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Initially, almost all major power plants were amazingly expensive, and many did use government help to get things going. Or at least they got big tax write-offs, nothing makes some utilities happier than to bitch about taxes in public and then accepting tax breaks under the table.

Also, what they always fail to mention, is that a wind turbine plant needs the full (100% uptime) backup of a traditional (fossil driven) powerplant. Because with a calm, wind turbines do not generate electricity, and the gap needs to be closed by a support plant. In order to be operative at demand, the plant needs to be up 100%, because starting up and closing down a plant takes too much time. http://www.theenergycollective...

Epidemiology Without Biology: False Paradigms, Unfounded Assumptions, and Specious Statistics in Radiation Science

Bad science is the foundation for radiation regulations, the source of hysteria surrounding nuclear, and the cause of the outrageously increasing costs:

Nuclear Power Learning and Deployment Rates; Disruption and Global Benefits Forgone

This needs to be addressed, because the ordained "green" solutions aren't enough, and while we keep hearing about how cheap they are, they are mostly just making electricity more expensive.

In the AEO2018 Reference Case, coal-fired electricity generation capacity is projected to decline by 65 gigawatts (GW) from 2018 through 2030, with virtually no retirements from 2030 through 2050.

Although no new coal-fired power generation capacity is built in the AEO2018 Reference case, coal-fired electricity generation is expected to remain relatively flat as coal plant retirements slow and utilization of the remaining coal fleet increases from 56% in 2017 to near 70% by 2030—similar to the average utilization rate in the early 2000s.

Colstrip faces years of environmental cleanup, which will most likely provide jobs for the community as the power plant winds down into the 2040s (by current cleanup estimates).

The federal Energy Information Administration has coal in its energy forecast for a few more decades.

Look is has obviously changed in the past and will continue to do so.

From 1990 to 2009, the net capacity of the U.S. coal-fired power plant fleet remained virtually unchanged, increasing by only 7 Gigawatts (MW) or 2.5% during the entire 17-year period. The output of these plants increased from 1990 to 2007 before falling in 2009. This means that although the existing fleet was not growing in size, plants were being run more intensively. This is reflected in the average capacity factor of the fleet, which rose from 59% to 74% from 1990 to 2007, then fell to 64% in 2009. (Capacity factor refers to the ratio of the actual output of a plant to the theoretical maximum output if the plant ran continuously.)

Who shall we believe the EIA even if they are not perfect . Or a lackey who didn't read the links. One of which was paywalled, one a list of possible closures that matches what was said and one that talked about 1 plant that is likely to close, out of 600+
The lackey of a know compulsive liar...
https://slashdot.org/comments....
https://slashdot.org/comments....
https://slashdot.org/comments....
https://slashdot.org/comments....
https://slashdot.org/comments....

EiA, who has never had a correct prediction, agrees with you. BTW, they have ALWAYS predicted that Fossil fuels will continue to grow except recently.
However, experts in the coal field of montana
Other Americans continue to point to coal rapid closing.
Here is the massive navajo plant that will most certainly close down. Note that this is America's single dirtiest plant going.
Nice article about the continuing closings of coal plants (assuming that Trump is not allowed to subsidize coal anymore than we currently do)

Finally, here is a partial list of coming US coal plants closures.

1) There is a maximum amount of solar energy available. In round numbers, it's approximately 1 kilowatt per square metre at the earth's surface... period... end of story. You're *NOT* going to see a "Moore's Law" boosting solar panels every year into infinity. Current solar panels are from 15 to 23 percent efficient, and degrade with age. Yes, there is room for improvement, but there is a hard ceiling.

2) Solar panels produce 300 times as much toxic waste per unit of energy output versus nuclear powerplants http://www.theenergycollective... Definitely *NOT* "green".

Meanwhile, Rooftop Solar: Too Expensive to Meter.

Renewables are "cheap" because they are mandated, they enjoy grid priority, and they are heavily subsidized. This extremely distorted market is very hostile to all reliable power generators, not just nuclear. When wind and solar are so heavily subsidized that they can (and do) pay people to take their power, it is rather difficult for anything else to compete; even reactors producing electricity for 2-3c/kWh.

Financing and construction of new conventional reactors is obviously a problem, but the actual cost of nuclear power can be very low, and modern technologies can do better yet. Of course, the unfavorable market conditions prompting premature closure of nuclear plants constrain supply, and the parent utilities are more than happy to replace it with cheap natural gas.

Take a look at the second graph to get a good dose of reality over ideology:
http://www.theenergycollective...
All it took was a very quick google image search.

If you spend anywhere near the amount of time you write about this stuff on actually learning about it we wouldn't need to have these discussions where I try hard to not write as if I am looking down on an idiot.

The do show up it is just that they are not that great and we demand more of them as well.

The following article has a graph of battery energy over time, it is definitely increase.
http://theenergycollective.com...

Well, Germany _is_ dumb. Here's the actual energy mix: https://www.cleanenergywire.or... And I'll just leave this: http://www.theenergycollective...

The 20 MW plant was just under half the cost (and a ludicrous $33/W). I instead based my conclusion on the price of the 110 MW station which at $975 million was almost $9/W. If you're not seeing vastly cheaper costs at that size a plant, then it's probably because the business plan is to sink the construction costs in other businesses you own rather than build anything of value. Thus, there is no incentive to create much less exploit economies of scale since that just reduces the take.

Battery evolution has been moving along at a fairly steady pace averaging around a 5-8% improvement in capacity per year. In addition, the longevity has been steadily increasing and charge times have been steadily decreasing and cost have been dropping fairly rapidly, much faster than predicted.

If you compare today's batteries used in cars compared to those a decade ago there is really no comparison. Today's batteries have much higher capacities, much longer life and at a much lower cost.

http://www.carbonbrief.org/blo...

Here's a chart from 2012. Tesla is selling their grid storage battery packs at around $250/KWh and with the gigafactory the prices will be further reduced. This is the price point where BEVs start to become price competitive with gasoline cars.

http://www.mckinsey.com/insigh...

Battery prices are already at or below where they were predicted to be in 2020 just a few years ago.

http://theenergycollective.com...

On average, battery energy doubles every ten years.

http://kk.org/thetechnium/2009...
http://electronicdesign.com/po...

So, predictions for 5 years for the world and 25 years for one country. Where is the 30 year prediction? China is committed to peaking emissions by 2030 which is only 15 years off. Apparently, the first report you cited missed this and some other things as well. http://theenergycollective.com...

Everyone knows fracking is perfectly safe.

It's on the internet so it must be true.

Just to store German energy needs, we would have to ...

So how about we instead close down our already working nuclear plants and increase our carbon emissions.

> Do you even know why?
> Germany's CO2 emissions grew for several years after implementation of these policies.

Seems like you have a narrative that isn't universally agreed upon.

When I google for "german co2 emissions" I find a number of articles that offer a different explanation for the current situation. They put the blame on Fukushima, saying that the rise in CO2 corresponds with the decommissioning of 8 out of Germany's 17 reactors in the post-fukushima hysteria. They say that solar has primarily replaced what was formerly nuclear with the difference being made up by increased coal that was previously scheduled to come online hence increased CO2.

While AmiMoJo is probably wrong about solar making coal and nuclear unprofitable, it seems the weird taxation is really just an indirect way of paying for solar to replace nuclear rather than for solar to replace coal.

This article tries to compare fracking water use to other uses (eg. golf courses) but fails to account for fracking water being taken out of the system - it's not recycled, it's disposed of. With lakes drying up or disappearing in California and other countries fighting over fresh water, how can the fracking industry be so wasteful?

Ad hominem and appeal to authority? Please. Educate yourself on EROI.

More:
http://www.technologyreview.co...

http://www.technologyreview.co...

http://www.nrel.gov/analysis/r...

http://www.elp.com/articles/20...

http://www.renewableenergyworl...

http://phys.org/news/2011-01-p...

http://theenergycollective.com...

Maybe you should broaden your horizons on that Germany claim.

Germany's Energiewende Troubles Prove That Renewable Energy Has Failed. And Other Strange Ideas

.

As I mentioned, you are entitled to your opinions, but you are NOT entitled to your own facts. Coal usage in the EU is decreasing, renewable use (not fossil fuel generation) is increasing:
http://theenergycollective.com...
http://www.renewableenergyworl...
(older data) http://www.eea.europa.eu/data-...
While the price per kWh in Germany is high, it's not even the highest in the EU and certainly not the highest in the world. That statement is just plain WRONG. The price in Germany is not even that far out of line with the rest of the EU where prices are generally at least double the US rates:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...

produced a world record 22 gigawatts of electricity per hour — equal to 20 nuclear power stations at full capacity

And for the entire week, those same solar cells produced the equivalent of about 3 or 4 nuclear stations. For a week in mid-winter, it is more like the equivalent of 2 nuclear stations. Luckily, they have their new coal plants that are cranked up when the solar is not producing for a large portion of the day.

As of 2011, Germany had already spent over 100 billion Euros subsidizing solar. This level of subsidization could easily produce over 20 nuclear plants and would basically end the further need for carbon free electrical energy spending, while offsetting much more carbon in a shorter period of time. Not to mention the vast economic benefits to the country from supplying a majority of the plant components versus buying from Asia. But, Germany will continue to spend even more, sending vast sums of money to Asia in efforts to just 'keep up', while their electricity prices continue to skyrocket, resulting in higher costs for business and manufacturing.

Apart from the low lattitude band of land where the solar conditions are optimal, a combination of wind, gas, and nuclear is the most effective and practical approach to significantly reduce carbon emmissions. If you are one who is against nuclear no matter what, then wind and gas are the next best option. In all cases, energy efficiency improvement investment is signfiicantly undervalued in terms of carbon reduction return. Alas, many will still prefer the green badge of solar honor over the practical solutions.

This article spells it out as well, albiet with over-use of negative adjectives. The facts are correct;

In 2012 Germany had one third of the world's solar panels, and at one point these panels generated over half of Germany's electricity demand. This is how things are normally put. But it as rather like talking about a third rate golfer and only referring to the time he almost won the US Masters. Yes, Germany got 50% of its electricity from solar one afternoon. Throughout the year it only produced 5%. The 5% is what really matters. The 50% gets all the headlines.

And solar is an awful source of energy in a country as cloudy and as far north as Germany. Electricity has to be available when we want it. Germans, like many Europeans, most want the stuff around 6 pm on a cold Winter evening. This is an incredibly reliable peak in demand. Yet, the electricity supplied by Germany's solar panels at 6 pm on a cold December is also incredibly reliable: zero

http://theenergycollective.com...

Musk is right.

A reasonable economic analysis of power satellites requires about $100/kg for the cost of parts lifted to GEO.

You can't get that with rockets, not even reusable ones.

The main reason is that low exhaust velocity leads to rotten payload fractions. It's just physics, the rocket equation.

The proposed Skylon gets around 9 km/s equivalent exhaust velocity till it runs out of air, and 4.5 km/s from there up. Still too expensive by a factor of 4-5.

Leaving the oxygen out and using a 3 GW laser to heat hydrogen gives around 7.5 km/s for the last 6 km/s to orbit. The laser is hugely expensive, but run 24/7 it costs only a few tens of dollars a kg for 500,000 tons per year.

More here: http://theenergycollective.com...

Keith

It's still possible, though I don't see even the excellent work of SpaceX getting us there.

It's not a sure thing that additional development of chemical rockets will do the job. If you go through the math involved, it just doesn't look good.

Space based solar power, for example, has to substantially undercut existing and projected cost per kWh in order for the investment to be worth the trouble. Depends on the numbers you use, but I make a case that the cost of lifting power satellite parts to GEO has to come down to $100/kg for SBSP to make economic sense.

It takes less than a dollar of energy to get a kg to GEO, so the physics doesn't stand in our way. But I don't think you can make a case for rockets getting down to this cost, and if you could, then the volume needed, around 10 million tons per year, just makes rocket lift look really questionable.

The problem traces back to the rotten payload fraction and that's the direct result of low exhaust velocity. However, there may be another way to skin the cat.

Skylon gets the equivalent of 9 km/s to where it runs out of air, and laser heated hydrogen will get at least 7.5 km/s for the rest of the way to orbit. From there to GEO, a hydrogen/laser stage will deliver 2/3rds of a 30 ton second stage in LEO to GEO. Running the laser full time will get three 20 ton vehicles to GEO every hour or about half a million tons per year. Scrap the vehicles at GEO and they are all payload. More details here: http://theenergycollective.com...

Keith Henson
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

When I was much younger, we raised rabbits. For years they were most of the meat the family ate.

I also did every step in making bread. Growing a patch of wheat, harvesting it, thrashing out the grain, grinding grain to flour and baking flour into bread. I can tell you it's a pain.

The most likely thing to happen that would bring down civilization would be running out of cheap energy, especially liquid hydrocarbons for transport. There are several possible ways to get around that problem. This is my proposal. http://theenergycollective.com...

Yeah, see that's where you have to take those green colored glasses off and realize that its not working in Germany and its not going to work in the US either.

Germany's green energy is
Generally
Considered
A failure.
It's not getting better
Any time soon

There simply isn't enough windy places to power all of the United States 24/7. The sun doesn't shine at night, and we can't build a grid to someplace where it does.

Grid is a substitute for storage and local generation. But grids simply aren't world wide, and aren't likely to be.

Nuclear? Great. Better start changing regulations and lining up money. Lots and lots of money.

All considered, nuclear is the cheapest option available. It can be expensive up front, but 60+ years of reliable energy at virtually no marginal cost more than offsets the initial investment. China is also demonstrating that even conventional reactors can be built for a fraction of the cost of their US counterparts. Molten salt reactors offer even greater potential for cost reduction, and will undercut fossil fuels directly, removing the primary incentive to burn them. Providing a source of energy cheaper than from fossil fuels and offering it to the developing world is the only practical way to curb their combustion.

High cost of nuclear the US can be attributed to the endless litigation, insane regulations, and lack of any recent construction experience. All of these are readily addressed given the will to do so. (Current regulations are not based on science and safe radiation limits, but what is practically achievable. This is absurdly overzealous, and if emissions from gas and coal plants were held to the same standards, we'd be without power.)

http://theenergycollective.com...

This plant is 45 MW. Assuming 90% capacity factor for nuclear vs. 25% for wind, you'd need a 160 MW wind plant for the same average output. (All of the top dozen wind farms are at least triple that.) Assuming $2M/MW for wind (second source), that's $320M for something equivalent to this $226M nuclear plant. I assume the nuclear plant cost includes waste disposal, although fuel, maintenance, and decommissioning costs would seemingly be lower for wind. For nuclear there is the question of pricing in possible catastrophe.

The reason is pretty simple. It's because if you add up all the costs, every study done by someone other than an environmental wacko group says PV solar is 2-5x more expensive per kWh generated than other energy sources. I wish it weren't so, but PV solar is very much a technology which needs further R&D before widescale adoption. There are a few locations (e.g. desert southwest U.S.) where the abundance of sunlight makes it more feasible (though still not advantageous). But in general, outside of a few niche applications (e.g. off-grid, like generating electricity on sailboats), and certain locations where geography already makes the price of electricity naturally high (e.g. Hawaii), it's not economically effective yet.

If you ignore that and decide to charge ahead with it anyway, the decision isn't without consequences. Your average electricity price increases.

An electricity grid needs either some big stable supplies or a lot of diversity and over provisioning to be able to keep up with demand spikes

The US was on a steady path leading to a nuclear grid until 1977, when Carter declared a moratorium on spent fuel processing. This caused more concern than alarm in the nuclear power industry, whose plants all had pools for temporary storage. Everyone thought it would be ironed out shortly, the government would step in to manage a secure facility to recycle plutonium and store long term waste. Then the China Syndrome [movie,1979], Three Mile Island [incident,1979] occured 12 days apart and everything came to a halt.

The only notable grid building that has occurred since then haas been the steady accumulation of coal-fired power plants over the years, a slight increase in nuclear, and only recently a shift to natural gas. That's it. There's your electrical grid.

Everything else has been incorrect projections and wasted money. Discussion of coal and natural gas power generation a topic? Nope, actually there has been twenty years of hype on solarand
wind, alternatives that are regiional at best, and upon any climate disruption that would generate cloud cover or disrupt wind patterns (no matter what the storage technology) would be a slate-wiper. Solar and Wind have presumed the building of branch feeders, there never was money for that. T. Boone Pickens lost his shirt on wind or let us say, provided a cautionary tale for other billionaires.

Solar subsidies will not just dry up... they will disappear overnight as the true crisis begins. Be it economic implosion or reigning in of government spending, the correction will be huge and sudden.

So now we are riding the crest of a natural gas glut which may last 30 years. I am hesitant to drop the 'hundreds' of years figure because it would be achieved with escalating difficulty and they wish to mass export it out of the country today. After that things looks pretty bleak. More coal??

That is why folks like me seem kind of desperately agitated on these forums at times. We're not adverse to personal self-sufficiency or conservation, we just see a terrible crisis ahead.

Part of the reason for the agitation in these discussions is that we are being presented with a steady stream well-meant suggestions for personally navigating the crisis, as if a little money ahead and a bit of ingenuity can mitigate the risk. And we do sense risk and danger.

That is why when we discuss the state of the grid we tend to sweep wind and solar off the table. Too aggressively, sure -- it is an aspect of our sense of dread, NOT an insensitivity to the usefulness and and cleverness of those sources.

We feel pressed on the matter. We are thinking of a long harsh Winter, just ONE country-wide ice storm which is possible, a serious further economic downturn, and the prospect of going to war over oil (again) or the dollar losing its reserve strength (happening!). All of these things, along with a hypothetical ~30 year glut of natural gas means there is perhaps still time to save the grid (and our way of life) if we get serious about fission and LFTR now, urgently.

Otherwise we are heading for THIS: a true blackout American Blackout. Never mind the unlikely cyberattack scenario, I do not even believe a Carrington Even EMP would take out that many points at once... and their time frame is a little extreme, "Day 10" events might occur at Week 10...

Thorium LFTRs would not in themselves save us if our lo

effective decision on the part of the people of Vermont...

...to dam up more Canadian rivers for power generation.

...when your country completely discounts nuclear as the best option for an environmentally friendly energy source.

Welcome to the 21st centruy from your Coma.

Solar and wind can never be primary energy sources

And yet - Are Traditional Utilities Becoming Obsolete? The next time youâ(TM)re driving around town, observe the community and see how many homes and businesses have installed solar panels

So some in the "business" of making and selling power don't agree, and that would be something you'd have missed while in the Coma.

(A fun fact they didn't teach the oldsters: That oil and coal - that is the result of Solar power!)

Frankly I'd rather live next to a modern, safe nuclear power plant.

Until your book deal pays off about your time in a Coma you might want to look into land next to Chernyobyl or Fukushima. Modern Nay-sayers would claim its a bad idea, but why not allow the pro-nukers to show how wrong the Nay-sayers are by getting the land at a low price?

You fix it, you evolve the design, you move on.

Yes fixing. An inside source gave Team 10 a picture snapped inside the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) showing plastic bags, masking tape and broom sticks used to stem a massive leaky pipe. [...] Modern "fixing" doesn't do that kind of thing, a fact you would not understand having just rejoined humanity from your Coma.

Before you entered the Coma the Brittish were replacing the bones of the dead with broomsticks as part of a radiation coverup plan but the rest of us learned of it while you were still in that Coma. So there has been no upgrade in Broomsticks-as-radioactive-repair technology, and yet you'd think Engineering might do a better job with say an Inanimate Carbon Rod?

Best of health to you and recovering from your traumatic brain injury.

Interesting. I'm an 'alarmist' for pointing out that the statistics are 15 deaths per TWh from coal power, vs less than 1 for a number of other sources? I'm an alarmist for breaking out US deaths, since the situation is far worse than it has to be in China, skewing world standards?

I'm a 'poorly informed alarmist' because I check your statements up against publicly available sources and find them misleading?

You want alarmist? Fine.
13.2k deaths in the USA from fine particle pollution. $100B in adverse health impacts.
India is much, much worse: 115k/year, costing $4.6B
China has really cut it's accidents - down to ~2k/year, vs a high of nearly 7k in 2002. Still, COPD linked to fine particulate pollution was 26% of all deaths in China. Their death figure is 750k/year from pollution.

Links aren't included just for you, but for the benefit of others.

Not bad - that's 20 million more than they've invested in molten salt reactors since the mid 1970s when they shut the MSRE down after a successful 6 year run (generating power for over 5 of the 6 years, and that mainly because they shut it off over the weekends). The funny thing is, the reason they chose the IFR as number 1 is because of its fast refueling cycle and fast doubling time (breeding), but what they found out is they couldn't make it both safe and economical (only 2 of the three requirements could be met), so the investment has largely been wasted so far. See here

http://theenergycollective.com/oshadavidson/40559/study-solar-power-cheaper-nuclear

I will, but this double dare will include you moving right underneath a wind turbine, or moving into a houseboat in a large dam used for hydro-electric power.

I wouldn't mind living under a roof with solar panels on it though. Solar is still quite a bit more expensive than coal, but is now cheaper than nuclear, according to some.

http://theenergycollective.com/breakthroughinstitut/51021/china-rd-investment-grow-faster-us

It might be time to start removing any economic subsidies or benefits we provide to companies who decide to offshore their R&D.

Airline crews are limited to flight hours as a means to limit the radiation they receive to stay under OSHA limits. It is one of the careers that receive relatively high doses over their careers. Doses are cumulative (think about how people develop skin cancer supposedly from sun burns as a child).

For these reasons pilots try to avoid even small doses of radiation where they can, and walking through a body scanner several times every day they work over several years would add up.

Examples of industries with significant occupational radiation exposure:

• - Airline crew (the most exposed population)
• - Industrial radiography
• - Medical radiology and nuclear medicine
• - Uranium mining
• - Nuclear power plant and nuclear fuel reprocessing plant workers
• - Research laboratories (government, university and private)

http://theenergycollective.com/willem-post/53939/radiation-exposure/

As of approximately now, solar is cheaper than nuclear per kWh,

That study compares the "cost" of solar after subsidy. See the foot of p17:
"A 30% Federal tax credit and a 35% North Carolina tax credit were applied to the capital cost to reach a net cost per kWh."

So solar is not cheaper than nuclear in real terms.

(NCWarn, who produced the report, is an anti-nuclear campaigning organisation.)

I swear, I've read between 2-3 stories per month for the last 5 years on how someone has revolutionized the process of producing solar cells, at a fraction of the cost it was last week... By this point, I should be able to pick up a 2 by 4 ft. panel from the side of the street by the peaches stands.

Take a look at this graph, from this article about solar price trends. From 1980 to 2009, the cost of photovoltaics decreased by about 85%, from $22/W to below $3/W. As of approximately now, solar is cheaper than nuclear per kWh, and the price decline shows no sign of stopping.

Maybe you should quantify your expectations, then you can check them against future price decreases.

Yup, I linked to a page claiming to "debunk" this "myth" on the basis it would take a solar panel the size of Georgia to power the whole earth. Big deal! Vastly more land is consumed by agriculture. Just reclaiming all the space on rooftops, roadways, and parking lots for solar would account for a lot of that, puttng power generation right where it's needed.

And then there's there's the 2/3 of the earth covered by water nobody is making much use of. If cheap solar devices can produce hydrogen, it can be shipped long distances efficiently.

"the two biggest advantages of the fast reactor design is that it requires no spent fuel pools and uses cooling systems that require no power to function"

Let's translate what this means. The core of the reactor will be VERY radioactive as it will have decay products from many more gigawatt hours---yes it will transmute quite a bit of these but do not underestimate just how hot it will be.

The cooling systems use molten sodium. It has the wee problem that it is explosive in contact with water. Say from a flood. Or if the building catches on fire. (and it's probably quite radioactive in itself simply from activation from the neutron flux). Or suppose there's a leak in the roof and it rains.

And it's right next to an extremely radioactive core. And if the explosion results in something cracking open......

One huge problem at Fukushima reactors was the unappreciated dangers of flooding, combined with the hydrogen explosions. These explosions damaged other important machinery and structures---you get a 'blunder chain reaction'.

See some other comments about the TWR

http://theenergycollective.com/barrybrook/43928/terrapower%E2%80%99s-travelling-wave-reactor-%E2%80%93-why-not-use-ifr

leaking dangerous amounts of radiation into the environment

The problem with that is that there are not dangerous amount of radiation leaking into the environment. For a good, more informed, less bias summary, read here:

http://theenergycollective.com/barrybrook/53461/fukushima-nuclear-accident-simple-and-accurate-explanation

No one has died from radiation poising, and as of now, it doesn't look like anyone will. The major concern right now is a financial one, not an environmental or safety one. If they wanted, they could let the "cores melt down" and nothing really bad would happen. The cores would be contained in the designed containment chambers. The only downside is that you loose a lot of really expensive uranium and can't really put a new plant right there anymore.

Also, take this into account, Chernobyl, which by all accounts was worse than Japan's situation could turn out to be killed between 28 and 700,000 people (depends on who you ask, but lets go with the "long term effects, people who got cancer in their 70s that maybe wouldn't have and use the 700,000). Each year in China alone, 700,000 die from air pollution related causes, mostly from coal power plants:

http://www.pri.org/business/global-development/thousands-of-deaths-because-of-china-s-coal-energy2500.html

In addition, on average 30+ workers die in China's coal mines each year. 28 workers total died in the Chernobyl meltdown.

Coal kills way more people than nuclear energy has. It is kind of like terrorism in America. Everyone is going through crazy steps like the TSA to prevent another terrorist attack, even though your are 8 times more likely to be killed by a police officer than by a terrorist (in the USA).

Is nuclear 100% safe, no it isn't. Neither is walking down the street or drinking water. The fact is we need energy for the world, to provide heating and cooling, to help produce food, and to help our economies grow. With the technologies out there right now, nuclear is, in my opinion, by far the best option. It is cleaner and safer than coal and is about the same cost per kwh. Hydroelectric would be better, but it is limited as to where you can put it. Solar and wind are great future technologies, but until efficiency is greatly improved and/or better storage techniques are developed, they can't supply the power requirements we have right now, much less in the future.

Blame Reagan.

Note how in 1980 all non-defense govt r&d dropped precipitously. Then during the 90s when oil dropped to $10/barrel and the free market abandoned alternative energy research, govt had the perfect opportunity to fulfill its role of investing in the kind of long-term disruptive research biz is too short-sighted to do - but govt didn't.

That is what the article does not say, the piece of wire between the power plant and your house can only deliver approximately 30% of the power an electric car infrastructure will require.

For a moment think about what is happening. The kilowatts, per vehicle, once delivered by oil is delivered by wire. I however cannot speak to the sanity of sitting in a traffic jam for hours of the day but if we maintain this "way of life" ALL of that infrastructure HAS to be upgraded if people are to charge their cars at home and if parking stations are to be equipped with charging facilities.

Can you give details about how you know that the wire can only give 30% of the power? Various other articles in recent years seem to say that the grid will handle it fine -- one of the first I find is http://theenergycollective.com/glenestill/42858/electric-cars-strain-grid-think-again.

Also, if you're counting part of that power the car will need as 'sitting in a traffic jam for hours'.. Of course, the electric car won't be using any power, except for accessories (radio, heater or A/C) when stopped in traffic, unlike an idling car. (Though yes, some cars do indeed turn off the gas engine automatically nowadays too.)

Fraud Alert! My guess is that this story is a public relations piece by people who are trying to sell solar energy. Is a Slashdot editor paid to run P.R.?

Read the comment by "BillWoods" posted on "Tue, 2010-07-27 14:19" to the story linked in this Slashdot story. Quote: "Using the same amortization factor that they use for solar, the most expensive nuclear project on their list would produce power for a capital cost of about 11 cents/kW-h, well below even the subsidized cost of solar."

The previous comment, by "Marcel F. Williams", posted on "Tue, 2010-07-27 12:51" says, "The capital cost of nuclear reactors are going to fall dramatically once the US and other countries start to mass produce and ship centrally manufactured modular nuclear reactors. Its going to be extremely difficult for any other clean energy systems to economically compete against small nuclear reactors during the rest of this century for producing electricity and carbon neutral synfuels."

Wow! That was easy! Indicating the falsehood of the Slashdot story only required copying the comments in the linked story.

Chernobyl had No containment building at all. Russia used to say that their reactors where so safe that there was no need of containment buildings. Truth was that was cheaper.

You may not be aware but PBMR reactors are proposed to be built without a concrete containment building for exactly that reason. Concrete and steel are the largest input cost to building reactors.

Pebble bed reactors are very different from Chernobyl. Pebble bed reactors are thermally stable.

PBMR have radically different failure mods from BWRs. The most fatal failure modes are at the end of the reactors lifespan when they start to leak and air gets *into* the system. Perhaps you don't know that the fuel kernels are coated in graphite and then gas cooled. Air leaking into the system allows the graphite to ignite. Exclusion zones are reduced with this reactor allowing populations to be closer to the facility.

Also the there are no PBMRs yet in service. So why bring them up at all since it is a clear red herring.

You said; Chernobyl. That plant was a disaster from stop to bottom. It is a design that would never have been built in the West and never run the way that it was in the USSR. Then why has Energy Sec Chu save(ed)s PBMR Pebble Bed Project unless it is a possibility as a US facility.

Also the AP-1000 is totally different design from Chernobyl as well in every way. The new containment building has passed all reviews and is the result of decades of operating experience.

That's quite an amusing statement considering the background of the AP-1000. The AP-1000 incorporates none of the design changes, that would make nuclear power reactors less vulnerable to sabotage, recommended 25 years ago by an NRC chartered an industry panel. The AP-1000 incorporates none of the EPR design enhancements which appears to be the safest and most secure design among new reactor designs for PWR. Whilst the AP-1000 does go some way to reducing the complexity of the reactor it does introduce new base design issues. If new failure mode modelling is to be of any use for Nuclear plant then we should have seen the identification of new ASP's in existing reactors. What we see instead is evidenced by the Davis-Besse Plant, that identification of failure-mode's can only be of any use if management is prepared to take a step back and act on the potential for failure. Clearly, maintaining the plant's income stream trumps safety and failure mode analysis is ignored if it means downtime for the plant.

AP-1000 is a rehash of the Standard Westinghouse Nuclear Utility Power Plant (SNUPPs) examples of which are installed at Wolf Creek and Callaway, you will note in the picture the uncanny resemblence to the AP-1000 design (and similar capacity).

And nobody died at TMI because of all the safety systems involved. In fact at TMI almost every error that could be made was and there was no deaths.

At TMI large amounts of contamination were released beyond Nuclear Industry assurances. The gamma radiation monitors on the top of the auxiliary building were not designed to measure such high concentrations and they went off the scale when the accident *began*, the release of contamination went on for several *days*. Estimates were based on thermoluscent dosimeters on the fence and Alpha and Beta emissions weren't even measured.

TMI-2 was designed with thicker containment than most other reactors so it was resistant to an aircraft crash. Even that suffered from voids that collapsed in the containment building. We were *lucky* it wasn't worse.

Dr. Michio Kaku, professor of Nuclear Physics at the City University of New York, was quoted to say of TMI "It appears that every few mont