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.

Comments

Seriously, WTF?

[N8F8]

Nuclear is the best option. Equating it with perpetual motion shows YOUR ignorance. Hate makes you stupid.

Re:Seriously, WTF?

[nurb432]

I don't think it was actually ignorance, it was just showing his irrational bias against nuclear and trying to lump it into fantasy land to influence peoples thinking.

But i agree with you, it didn't really have the effect he was thinking.

However, i would go so far as to say while nuclear is an very important piece of the domestic energy puzzle and needs to be brought back on track, its just one piece.

Re:Seriously, WTF?

[SatanicPuppy]

Because volcano's don't conveniently locate themselves next to large population centers?

Solar and Wind are nice and all, but it's Nuclear power that's going to pull our eco-bacon out of the fire; it is the cleanest source of power per kwh that we've got. Once we start reprocessing the waste, we'll be able to sustain output for a long time.

Re:Seriously, WTF?

[tha_mink]

1000 years worth assuming how many reactors covering how large a percent of our energy needs? The reserve is based on the current price of the material and the current drain on that reserve. So actually, if the price goes up, that means there's more available because you can spend more to get to it. Kinda like the oil reserve. The more the price spikes, the more that can be spent on drilling, recovery, refining, etc. So there you have it.

Re:Seriously, WTF?

[torkus]

Or someone decides to ignore silly public paranoia and starts building breeder reactors or higher density reactors that 'burn' more than ~10% of the fissile material in their fuel.

Or with breeder reactors you basically have unlimited fuel. They're more complex to design perhaps but are certainly a solution to your claimed "problem".

Also - you probably read a few of the same articles i did about there not being enough fissile uranium around. The catch is it assumes a fixed (and rather low) cost as the ceiling. Once you increase that it becomes a non-issue even without breeder reactors. And before you compare tripling the price of uranium fuel to oil at $140 a barrel - the fuel cost for a nuclear plant is a rather small % of it's operating cost. It's not like they burn a trainload of uranium every few days like a coal plant.

I don't know the details of McCain's "backing" but if it results in more ecconomical and plentiful nuclear plants i'm all for it.

Re:Seriously, WTF?

[Timothy Brownawell]

They all have at least one good point though: what do we do with the waste? Reprocess it and use it instead of throwing it out. The reason it's dangerous is that it still has enough energy in it to be useful. Supposedly reprocessing is dangerous because someone might steal it, but I suspect that this risk is vastly overstated, and the risks of waste being stolen or just leaking away over time are similarly understated. Is it easier to guard something for a year, or a few centuries?

Re:Seriously, WTF?

[vijayiyer]

The problem is that the environmentalist movement is not made up of technically savvy people. They do spread FUD all day without any interest in gaining a real understanding of the underlying technologies, their risks, and their rewards. Partly, that's because the masses have lost trust in science itself (look at the creation/evolution "debate"), and science no longer wins over public opinion. That's extremely frustrating to the engineers who understand the issues involved.

Re:Seriously, WTF?

[hyperz69]

The only way to blow up a nuclear power plant is to pack it full of TNT, or to have potential hazardous tests run on a faultily designed reactor by a 3rd shift coal plant team of rejects. FIXED! Happy?

Wha-huh?

[faloi]

Nuclear seems to be working pretty well for various foreign countries. It takes a while to get a reactor on-line, and it's not a perfect solution... But it's better in many ways than the fossil fuel options.

Wind and solar are great, and I support them also. But, $4 gas or not, all energy options should be on the table. And they should've been for about the last 30 years.

Global Warming

[The Aethereal]

You can not think global warming is both human caused and a genuine threat and not be for nuclear power. Yes nuclear power has its own problems, but far better than the purported consequences of global warming. Keep your eyes open for "environmentalists" that are against nuclear power. Those people have other interests in mind. "Environmentalism" is just their tool.

Re:And it's only taken 2.9 decades

[SatanicPuppy]

Yea, because Carter, the only president to have ever had any formal training in any sort of nuclear technology, and also the only president ever involved in the cleanup after a nuclear accident, is all irrational and uninformed where nuclear power is concerned.

The 70's were a different world. Nuclear power meant nuclear weapons, and the public opposition then to nuclear power is hard to even imagine today. Don't blame Carter for the hysteria of the day.

And it's only taken 2.9 decades

[Moryath]

...to start reversing the DEPLORABLE conditions started by Jimmy "I'm a fucking moron" Carter.

You know - the guy who thought that if the US didn't RECYCLE nuclear waste back into fuel (which would SOLVE the "nuclear waste storage" issue) it would be an "example" to tin-pot dictatorships and insane genocidal religious nations like North Korea, Pakistan, India, Iran, Syria, China... and they wouldn't try to get nuclear weapons. Yeah, how'd that work out for us?

The guy who coddled so-called "environmentalists" to the point where we haven't built SAFE, CLEAN electrical power generation anywhere because nobody can get past the permits process and NIMBY enviro-wacko whining.

Think about it - even the founder of Greenpeace (who long ago left the organization when it became obvious the commies and inmates were running the asylum and not interested in real, rational discussion) says we need nuclear energy because so-called "renewable" sources are inherently (a) unreliable and (b) limited in the scope of what we can do with them.

Re:$4 for gas, come on

[jeffmeden]

Don't think that all Americans are as naive as CmdrTaco. I, for one, realize both that $4 for a gallon of gas isn't extravagant, and that the cost of a gallon of gas has little to do with global nuclear energy politics. McCain is simply following the Bush stance on 'alternative energy' which is to say, any alternative to oil that will net equally high profits for equally large, heavy lobbying companies.

Re:Obama better support this too

[Dolohov]

I also oppose drilling for our own oil resources. Why the hell should we? Let's use up the oil resources of the people who hate us while it's still relatively cheap, then tap our own resources at $300 a barrel and make them come crawling.

Re:Obama better support this too

[FireFury03]

Let's use up the oil resources of the people who hate us while it's still relatively cheap, then tap our own resources at $300 a barrel and make them come crawling.

s/crawling/attacking/

No Silver Bullet

[s31523]

I don't understand why people can not get it through their heads that no one single item is the answer.

Look, we (US) have enjoyed our luxury of cheap single source energy. Now it is time to get with the program. We need ALL options for energy started now. Think of it as a diversified portfolio. So, I say the following:
YES! Drill for more oil and make some more darn refineries
YES! Build some nuclear power plants.
YES! Explore better ways to use coal in existing power plants.
YES! Build huge solar arrays and start larger solar power plants
YES! Build wave generated power plants
YES! Build wind generated power plants
YES! Build electric-based "commuter" vehicles
YES! Explore better ways to make bio-fuel

The government needs to subsidize some of the projects and needs to throw some money at these problems. If we deploy all of these strategies we may not get cheaper energy but we will get stable energy and maybe, just maybe avert major crisis as population and demand increases exponentially over the next 10 years.

Re:Oil not equal to nuclear

[Dougmeister]

Yes, but cars *can* be powered by elecricity. So nuclear energy *does* have something to do with our dependence on gasoline.

Re:Oil not equal to nuclear

[Alarindris]

Pushing nuclear energy has relatively very little do with our dependence on gasoline via crude oil. Please lets not confuse the two. I disagree. We could use electric cars. Plug em into the wall and you've got yourself a nuclear powered car.

Re:Oil not equal to nuclear

[prisoner-of-enigma]

Ideally, I'd like to put up enough solar panels and wind turbines to power my house, charge my car, and sell back to the utilities. What's stopping you, then? Unless you live in a neighborhood with covenants restricting such devices, you have all the freedom in the world to do exactly what you suggest. The technology exists. The products exist. What's stopping you?

Ahh...perhaps it's that little thing called "cost?" Independence from the power grid really sounds like a neat idea until you consider how much it costs to do it. Sort of like electric cars, which sound neat until you consider the cost to acquire one versus the utility and flexibility you can extract from it vis-as-vis a gasoline-powered vehicle of similar cost.

I'm not trying to be a downer on such ideas, though. I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy of so many of the wealthy "treehuggers" out there who have the means to do something about their energy consumption yet continue to shuttle around in limos, private jets, and occupy 15,000 sq. ft. mansions with an energy consumption the size of a small town. Environmentalism seems great to folks until you ask them to put their money where their mouth is.

Re:Here they go again

[hypnagogue]

Wind farms are INCREDIBLY noisy and disruptive, the power is intermittent at best with very minimal generating capacity for the land area used, and a major killer of endangered birds already.

Assuming you use the word "INCREDIBLY" to mean "nothing you say can be believed", I would agree.