Slashdot Mirror
First New Nuclear Plant in US in 30 years
Hugh Pickens writes "With backing from the White House and congressional leaders, and subsidies like the $500 million in risk insurance from the Department of Energy, the nuclear industry is experiencing a revival in the US. Scientific American reports that this week NRG Energy filed an application for the first new nuclear power plant in the US in thirty years to build two advanced boiling water reactors (ABWR) at its South Texas nuclear power plant site doubling the 2700 megawatts presently generated at the facility. The ABWR, based on technology already operating in Japan, works by using the heat generated by the controlled splitting of uranium atoms in fuel rods to directly boil water into steam to drive turbines producing electricity. Improvements over previous designs include removing water circulation pipes that could rupture and accidentally drain water from the reactor, exposing the fuel rods to a potential meltdown, and fewer pumps to move the water through the system. NRG projects it will spend $6 billion constructing the two new reactors and hopes to have the first unit online by 2014."
Given the vast alternative resources available to the US, why do this before building large scale solar and wind plants? Is it really going to be cheaper than (say) paving large areas of desert with ever-cheaper solar cells? Or building the really large wind-farm projects in the many available on/off shore locations? As technology advances, these alternatives have got cheaper and cheaper..
And the full cost of Nuclear Waste disposal is still not known, nor is it included in the quoted "price" of the electricity..
"A nation that forgets its past is doomed to repeat it." - Churchill
There are many reactors which have problems operating right now because of local/regional water supply issues. Either water levels are too low or temperatures are too high... And it will only get worse in many states.
Worse as in 'even if the climate stops screwing around, most states have done a shitty job managing growth in relation to their water resources'.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
How are we going to store the nuclear waste in such a way that no one is hurt by it? Who will guard this facility for a million years? How much will that cost?
I think that before any new nuclear facility is licensed, its operators should be required to pay in advance for the disposal of its spent fuel. I don't think it's right that the cost should be borne by the taxpayer.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
It's about time we started building new nuclear reactors. Anyone who wants to seriously reduce our oil addiction must look at nuclear -- it's really the only cost effective alternative, and it's safe, all the FUD aside.
/shrug.
Ironically, the FUD comes from greens, that should be supporting the things. But then again they've protested hydroelectric (kills fish), wind (kills birds), geothermal (OMG, it is cooling our crusts), so
If you throw white phosphorous and napalm under the chemical weapon boogie-man umbrella then you have to include every weapon that explodes. Trinitrotoluene (TNT) and cyclonite (C-4) are as much chemicals as WP and Napalm. Sorry to rain on your US-bashing parade.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
Excuse me for not trusting a mad religious crack-pot dictator with an apocalyptic world view not to use a nuclear program to leverage his position in the world, and intimidate or harm "the great Satan".
--
5 billion less people on Earth would solve nearly every socio-economic and environmental problem we currently face.
Where to begin...
If you make biofuels the "traditional" way, you use microorganisms to break down molecules. These organisms use part of the energy stored in the fuel, and on top of that they are usually quite specific. What would be better would be to build a big nuclear reactor, and use its energy to heat up your (agricultural) waste to plasma temperatures. Inject coal, water or air to control your final product, and allow the plasma to condense, possibly in contact with the right catalysers. Voila: biofuel. And instead of having removed lots of joules from it, you will have injected some. At the same time, you got yourself an eco-friendly way to get rid of organic pollutants like insecticides. (You will have to find another way to treat heavy metals.)
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
if the same amount of subsidies spent in nuclear is spent on solar and wind , there would be no economic contest from any other source, This can be true for some very sparsely populated, very windy and very sunny country. For a normal European country, neither solar nor wind nor tidal energy will do. Do you have any idea how much energy you need to melt down a ton of steel or to make a ton of cement? Consider the fact that France which is fiercely independent produces more than 70% (for the correct numbers use google, I know it is more than 70%) of its electricity by nuclear power plants. Just in order to minimise their dependence on foreign countries. If they could do it with solar and wind and tidal, they would, believe me.
Iran? I thought you were referring to GWB there for a moment.
The Republic of Iran is a democratically elected theocratic republic.
-metric
Bullshit. We have enough U-238 to last for several centuries. Of course, you have to breed Plutonium from Uranium. And there's also Thorium - it can be bred into fissile material.
But even if we use U-235 and reprocess spent fuel - we'll have enough fuel for a looong time. Currently, only about 15% of U-235 is burned until it is poisoned by fissile products.
There is plenty of uranium, especially if you include extraction from sea water (which is probably economical since the price of uran is a very small part of the cost of running a nuclear plant.)
Besides, reprocessing spent fuel (which is not currently done in the US) increases the energy output of a given amount of uranium 60 times . In addition, reprocessing removes (burns) various troublesome byproducts which would otherwise require long-tem storage.
Note who is supporting this contract and what state it goes to.
It's a scam, as much as the geek at slashdot might light the idea. Had we invested in nuclear power 30 years ago, we could have made a reasonable return by now, however it's unlikely an inestment in nuclear now will wind up being cost effective as compard to just waiting for solar to improve.
It makes WAY more sense to crack down on coal plants, which already exist and are contributing more CO2 than this one nuclear plant will offset. Coal is cheaper to run, cheaper to maintain, safer, more publically accepted and it doesn't take a decade to get one and running.
If the US was going to make the smart move to nuclear, we would HAVE to do so after the model of France who generates 90% of their power domestically. However, what you should note, is that their cost of electricity is not cheaper than surrounding countries. Meaning the main advantage is not cost, nor is it likely envrionment, but rather simply being independant of fossile fuel price instabilities, which of course will only get worse as reserves drop off and environmental concerns increase prices.
Carbon storing is simply not being used effectively on most coal plants and that's really all we need for now.
We are poised to start replaced coal plants with solar plants in 20 years, so how could this nuclear plant be a good investment. We'll get maybe 10 years of operation before solar power would have been a better, cleaner, more publically friendly alernative.
I'm not against nuclear, it's just there is now serious competition from truly gree and renewable sources and it doesn't make sense to jump on the nuclear bandwagon again while everyone else is investing in solar.
I bet the long term storage costs of the spent fuel rods alone destroys any bit of savings we could hope to achieve from nuclear. The US needs a waste recycling program like France has. Our reactors generate many times more waste than Frances resulting in much more difficult storage.
Our storage facility is already leaking radidation as the scientists contracting the building of the place communited fraud to speed things up. That sure is the American mindset. Always doing things the easy way not matter how much harder or more expensive they may be.
If we were in a position where nuclear was really the only option, I'd say go for it, but I can't see how the investment makes sense at a time when we a projecting a major move to solar.
We've already past the point of smart investment. Anyone can save money by installing solar heat or electricity in their homes. That means solar plants must already be perfectly feasible if you can manage a savings at home.
Just like America, spending money first, planning their invvestments second.
Texas !! of all places to not invest in solar over nuclear. Well I hope the state has to pay it's own nuclear storage costs, but I bet it will become some federal duty. I guess in that sense it's a smart investment for Texas but I think their choices in reactors are a bit lame.
I like pebble bed reactors or reactors that recycle waste such as France's system. France has, by far, the most experience running nuclear power so... why reinvent the wheel.
Wait, you're using something that happened in Russia 23 years ago as a reason why the US is not ready to have nuclear power today? Or maybe you mean Three Mile Island, which was 28 years ago in Pennsylvania, but caused no deaths or injuries? How many people died this year in coal mining incidents?
And then you cite hackable control systems for oil power plants are a reason to avoid nuclear power plants (which are generally far more security-conscious)?
There are issues with nuclear power plants, specifically what to do with the waste long-term.* However, nuclear power plants themselves are actually quite safe, in large part because everyone involved respects the harm that can come if something does go wrong.
[*] - France has largely solved that problem by recycling, something the US refuses to do because it creates weapons-grade plutonium.
You seem to have a very unrealistic view of nuclear energy. It can be done right. Modern civilizations, even including Chernobyl and TMI, have a very good track record with regards to nuclear energy. More people die mining coal per annum than the number of people, in all of human history that have died due to nuclear energy.
And I would go overseas if I thought I could pull it off before accumulating experience in my home country. I'd go to France in a heartbeat, et je parle français, if any French recruiters see this.
It's already being done for NOX, SO2, CO2 and other pollutants rather successfully. All the politicians have to to is sample the environment regularly and set maximum acceptable limits.
Deleted
Sure, but the crust is only 30-50 km thick. And mining in the mantle does not seem feasible to me.
Plans for nuclear power in the UK seem to be taking an interesting turn. Greenpeace UK recently looked at proposed sites for new reactors in the UK and found that four proposed site may be unsuitable owing to the risk of sea level rise: http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/media/reports/the-impacts-of-climate-change-on-nuclear-power-station-sites. The South Texas reactor site is one of 14 currrent or decommisioned civilian power reactor site in the US that are located in tidal regions. With a 2014 start date, a 40 year reactor life and a 20 year decommisioning phase, the South Texas reactor site could be subject to 5 meters of sea level rise: http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/1748-9326/2/2/024002/erl7_2_024002.html. That raises serious questions about the wisdom of siting the new reactors close to the present reactors and it might make more sense to seek an inland source of cooling water.
Another location issue pertains specifically to Texas. Texas wind power has been growing very rapidly and may easily meet anticipated demand. Wind costs about $1.30/Watt to build while the nuclear plant, at this early phase, is anticipated to cost $2.20/Watt without modifications that come up in the licensing process or construction delays that genrally plague large projects.
South Texas may not be the best place to test the waters on new nuclear generation.
> I guess what the rest of the world hates is that we're able to do the math. 100,000 or 10 million?
Quote from Leo Szilard (Wikipedia) who played a major role in the Manhattan Project:
"Let me say only this much to the moral issue involved: Suppose Germany had developed two bombs before we had any bombs. And suppose Germany had dropped one bomb, say, on Rochester and the other on Buffalo, and then having run out of bombs she would have lost the war. Can anyone doubt that we would then have defined the dropping of atomic bombs on cities as a war crime, and that we would have sentenced the Germans who were guilty of this crime to death at Nuremberg and hanged them?"
Hello, I live in the Southeast US (Florida) and I would like to take this time to point out the difference between the common types of water:
drinking water - good enough to drink, usable to wash your hands, take a shower, etc.
usable, non-drinking water (recycled) - good to water plants, boil in a reactor, pressure wash the sidewalks, etc.
unusable sea water - good for your boat to float on, fish to swim in, use for a dam, extract uranium from, etc.
Also, I would like to share with you the following pictures:
http://www.progress-energy.com/aboutenergy/powerplants/corpcapabilities.pdf (2005)
http://www.progress-energy.com/aboutenergy/powerplants/2007generatingplants.pdf (July 2007)
(4 out of 33 reactors are hydroelectric)
Progress Energy is the dominant power supplier in the state, and have expanded operations into the Carolinas. I would like to to take note of the breakdown:
Capability Mix reactors
gas/oil - 48%
coal - 32%
nuclear - 19%
hydro - 1%
Generation Mix reactors
gas/oil - 18%
coal - 46%
nuclear - 35%
hydro - 1%
I am aware that this is a dated figure (2005). However, I believe that hydroelectric power is still a non-dominant supply. It is certainly not true that hydroelectric power is where we get "most of our energy".
Chernobyl was one such example.
To achieve this goal, instead of being water-moderated (like in all civilian US reactors), it was graphite-moderated.
This meant that if the water boiled off, it would actually increase output power (among other things). U.S. civilian PWRs lose the ability to continue the reaction if the coolant disappears because it is also the moderator.
In the case of Chernobyl, the graphite moderator had other problems - When the initial steam explosion occurred, the lid on the reactor pressure vessel was blown off, and exposed the graphite to air. Superheated radioactive flammable material + oxygen = BAD.
Chernobyl could not have happened in any U.S. reactor, both due to differences in safety policies and in fundamental reactor design. The worst accident in U.S. history (TMI) released less radioactive material into the environment than some coal-fired power plants release in just one day of operation due to trace amounts of uranium in the coal they burn. (There's one coal plant in Utah that is especially bad I believe.)
Given the choice of living 5 miles from a nuclear PWR, and 5 miles from a coal plant - I'll take the PWR!
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
So waddaya do to restart it when it shuts down and all the lead solidifies?
http://blog.nexusuk.org
I would also note that Earth is the only place in our solar system that has oil, but many others, like Mars, will have uranium.
http://www.mhall119.com
Wow! After reading a little on the thorium reactors, it looks like a simple easy solid choice for future power needs. A comepletely safe reactor that can destroy plutonium? That sounds too good to be true. You can build it in any country with no fear of proliferation? Am I missing something? (other than the billions of special interest groups that will keep this from being a reality in the U.S.) Thanks for the heads up on this technology. I had never heard of it.
Sure, but did you know that Japan had two independent and advanced atomic weapons programs underway? One, in Japan, was destroyed before the U.S arrived, and the other was located in what is now North Korea, and likely gutted by Russia after the war.
An idea floated was to blow a boat/sub in San Fran harbour, but the two bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki beat them to it.
Check out the documentary:
http://tv-links.co.uk/listings/9/7830
Don't play down the design aspect of Chernobyl. We're talking about a plant with no containment structure. A plant with an incredibly high void coefficient. A plant whose design didn't even take into account thermal expansion in an overheating situation. A plant whose control rods were graphite tipped. Graphite -- the tips of their control rods were made of their freakin moderator! It amazes me to think that even in the USSR such a design was ever approved.
Ever since, I've been suspicious of Jesus and very careful around chlorine.
It's worse than that -- the wood will rot in an anoxic environment, and produce methane, not CO2. Methane is a much worse greenhouse gas. You don't have to just consider the plant matter that was there when you flooded, but also incoming organic material. I saw a study that suggested that one dam produced three times more greenhouse gasses per megawatt than an equivalent coal-fired plant.
Hydroelectric was once seen as the "green" solution, but it isn't really anymore. It does have it's uses, mind you -- a good example being how quickly new power can be added and taken away from the grid. It pairs nicely with solar and wind as a consequence.
Ever since, I've been suspicious of Jesus and very careful around chlorine.
Powerful nations don't fall because they get overconfident. They fall because their citizens no longer have the desire to keep going. If America DOES collapse, it won't be because of an external threat. It will be because of the bickering, infighting, and sheer indifference and laziness of it's own people.