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McCain Backs Nuclear Power
bagsc writes "Senator John McCain set out another branch of his energy policy agenda today, with a key point: 45 new nuclear power plants by 2030." So it finally appears that this discussion is back on the table. I'm curious how Nevada feels about this, as well as the Obama campaign. All it took was $4/gallon gas I guess. When it hits $5, I figure one of the campaigns will start to promote Perpetual Motion.
With effective breeder reactors, thorium utilization, and REPROCESSING the number is closer 100,000 years.
Ah yes, TMI.
The amazing thing about TMI is that, had everyone left things alone and let the automated safety systems do their job, a normal shutdown would have occurred. Instead, the human operators intervened and basically did everything they could to cause a meltdown. Nonetheless, the whole thing went out with a fizzle, with essentially zero radiation being emitted to the outside. You'd probably receive more radiation smoking a pack of cigarettes or flying across country than you would have sitting in TMI's backyard.
Nonetheless I'm sure when the general population hears TMI they think (OMFG! Meltdown!!!!!111)
I'm a Nuclear Engineer.
Let me help clarify a few things.
1. In the 70's, our technology was not sufficient for reprocessing. It is arguably that we might have the ability to develop the tech now.
2. The HLW (high level waste) from reprocessing is hotter longer after final use than once through methods.
3. 10,000y is a design specification for HLW storage facilities. HLW is less radioactive than the materials dug up to make it after only 700y.
4. Furthermore, since HLW is loaded with rare earths and lanthanides, and our knowledge of their special and sometimes unique chemistry grows every day, and HLW is actually the only reasonable source for some of these elements, its possible that HLW would enter its own reprocessing cycle after just 200y.
Regards,
Jerry
I'm all for building more nuclear plants and think they, along with fuel reprocessing, are a key element in reducing our dependence on fossil fuels. McCain's plan, however, ignores the realities of what it would take to physically build 45 plants in the US by 2030.
There was an article covered a while back (http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/14/1238233) talking about the 600-ton steel forgings required for a reactor containment vessel and the fact that on one company in Japan can, currently, make them. Given that their production rate is only 5 per year and their first open slot is in ~2015, the US would need 80% of their output from 2015 to 2027 to hope to meet that goal.
Unless the rest of the world stops building nuclear plants or someone else starts making containment vessels, all this is just talk.
You make a big deal about how Obama is generally a bad guy and thus won't support this, but it's just a troll post. Obama specifically has stated that he supports nuclear power during his campaign. One of his biggest campaign donors is Excelon, a nuclear power company. The only anti-nuclear power thing he's done isn't really anti-nuclear power: he introduced legislation to force nuclear power plants to report leaks.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
Well, in the northern US, it would/could make a big difference. For some reason up there...they use heating OIL to heat their homes during the long, hard winters.
Perhaps if we had more nukes providing cheaper electricity...we could get the heating done up north without so much oil usage.
I mean, if you think gas prices are bad now...wait till you have to buy oil to heat your house...something you REALLY can't go without....and be prepared for sticker shock...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Number of people dead due to TMI incident: zero.
Number of health problems conclusively linked to TMI incident: zero.
Amount of radiation to residents: 8-100 millirem.
Improvements in power station design since 1979: lots.
Chance of same incident happening again: ~zero.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
You think that way because you are ignorant of nuclear technology.
It is not really your fault. It is the fault of the hysteria-spreading, anti-nuclear, tree-huggers. They spent years spreading anti-nuclear disinformation and succeeded in stopping the building of nuclear reactors. More money was poured into coal and petroleum for energy production.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
C8H18 + O2 --> energy + H2O + CO2 (modulo a little balancing!)
Take energy from the nuclear plant, CO2 from the atmosphere, and every time a car burns that fuel, it's simply returning to the atmosphere, that which was taken from it. Carbon neutral octane!
This is NOT a crackpot idea, it's something that a federal lab has already worked out, and it can provide that fuel for $4.60 a gallon (before brilliant people optimize the process even further). That's not much more expensive than gasoline is today. To make it competitive, all you'd need is a $.60/gallon tax, and it's probably already competitive if introduced in the rest of the world which has higher fuel taxes.
I have no idea why this idea is not more widespead.
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
Nuclear Information Generation IV reactors are horribly efficient, even the lest efficient CANDU's use about 8 to 10KG of fuel / day, most reactors are designed to used unprocessed fuel (U238 or Enriched Blackshale) or fuel that requires very little development, the nice thing about the new designs is that they all use light water or liquid sodium.
If I had moderator points right now I'd dump them all here. With plugin hybrids only a couple of years away, reliable generation of electricity is the solution for supplanting oil. Not some new way to distribute energy requiring a whole new huge fueling infrastructure. While building new reactors will granted take years, it will also take years for cars to switch over to electric. While nuclear should not be the only means for increasing electrical generation, it should certainly be a part of the solution. Now if you want to moan about the dangers of nuclear energy think hard on this fact: the US Navy has been using nuclear powered vessels since 1955.
GP mentions silly paranoia about breeder reactors. The reason people avoid those is fear that someone would get ahold of the materials used by them to make a nuclear weapon.
However, your comment is still paranoia, not justifiable fear. What exactly would terrorists do to holding areas at nuclear power stations to make the eastern US uninhabitable for 5000 years? Fly a plane into a holding site for nuclear material or waste? That wouldn't disperse the material much at all. The worse-case scenario is someone in the US stealing the material and using it to make a nuclear weapon -- something that's already possible using other sources. Even trying to blow up a nuclear reactor would cause limited damage, and they're not trivial to blow up.
The years of engineering and construction required to turn a plant that exists into the doomsday device of your imagination would be difficult for the terrorists to achieve.
This program was made possible by a grant from the Ultra-Humanite, and viewers like you.
Well there's the containment vessel and then there's the holding pools.
But no, flying a fully loaded jet into a containment vessel would NOT breach it. They're specifically built and tested to exceed stresses just LIKE that.
Also - for those who don't "get it" - a nuclear *reactor* is not those huge white towers with steam coming out. Those are just heat exchangers for cooling the plant. The actual reactor is in a rather small (by comparison) boring building around the middle of the plant.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
Well, here's a comparison
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_of_combustion
Gasolene - 47MJ/KG
Kerosene - 46.2MJ/KG
Diesel - 45MJ/KG
Atomic Fission (U235)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_dioxide
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/Hbase/nucene/u235chn.html
1KG of U235 has about 17.5KiloTons of Energy
17.5(4.184*10^12J) or
7.322*10^10MJ
Atomic Fusion p+B11 *now with less killing! (it's called Anutronic Fusion since it has no radiation) p +11Bâ'3(4He)+ 8.7 MeV (or 1KG of B11 can produce 17.7GWh of electricity)or 17.7(3.6*10^12J)which is about 63.7*10^10MJ
In terms of Energy:
1KG of U235 = 1.557*10^9KG of Gasolene
(that's 9 orders of magnitude better) 1KG of B11 = 13.55*10^9KG of Gasolene
So yes it's HORRIBLY efficent, not quite as efficent as Matter + Anti-matter however we haven't figured out how to build that kind of reactor yet, and we'd need a plentiful source of antimatter.
At $57/LB uranium is far cheaper than Gas. I'm pretty sure Borax is cheaper than Uranium.
The problem with using Chernobyl as an example for a nuclear disaster is that in a multitude of ways it wasn't built as safe as reactors elsewhere.
For example, you wouldn't get a Pripyat in the USA because all of our reactors are already contained in pre-constructed pressure buildings. Often it's a dome. It's designed to act as a second containment vessel in case the primary is breached.
Then there's the whole void coefficient thing.
I don't read AC A human right