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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.
Nuclear is the best option. Equating it with perpetual motion shows YOUR ignorance. Hate makes you stupid.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
So why does $4 gas == need for nuclear power?
Oil burning plants were eliminated after Carter's oil crisis.
If we want cheap gas we need to do what Mexico does (for their $2 gas). Regulation and forbid speculation on a "critical" national resource.
(Or just get an ebike!)
I would support this and would allow it in my back yard.
are 45 backyards in which to build them.
Seriously, the NIMBY (not in my nackyard) and BANANA (build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything) mentalities have held back nuclear power as much as anything else, especially after TMI. Getting local communities to agree to construction will be no small task.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
I'm so sick to death of this "$4 for a gallon", my heart fucking bleeds.
Come live in the UK for a while.
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.
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
Didn't you hear, opec has decided they pushed the bubble far enough and is going to scale back the 'waters testing'?
We go thru this all the time with them, they push prices up to where they get worried we might actually go find an alternative, then bring it down just enough ( but higher then before ) to quiet us down and lose interest in alternatives.
Its a cycle that most people are too stupid to see, and thus we are stuck in it.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Last couple of days he has been pushing hard for oil and energy independance. I was pretty dissapointed with the party's nomination choice a few months back, but McCain is proving he can step up and fight the conservative battles to move this country in the right direction.
We need to be drilling in Anwar, we need to be drilling offshore, and we need more nuclear energy. These factors will help us last until something like Fusion power is ready.
The current reactor design is antiquated and hobbled by President Carter's decree that we will not reprocess nuclear fuel. So instead of extracting 90+% of the energy in the fuel and having 100 year nuclear waste, we extract 2% and have 10,000 year waste with the once-thru fuel cycle. Real smart, Jimmy. And he was a 'Nucular Engineer'!
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
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.
More likely he will say that, "Nuclear is an important part of our national ongoing energy strategy, along with clean, renewable energy in the form of wind and solar and whatever."
Means the same thing really; McCain pushed so-called "clean coal" at the same time as he pushed Nuclear, which is a bit more Republican of him, since coal states are red states, and big electric has no desire to stop building coal plants.
Nuclear is the best of a lot of bad options, and regardless of presidents, the return to nuclear power has already begun, as witnessed by the resurge in permit applications since last year.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Seriously, one of the more classic political tricks is to promise something way ahead in time, something that would have to be achieved by someone other than you.
It is just more obvious because of McCain's age. Don't get me wrong, nuclear is currently the safest, greenest option that is economically viable, but promising things 20+ years into the future is pretty bad.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Yeah what a great guy. Interesting that he is pushing for a "solution" that only works with massive amounts of very centralized investment. I mean why would anyone want to encourage a wide range of smaller but much safer and more sustainable solutions? Solar, Wind, Geo, are only held back by the standard economic factors. Government intervention that leads to increased usage and production could solve that problem and reduce those costs almost overnight and the consumer wouldn't then have to be slave to yet another(or the same) energy masters.
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.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
...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.
I have nothing against nuclear power, I just do not trust deregulation-happy business criminals to run them. With proper designs, regular inspections, and a safety-first mentality, nuclear power is clean and safe. With Enron-style profit-raping and criminal evasion of government regulation, we'd be fucked and glowing in the dark. I wouldn't put it past them to try and build crappy Chernobyl-style reactors just to give the finger to the Greenies, the same way they have the hard-on for drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
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.
To be fair, the sun (a large unlicensed fusion reactor) is the closest thing to perpetual motion/energy we're ever going to have.
so where are you goin to put all of this waste that will not be safe to be around for hundreds of thousands of years? Yucca mountain *is* in my back yard.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
I'm not surprised that a tech-savvy audience like slashdotters would support nuclear power. I haven't studied the issues of safety and environmental impact, and therefore really shouldn't make claims or arguments based on hearsay. However, as a geek, I consider how much science (nuclear, materials, environmental), and technology have advanced since the last US nuclear plant was built, and I have to think that much of the fear of nuclear power is based on 1960's/1970's (Three Mile Island) and/or Soviet (as in 'back in the days of the Soviet Union', and fears about Chernobyl) technology.
... often not the cleanest generation at the moment).
Computer control and monitoring has got to be vastly improved since then. I'd also imagine we have learned much about containment and recovery from the aforementioned accidents that would help prevent anything similar in the future. Again, I haven't got enough personal basis to make any claims, but these thoughts have occurred to me.
Add to that a story I recall about someone coming up with a direct nuclear-to-energy conversion material, (line the walls of the core and of high-level storage facilities to generate additional power from previously untapped/unused radiation/byproducts), and I figure nuclear could really give us a decent chance at meeting our energy needs while reducing greenhouse gasses and dependency on foreign oil.
With enough cheap, clean power, plug-in electric and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles might actually make sense (since those technologies may eliminate emissions at the car, but still require the generation of power elsewhere
Anyhow, IANANS (I am not a Nuclear Scientist), so I really can't offer any facts, and IANASP (I am not a stinking politician) so I can't really offer any FUD, but I believe we should give nuclear power a chance, and it appears that a lot of other geeks (for their own varying reasons) seem to believe the same.
The Digital Sorceress
With the election of President Bill Clinton in 1992, and the appointment of Hazel O'Leary as the Secretary of Energy, there was pressure from the top to cancel the IFR. Sen. John Kerry (D, MA) and O'Leary led the opposition to the reactor, arguing that it would be a threat to non-proliferation efforts, and that it was a continuation of the Clinch River Breeder Reactor Project that had been canceled by Congress. Despite support for the reactor by then-Rep. Richard Durbin (D, IL) and U.S. Senators Carol Mosley Braun (D, IL) and Paul Simon (D, IL), funding for the reactor was slashed, and it was ultimately canceled in 1994. [Just 3 years before completion.]
Emphasis mine. See all those bold 'D's for Democrat? Uh huh.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
The second issue is that we have to get a nuclear depository up and running. Every year the treasury is paying huge amounts of taxpayer money to the nuclear power plants for storage of waste. Who knows how many of those of payments are fraudulent. Until we get a national nuclear waste dump up and running, nuclear power is going to a magnet for corruption of the public purse.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
As a Native Nevadan, I'm for Nuclear power 100% (and to throw the statistics off more, I'm in my early twenties and have been backing Obama since before the Nevada caucus, which I attended). There are a lot of misunderstanding about the Yucca Mountain project, but more importantly the citizens of Nevada (on a whole) are not grasping an important concept.
I'm a citizen of Reno, first and foremost. After that, and in a larger sense, I'm a citizen of Nevada. If there is a measure that is good for the state on a whole and Reno does not get benefit from it, I still vote for it. Why? Because it is for the good of my fellow statesmen. After this, I am a citizen of the United States, and if there is a measure that my fellow American citizens will benefit from while Nevada or Reno might not, I back it, again, because it is for the good of my country and my fellow Americans.
The concept of working together for the greater good has been replaced with NIMBY communities and people who are too self-centered to think of anyone but themselves -- i.e. most of the people in my generation and the generation before me, the same people who took advantage of these Liar Loans and are being foreclosed upon now.
The other argument that I bring up to people that I discuss this topic with is that there is a great deal of money to be made for not only the State of Nevada, but also any and all states that have any railroad lines crossing through them that will be used to bring the nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain. The cut and dry of it is this: in exchange for not fighting to keep this project from happening, cut a deal with the federal government, using the old States Rights trick, and charge a fair rate for every cubic meter/yard/whatever that has to be transported to help cover the potential risk of a spill and for the right and privilege to cross through the state. This would give Nevada and the other states quite a bit more funding, bring the waste in to a place that can store it, and put this damn issue to rest already.
Nuclear power could provide a lot of benefits outside of its low carbon footprint for electricity generation.
How about a 2 gigawatt plant dedicated to pumping and desalianting seawater for the Southwest's water supply? Not only could this provide a primary source for drinking water, it would provide the immense environmental benefit of stopping the drain-to-dry on the rivers and aquifers.
How about a 2 gigawatt plant dedicated to producing hydrogen from seawater and allowing a bulk source of hydrogen? The hydrogen could be shipped elsewhere and used for electricity generation, fuel for more mobile vehicles, etc.
Building the plants and using the majority of the power on site has big benefits, too, since you won't lose half your power to transmission loss -- it's like getting a free power plant.
For those of us who remember the 70's and early 80's which was sort of the Nuclear Power heyday, it wasn't the dangers of Nuclear energy that caused people to turn against the technology. It was the poor construction and management of the Nuclear Power Plants that was the problem. With Three Mile Island, there was the faulty sensor, at Browns Ferry it was discovered that many of the fail-safe provisions had been left out of the construction to save costs. I remember watching the news and seeing Nuclear Waste being stored in leaky, rusty barrels in a parking lot covered by a tarp. It's not Nuclear Energy most of us are against, it's the fact that too many companies were insisting that it cost too much to build safe Nuclear Power Plants. That's what killed Nuclear Power in the 70's and 80's. It wasn't the technology, it was the management of the technology.
"Why the hell should we?"
So we'll have it when we need it? Drilling is not as instantaneous process.
"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."
Or, we could drill for it now so we'd have it when it reached 300 a barrel, instead of needing 5 years to get at it after it reaches 300 a barrel.
If that is the sum of your objections to drilling, then you have no legitimate objections.
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/
http://blog.nexusuk.org
1) Your country is far smaller than the US, so you need to do less in terms of commuting ,etc,
2) you've had the benefit of years of rational development and land use planning, and
3) you've got extensive and well funded public transportation systems. (yeah, I know NS has been having issues in the last few years - it's light years ahead of the way things are in the US. Most cities here have nothing nearly as good as the trams, busses, and metros of various European cities).
We built up our country stupidly, particularly after WWII. We put extensive, relatively sparse tracts of housing far outside of places where people work and provide only highways for transportation. And we're going to pay the price for that, but we're still in the kicking and screaming tantrum stage, and won't start to deal realistically with the issues till the situation is far worse. Expect our politicians to do nothing to get us to grow the fuck up, either.
This is mixing two separate issues. Oil is not the problem as far as producing electricity, its coal. Coal produces an enormous carbon foot print and is just all around nasty (from other residual waste to the damage to the environment that occurs just getting at it). I grew up in north east Pennsylvania, and I have seen first hand the impact of coal mining, its pretty horrific.
Back to my point. Pushing nuclear energy has relatively very little do with our dependence on gasoline via crude oil. Please lets not confuse the two. There is no chance that there will be cars powered by "under the hood" nuclear reactors in the near future. Wind power will also do nothing for our dependence on oil for gasoline.
Another case of policitians using unrelated events to push policy. Albiet, in poor taste, he is at least using this opportunity to point us to a real solution. I hate to say it, but Wind, Solar, Geothermal, etc. are not ready for deployment today. They eventually will be, but by that time (10+ years), it will take another 20+ years before they even make up a few % of global energy production. By that time Nuclear plants can be rolled out en mass and go a long way to reduce our carbon footprint (but not demand on foreign oil, sorry, thats just a different topic).
20th century Marxism is not progress...
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 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.
Personally I believe a combination of nuclear and high efficiency solar is the way to go. Espeically if we use liquid salt reactor technology instead of light water reactor technology. Liquid salt has a number of advantages including the safety is in the physics not in the engineering, i.e. the reactor cannot run away or meltdown. Further if you use a Thorium/U233 fuel cycle combined with closed cycle helium gas turbines (which run about 50% efficiency at the high temps of the core... compare with about 33% efficiency with steam) you can potentially get 11 TWe-yr/MT of Thorium ore (becuase you "burn" all of the thorium in the process). To give you an idea, the present yearly output of one thorium mine in Idaho could supply the US energy needs for that same year. Additionally, because you burn it all all you get is fission by-products (no trans uranic waste) which you will need to store for only about 30 yrs (for the radioactive strontium). One other nice thing about the Th/U233 Lliquid flouride salt reactor, you cannot use it to enrich material for weapons production. If you try (ignoring the fact that the Th/U233 cycle is a very poor and inefficient way to try to make bomb material) you will make elements that have a very distinct and strong gamma signature, and you would be detected. If folks are interested there is a great resource at http://www.energyfromthroium.com/ In any case whom ever is the next president they will have to deal with our dependance on oil, and hydrocarbons in general.
Well?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_tax#Netherlands
"The 2007 fuel tax was 0.684 per litre or $ 3.5 per gallon. On top of that is 19% VAT over the entire fuel price, making the Dutch taxes one of the highest in the world."
Fiscal reality FTW.
Republicans: build 45 new reactors.
Democrats: nationalize the oil industry, price controls on gas.
I'm not going to post which I think is which, but one seems rational and reasonable, the other is pandering to the masses with a policy that is not only short sighted, but dangerous.
-Styopa
Any time you mention the truth about the enviro-nutjob movement, some slashdot troll with a mod point will be there to bury you.
I'm all about SENSIBLE environmental policy. That means we have to balance OUR needs for resources with RESPONSIBLE environmentalism, not turn the entire fucking planet into an off-limits nature preserve.
And yes, it means that there just may need to be a power plant, or a chemical refinery, or any other of a large number of the usual items that trigger "OMGWTFNIMBYAAUGH" reactions from the enviro-nutjobs, NEAR to population centers so that we RESPONSIBLY reduce the transportation and delivery costs (not just monetary but WASTED FUEL ENERGY).
Think about it. It costs us at LEAST 25% more fossil fuel energy to turn OUR FOOD SUPPLY into ethanol fuel and deliver it where it needs to go, than we get back. Ethanol has been one of the biggest energy disasters we've ever gotten into. And at the same time we WASTE petroleum trying to do this, the price of food for starving countries is going through the roof because the US, an exporter of corn, is BURNING THE FOOD SUPPLY - LITERALLY.
Think of it this way: would you dump a gallon jug of Jack Daniels in your gas tank? Guess what - YOU JUST DID. Oh, and the reason you constantly have to get your injectors cleaned and serviced and buy injector cleaner to put in your tank? That's right - ethanol is incredibly corrosive to your rubber fuel line!
And yet the enviro-nutjobs keep screaming for ethanol production and refuse to consider how wasteful it is. They refuse to consider the fact that the "renewable" energy sources all have problems too: in order to make an order of solar panels from polysilicon, you create an immense amount of TOXIC WASTE that has to be dealt with. If you run a mirror-based solar farm, you've got to keep the mirrors polished (congratulations, keep a lot of toxic chemicals handy and be prepared to toxify the hell out of the soil) just as a start. And all it takes to lower or cut entirely your generating capacity is a nice cloud or two. Earth seems to be fairly old hat at generating those, somehow. Walk outside and take a quick peek at the sky, chances are there's one around.
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.
Geothermal has limited areas in which it can be placed, areas which are invariably tectonically unstable (or worse yet: the "best" places are usually right in the expected lava flow/blast zone of a volcano).
Tidal power has the same problem, you can only do it on a shoreline, and a rise/fall in the shoreline (not due to "global warming" but simply tectonic activity or seasonal changes in large lakes) can kill it quite easily, since the turbines have to be set at the right place to match the incoming/outgoing tides... and even then, they ONLY generate power during the tidal shift.
Biomass is a nice thought, but you get back to the food supply and other effects. Wood chips? Watch the price of particulate board matter of all sorts (the sort likely most of your furniture is made of, especially if it came from Ikea) jack through the roof. Much of the rest is fed to animals or composted to create fertilizer in order to grow more food, which means you'll decrease crop yields and jack food prices up again.
Do I say we shouldn't use these? No. But if we had a SENSIBLE and RESPONSIBLE nuclear policy, including recycling "spent" fuel and refining it back for reuse rather than trying to stash it under a mountain, we could eliminate a LOT more of the oil/natural gas/coal portion of our energy than these sources are ever likely to manage.
Obama was the one major candidate back in the silly Youtube debate early in the Democratic primary race who was interested in nuclear power.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
Flamebait? More like painful honesty. Carter was a nice guy and obviously very smart, but his energy policies are crippling us. Think of where we might be today if we had 30 years of experience running breeder reactors on a wide-scale basis.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
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.
I live just outside of the Idaho National Lab (which Bush declared as the nuclear power research capital 2 years ago). Since the "declaration" the labs nuclear research budget has fallen and jack shit in terms of reactor research has happened.
There is a big push here to get a tri-core closed cycle plant (it makes and processes its own fuel). The locals are all for it, the state is all for it, the feds won't lift a damn finger.
So, I'll believe it when I see it.
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)
The newer designs of reactors have no CHANCE of doing what either Chernobyl or 3-Mile Island did. Pebble-Bed reactors fail "safe" (without guidance, they simply hit their equilibrium temperature which is well within the structural design limits and stay there). Plus, they cool by inert gas rather than water so there's no chance of a contaminated steam-cloud explosion (which was why Chernobyl was so nasty).
THIS FACT ALONE: France is far more leftist and "GREEN" than the US and they have a far greater threat of domestic Islamic terrorism, yet they are almost fully nuclear because:
*It is SAFE
Oh, the citizens of CHERNOBYL beg to differ!
Why hasn't there been a single incident in the last 22 years. Could it just be that Chernobyl was an old poorly designed, poorly maintained reactor that bears no comparisons to modern reactors?
http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter7.html
*Has nearly ZERO pollution
But Its NUCULUR WASTE!!! GODZILLA!!!.
An average plant produces just 3 cubic meters of waste per year and 95% of that waste is re-usable:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reprocessing
As for the NIMBY's, store it in the desert where we used to test nuclear weapons. I'm guessing that's no one's back yard.
*Provides continuous power (unlike solar, wind)
Hey buddy, there are ways to store that power and supply continuous power.
Yeah, more expensive, less efficient ways.
*Provides CHEAP power (unlike solar, wind)
You'd put a price on protecting Mother Earth? We need a ZERO-RISK society!
Cost is actually important to the average person who can't afford to take their private jet around the country lecturing the unwashed masses about their evil polluting ways.
You can look up the facts about nuclear power yourself, or you can watch "The China Syndrome" and build the hundreds (thousands?) of windmills and square miles of solar panels it would take equate to one nuclear plant.
Sorry this was a little snarky. I know most anti-nuclear, pro-green people are just well intentioned and misinformed. So please do the research. Throw out any research you find from the Sierra Club and power companies and the answer will still be clear.
Again, why is the rest of the developed world going nuclear and we are tilting at windmills?
Are we that much smarter?
soem references. And that's not including new genetically enhanced corn varieties or other crop/waste sources that will come along once the industry is established.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Look how long it has taken for any state to accept the toxic nuclear waste. How long before we have to start looking for more dumping grounds for these new active power plants?
One of our biggest poblems, particularly in the US, is the lack of long-range planning when it comes to energy policy. Our entire society has been built on the presumption that oil is and will always be cheap, which considering Hubbert's peak oil predictions in the 50's is remarkably foolish and short-sighted. We really need to look at the long-term implications of nuclear or any other energy source, and start planning now instead of waiting for another crisis to develop.
2. Where there's vast amounts of money, there is fraud.
Near my home in the 1980's a nuclear plant began construction, and it turned out that the contractor was skimming money off the top and not building the plant to spec. When the state finally inspected it, the walls were honeycombed because the contractor was skimping on the concrete! Imagine if that plant had gone online.
It's not so much the technology I'm worried about - it's the greedy motherfuckers who are willing to cut corners for a profit that concern me. I have no interest in helping some CEO finally get that island in the Pacific while my state turns into a Chernobyl site.
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.........
I agree with almost everything you say. Coal is much worse; nuclear doesn't replace much of our oil dependence. Transportation makes up about half of our use of oil, mostly going to cars (SUVs!), trucks, desiel semis, etc. The only way I can see nuclear making a difference in our oil consumption is with the combination of electric cars. Right now, I wouldn't consider buying so much as an electric scooter as long as the power plant is coal. But if the grid is nuclear (or some other green power), buying an electric car, motorcycle, etc suddenly makes sense.
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.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Yes, but cars *can* be powered by elecricity. So nuclear energy *does* have something to do with our dependence on gasoline.
I actually think Geothermal will be the only dependable energy source over the long haul, but we need to work out a few bugs first.
Electric powered cars will lower oil dependence for a bit, but since so many other products are made from oil it will continue to be an important resource regardless of whether people burn it or not.
In fact we depend on plastics so much now, that in my mind burning it as fuel makes as much sense as burning the food supply for fuel.
"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 [wikipedia.org], is all irrational and uninformed where nuclear power is concerned."
When viewed in retrospect, yes, that is exactly how it appears things have shaken out.
Your post is just a reworded argument form authority.
"Don't blame Carter for the hysteria of the day."
Why the fuck not? He, according to YOU, was trained better and more informed, yet he ALLOWED the hysteria, even kowtowing to it in some cases. Why shouldn't I blame him for allowing irrational fear to dominate the discussion, when according to YOU he should have had the information necessary to defuse the hysteria?
History proved his positions wrong. If he was as informed as you think, how did he ALLOW that to happen? And why do you think he gets a pass for it?
It is only 'weaponization' of the fuel...IF you put it in a weapon.
Frankly, we've got enough nuke weapons now, and aren't really looking for a new source of fuel for those. If we look into IFR (Integral Fast Reactors) and the like...we can make very efficient use of the nuclear fuel...and reduce the amounts of waste, and possible weaponizable by products.
We do have pretty good scientific minds in this country, if we'd just use them, and stop playing politics with all this....our energy needs should be above petty partisanship.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
That's dumb. As dirty as coal plants are, they are far cleaner than the equivalent power output from internal combustion engines. If it takes n joules to get you from place to place, you're better off using the more efficient method of getting those joules.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
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.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Much of your comments are accurate, especially how renewables do not eliminate the use of oil for transportation. But you're wrong about the state of renewables: wind is in large-scale deployment today (19% of electricity in Denmark, 9% in Spain & Portugal, 6% in Germany); solar is closer than 10+ years as the first large-scale installations are being built.
A little more about wind power in Germany: they're aiming for 20% in about the next 10 years. And their experience is interesting; it turns out that when you have large numbers of wind farms all across the country, the wind is always blowing somewhere, and the problem with intermittent output starts to go away. (Requires, of course, a power grid able to deal with shifting inputs, which may require expensive upgrades.)
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.
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.
Using electricity directly for heating is very inefficient, whatever the source, and requires substantial upgrades to the distribution grid. A much better option is to use the 'waste' heat from the power plant, by piping steam through buildings. This is already used in some places in Europe. I don't know if anyone's using a nuclear power plant for this though...Perhaps if we had more nukes providing cheaper electricity...we could get the heating done up north without so much oil usage.
Nuclear power is far far more expensive than oil. Not only is it security risk, but the health hazards are enormous in obtaining the fuel, refining the fuel, using the fuel, and disposal of the spent fuel.
Inevitable accidents have world wide affects. To make it worse, nuclear power plants are not the most productive.
I can't recall the study, but the cost benefits of nuclear energy that are quoted never factor in disposal (storage actually) of the spent rods or cleanup of accidents.
Do we need a reminder of 3 mile island or chernobyl?
Or by the time they run out, there's an alternate energy source and then all of our oil is worthless.
Nuclear is the best solution we have for now. To say that it's risky overlooks the hazards of coal: mining and moving 1 billion tons of coal, burning it and releasing particulates and heavy metals, acidifying the oceans by increasing atmospheric CO2 load. The relative risk of nuclear is probably overall lower than coal/oil/gas in terms of lives saved by reducing particulate and heavy metal emissions, and environmental benefit from reduced mining activity, reduced CO2 and metal emissions.
The first thing the incoming President will need to do to start the movement is rescind Carter's executive order against fuel reprocessing. Then, drive up the marginal cost of coal mining through changes in tax and land use policy. Third and most necessary, apply a sales tax to fossil and nuclear sources to fund development of the next energy source as well as improving efficiency of current consumers.
Fission is, at best, a stopgap over current problems with energy. We cannot neglect fusion, solar, etc. as well as improving efficiency of major electric consumers such as lighting, data centers, HVAC climate control systems, etc. Hopefully something better will come along in the next 50 years to replace these plants as they retire.
We need to convince McCain to that we need to harness entropy as a source of power. Since it just keeps growing, and we're never going to run out.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
There is no chance that there will be cars powered by "under the hood" nuclear reactors in the near future.
Why not, American cars are big enough.
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.
Check this youtube video.
Barack Obama: [...] "Absolutely, and look, the NRC is a moribund and...it's a moribund agency that needs to be revamped and it's become captive of the industries that it regulates and I think that's a problem. It's not unique by the way to the nuclear industry [...] We've got a whole bunch of federal agencies that over the last seven years have been filled with cronies, have lost their sense of mission. It's true in the justice department, the civil rights division. [...] Part of what I want to do as President is I want to make government cool again. I say that only partly tongue-in-cheek. I want to be able to attract a whole new generation of talent to go into the federal government and their charge will be make these agencies lean, mean, make them work [...] Let's restore this sense that government can get things done [...] I would describe myself as agnostic on nuclear power in the sense I'm not somebody who says nuclear's off the table no matter what because there's no perfect energy source and given the importance of producing carbon emissions, nuclear should be in the mix if we can make it safe [...] There are a whole set of questions and they may not be solvable and if they're not solvable then I don't want to invest in it. But if they are solvable, why not?"
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
Seems like a reasonable position to me, growth is possible if there is sufficient oversight.
As a Nevadan who lives within 100 miles of Yucca Mountain, I'm pro nuclear power. The containment methods are rock solid and the shipping bypasses the major city of Las Vegas entirely. Plus, the fees my state will charge other states will provide a good supply of income that can be used to overhaul some underfunded departments, notably transportation and education.
I recently watched a segment on Fox News where they stated that Obama was against Nuclear Power. I did some research and as the parent states, he is FOR using Nuclear Power as part of an overall solution. Here is the letter I sent to Fox News:
Very early this morning I was watching FOX & Friends' coverage of the Energy debate between Senator Obama and Senator McCain. There was a graphic that showed the differences between the two candidates. I saw a difference that was curious to me as I had not seen it mentioned on any other news networks. The graphic and following dialog suggested that Senator McCain was pro nuclear energy while Senator Obama was against it. Energy is obviously a hot topic this election year and I personally believe that Nuclear Power is part of the solution. I found it odd that Senator Obama would be against using Nuclear Energy. I decided to "Google" it to learn more. The top two links were YouTube videos of a primary debate and a round table discussion. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjDmyToTYBE and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRxl2cVFTLw In both cases it was made clear that Senator Obama is FOR using Nuclear Power as part of an energy solution. I would like to know what sources Fox News used to determine that Senator Obama is against the use of Nuclear Energy so that I may more clearly understand his position on the subject.
I live in St. Paul, and in the downtown area, they have a combined heat and power plant. Not only that, but it's run on waste wood, much of it collected as a service... your waste leaves and branches from yardwork are tossed in the furnace instead of just rotting! Three birds (waste, heat, and power), one stone. Granted, this is just for the downtown area, but it's still pretty awesome. I don't think this would work in the suburbs, though... too much wasted heat just in the piping, plus the great expense of installing heavily insulated hot water pipes all over everywhere.
As far as nuclear, I find it hard to believe people will like have nuclear heated water run through their homes. The paranoia factor is just way too high. There are other uses for it, though. People will just have to be creative. Free heated water = efficient fish farm? = year-round tropical oasis in my home state of Minnesnowta?
Not to harp on semantics, he just recently said oil was $4 per BARREL. Then caught himself and joked about the "good old days".
If you want McCain as president, you're not considering the truth, or you're incapable of thinking for yourself.
He wants them to open Florida's west coast to offshore drilling. This won't have an effect on gas prices.
Since Florida governor Charlie Crist is being considered for VP, he did a 180 against the interests of his own state and supported McCain's plan.
It will only take one spill to destroy the everglades entirely. Before you go on about "we don't need the everglades", it's the source of fresh water for the entire Southern part of the state.
This is just out of touch with reality. No one will actually benefit from this except the oil companies.
yep, just don't vote for John McCain. Nothing he is, is what we need.
They're using their grammar skills there.
The price of that coal still doesn't properly reflect its true cost, because the people who burn coal don't have to pay for the air they pollute or the CO2 they release. And too many of them get away without installing the available technologies to scrub the exhaust, such as what almost happened here in Texas when Rick Perry fast-tracked a bunch of plants and forgave them from pollution controls.
When the real cost of coal in considered, and nuclear scales with more regular plant production, I think the prices will be more equitable.
(My home is powered from wind and hydro. http://www.greenmountainenergy.com/)
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
To the best of my knowledge, the amount of mercury emitted by my car's exhaust is zero. Mercury is THE major problem with coal, and it receives far too little attention.
You don't use science to show that you're right, you use science to become right.
Any idiot can see the need for nuclear power and cheap oil now. It's funny how we only see the need for something which takes 10 years to build when we need it today.
A real leader would have seen it 10 years ago.
I'm not impressed. Building new power plants is a proposition that a 6th grader could write. These politicians act like their geniuses when their train of thought appears to be "If people scream about problem X, then we fix problem X.". It should be "X will become a problem in 5 years. Better start fixing it now."
Yay! 300,000 people down, 6.4997 billion to go.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Because the companies ideally placed to take advantage of these changes and really get a strangle hold on the American economy are Oil Companies. The only way for them to really pillage the American Taxpayer is to be able to speculate on building reactors that are of the "approved design" into the future. The only approved designs are all 'once through' fuel cycle so any discussion about breeder reactors ends here and the discussion about the lack of net energy returns from the nuclear fuel cycle begin.
You have to be pragmatic about this, P.U.C.H.A was put in place to stop America going back into a economic depression. Greed is greed, supporting this will enable the legislative framework to gut the American economy and taxpayer of remaining assets for the next 20 to 30 years.
Please America, you are a technological nation, you can solve your energy needs without nuclear power.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
In many places people use electricity for heating and it is efficient. We use heat pumps.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Remember, right now the power it takes to drive an electric electric car (sedan) is between $7-$10. To fill a tank and drive 300 miles is $50.
Electricity has been cheaper than oil for more than 50 years.
The problem is power storage and recharge times.
Currently it is impracticle to get much more than cummuter range on most electric cars. To get that range it can take 5-8 hours to charge. Now true this covers 80-90% of all driving but the problem is that Americans will only buy vehicles that fit 99.99% of the potential driving they will do.
We Americans will not buy a cummuter car than rent a long distance car as needed...
While I DO think electric cars are the next stage of transportation, reducing the price of electricity won't solve anything.
What is interesting are Ultracapacitors, flywheels and battery technology. These are increasing the power density EXTREMLY quickly and the recharge times are dropping almost as fast.
I am looking forward to this year and next year. Several plug in hybrids, the volt not to mention ZENN and EEstor.
Water heated by a nuclear plant won't be radioactive it will just be hot.
Um, no. We have these things called "high voltage transmission lines", and while they are not 100% efficient, the economies of scale achieved by placing a larger plant further away mean that it just isn't that simple. Not to mention that you also have to consider the issue of providing the plant with the fuel.
Yeah, that'll do a lot of good in Seattle. Not to mention the cost of _producing_ all those photovoltaics, in both money and energy.
Another one who hasn't looked at the numbers. All these "alternatives" (unless you count nuclear) can barely make a _dent_ in fossil fuel use. They're boutique sources, good for environmentalists and politicians to point to justify not finding more oil or using more coal, but they just can't cut the mustard.
"They all have at least one good point though: what do we do with the waste?"
Reprocess most of it. Bury the rest of it.
There's no technical or economic reason to ban reprocessing. Up to 92 percent of spent fuel can be re-used if reprocessed. Current law bans the practice. That's a political decision, made by the Carter Administration, because reprocessing spent fuel rods creates small amounts of Plutonium as a byproduct, and the argument was "but terrorists might get the Plutonium!". Well, they wouldn't if you secured the Plutonium. It's a silly argument. If that's the reason, then a President could solve the problem with a stroke of a pen; simply mandate that the military takes charge of the Plutonium and is responsible for guarding it. For those of you that have served in the military, you know how fanatical security forces are about the nuclear weapons in their charge. Recent USAF screwups aside, try and approach a nuclear weapons storage facility and see what happens to you. The security argument against reprocessing is simply farcical. France supplies nearly all of their power with Nuclear, and they reprocess their fuel to minimize waste. To date, Al Qaeda or Islamic Jihad doesn't seem to have been able to steal the French plutonium.
As for what to do with the remaining waste, just store it. There's several ways to do it. The easiest thing to do is simply store it in a secure facility. Do you know what highly technical mechanism is required to store spent fuel rods? A pool of water, 3 feet deep. France stores all their remaining nuclear waste in one single building, in a pool of water.
If you prefer to bury it, just encase the rods in glass, and bury it in a place where there's no water table. For the people going "Gasp! Radioactive materials! Underground!"... where do you think we got the uranium from the the first place? We dug it up. Underground.
The utter hysteria over nuclear technologies far, far outweighs the actual risks of nuclear technologies.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
It was called the "planned economy". If you reckoned the economy needed 100 units of steel mills and 50 units of aluminum factories, but private individuals built 150 units of steel and 25 units of aluminum, you'd take money from steel to ensure that an additional 25 units of aluminum were brought online.
Not coincidentally corporate welfare is exactly the same thing, only you don't tell people they aren't allowed to build steel mills. Instead, you just take money away from everyone, and give it to the aluminum producers. As a result fewer of everything else gets built, including steel mills. What we have here is a proposal to have the government guarantee to the nuclear industry that at least two nuclear plants per year will be built on average, every year for the next twenty years.
Speaking as a free-spending political liberal, that's too much even for me. I'd be all for giving some government grants and regulatory relief to enable several pilot plants for new technologies to be built, to help the industry get back on its feet. But after that, they're on their own. I'm for technology research (which conservatives view as interfering with the market), but at least I don't think the government should be in the business of putting nuclear power's competitors out of business.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
They already have. Nuclear power will get vastly more expensive than today, but with operationally proven technologies we'll see the end of coal (over 200 years from now, all things being equal)) before we see the end of uranium as a viable fuel.
>They all have at least one good point though: what do we do with the waste?
Power plant equality, now!
Why not hold all power plants to the same standard?
The mercury from a coal plant doesn't decay. It stays toxic forever.
Vitrifying nuclear waste is already a better solution than the one used for coal plants, which is to dispose of the waste in the downwinders's lungs.
>Number of people dead due to TMI incident: zero.
More than that, depending on how you look at it. Losing the wrecked reactor and shutting down the one next to it meant that the reactors were no longer saving lives by displacing coal. A nuclear power advocate named Petr Beckman took the Office of Technology Assessment figures for premature deaths due to coal use and calculated that having those two plants off the grid cost 100 lives per year.
Ask the French how well they cooled their reactors during the last heat wave. Then ask the folks in Georgia, Arizona, and southern California where they'll get the water to cool their share of the 45 new reactors. North Dakota should be cold enough, right?
Put them all on the hurricane prone and tsunami-expecting Atlantic or Gulf coast? The scenic Pacific coast? Got a river in your backyard? Good thing all that waste heat dumped into the oceans isn't considered "global warming". Just let the Gulf Stream carry all the waste heat north to help melt Greenland's glaciers.
How much gas/diesel would be needed to build 45 plants? How much new power distribution infrastructure will be needed to carry the power from 45 suitable locations to power hungry consumers? Fourty-five new terrorist destinations?
I'm more against monopolies and putting one's eggs in one basket than I am against nuclear power plants. Decentralized and diversified power production is my choice, perhaps through a "third industrial revolution". When will we all take personal responsibility for the resources we use?
I expect more questions than answers in the short term.
Plus ca changes, plus c'est les meme choses.
I've read Obama's energy policy and it consists solely of biofuel and hopeful thinking.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
The sad truth is that there is pretty much NOTHING that can be done to reduce gasoline prices in the next few years. The world market (including India, China, etc) controls prices, and if prices go down/up, it's just the laws of supply and demand.
Even if the oil companies could do whatever they wanted, "shale oil" production (which really isn't oil at all) would not help gas prices. "Shale Oil" production is extremely expensive and the technology is really not yet ready for large scale use. It also doesn't produce the gasoline that our cars run on, and it's extremely damaging to the environment -- much much worse than oil wells. It wasn't until gas prices became so ludicrous that anyone really gave it much thought. If prices went back to $2.00 per gallon, the oil companies will not bother to strip mine for "shale oil" (it wouldn't be profitable). Besides, they are so profitable now, what's really in it for them to get prices down?
The fact is that the US only has 2% of the world's proven oil reserves. Our oil production peaked in the 70's and has been declining ever since. If we pumped out EVERY DROP of oil we know about in the USA and didn't import any oil, it would only last us around 3 YEARS and then it would be ALL GONE.
I personally believe we need to start a "man on the moon" style project for alternative fuels and higher efficiency. It's necessary for the environment, stable gas prices, and independence from foreign counties.
Brazil is 100% independent of foreign oil. Why? Mainly because 30 years ago they started a crash program of Ethanol production from SUGAR CANE. Today virtually all of the cars in Brazil run on ethanol that is produced from sugar cane grown in their own country. All of their gas stations sell ethanol. There was an excellent special on CNN showing how "We were warned' several times -- most notably in the 70s when there was an oil embargo from the middle east and people had to wait for hours to get gas in lines that went around the block.
By the way, compared to corn, it is 4-8 times more efficient and cost effective to convert sugar cane into ethanol. However, the US is pushing corn because of politics. We even have a HUGE TARIFF on imported ethanol (so Brazil can't compete). We tax foreign countries for selling us clean burning ethanol, but we don't tax foreign countries a dime for oil! It doesn't make economic sense, but it is what it is.