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First New Nuclear Reactor In a Decade On Track
dusty writes "Plans to bring online the first new US nuclear plant since 1995 are on track, on time, and on budget
according to the Tennessee Valley Authority. TVA had one major accident with a coal ash spill of late, and one minor one. The agency has plans and workers in place to have Unit 2 at Watts Bar, near Knoxville, online by 2012. Currently over 1,800 workers are doing construction at the plant. Watts Bar #1 is the only new nuclear reactor added to the grid in the last 25 years. From the article: 'TVA estimates the Watts Bar Unit 2 reactor every year will avoid the emission of about 60 million metric tons of greenhouse emissions linked with global warming. ... TVA began construction of Watts Bar in 1973, but work was suspended in 1988 when TVA's growth in power sales declined. After mothballing the unit for 19 years, TVA's board decided in 2007 to finish the reactor because it is projected to provide cheaper, no carbon-emitting power compared with the existing coal plants or purchased power it may help replace.'"
I guess nobody in power to stop these things never takes into account that one nuclear accident could render a majority of the US inhabitable. Chernobyl could of been much worse if a weather system absorbed the nuclear material and spread it even more than it did. Imagine a winter storm hitting California and a plant explodes, it picks up the material, traverses the south and then moves up the eastern seaboard. 75% of the major population centers rendered uninhabitable.
It would be nice if they would adopt something like a pebble bed reactor which supposedly can not go critical.
Common sense prevails. Nuclear is the best option we have right now for clean, cheap, reliable energy.
Inconceivable!
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Nuclear power is the only true green power. Environmentalist wackos want us to turn off electricity and live in paper hats, but you just can't turn off civilization, it's too late. We're addicted to electricity and all the joys it brings-refrigeration being tops on the list, of course! So we're going to have to do something else to fight global warming. Nuclear power is that "something else." It's the only practical solution. There ain't no such thing as clean coal, and Americans will not stop their "unsustainable" lifestyle...and why should they, when they can just nuke it up and enjoy as much refrigerated food as before. The refrigerator is the true ambassador of civilization.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
A nuclear plant also produces less radioactive waste than does a corresponding coal plant. Of course since the latter doesn't fall under the authority of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the radioactive substances in coal ash (like thorium) just get dispersed into the environment along with the stuff that stays toxic forever like arsenic and mercury.
-- Alastair
Let's see here.... Hmmmm..... "mothballed" for 19 years and that makes it "on time" just how?
with global warming spawned fires and floods and tropical diseases, I will sleep peacefully at night with the knowledge that hillbillies have electricity.
Nuclear might actually be the future if promises of this new type of reactor turn to be true. As it is explained this very informative video, enjoy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHs2Ugxo7-8
Will it have a Sector 7G?
Your car has four wheels and an internal combustion engine, traits shared by the 1907 Holsman Model 3. Have you stopped to consider the intense danger this poses to you?
But wait: The Holsman was built in a time before ABS, crumple zones, air bags, or even seatbelts. One might presume your 2003 Nissan Altima to be a little safer.
Chernobyl was a nuclear plant built with all the safety precautions of early automobiles. Comparing it with modern TVA-built plants is just as valid as the above Slashdot Car Analogy.
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
Run!!!!!!!!!!!! Panic!!!!!!!!!!!
I respect Fox news as little as the next (sane) guy, but I really don't have that much of an issue with that clip. It's still pretty obviously a joke; they left it more-or-less in context, with Stephen Colbert telling him to say it.
Here is a map of sites for which applications have been submitted to the NRC and are currently undergoing review. None of these will happen until the political will emerges to move the bureaucracy.
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
I'm kind of neutral about the whole subject. Neat tech, but trusting corporations is not in my nature.
Also, when compared to wind and solar, Nuclear is the one power source that allow corporations to retain control of power generation.
But balancing that is the fact that it's a pretty continuous source of energy...
What I'd really like to understand (I always ask this and I've never gotten an answer) is why some people are so for it. They aren't going to make money off it, overall it will not save them money (Even those of us who live exclusively off dams don't have THAT much of a money savings)...
I can understand people being really against it. Fear of the unknown, lack of understanding, history (quite a few people have died in the past)
I can also understanding someone being somewhat for it (I'd be tempted to vote for one in my city, although the last one here was a complete cluster-fsck) but where does one get the motivation for the positive passion that this topic so often seems to create?
Minor nitpick: Braidwood #1 and #2 came online in 1988, 21 years ago so Watts Bar #1 is NOT "the only new nuclear reactor added to the grid in the last 25 years."
I now return you to the political arguments...
I think it's great to see new nuclear power coming online, but it's too bad this is simply the completion of a project begun in the 1970's. There hasn't been enough work done in the US to advance the design of nuclear power stations in the last few decades. I wonder how much more efficiently these stations could be built and run today if we had been focused on the problem all this time.
that they were just waiting on Windows 7.
Will they hire people who show up on day 1 even if they only have a high school diploma?
And the military isn't?
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
"TVA's board decided in 2007 to finish the reactor because it is projected to provide cheaper, no carbon-emitting power..."
Where does the waste go? (TBD) What is the cost of waste disposal? (TBD) Have they factored that cost into their calculations? (No)
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
What's with the reference to the coal fly-ash spill in the middle of the summary about TVA building nuclear power plants?
The hills of Dixie Valley in this case. Fallon, NV was witness to an above-ground nuke in the 1960's at some point. The whole town came out to watch the big boom (more than 25 miles away). Apparently you can still go out there to Dixie Valley and see the blast crater. And yes, I'm a Nevadan. I glow in the dark and sport an absurd immunity to arsenic. When the apocalypse does come around, I and my fellow Nevadans will be duking it out with the giant mutant cockroaches and their cthonic overloads atop the mounds of your corpses. (Texans ain't got shit when it comes to heat, environment, guns per capita, or any claim to be tough in general - we laugh in their general direction)
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
The summary is all over in terms of calling it new plant, when it is really a new reactor. But that is a good start. It would be nice if the pubs would push the concept of even 1 new nuclear plant / every 4 states. Heck, the stimulus money could have done a nice job of funding this and allowing us to move nicely to electric cars.
With that said, I do think that we need to continue with AE esp Geo-thermal and Solar Thermal. Both are capable of base load power, which is really what is needed.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Please spew on the following: 1 - the likelihood of a comet bearing alien spores crashing into the Earth and infecting everyone with Athlete's Face. 2 - the coming Zombie armageddon and how long it'll take all the bodies to rot away in the weather so we survivors can keep on living 3 - Megan Fox... oh wait, women in general! 4 - String Theory 5 - Spam - the actual meat 6 - Cowboy Neal's Brain 7 - carbuncles 8 - How is it that Greg Gumbel STILL has a job?
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
I just finished reading a book (Prisoner's Dilemma) discussing the development of the Nuclear Bomb, and among other things, the period of time between the US development of the bomb, and Russia's development of the bomb.
One of the more interesting factoids I took from the book was a comment about the power of a single traditional fusion weapon: although incredibly powerful, a nuke is not powerful enough to level a major city -- a hydrogen bomb would be needed for that level of destruction.
In fact, I doubt that the worst case scenario for a nuclear reactor would cause a level of devastation and loss of life comparable to what we've already experienced in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
No one answers the question: Where are you going to put the waste? You can't recycle or reprocess everything and whats left is mind bogglingly bad.
The reason is, there is no answer for a 250,000 year problem like that. Even if you find a 'solution' to keep it out of the easy to parts of the world we use you still have left future generations a crap load of trouble in addition to what every they will have to deal with.
Thanks mom.
Though I don't really trust the safety record of the TVA, it's about time we get some more nuclear reactors online. All the global warming guys should love them because they produce NO GREENHOUSE GASES.
there is no such thing as green. Green is a media marketing PR event. Creation takes destruction, plain and simple. Nuclear power isn't green, far from it. But it is enviromentally friend when it comes to popultion vs. service output. Humans have to master nuclear power before they can get to self sustained fusion/fission.
If you just do an estimate, "tons" is enough.
1 imperial ton = 1.01604691 metric tons
the episode of penn and teller's bullshit! where they debunk all of the 'radioactive waste' fears and all the other bullshit associated with nuclear energy.
season 5, episode 9, for those of you too lazy to look up an episode guide.... inform yourselves, and don't perpetuate bullshit regarding an "energy crisis".
that's just my 2 cents...
ABOUT FUCKING TIME!!!!!
It's great to hear about someone finally building another nuclear plant in stead of another coal- or gas-fired plant. Here in the People's Republik of Kalifornia, nuclear power is verboten, and mentioning it will get your ass drummed out of town by "newspaper scientists" and politicians who allow themselves to be led around by the nose by environmentalists who wouldn't know a rational thought if it bit them on the nose.
However, unless this is a PBMR, the problem is only half-finished. Nuclear wast cannot be stored for the thousands or millions of years that it would need to decay to a safe level. The solution would be to use a breeder reactor to efficiently reprocess the waste fuel, instead of simply storing it underground. This would reduce the amount of raw fuel production that would be needed, and would greatly reduce the quantity of radioactive waste, which could be separated into usable isotopes. Apparently, Jimmy Carted, despite his nuclear degrees, thought that it would be better just to let waste accumulate in huge quantities underground, instead of *RECYCLING* it back into usable nuclear fuel, and caved into the demands of the Greens and banned breeder reactor construction.
Here in the People's Republik of Kalifornia, Greens attack every form of power generation, except, for some reason, gas turbines.
1. Solar - Uses up too much valuable land, not efficient enough for the energy demands of the state. Extremely expensive and not useful on cloudy days. Technology not advanced enough.
2. Wind - Indefinite moratorium in CA, because the places windy enough to make them efficient are in the flight paths of birds. Banned in Altamont, CA, the windiest place on the planet.
3. Nuclear - "Sen." Feinstein has vowed to oppose any form of nuclear power. Not going to happen in CA. Feinstein refuses to educate herself on PBMRs, and instead listens to lobbyists.
4. Geothermal - Not efficient enough due to too few suitable locations (Many in open spaces and parks).
Rep. Ellen Tauscher, a Democrat from Kalifornia, is one of the few Democrats to actually see the advantages of nuclear power generation over those who remain blinded by politics. Although a democrat, I still have to give her serious props in her position on nuclear power.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
Amory Lovins and the Rocky Mountain Institute, an organization established to research sustainability and energy efficiency (not an environmentalist outfit) published a paper called "The Nuclear Illusion" last year that compared the costs of nuclear energy and alternatives. Their conclusion is that nuclear is not cost effective:
"In fact, nuclear power is continuing its decades-long collapse in the use itâ(TM)s grossly uncompetitive, unneeded, and obsoleteâ"so hopelessly uneconomic that one neednâ(TM)t debate whether itâ(TM)s clean and safe; it weakens electric reliability and national security; and it worsens cland time to more effective options. "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nuclear_Illusion
I was curious how do proponents of nuclear energy view this research?
The title is pretty misleading, as it omits "US." One might also look outside of the US borders for some examples of how new nuclear power plants are coming along -- or aren't.
http://thoriumenergy.blogspot.com/
Everyone should now about this. Traditional nuclear reactors are not nearly as efficient as Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors are. There is a short clip about this on the above URL. Anyone that thinks nuclear is the way to go for our energy crisis is correct, but only if they are talking about Thorium. Any other way, would be ignorant.
Check this out too:
http://thoriumenergy.com/
... instead of *RECYCLING* it back into usable nuclear fuel, and [Carter] caved into the demands of the Greens ...
Thanks for spreading falsehoods!
I agree with your argument 100%, except this point. The reason Carter did that is to limit reprocessing in _other_ countries. If the Western countries can, then how do you prevent others from doing it (Do as I say, not as I do).
You do know why you NEED to stop "unstable" (let's say) states from reprocessing don't you? Because it easy (in relative terms) to extract weapons grade Pu? Right?
Let's get back to reprocessing like Europe and Japan do, yes. You'll have to deal with the "unstable" states anyway.
"cannot happen with US power reactors"
But it can happen with US military reactors, which are very much like (even predecessors to) Chernobyl in design.
http://www.hanford.gov/doe/history/files/HistoryofBArea.pdf
Whoa, what's that! The cooling water is pumped right out of the Columbia River, goes right over the fuel, and then back into the river? Why, yes it does! (nice diagrams included, take a look)
"Oh one more thing - plutonium isn't extracted from the ground, it is synthetic, created by nuclear transmutation. One neutron capture U-238 + n -> U-239, followed by two spontaneous beta-decays (neutron turns to proton, emits electron and antineutrino), U-239 -> Np-239 -> Pu-239."
But the U238 comes out of the ground, though, right? I mean, point taken, but still.
Am I the only one who stopped reading at 2012?
Re:AGGREED!!!! Listen up you idiot, moron, democrats and liberals!!!!
Get your breatheren, the other idiot, moron, democrats that ham-string the NRC, DNR, congress, etc. to get approval of nuclear plants rolling again!!! Get your crappy president b. o. to fully fund the Yuca Mountain nuclear waste storage facility again so states don't have to develop thier own nuclear waste storage failities.
Impeach b.o., democrats, liberals, remove the czars!
DO NOT approve sotomayer!
Deport illegal aliens / immigrints - after all they are criminals - here illegally.
Strike down all bills that have been turned into law since b.o.'s innaguration.
Pay down the deficit that b.o. and the dems have created.
NO government funded health care! No taxpayer funded healthcare! Healthcare is not a right, it is a priviledge you earn by earning the money to pay for it. Start trying to attack the costs and litigation excess that healthcare is plagued with!!
Less government intervention in our lives and businesses!
Stop the trend of turning us into a socialist, communist, progesssive country!
Stop getting your news from the major outlets that have sold thier souls to b.o.. Watch FOXNEWS.COM! for the real, un-biased news from responsible, accurate reporters!
Criticality is a function of free neutrons: if there's not enough to sustain a reaction, it's subcritical; if it's break-even, it's critical, and if there are enough to grow the reaction it's supercritical. Contrary to the movies, a reactor that's critical is not a failure state (it's normal operation). Even "supercritical" isn't necessarily trouble (though if you stay supercritical for too long it will eventually be).
When a reactor finds fault with 'most everything you do or say, it is said to be "hypercritical".
My other car is a 1984 Nark Avenger.
To me this seems a pretty easy answer once you look at the raw numbers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium-235 shows that when one atom of U-235, once fissioned, releases 202.5 MeV of heat. That's 202,500,000 electron volts, a.k.a., one huge amount of energy.
An atom of carbon when burned (C + 2 Ox->COx2) releases a few electron volts of energy and gives us carbon dioxide, which is said to be a "greenhouse gas". (I'm not debating that point).
Let's just do it with money, okay?
Hold an atom of carbon in one hand. Hold an atom of uranium in the other hand. The carbon's worth a few dollars. The uranium's worth Two Hundred Million Dollars. Which one do you pick? If you pick uranium, you just hit the Lotto Jackpot!
Bear in mind that you have to get enough of either to meet the energy needs of the country, and it's very hard to get enough coal, and much easier, by a factor of two hundred million, to get uranium.
Jimmy Carter made the unfortunate decision (funny how those words appear next to his name) not to include used fuel rods in reprocessing. There's a lot of energy there awaiting.
I think what we ought to do as a country is swallow some pride, go to France, which gets about 80% of its energy from nuclear, and say, "Obviously you have a well debugged design. Help! Show us how to do it!" The French do it right. You know how useful debugged code is.
Thanks,
Dave Small
You think like a ReThuglican Jew
Criticism of Obama is an act of "straight up" Racism
idiot,
Calling them out on idiocy, of which you opine them...tsk, tsk.
the amount of power that hits the earth per square meter is NOT enough to run our cities.
I'll grant you it's not solely solar, but renewable energy is already contributing over 14 percent to the electricity supply in Germany. GP advocated common sense. It seems to me that common sense would advocate applying solar power in conjunction with every other renewable energy source under the Sun to come up with something that meets or exceeds power generated by non-renewable energy sources.
That was pretty funny. If I had the mod points, I'd give em to you, off topic or not.
http://climateprogress.org/2009/01/05/study-cost-risks-new-nuclear-power-plants/
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/readings/keeny.html
http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0607-nuclear_debate.html
And my favourite: the Nuclear Wonderland! (Now a tourist attraction).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNR-300
The following links are to a couple of interesting Google Tech Talks on Youtube, covering the subject of Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors. Carlo Rubbia (Nobel-winning physicist) is pushing another class of thorium reactor - the accelerator-driven system.
I hope you find them of interest - they're quite long.
Can't manage a bit of ash but able to put a 20 old reactor online. 20 years... a lots changed in that time.
the president is giving out free money for clean energy, and someone at the TVA with a yacht said, "i gotta get me some of that!"
but really guys, 19 years of rats and rain? just how efficient and on time do you expect this thing to be, let alone safe, once you bring it up? Almost two decades have passed, in which time things like the pebble bed reactor have come about as more efficient and powerful means of generating nuclear energy. its like trying to finish your kids new crib after theyve turned 12.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Nuclear... the OTHER n-word Americans are phobic about.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
Or we could just, you know, turn off computers that we're not using.
Which would require 1. significant improvement in boot times, and 2. significant improvement in triggers for booting. For example, if nobody is connected to a given server at this moment, but someone could connect to the server at any given moment and would expect it to respond within two seconds, should it be switched "on" or "off", and why?
Until I found out that this is not a new design, but just a mothballed 1970's plant that was never brought online being finally finished and put to use. When we implement modern designs, let me know.
The shortsightedness of nuclear power is amazing. I personally live in an area where we have had near meltdowns that actually shut the reactor down and now the public has to pay for the private entity to clean it up. So where is this amazing energy savings supposed to come from? This also fails to bring into account the threat of missile attacks from foreign governments or even airplane attacks, which with a coordinated ground attack could potentially cause a much larger incident. Is it a brilliant technology? Yes. I am actually for using it as a space propulsion technology such as Americium-242. The problem is people. If cease to function as a society the reactors meltdown, if we decide we don't wan them anymore it takes years to clean up. Due to safety concerns nuclear power tends to be more expensive than on paper. A safer alternative is to build a dispersed renewable power system that is decentralized. This leads us to being less at risk of a major attack. This junk about solar power being 1% efficient is just that, junk. Our entire weather system is run on solar power so there is obviously enough power there. Nuclear power is a quick solution that our children will have to pay for that completely fails to mention the multitude of technologies already out there and the fact that there are already self sustaining towns that don't require outside power. Does nuclear power have a place? Yes, but it is not in the market of consumer energy demands no matter how shiny it looks next to "clean" coal. It's military, space applications as well as research applications make it desirable, but the waste, arrogance of nuclear power proponents as shown by many derisive commentators and risk of outside target makes it a bad choice for commercial power production. Well, I am sure I'll get deleted or flamed so lets get it over with.
At a whim, he can write an executive order to not approve any new power plant licenses
What in Article II or elsewhere in the U.S. Constitution gives these executive orders teeth, apart from where Congress expressly gives the President discretionary powers?
Radioactive waste in contained in casks that MIGHT breakdown someday. Coal ash is contaminating the environment RIGHT NOW.
Is that 5000x figure really accurate?
:) ).
Because 5000x might not be much when you consider:
1) More people might want to do fancier stuff that require more power e.g. if everyone wanted cars (or their own mecha
Energy consumption per capita in GJ/year:
Canada = 348.63
USA = 327.38
France= 189.77
Japan = 169.70
UK = 164.56
China = 47.81
India = 21.52
Indonesia = 31.81
Brazil = 44.84
So if the poorer but more populous countries tripled their energy consumption (add night lighting, airconditioning/heating, fridges, cars, skyscrapers, factories to supply all those goodies and it starts adding up really quickly), that "5000x the power we need" could become something like "1300x the power we need".
And if the population doubles, that drops to "700x the power we need".
2) There will be conversion losses. 50% efficiency = 350x the power we need. 10% efficiency = 70x the power we need.
3) We're not the only species on the planet that needs a share of that solar energy. There are way more than 5000 species on this planet.
So, forgive me if I'm not comforted by "5000x".
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
America can have nuclear power, Iran can't because America says they are terrorists. Dam yankees! Wonder if slashdot will delete this comment because of the first amendment hhaah
You are actually underestimating how long nuclear waste remains dangerous: The Yucca mountain repository license application requires them to consider the nuclear waste dangerous for a million years.
At this point, all the nukespeak people will jump in with talk of breeder reactors and all kinds of new technology. Unfortunately, nobody is even thinking about deploying new technology.
All the DOE and the nuclear industry want to make are the same old 70s reactors they have been building (or trying to build) for the last 40 years. The industry approach to nuclear waste is still "Bury it and forget about it." It probably won't leak soon enough for them to catch me.
An engineer who ran for Congress. http://herbrobinson.us
Industrial SOlar Thermal
Cheap? yes compared to coal or nuclear* . also very cvheap to maintain, and your energy fuels costs never go up from zero.
Clean? yes. Uses the sun, and the liquads used to store the heat are a lot cleaner the coal.
Reliable? yes. 24/7 base load reliable. It stores the heat hor night time generation.
*no, I am not anti nuclear.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on