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US Approves Two New Nuclear Reactors
JoeRobe writes "For the first time in 30 years, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved licenses to build two new nuclear reactors in Georgia. These are the first licenses to be issued since the Three Mile Island incident in 1979. The pair of facilities will cost $14 billion and produce 2.2 GW of power (able to power ~1 million homes). They will be Westinghouse AP1000 designs, which are the newest reactors approved by the NRC. These models passively cool their fuel rods using condensation and gravity, rather than electricity, preventing the possibility of another Fukushima Daiichi-type meltdown due to loss of power to cooling water pumps." Adds Unknown Lamer: "Expected to begin operation in 2016 or 2017, the pair of new AP1000 reactors will produce around 2GW of power for the southeast. This is the first of the new combined construction and operating licenses ever issued by the NRC; hopefully this bodes well for the many other pending applications."
It's about time we did something to address our growing energy needs.
Now if we can get politicians to quit treating building more oil refining capacity as a political football, we might take another meaningful step toward energy independence.
They'll build them in the South and then send the power up North where the states refuse to allow them.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
I'm so glad the problems in safely disposing of nuclear waste have been solved!
If we are going to adopt electric cars in a big way, we need this badly.
Glad to hear it.
-Eric
We have tons of waste from the traditional uranium plants to use up, might as well start building some reactors that produce almost no leftovers.
need to 6oin ithe
...as soon as someone forgets to pay the gravity bill, it's Fukushima all over again!
"The NRC thinks the probability of three nuclear reactors having a meltdown within 3 days is ZERO. They chose this to minimize the cost of development of the AP1000 reactor."
That's because the NRC is a sock puppet for the Commercial Nuclear Industry.
https://plus.google.com/107839599438746451936/posts/gEhU26JjGWV
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
Cue the environmentalists to come running out of the woodwork, filing every lawsuit they can find, protesting the work site, and in general trying to slow down and interfere with the construction of said nuclear power plant.
The level of public ignorance never ceases to amaze.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
USA rules !!
Will they be built with standards and interchangeable parts, or by the lowest bidder using totally unique designes that ensure no personal or parts can be used on both?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
what could possibly go wrong. sigh
(14G$ / 2.2GW) doesn't sound like a good price point to me, with the price of solar being at $3/watt and falling (assuming "AC Watts" have the same energy as "DC Watts"). Why so pricey?
The first thing we should do when we get it working, is hook it up to a DeLorean, send it back in time, and prevent Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima.
That amount of power is sufficient for approximately 1.81 time-travelling DeLoreans.
I am officially gone from
ASSOCIATION OF 'You seE, even BSD machines of business and empire in decline, name on the jar of Getting together to conversation and downward spiral. Guys are usually
It is not a problem. Just use Nuke Away(tm).
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=nukeaway&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCAQtwIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DtiC_LCEgSEQ&ei=bBg0T-PrNMWe2wWA0fmcAg&usg=AFQjCNE9QSTafT15eL7-WE7191uZCLJCNQ&sig2=mfvkzUZNqfx0C2PDrcD6Cg
Fight Spammers!
It can still fail in case of the loss of gravity.
Good, enough power to send Marty back twice.
Fight Spammers!
How does this design vary from say, Pebble Bed reactors?
I seem to be liking what i've read about Pebble Bed Reactors
The won't be anywhere near ready for 2017 and they will cost much more than $14 billion.
As a resident of Georgia, all I can say is: good.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
It generates about one sixth of electricity from nukes and plans to build a lot more of them within next 20 years, public support dropped after Fukushima, but has already recovered. That's not too special, but it's completely different league than Germany with it's traditional over the top reaction to social wave du jour or Austria's hysteria (sorry, Austrians, there's no better name for it).
Troll 2.0 Fear my asocial networking!
WAIT!?! Why rods? I thought pebble beach reactors were the way to go now.
I am far more interested in seeing GE Prism and the micro thorium reactors be approved.
Now, we need NRC to push approval for the micro reactors. We have a large number of coal plants that are going to be shut down over the next 10 years. The choice is what to replace them with. Ideally, small thorium reactors are the ideal choice (though I also like the idea of adding thermal storage combined with a small natural gas boiler).
The other issue that we have, is that many of the nuke plants are old like Japan's. These plants are going to be closed down over the next 20-30 years. Right now, they are LOADED with large quantities of 'waste' fuel. That 'waste' will need to go to WIPP to be buried for 20K years or more. HOWEVER, if we get the GE PRISM reactor going, then we can drop these into place at each of these sites, and fuel them with the 'waste' fuel. The much smaller amount of output from it would then last only 200 years, of which the worst part is over in something like 50 years.
Seriously, all of the waste fuel that exists in America combined with thorium (which we have plenty of), combined with AE and Natural gas could fuel America for the next couple of centuries.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Nuclear operating costs are far lower than fossil fuel plants... but they are higher than solar photovoltaic, wind, and hydro in almost all cases.
As for the "nuclear is always on" claims, that's true for the most part. The thing is, not every hour of electricity is worth the same. The Southeast (and most of tUSA) has surplus capacity even after the GWs of coal retirement hit 2016-2018. What we need in order to keep the price low is inexpensive *peaking* capacity. Guess when load is highest? Yip. When the sun is shining; more precisely, summer months on clear days at around 3pm M-F non-holidays. Guess when the cost of generating electricity with fossil fuel is the highest? Yip, during peak hours [thanks to economic dispatch, a good thing].
As for me, I'm not opposed to nuclear power, and I do believe that carbon emissions are the most important challenge of our generation. Nuclear waste is a real problem /. tends to gloss over [by either ignoring it in absolute terms or ignoring the foreign policy and transportation implications of reprocessing]. I'm opposed to the cost. Nuclear is far more expensive than renewables, we don't need the nighttime capacity, and if the First Nuclear Age is any indication, cost per MW will go up over time, not down.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
Germany exports electricity to France, which despite its 58 nuclear reactors cannot satisfy the needs of its citizens. Who need extra power because they mostly heat their home with electric heaters.
source:
http://cleantechnica.com/2012/02/09/clean-energy-loving-germany-increasingly-exporting-electricity-to-nuclear-heavy-france/
5Eulogies to BSD's
Okay, let me get this straight...
In a state that get's Hurricanes (a lot) we are putting two new nuclear reactors that we _hope_ won't be another Fukushima?
Call me paranoid, but this sounds like a stupid decision.
Sustainably produced methane from waste and agricultural sources. It would be cheaper and safer than anything else and we already have the existing infrastructure to use it and distribute it.
But you won't listen. Because you've decided you want nuclear, and it has nothing to do with the fact that nuclear (and hydrogen, for that matter) power is really just a way for existing political and economic power bases to perpetuate their hereditary stranglehold on power. You are sold on nuclear.
Basically, Germany considered only two options:
- close all nuclear plants down as fast as possible
or
- keep all old nuclear plants running for as long as possible
Trying out completely new designs was not considered, especially since new experimental designs showed problems.
Also consider that Germany is densely populated compared to the USA, and not very large either. A nuclear accident would be a severe blow to Germany, as well as a failure to properly store nuclear waste.
Hey don't blame me, IANAB
Now the legions of contractors and subcontractors will sweep in on a tidal wave of self-service and mediocrity to see who can offer the lowest price for their labor and the best kickbacks to the politicians and NRC people in charge of protecting us.
It doesn't matter how good your design is or how strict your regulations are when the people that build, own, maintain and oversee nuclear power plants prize money over all other things, including the safety of the population. This is why we continue to have huge industrial disasters. Not because nuclear power is unsafe, or drilling for oil in the gulf is unsafe. It's because the people in positions of responsibility are weak, selfish idiots.
The construction cost of the pair of AP1000 works out to $6.36 per watt (ish)... the only way to get a cost that high is if the plant never actually goes online. In reality, the plant will operate for 40-60 years. The world nuclear association has a reasonable writeup of the actual costs of current reactors, and the estimated costs of new ones. It's looking like it'll be around 10 cents per killowatt.
HAL 7000, fewer features than the HAL 9000, but just as homicidal!
Engage NIMBYism in 3... 2... 1...
Don't just stand there, get that other dog!
I can go out in t-shirts and jeans in July. I need to use AC about three weeks a year. And November-March it mostly just rains a lot. Did I mention that we have plenty of clean water here in NW Oregon?
Finding God in a Dog
..but accellerating them to 88MPH is probably not an option...
whereas many countries, including germans with their impeccable engineering and psychopath security standards (on top of what eu requires) shutting down all reactors and going off of nuclear in around a decade, america knows it better.
"Oh no, THEY are mistaken. but, we are not !!" .................
then again, we have to be a fan of nuclear thing in slahsdot, right ? because it is 'geek' ?
just fuck off. really.
Read radical news here
Nah, it's all a scam by Southern Company (parent of Georgia Power) to boost profits. I've been a shareholder for 30+ years. I live in Marietta. What they have done is to effectively double the price of electricity across the state to fund building the reactors rather than taking out a loan to build them. It's bait-and-switch. Once they have the money to build the reactors, the prices will never go down. They will have X years to build the reactors and in the mean time will come up with a number of excuses as to why our electricity prices didn't go down. Inflation, cost to operate, environmental regulations, you name it, any "reason" that they can come up with to pad their salaries and options. I'm a little guilty myself; their dividends aren't bad...
I'm looking for a direct quote from last fall from a Georgia Power rep (Jeff Wilson?) talking about how they have all sorts of hydro power, but I can't find it after a half-hour of scouring the Internets. Link's probably dead anyway. That's what I get for not printing. An article came out where there was a report from Georgia Power or Southern Company, generated by them where the company found itself as a huge polluter. A spokesperson from Georgia Power/Southern Company totally downplayed the report and dismissed it going so far as to say that they have lots of renewable power deployed. There was a quote "from the horse's mouth" IIRC about how there was so much power generated (50MW? installed IIRC) at Lake Sinclair. If you lived around the area and ONLY if you lived around the area and actually paid very close attention talking to workers, you would know that the guy was lying through his teeth. They aren't generating ANY power there because there isn't enough water now to even be run through the turbines. Installed capacity != realized capacity. If anyone can find this article, please post it. It was probably from the AJC or Athens or Milledgeville press.
Here's one that I dug out of my email on Georgia Power's water usage.
Another on coal ash pollution.
We have two of the world's top ten dirtiest power plants in operation RIGHT HERE IN GEORGIA!!! One of these (Cartersville) powers Atlanta, so I can't complain too much. :)
Source
Go to Milledgeville and behold the brown afternoon/evening skies. Been like this for longer than I've been around. They may actually be closing that plant because they're too cheap to install scrubbers.
There is such thing as clean coal or at least "cleaner" coal. And I'm just as much for nuclear as the next guy, but that's not what this is about.
Just another move by Southern Company to increase profits. Nothing else.
Expect massive cost over-runs and unexpected downtime.
The Kardashev scale: why you can only conserve so much energy before slowing down civilization.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale
Nah, it's all a scam by Southern Company (parent of Georgia Power) to boost profits. I've been a shareholder for 30+ years. I live in Marietta. What they have done is to effectively double the price of electricity across the state to fund building the reactors rather than taking out a loan to build them. It's bait-and-switch. Once they have the money to build the reactors, the prices will never go down. They will have X years to build the reactors and in the mean time will come up with a number of excuses as to why our electricity prices didn't go down. Inflation, cost to operate, environmental regulations, you name it, any "reason" that they can come up with to pad their salaries and options. I'm a little guilty myself; their dividends aren't bad...
I'm looking for a direct quote from last fall from a Georgia Power rep (Jeff Wilson?) talking about how they have all sorts of hydro power, but I can't find it after a half-hour of scouring the Internets. Link's probably dead anyway. That's what I get for not printing. An article came out where there was a report from Georgia Power or Southern Company, generated by them where the company found itself as a huge polluter. A spokesperson from Georgia Power/Southern Company totally downplayed the report and dismissed it going so far as to say that they have lots of renewable power deployed. There was a quote "from the horse's mouth" IIRC about how there was so much power generated (50MW? installed IIRC) at Lake Sinclair. If you lived around the area and ONLY if you lived around the area and actually paid very close attention talking to workers, you would know that the guy was lying through his teeth. They aren't generating ANY power there because there isn't enough water now to even be run through the turbines. Installed capacity != realized capacity. If anyone can find this article, please post it. It was probably from the AJC or Athens or Milledgeville press.
Here's one that I dug out of my email on Georgia Power's water usage.
Another on coal ash pollution.
We have two of the world's top ten dirtiest power plants in operation RIGHT HERE IN GEORGIA!!! One of these (Cartersville) powers Atlanta, so I can't complain too much. :)
Source
Go to Milledgeville and behold the brown afternoon/evening skies. Been like this for longer than I've been around. They may actually be closing that plant because they're too cheap to install scrubbers.
There is such thing as clean coal or at least "cleaner" coal. And I'm just as much for nuclear as the next guy, but that's not what this is about.
Just another move by Southern Company to increase profits. Nothing else.
(See post)
$14 B / 2.2 BW = $6.36 per Watt
So much for DoE's predictions of $3-3.50 a Watt, which we all know was bogus. Moody's nailed it.
Kind of depressing that none of the postings modded up at this moment reflect an anti-nuclear position. There's something a bit off about that. Here's how i see it on Slashdot with the topic of nuclear energy:
How to be modded up: create a duality of only nuclear and coal options for energy production; belittle the dangers and significance of nuclear disaster; insist that there isn't any issue with waste from nuclear plants and that we will 'use it all up'.
How to be modded down: mention that uranium is a finite source and that we WILL eventually deal with a depletion in the same way we're facing oil; inject that the costs of insuring nuclear plants are outrageous and that no private firms will (leaving it to governments [ie: citizens] to cover in the event of an emergency); highlight that it takes DECADES to get a plant to operating status (how is that going to help now, next year, or in the next 10 years?) Fact is: nuclear is *expensive*. Finally, a sure-fired way to be modded down is to insist that we have technology accessible to us NOW that can reduce emissions and is not nearly as expensive (environmentally or economically) as nuclear will be.
FYI, on my own habits - i rarely mod down a post, unless it's blatantly ignorant of any factual matter, and even then it's rare. As suggested, i try to use my mod points to mod up, not down. Would love to see a bit more of that here for a more balanced display of discussion on this subject...
Uh, The cost of building these reactors was added into power bills several years ago so, in effect, Georgia Power customers have been paying for this construction before it is built. With the current crop of Politicians in the state unwilling to have any risk assumed by their corporate masters and also unwilling to permit there to be the slightest appearance of the Taxpayers assuming any risk the Public Service Commission approved a rate increase to fund this before construction or even approval. Oh, and it it does not get built for any reason those rates will NOT be refunded.
Just imagine what the planet will be like when strip mined oil shale is the primary source of energy. If running out of oil is the main motivation of change then that is the change we will get.
When the nuclear industry started building power plants they promised electricity "too cheap to meter." Nuclear power turned out to be by far the most expensive way to generate electricity. The real reason no nuclear power plants have been built in decades is because with the cold war ended so we no longer need the plutonium from reactors to build more bombs. It will be quite a while before nuclear power will be price competitive with fossil fuel. The AP1000 sounds like a decent design but there are far more promising designs being developed. I like pebble bed reactors because being thermally limited they can not melt down even with a total cooling system failure. Longer term reactors using thorium instead of uranium look promising. We have much more thorium than uranium; thorium reactors will produce lower volume and less dangerous waste; and we don't have to worry as much about waste being weoponized.
Don't worry. We'll be out of oil soon and our civilization will be pulled kicking and screaming into the future.
By future you mean Natural Gas? We are only at the beta testing stage, at best, of alternative energy. Yes this is a damn shame, we should have worked more diligently on it after the first energy crisis of the 1970s, but that didn't happen and we have the reality we must deal with today. Today there is little alternative to oil beyond nuclear and natural gas. We still have decades of research and testing ahead of us before solar, wind, tidal, batteries, etc may become viable large scale alternatives.
We could wish it were different but such wishing will not let us move food from farm and ranch to store on a large scale.
I've stumbled in to the Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder part of this discussion.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
i hear so many 'claims' about how wind , solar, etc etc are all primed to take off and fix the power problem.
The fact we are still building nuclear reactors that run ( an extraordinarily low ) chance of causing HUGE casualties and making land uninhabitable for LIFETIMES , is unconscionable, if those claims are true.
Does anyone have any hard facts on the cost of electricity coming from solar or wind vs the same from Nuclear? Are the reasons primarily economic , or is their physics problems also preventing the use of other means to generate power?
aka , why are we building these instead of solar and wind farms?
I'm not trolling here, i'd really love some serious answers by someone who knows more about it then me.
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
How has the nuclear industry suckered so many /. moderators?
Somehow being anti-nuclear is being equated with the anti-technology ignoramuses. I personally know a nuclear physicist (well, he did plasma work for fusion so maybe he is not a nuclear physicist.) My friend is against nuclear power for many reasons that never get mentioned, including the fact the USA ran out of uranium in only 50 years and now imports the stuff when it used to be one of the richest nations in uranium mines (now Canada is #1 with about 2/3 of what the USA once had.)
7 BILLION per nuclear plant? In the decade it takes to build a plant there are always cost overruns as the politicians and lawyers find ways (over that decade) to milk even more money; naturally, once you dumped in 1 billion you can't STOP! You have to spend 10 billion so you don't waste that 7 you put in! Although, in reality the clever politicians double the costs to "prevent" cost over-runs (but in a decade those politicians will be removed from such blame.)
Can't we put that 14 Billion into getting southerners away from running their air conditioners 24/7 during half the year??
In the DECADE before those plants are built, solar and wind will be less than HALF the cost they are today, more accepted and we may have wave and fusion nearing fruition (where is the investment in fusion? bet they don't get 14 billion...) Higher prices might cause needed changes to be made everywhere else. How about a smarter grid that doesn't LOSE 10-20% of the power? When they say 10% line loss that is a ball park average; I bet Georgia probably has a pathetic power grid.
If there was anything to this next gen nuclear power we'd be building one of those-- instead we are making the same old design with a couple tweaks. Personally, the idea of passive cooling in humid hot Georgia sounds like something is wrong.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Westinghouse Electric Company was bought in 2005 for $5 billion by the Japanese company TOSHIBA,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westinghouse_Electric_Company
And the U.S. has the British company BP drilling much of the U.S. oil.
Why is the U.S. excited about its self-sufficiency?
Why does the U.S. push foreign company energy projects more than its own projects?
With China producing 30 percent of the world's engineers, Russia 7 percent, and the U.S. only 3 percent (see this week's Science article); and
with 8 out of 9 of China's political leaders engineers;
what part of the world's engineering curve does the U.S. think it sits?
I'm all for nuclear power, however i don't think it should remain in a for profit system that is going to try to extend it's service for years past it's decommission date for a little profit, and possibly due nothing on minor safety issues cause that would hurt our profit margin for the year. I think all nuclear plants should be designed/operated and owned by the people living in close proximity to them, with the financial backing of state and federal government. It's the only way to ensure safety is the first priority. Cause to do anything else would be exceeding dangerous as proved by 3 Mile/Chernobyl/Fukushima. If you disagree then ask your self why did congress set limits on insurance damages, when we could build plants that could be fail proof with no risk of containment breach. Simple answer was they want corporations to be in charge so they can extract money from them in fines and bribes. Kinda hard for the Federal Government to fine it self and not bitch about paying the fine, just look at the EPA case against Area51 for burning toxic waste. It always a game of who's going to pay for it to them. Sadly the way it is now, the population always pays a far heavier price then owners of the plant.
Well that's not even enough to power two DeLoreans....
The Corporate Welfare State economy [AKA: Faux-Capitalism] needs to be able to exploit the public, create temp-jobs and increase C*O salary/benefits/retirement packages. The Jerry Falwell pseudo-christian motto "Oh Lord, Give me money or give me death!"
I am surprised the pseudo-christian plutocrats of the Corporate States of America (CSA) republic have been unable to elect an emperor for US.
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
eh, maybe its because your wrong? Consider:
1. Slashdot has a conspiracy to promote coal and nuclear
or
2. you just don't have your facts straight
You might try informing yourself on the subject. Elsewhere on this page is a link to DOE information on the total cost of operation. You say "nuclear is *expensive*" -- but there is a citation needed (just claiming some random facts is not a citation). And more importantly, expensive compared to what?
According to the DOE the cheapest is oil (by a good margin) followed by coal and nuclear and then solar. I forget just where hydro, etc., fit in, but you can look it up yourself.
Maybe the DOE is part of this conspiracy. Those who believe in conspiracies generally find no end of their adversaries and enemies. It *is* easier than admitting maybe you were wrong.
How to be modded up: create a duality of only nuclear and coal options for energy production
Many of the most-upmodded comments in this discussion actually reflect the entire spectrum, and include hydro, wind, solar etc.
Fact is: nuclear is *expensive*.
This comment has covered it. Long story short, it's in the middle of the pack - not the cheapest source of energy, but reasonably cheap - much cheaper than solar - and you can use it in places where you can't do cheaper green stuff like hydro or wind.
Anyway, I don't see anyone proposing to replace other green energy sources with nuclear. A reasonable position on this is to use the former where they are available, to the extent of natural capacity - much like Pacific Northwest mostly uses hydro today, because it has that opportunity - and fall back to nuclear everywhere else. What people here are objecting to is when nuclear is completely ignored, and yet money is instead given to solar which is much more expensive and has a narrower scope of application.
How to be modded down: mention that uranium is a finite source and that we WILL eventually deal with a depletion in the same way we're facing oil
It's not exactly a secret, which is why pretty much any nuclear story on /. will see thorium reactors mentioned in the first few posts. In the meantime, uranium will last us for 70-80 more years, more than enough time to flesh out thorium tech to the same level of safety and efficiency. With luck (and money!), we might even get fusion by then, which will close up on the energy issue once and for all.
we have technology accessible to us NOW that can reduce emissions and is not nearly as expensive (environmentally or economically) as nuclear will be.
Which one is it? Sun? Wind? My assumption so far is that a "hamster treadmill" is not practical or cheap, or we would see it used more in places other than Germany, where the "phobia of things people don't understand" took over.
I am also a little worried about the global climate change that will bring famine and war some 50-100 years from now, because the most power-hungry nation was burning coal for energy in the 21st century. Paint me paranoid.
Glad to hear.
2.2gw...GREAT SCOTT!
"mention that uranium is a finite source and that we WILL eventually deal with a depletion in the same way we're facing oil"
move to thorium?
" highlight that it takes DECADES to get a plant to operating status "
that's false.
"to us NOW that can reduce emissions and is not nearly as expensive (environmentally or economically) as nuclear will be."
no, we don't.
Nuclear is expensive compare to what? remember, these plants will have an operation life time of 80 to 160 year.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Got to do the guitar solo....
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/09/us-usa-nuclear-license-idUSTRE8181T420120209
That's where the Triforce is located!
Or is it in New York? I'm confused by all the awesome.
to provide enough power to keep new seasons of Archer coming out.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
LOL at the Slashdot idiots who don't even know the first thing about safe nuclear energy.
How many of you have even heard of LFTR? Idiots.
Seriously. Even if you are against nuclear power, you would be a dangerous fanatic if you'd not rather have modern, much safer reactors around than the old crap that can blow up any day.
That's the problem with our western politics. It's really hard to follow a set direction for a decade or two with elections every few years. So one government wants to get out of nuclear power, the next one doesn't - in the end, you don't get out but you also don't invest, and the power companies are too scared that the next time it really is the end of it all and thus save on modernizing as much as they legally can.
And then you end up with really old, horribly insecure and outright dangerous nuclear reactors. In other words, you get the worst-case scenario that absolutely nobody on either side of the discussion ever wanted.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I don't live in Georgia, but I have a fundamental problem with so called Work-In-Progress funding, where rates increase to pay for construction.
That problem, essentially, is that you are forcing people to pay higher rates now, with the promise of lower rates, maybe, in the future, to justify the higher rates, but. . .
Those new nuclear reactors will probably take at least 10 years to come on line, if not longer. So, for the next 10 years, you are forcing ratepayers to pay for a power plant they are getting no benefit from. By the time that plant is online, some percentage of the local population will have died or moved. They will pay for the plant, but never receive the benefits of it. Some other percentage will die or move in the first few years of operation, meaning they never get enough benefit to justify the higher rates they had to pay.
It may even be true that ultimately, it leads to lower rates for customers of Georgia Power, but those customers will not all be the customers paying for that benefit today.
In other words, you are forcing people to invest in someone else's ownership of a valuable power plant. Although, in the end, when you are dealing with local monopolies, I suppose that's always true anyhow. Still, seems unfair to the folks who have to pay higher rates right now but will never get a discount.
"It just can't be that hard to make a bacterium that eats cellulose..."
It is very difficult. Apparently, billions of years ago plants chose cellulose as their structural material because it is strong, extremely chemically stable, and because bacteria doesn't want to eat it.
When the Germans leave nuclear technology you know its time to move on and embrace the next technology revolution. The question where to dispose nuclear waste is unresolved.
> $14 billion and produce 2.2 GW of power (able to power ~1 million homes).
Hmm, what if you put $14,000 worth of solar cells on 1 million homes (or $28k on 1/2 million homes, or ...) So you don't generate as much power. But you generate it at a time when you are using the most power. You don't need to hire and train a bunch of folks to run a reactor, and emergency equipment to handle a disaster. Nor do you need to pay to get rid of the nuclear waste. The day to day costs to run solar has to be tons cheaper than a nuclear reactor.
How close are we to it being more sense to do something like that?
Really?
http://science.slashdot.org/story/11/08/30/2324243/making-fuel-with-newspapers-and-bacteria
""Scientists at Tulane have found a natural bacteria (dubbed TU-103) that produces butanol. While butanol-producing bacteria aren't new, there are a few important points about this particular bacterium. It is the first natural bacteria that converts cellulose directly to butanol without the cellulose needing to be processed into sugar first, and it can do this in the presence of oxygen, which kills other butanol-producing bacteria. The simplification of the process could significantly decrease the production costs of butanol. This bacteria could allow virtually any plant product, such as newspaper or grass clippings, to be used to produce fuel for conventional vehicles.""
http://science.slashdot.org/story/11/06/11/1958225/researchers-find-wood-digesting-enzyme-in-bacteria
"AffidavitDonda writes with news that University of Warwick and University of British Columbia researchers have "identified the gene for breaking down lignin in a soil-living bacterium called Rhodococcus jostii. Although such enzymes have been found before in fungi, this is the first time that they have been identified in bacteria. The bacterium's genome has already been sequenced which means that it could be modified more easily to produce large amounts of the required enzyme. In addition, bacteria are quick and easy to grow, so this research raises the prospect of producing enzymes which can break down lignin on an industrial scale. By making woody plants and the inedible by-products of crops economically viable the eventual hope is to be able to produce biofuels that don't compete with food production.""
So fuck off.
The world installed 26 GW of solar and 41 GW of wind capacity in 2011. I think that is past beta.
Before anyone makes the comment, I am aware that those sources have around a 20% capacity factor (average output/nameplate capacity), because they operate intermittently. Still, that comes to 13.4 GW average power, or 6.7 times the output of the two reactors in the story.
i get the feeling that if you were saying the above directly to me, i'd be getting hit by crumbs of sandwich from the ferocity of it.
was there a point in there?
The Japanese said that too: can't happen here, Chernobyl caused by incompetent Russki operators, faulty Russki design yadda yadda. Guess what? Japanese nuclear scientists/engineers & operators make mistakes, too.
The number one problem is the profit motive -- which is also a design feature of the American nukes.
Really, more nuclear? Wow, this has to be the most retarded decision in quite a while. Talk about trying to solve a problem from the wrong end. Poor country, I'm happy I don't live there.
Germany has sold electricity to France this winter because France could not cope with their load of electric heating. Germany had a surplus even though we shut down half of our nuclear power plants for good last year.
There might have been some luck in the equation but it's not nearly as bad as all the naysayers were predicting.
This is nothing new but your electric devices use 60-70 even 80% of there overall consumption when they ARE OFF!!! The Standby mode..
Typical computer uses about 400 watts when on, however there are LED lights for home use even outdoor use that are very low in energy consumption and very bright. This and putting electric devices on a power strip, then shutting the power strip completely off will save energy, not much to the typical home owner but you are wasting 200-400 dollars a year by not shutting down these stand by devices.
But people refuse to do anything or come up with excuses not too. This America after all we must destroy it before anyone else gets to it, and if we happen to help push other countries in the same direction, oops, not our problem let the next generation figure it out.
> lead summary: licensed in early 2012, expected to begin operation in 2016 or 2017
You must be stupid to believe that or maybe 2012 is BC and 2017 is AD...
The new finnish 1000MW nuclear reactor has been under construction for almost 11 years now and still not ready. The pre-allocated budget was exceeded 2,5 times.
"Maybe the DOE is part of this conspiracy"
Gee, you think?
You are referring to "DOE" as in "Department of Energy", right? Formerly known as the "Atomic Energy Commission"? The organization who's budget is highly dependant on developing nuclear technology? The one who has an interest in promoting development of such technology in order to get a larger budget?
Now who would *possibly* think their numbers might be skewed in favour of "Advanced Nuclear"?
I reserve my comment until after that guy fro http://fairewinds.com/updates/ has given us his analysis on this.
He KNOWS this stuff.
I propose we use Fairy Dust Reactors. Through the application of rainbows to a highly compressed gas composed of Fairy Dust and ground unicorn horn (acts as a stabilizer), it generates 83% more power, and it 97% more efficient. The real added bonus is that if something goes wrong, such as the Troll workforce rioting and accidentally blowing of the facility the only result will be the loss of the Troll work force (who cares really), and the explosive release of happiness. The Fairy Dust and ground unicorn horn may tickle your nose a bit, making you scrunch your nose up like Renée Zellweger or Meg Ryan, and perhaps sneeze, but it is 100% non-toxic! Now some people might argue about the cruel killing of unicorns for their horns to be ground up for use in the reactor. Not to worry, they are safely chained up by the thousands in compact and efficient "Hornaries" where the horn is extracted and processed before sending the material to the plant. Using this method, the horns regrow every 15 days, to be extracted again, and again essentially making this a renewable resource. Currently the only thing holding back operations is the lack of trained leprechauns used to harness the rainbow power within the catalytic process. Some have suggested importing Care Bears to do the work, however it has also been pointed out that they are highly unionized and are not afraid to use their "Care Bare Countdown". Even with these challenges however, this is by far a better alternative to those filthy nuclear operations!
to approve New Nuclear Reactors in Iran.
Recipes for USA bankrupt - http://tinypaste.com/0d66f dd = dollar deluge (printed in the infinity)
Relying on a few large providers is a trait nukes share with oil, indeed. Carrying around electricity implies some inefficiency, while carrying oil implies pollution. The reason why I don't like this model, however, is that it doesn't promote autonomy.
The other thing is nuclear waste. As it lasts thousands of years, I cannot believe that the ultimate cost of storing it has been evaluated, not even to an approximation of three orders of magnitude. We don't even know what language people will speak 5000 years from now, so how can we explain them that they have to pay the debt we took out?
When there is added cost (beyond monetary inflation), but no added value, then it is not capitalism. I consider such economics a welfare state for the few at the expense of the many. It is legal welfare, but not capitalism. Corporate Welfare corporate-tobacco/sugar farm and subsidies, Micky Mouse copyrights, Airline baggage fees, loan-shark credit card rates/fees, market/product/service (Comcast, AT&T ...) hostages, many...many more. When it adds only cost it is Faux-capitalism. For US, EU, RU ... economics is not structured as a meritocracy requiring added value; Hence, Faux/Pseudo-capitalism.
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
> 1: It is energy dense, so it doesn't take up valued land. Solar and wind farms are great, but energy losses through wires cause those to become not feasible.
Sorta kinda. Firstly, because modern nuclear power plants are so large (~1 GW) and not located very close to cities, there are tremendous losses in transmission. This can also be true with wind, but not so much solar. In fact, the real elegance of solar is when placed rooftop, both residential and commercial. Transmission losses quickly approach zero, as does use of so-called valued land. Also, nuclear does take up a bunch of land -- Vogtle is 3100 acres. At 5 acres/MW PV, you could do over 600 MW of PV there... not as much as Vogtle, but not as tremendous a difference as many believe. Plus, Vogtle requires 3100 contiguous acres of land... whereas renewables can be built as "in-fill" in underused patches of land or on marginally valuable land.
> 2: A reprocessing, "breeder" reactor can reduce the need for high level waste dumps.
Irrelevant to the nuclear plants approved in the article, and given tUSA's foreign policy situation, this is a long way off.
> 3: Reactor fuel is relatively cheap and abundant. When uranium becomes an issue, there is always thorium (although that is still a research leap ahead.)
The sun and wind and rain are cheaper, and more abundant. Plus it is delivered straight to the US, not requiring trade agreements or transportation. The challenge with both nuclear and renewables isn't the fuel cost, it's the capital cost and, in the case of nuclear, off-shore wind, and concentrated solar thermal, very long lead times (planning, permitting, and construction).
> 4: Safety. The deaths per terawatt figures completely show this.
Relative to what? Relative to fossil plants, sure. Relative to hydro built 50+ years ago, sure. Relative to modern renewables? No data. And no, the one blog post which /. loves to post about it doesn't count -- it's full of holes and is not even reviewed by an editor, no less experts in the field or in academia.
--
Nuclear has some real advantages, but don't whitewash the disadvantages. There is no current long term waste storage strategy, and no evidence that tUSA is moving toward solving this problem. There is no short term hope of breeder reactors or nuclear fuel reprocessing due to foreign policy considerations. Additionally, the cost of building a nuclear plant is enormous on a $/kW level, especially when the cost of financing and risk of default is baked in. This is a real killer -- given relatively flat future electricity demand curves, tremendous potential for electrical energy efficiency projects [at a much lower cost per kW (and kWh)], and the reality that there are loads of renewable generation project opportunities today with costs lower on a kW capacity rating and on a kWh basis, there's very little argument for new nuclear right now so long as we're leaving EE and renewable stones unturned.
P.S. The idea that nuclear generators will get cheaper with practice is an attractive idea. It was espoused in the first nuclear power era too. Didn't happen though. On a real dollars per kW basis, prices increased over time. What makes you think the future won't emulate the past?
P.P.S. The "baseload" argument is bunk too. The US grid has plenty of peaking capacity. What we want is cheap energy, not additional capacity for 3am. Besides, guess when load is highest? In almost all of tUSA, its on weekday non-holiday afternoons when it's hot outside. It turns out that the sun tends to shine rather brightly at that exact time, which makes PV particularly valuable -- it generates electricity precisely when the demand for electricity is highest, thereby helping us to avoid using plants with higher operating costs like CT gas plants and oil plants.
Support a few technologists in Washington.