Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
Common sense prevails. Nuclear is the best option we have right now for clean, cheap, reliable energy.
I hate to feed the troll, but:
one nuclear accident could render a majority of the US inhabitable. Presumably you meant "uninhabitable", but you'd still be wrong.
In the 1940s-1950s, the US detonated numerous nuclear weapons above ground in Nevada and New Mexico, releasing a hell of a lot more radioactive material than Chernobyl -- and Chernobyl-type disasters cannot happen with US power reactors (totally different reactor design). This hardly rendered even a significant fraction, let alone "a majority" of the US uninhabitable.
-- Alastair
And of course now that we have such a "green"-friendly president we are now going to build a few new nuclear reactors!
[Yes, that was sarcasm]. It is unfortunate that our current president and Congressional leadership are so anti-nuclear. You'd think they all still believe the lies and exaggerations of 1960s and 1970s environmentalists. We need to build many more nuclear plants, recycle spent nuclear fuel, and figure out and build better electric cars. That should help out our economy and environment.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the US have naval submarines that are powered by nuclear reactors. And aren't those subs often docked near populated ports, San Diego for example. Thus, we have already accepted the risk of having nuclear power in populated areas, so it seems odd to be afraid of adding a few civilian nuclear reactors that are not in highly populated areas.
The article doesn't really provide enough information to support the conclusion. All
Summary: Radioactive elements in coal and fly ash should not be sources of alarm. The vast majority of coal and the majority of fly ash are not significantly enriched in radioactive elements, or in associated radioactivity, compared to common soils or rocks.
Right, but that doesn't help because it discounts the quantity of coal, and the fact that it is being burned and released into the atmosphere. It didn't answer at all the amount of radiation released in total, only the density of the radiation. The question is: Does a coal plant release more or less radiation than a nuclear plant with equivalent output?
About Coal Creek Station: In 1993, the Nation consumed more than 2 million tons of coal per day.
And the article you linked to says:
concentrations of uranium fall in the range from slightly below 1 to 4 parts per million (ppm)
But don't know what 2 million tons x 1 part per million means.... soo... Aha!
Coal ash is more radioactive than nuclear waste
The editor clarifies, at the end of the article:
*Editor's Note (posted 12/30/08): In response to some concerns raised by readers, a change has been made to this story. The sentence marked with an asterisk was changed from "In fact, fly ashâ"a by-product from burning coal for powerâ"and other coal waste contains up to 100 times more radiation than nuclear waste" to "In fact, the fly ash emitted by a power plantâ"a by-product from burning coal for electricityâ"carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy." Our source for this statistic is Dana Christensen, an associate lab director for energy and engineering at Oak Ridge National Laboratory as well as 1978 paper in Science authored by J.P. McBride and colleagues, also of ORNL.
As a general clarification, ounce for ounce, coal ash released from a power plant delivers more radiation than nuclear waste shielded via water or dry cask storage.
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.
I consider myself a sane and pragmatical environmentalist. That is, I believe that we shouldn't crap all over the place just because it's easy and convenient for us to do so today, disregarding the consequences of those actions tomorrow. Thus, I believe that we should gradually reduce the use of fossil fuels (i.e. as fast as possible, but without collapsing our economy and inducing quality of life decrease).
On the other hand, I still believe that needs of humanity come first, and that nature (and, in general, world around us) is something that we should use towards our goals and preserve for the sake of self-preservation; and not something inherently valuable in and of itself, or a god to worship. Thus, I do not support significant scaling back of our energy use - most of it really isn't excess, but is required to maintain our present living standard. Reducing energy consumption would require scaling it back very significantly, and I do not want to see that happen. We can definitely try to trim consumption down where possible, by using more energy efficient machines and technologies (such as those nifty insulated houses that leak very little heat). But in the end, this is still a drop in the ocean.
The only way I see to reconcile these two viewpoints is to embrace nuclear power (and in perspective, when they get it to work, fusion). It's reasonably clean - yes, there's waste, but that can be fairly easily contained and controlled. It is powerful enough to sustain our energy use, even extrapolating future growth. And it is going to last for very long, long enough to research the next step (be it fusion or something else).
Nothing else cuts it. Not solar, not wind, and not tidal. I fully support their use wherever possible, but they quite obviously aren't enough to cover our needs without scaling them back significantly.