric Pipelines for North American Power Grid Efficiency Security

It's that most of us realise how much less horror would be in the world if there wasn't constant fighting over the limited fossil fuels that cold fusion would replace.

That's not it at all. If it was, people would be going batshit over renewables right now, since wind is now actually cheaper than natural gas, and solar is getting there. Instead, Natural gas is now the hot new power plant technology that everyone is building.

So no, getting rid of fossil fuels is clearly not that big of a deal to the public at large. Even if it were we wouldn't need some new mythical type of atomic energy to do so. For our big plants, we could all do it in 2 years if we wanted to, and be paying no more for our energy than today.

Claiming that wind and solar can't do this job is spectacularly stupid because this is a job ideally suited to wind and solar.

Intelligence has nothing to do with it. I could be thick as a brick... yet still capable of imagining a continent-wide Winter storm that begins with freezing rain, leaving a shell of crystalline ice, drifts of fluffy snow and a hard freeze condition lasting a week or more. I don't mean just a little wave of storms, such as the ones that caused NextEra to shut down wind farms that were supposed to last '20 years' or more... I'm talking about real weather. It has happened before. It will happen again.

It's all a big FAIL, an idea that should have been laughed out of the room years ago, by people with more power of imagination than intelligence.

Taking critical base load power generation outside and raising it up on giant stalks, with millions of precision moving parts exposed to the elements, is stupid. It's an engineering nightmare. Staking your very survival on the combined output of acres of solar panels is beyond stupid. It's gone further still into the realm of the 'ridiculous'.

Don't quote happy spreadsheets claiming that the happy Chinese are willing to buy more happy bonds and sell us thousands of turbines with tons of happy molybdenum magnets, to put in places distant from people and all these small (but happy!) 3MW contributions of power are going to add up to a happy aggregation of happy survival.

Just try to imagine a single giant ice storm. A really SAD one.

Generating gigawatts of electricity inside a seismically hardened building by a process that can keep a few years' worth of fuel on-hand --- that's not even smart. It's a no-brainer.

> Thorium has become sort of a in-joke around here
Yeah, if by "around here" you mean "on earth".

I know you're trolling me, but do you really know how far off the mark you are? People want (reliable, affordable, clean) energy. Those attributes are in their proper order of preference because people are practical and parents have little mouths to feed. And NO generation has ever ethically concluded that their own children were entitled to less available energy and fewer choices than their own.

Are you so enamored of coal and natural gas, so convinced they will save your ass, that you feel comfortable dabbling in unworkable ideas? Coal and gas are not renewable. They too will fall prey to this massive ice storm, as gas distribution networks suffer power outages and coal trains stop running. Solar and wind are not 'renewable' either, they are 'disposable', as in failed experiment, money and precious time wasted.

If any of those anonymous contributors who modded my GP 'interesting' have deep pockets, how 'bout we go full frontal John Galt and all gather some where in the world that is not populated by hysterical radiophobes, and place as much of a priority on the perfection and scaling of molten salt technology as say, we did for steam, rail and other things.

All aboard for Galt's Gulch!

Energy prices in Europe have been declining for a while now: http://www.platts.com/pressrel...

Electricity rates have been rising in America. Perversely, this is because of falling demand. Electricity consumption peaked in 2007, and has been falling since then. Falling demand should mean lower prices, but most generators are protected monopolies that are guaranteed a profit. So falling demand means that fixed costs must be spread over fewer kwHrs.

Energy prices in Europe have been declining for a while now: http://www.platts.com/pressrel...

So flat coal consumption is misleading - this would imply coal is growing as a percentage of energy mix given the economic situation.

Actually, I think it is more complicated than that. For instance, a small decrease in electricity demand would not prompt Germany to start dismantling plants. Some plants can easily be used less, while other may not. Older coal plants designed only for base load face significant challenges when trying to operate to accommodate turbulent demand. Accordingly, a downturn in demand could result in a higher mix of coal vs gas, but only because the gas generators are more flexible than the coal plants.

Another point worth mentioning is that improved efficiency is also the cause of decreasing demand. Unfortunately I am not able to find an actual percentage breakout, but I would guess that it is not insignificant due to recent trends like LED lighting. Accordingly, I think it would be unfair to exclude the efficiency improvement portion from the mix and then say that Germany was getting less green because of an increased coal mix. We should be comparing the work accomplished by electricity, not just raw electricity production.

But isn't that what the National Academy of Sciences is saying in the report? Platts reports he same. http://www.platts.com/latest-n... "US nuclear regulators and industry officials must do more to protect reactors from extreme, but unlikely, events like the earthquake and tsunami that caused the accident at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant, the National Academy of Sciences recommended in report issued Thursday."

I think you need some citations. And if you're going to declare a post "total BS", perhaps your rebuttals should be on point? Kinda like this:

1) China "will be"? UN says 28.6%, not quite "over 1/3" as you originally said.
2) China is indeed focusing on reducing pollution, but they're also cutting coal consumption, not just consuming it differently. They're using GreatPoint's catalytic hydromethanation process of coal gasification, and the CO2 produced is captured, not released.
3) Primarily stopping desertification as I said, but 500,000,000 hectares of fast-growing trees are a not-insignificant CO2 absorber, as the Chinese are quick to point out.
4) China's top climate negotiator said that China has pledged to cut its carbon intensity by 40-45% by 2020 from 2005 levels. Coal plants are no longer being approved in polluted provinces like Beijing, and their nuclear power program is one of the most ambitious programs in the world.
5) Huh?

You are essentially right, and the effects are felt in many sectors of the econemy.

Bio fuel corn is exactly the same as livestock corn, and often the same mills turn out the same product (distillers dried grains, or DDGs) for both uses. The farmer isn't put in a box of having to sell only to one market.

But what does happen is the price of beef and pork rises, to the point where feedlots can't survive meaning cattle ranchers have to resort to more costly means of feeding a herd longer on range land.

Government subsidies have paid about 45 cents for every gallon of Ethanol produced.

In addition there has sprung into being an entire secondary market for RINs (Renewable Identification Numbers) like bitcoin without the math or verifiability). This has actually boosted ethanol production above demand, which causes them to over-blend (slamming the racks) ethanol to the point where you can't be sure what you are getting at the pump.

I'm asking you about peak load when the weather doesn't cooperate. Germany has to handle it. That they get 40% when things are fine doesn't contradict my question.

Instead of facing reality, you want to handwave away the question. I'm not even saying it can't work, I'm asking how they deal with it.

Since you clearly don't have the answer and are living in a fantasy land where this isn't a problem, I looked up the answer myself. They rely on coal and gas to make up for shortfalls due to variability, the two products you even mentioned yourself in your original post. You just seem to think they magically won't be needed when more renewables come online.

Source, with some interesting graphs: http://blogs.platts.com/2013/04/19/german-power/

GW Bush probably didn't personally torture anyone either. The problem is that his administration's policies allowed torture camps and supported torture as an ineffectual "intelligence gathering" method, just as Bush's administration promoted the idea that the markets would do better without the rule of law.

Bush furthered the deregulation policies of Phil Gramm and Alan Greenspan, particularly in the area of derivatives, first with Enron and then in the housing market.

While banks were giving suspect loans, they were driven to do so by the insatiable, unregulated derivatives market, which expected that layers of wealth could be extracted from a bubble that would never burst, because it involved real estate. That was disastrously wrong, and has now pulled the pin on the entire credit market.

Don't revise history to blame the poor trying to get a house; it was deregulation: an attempt to have markets without the rule of law.

What Prop 8 Means to America

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

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

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

> Are you just agreeing with what I said?

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

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

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

> and that's before you consider CO2 sequestriation

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

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

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

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

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

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

> Homes can last centuries.

That's less and less true, helping insulating.

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

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

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

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

> Decommisioning is paid for in the USA by a fund

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

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

I f

IMHO this comparison is not reason: there were no more major civil disaster because ocean liners became obsolete. There were very few ships similar to the Titanic (and there is now none), therefore there was no more accidents. In the same vein: no more nuclear power, no more risks.

Actually, they still have problems with boats sinking - generally I hear about 2-3 ferries sinking a year. Usually it's determined that needed maintenance wasn't being done combined with incompetent crew for 2nd/3rd world countries.

There are still lots of cruise ships out there. Maybe not as big - but they still use some of the safety techniques from that time period.

Building a clean coal plant costs now approx the same as a nuclear one. Taylorville (630 MW), for example (our case study), will cost 2 billion, which will be a very good achievement because this "clean coal" approach is pretty new and disruptive, therefore there are margins for savings. Remember that a nuclear is at the very minimum 2000+ per kW.

Are you just agreeing with what I said? 'Clean Coal' costs as much as a nuclear plant, still has the increased fuel costs of coal, and that's before you consider CO2 sequestriation. Oh, and your link states $1,500-$2,000/watt, not a 'very minimum 2000+ per kW.'

630MW@2Billion = $3.17/watt. Or about 50% higher than the price for nuclear. At that price I'd rather see your high-CF off shore wind farms.

I agree (and it is true for every form of optimization), but on the average we are very far from this point!

I'll agree and disagree with this. For new home insulation, new utilities, etc... It does indeed make sense to go with the higher efficiency levels. However, when it comes to retrofitting it frequently isn't, because it costs so much more. So replace the furnace with a high efficiency one when you'd be replacing the old one anyways. Buy a better refridgerator when the old one craps out.

After a certain point - you're looking at replacing the item, whether it's a house, car, or blender. Homes can last centuries.

In our case study: nope, thanks to IGCC

Better: no very dangerous waste nor nightmare at decommission time.

IGCC still loses a couple efficiency points when you tack on sequestriation. As for the waste - like I keep saying, it's ~95% fuel still. The remaining 5% will reach ambient in a couple hundred years, not thousands. Decommisioning is paid for in the USA by a fund each nuclear plant maintains. It helps by quite a bit when you go from a 40 year plant lifespan to a 60 year one.

There is no perfect-at-birth thingie (early defects are especially common on new electronic systems, but also on mechanical and electric ones). Let's have them enhanced. The very first nuclear plant was very dangerous, clunky and did not produce much power :-)

I'm not arguing that they can't be improved, just that in seeking higher efficiencies they ended up sacrificing durability. Is saving a kw/h a week worth cutting 10-25% of a system's useful lifespan? Heck, for a while they were making homes so well sealed that many became chemical disasters from buildup of home cleaners/chemicals*.

It may also be explained by a lack of competition(?)

Difficult to say for the home HVAC systems. There are about six brands in that zone that are manufactured in different areas. According to my dad, all suffered from that problem. The problem was that in order to get the last % of efficiency, parts needed to be made thinner, like the radiator, and they found that holes were developing. In older systems, the pipes and fins were thicker, reducing efficiency, but any corrosion had to develop further to cause a breach. The higher efficiency devices were also more fiddly; requiring more manhours to fix/maintain.

*One of the reasons I like using simple green where possible.

IMHO this comparison is not reason: there were no more major civil disaster because ocean liners became obsolete. There were very few ships similar to the Titanic (and there is now none), therefore there was no more accidents. In the same vein: no more nuclear power, no more risks.

> Modern cars are, on average, the safest today

I agree but they are not absolutely safe, nor are nuclear plants. Moreover no one can "prove" that any given risk assessment is accurate.

>> Let's add clean coal

> The problem I have with this is that 'clean coal' plants are shaping up to be as expensive as nuclear plants

Building a clean coal plant costs now approx the same as a nuclear one. Taylorville (630 MW), for example (our case study), will cost 2 billion, which will be a very good achievement because this "clean coal" approach is pretty new and disruptive, therefore there are margins for savings. Remember that a nuclear is at the very minimum 2000+ per kW.

> with higher operating expenses

Why?

> that go even higher if you want CO2 sequestration.

In our case study: nope, thanks to IGCC

Better: no very dangerous waste nor nightmare at decommission time.

> Conservation's fine and dandy (I've retroffited my house with additional insulation), but after a certain point it costs more than it's worth

I agree (and it is true for every form of optimization), but on the average we are very far from this point!

> For example, some modern high efficiency AC systems are turning out to not last as long

There is no perfect-at-birth thingie (early defects are especially common on new electronic systems, but also on mechanical and electric ones). Let's have them enhanced. The very first nuclear plant was very dangerous, clunky and did not produce much power :-)

> Though I can't say whether that's because of metallurgical parts having to be built that light, or they compromised on manufacturing expense(IE not a good enough alloy), or just plain 'made in china'.

It may also be explained by a lack of competition(?)

2002 data for US electrical generation show that production costs for nuclear and coal, averaged over all plants, are just under 2 cents/kWh, with nuclear just a hair cheaper than coal. Both of these actual costs is cheper than the speculated 2.5 cents/kWh for this wind turbine. The average generation costs for oil and gas are were 4 cents/kWh in 2002.

These 2002 data are from the Utility Data Institute (http://www.platts.com/Analytic%20Solutions/UDI%20 Data%20&%20Directories/), a commercial McGrall-Hill data company. There is a reference link on the 2.5 cents/kWh claim; unfortunately it is to a page (http://www.teamindia.net/index.php?action=fullnew s&id=45780) which seems to be a news clipping site for stories about India.

Production costs for a non-production system are never right (remember "too cheap to meter"?). But there is no question that wind generated electricity can be competative in cost, and that's one reason you see increasing growth. With 1 MW wind turbines and a constant breeze Germany could generate all of their current electical needs with 320,000 turbines spread out over their 350,000 square kilometers of land.

Labels are like OPEC...there's no competitive pricing among providers, just THE price for the product

Actually there is competetive pricing among dozens of grades of crude oil. Sweet, sour, brent, north sea, oilsands, Saudi etc... The saudis recently lowered their discount on Saudi Sour because they had more supply of that grade.

OPEC does have elevated levels of influence over global oil prices since they control 40% of world output. But there definitely is more than one product.

oil grades

Actually, the flyash produced is pretty useful. Allow me to explain. The pollution produced by a typical power plant falls within three categories: SOx (sulfur oxides), NOx (nitrogen oxides), and inert particulates. These are filtered out by spraying a high pressure fan of limestone (CaCO3) through the flue gas, causing the formation of CCP (coal combustion products) in a system called a "scrubber" - known also by its tongue-in-cheek name, "SOx NOx rocks box". Some uses include road agglutinates, cast concrete products, and drywall. See this page for more information.

For the right price, you can just buy the data from Platts - power line rights of ways, water pipes, etc. Once you have the data, you can throw it into any GIS software (purchased for the right price). Example: you need to get the natural gas pipline information to the road repair crews, so when they dig they're sure they won't hit anything... all this data used to be open, because noone thought you could do anything with it.

So what if I know where the local 500KV transformer yard is located over the 3rd hill on the left, who in their right mind would want to damage it? Then we realized how many people in the world really aren't in their right minds... I'm not complaining that this data should be bottled up again; what was really lacking was the chain of custody of who accessed the data, and for what purpose.

I worked as a contractor for EBS in Portland in 2000. at the time, the hectic schedules, rotating management and failed deadlines seemed like normal american business procedures. one of my main concerns was all the $$$$$$ enron was dumping in brand new equipment and man power. i heard the sun contractors get $300/hr, so if you talked to them for 15 minutes while getting a friday bagel, you just cost enron $250. :)

Looking back on it now, the broadband scam is crystal clear. everything we did was smoke and mirrors, the biggest trick was fooling the employees into thinking that they were getting something done. And boy were we fooled, the exaggerated salaries, free cell phones, PDA's, laptops, hi-powered sun workstations, etc.

Q:Who would complain about that?

A:no one.

we all slowly got laid off or quit. the internet bubble had burst and the $1 billion that went into EBS was gone. The few broadcasted events we did were done on a lick and a promise, after blockbuster and msn bailed on our biggest contracts, we have cards left in our deck. RIP EBS.

We alienate the arab nations, which control half the world's oil supply, in order to support a nation that has no oil whatsoever.

So, I guess when Bush takes over Iraq (at the risk of millions of young men and women), he doesn't really want a country which has the second largest crude oil reserves in the world. If sympathy was the sole motive, then we would have been there for the Cambodians and Armenians.

but they've never sent in suicide bombers, or taken actions with no strategic value whatsoever

Uh, they don't need to. We give them all the weapons that they would ever want.

First it was manhole covers, now capacitors. Only wish it were politicians...