Japan Plans to Restart Most of Their Nuclear Reactors

pigrabbitbear writes "Areva, the French nuclear fuel company, helps supply Japan with a lot of its juice. And Areva's chief executive says that Japan is going to restart up to six reactors by the end of the year. Eventually, it's going to power up at least two thirds of them. Japan's prime minister Shinzo Abe has been a little cagey, but he recently told the press that yes, despite the upcoming March 11th anniversary of the Fukushima crisis, the nuke plants are coming back online." Supposedly, they are overhauling their nuclear regulatory agencies to fix the massive failure and regulatory capture that led to Fukushima being run unsafely. They are also not going to restart reactors that are on active fault lines; this includes the largest reactor complex in the world. Vaguely related, the Vogtle plant expansion in the U.S. is running a bit over budget, with folks like the Sierra Club seizing the chance to call for an end to construction (unlikely, since Georgia Power says it'd cost customers more, even pretending natural gas is infinite and will always be cheap, to halt construction in favor of any other kind of power plant), and legislators aiming to 'protect' customers from cost overruns. However, it looks like unless action is taken the nuclear renaissance is already dead due to the inherent short-sightedness of the "free market."

Comments

Nuclear Bias

[Sigvatr]

I feel that there is a lot of stigma against nuclear energy these days (particularly here on Slashdot), and for good reason. However, I don't often see people making a case FOR nuclear power, because there are definitely many good reasons to defend its use. Is this because people are afraid of speaking out, or because nuclear power really is that bad?

Re:Nuclear Bias

[symbolset]

Below us here will now follow several hundred comments, most lauding nuclear power and bashing all other forms of energy as more toxic, costly and dangerous. All of them pretending there is no geothermal. It happens every time.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[thesupraman]

It's mainly because people were so convinced by the cold war 'nuclear terror' campaigns run by the west (and probably the other side also) that they cannot see past that.

Hence we get large amounts of patently false 'common knowledge' ingrained in peoples minds when they evaluate anything to do with the words nuclear or radiation.

The biggest problem we should be worried about is that old, out of date, and less safe (than modern) plants will be kept active WAY past their best before dates because so much effort has gone in to making it basically impossible to even design, let al9ong build next generation plants that there is little choice.

Costs and timelines in the west (especially America) have ballooned due to the mountain of legal and social blocks put in the way of building plants, meaning time lines and non-technical costs now hugely dwarf the actual real cost of building the plants, and make them unaffordable.

In the meantime we have the same organisations both screaming at us that we need to reduce CO2 emissions (or the world will end!), AND that anything related to the word 'radiation' is satans work and must be stopped at all costs.

It is good that the Japanese are showing some signs of reality-based decision making here, and at least the Chinese are actually starting to progress design improvements. America should be burying its head in shame over how it has controlled/managed the worlds nuclear power development (and thats pretty much how it has been until now, via the NRC ..)

Of course a lot of the problem boils down to the childishness of the modern public, where they assume everything will be handed to them on a plate, in a way that makes them feel most comfortable and happy, without offending any little sensibility they have decided to have, as they are obviously THE most important entity on the planet. Sad, really.

So yet again its time to sit back, get a cup of tea, and watch the backlash against satans radiation again, damn the torpedoes.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[hairyfish]

See you lost any credibility once you said "all of them". I live in NZ where we have some geothermal plants. It works here because our country is effectively one long ridge of volcanos. I'm not so sure that applies to the rest of the world.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[fredprado]

There is a bias against nuclear power everywhere, because it is scary in the sense that a disaster, at least locally is always extremely grave. On the other hand, there is simply no choice. Nuclear power will be increasingly used because there is simply no alternative. So even for those who dislike the idea it is better to accept it and work to make it safer than to resist the inevitable.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, this. Somebody asked this same question one time when I was visiting the local US Department of Energy site, and the answer they gave was basically "All of the cost-effective geothermal and hydroelectric locations have already been developed." Just as you would expect.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[cheesybagel]

Actually there are other ways like using Hot Dry Rock Geothermal where you drill a borehole deep enough that it gets hot enough to boil water which you inject into the hole. The problem is it induces low intensity earthquakes.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[TubeSteak]

The biggest problem we should be worried about is that old, out of date, and less safe (than modern) plants will be kept active WAY past their best before dates because so much effort has gone in to making it basically impossible to even design, let al9ong build next generation plants that there is little choice.

TFA

Nor is there a serious case to be made that interest in new reactors has been suppressed by decades of overregulation. The candidates for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission since 1980 have almost all been subject to what amounts to a nuclear industry veto.4 In many cases, they have had outright industry endorsement. The idea that these industry-vetted commissioners have overseen 30 years of excessive regulation doesnâ(TM)t pass the straight-face test.

I'm not disputing that NIMBY and environmental regulations have retarded nuclear growth, but the real reason we're still running decades old power plants waaaaaaaay past their end-of-life date is regulatory capture.

The nuclear industry says "don't worry, we can run a 40 year old plant safely" and the regulators say "okay, we believe you"
This is despite every indication that the plants are corroding in place and the operators are doing as little maintanence as possible.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[cheesybagel]

The Japanese will restart their nuclear reactors. Their economy is not viable otherwise. Their economic recovery crashed more because of the plant shutdown and the energy costs of importing coal than the earthquake damage itself. Japan needs nuclear power. Too many people and too few alternative resources for a country with heavy industry. The Chinese are in full swing. They have like one of each leading edge nuclear power plant design either in operation or under construction and they are ramping up training so they can build more of them. Air pollution in China is a big problem and nuclear power in coastal cities is seen as a way to ameliorate the problem. The heavy industry in the interior of the nation will likely continue using cheap coal.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[symbolset]

This one is the US. Of course we're talking about Japan which has ample geothermal resources.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[Hal_Porter]

That which doesn't kill you makes you evolve a bit faster.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[AlphaWolf_HK]

In my state, there is no geothermal capability, or hydro. However, we have a very large nuclear power plant that produces energy a lot cheaper and more efficient than wind and solar.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[ColdWetDog]

Yes, you might be partially correct - however - the world is as it is. You can't fast track reactors in the US. The industry hasn't figured out how to make them cheaper, even with the Federal government covering virtually all of the insurance costs.

So, in a perfect world, run by engineers with a good budget, instead of politicians with not enough money to go around, you could have safe(r) nuclear power. We shall never live in that cornicopian intellectual paradise so we have a mess. In this mess that is the real world, nuclear power doesn't look all that attractive compared to solar.

Personally, I'd go Heinlein on this subject - give all of the nucs to the Navy or some spinoff. Keep Congress out of it somehow (give them a couple of Etch-A-Sketches and some hookers), give them a reasonable budget. But now I'm getting all utopian again. Slap me.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[ae1294]

I'm surprised China didn't offer to run some power lines over to Japan "free of charge" after all the plants got shut down... Someone in china dropped the ball...

Re:Nuclear Bias

[ae1294]

Yup... I can't wait for the super powers or to become a tentacle rape demon... Ether or would work for me and I think I might even gain enough ego credits to move out from my moms basement!!! I wonder what the current conversion rape i mean rate is between ego credits and bitcoins?

Re:Nuclear Bias

[nbauman]

I did find the uninformed anti-nuclear rhetoric annoying (like any uninformed rhetoric), but the pro-nuclear side suffered from technological hubris.

A nuclear reactor offers the promise of unlimited, cheap, carbon-free energy. OTOH, there is a small risk of a very big catastrophe, Are great benefits worth great risks? Hard to say. We now have Chernobyl as one real-world worst-case scenario.

Three Mile Island wasn't reassuring either. The reason why it blew, you may recall, is that a relief valve, made by Dresser, failed. It had a classic design flaw, a piston diameter that was too large for its length, like a wide window that gets wedged into the frame when you try to open it. This valve had been tested before -- and failed, about 2% of the time. Scientific American, itself a nuclear power advocate, had a good article about this.

Dresser for its own part was defending itself by taking out full-page newspaper ads, and denouncing anti-nuclear activists as Communists. Edward Teller said that Ralph Nader opposed nuclear power because he was an Arab, and he wanted the U.S. to be dependent on Arab oil.

I would like to live in a country where we make technical decisions on the basis of the facts and the analysis of experts. Unfortunately I live in a country where we make technical decisions (and any decisions) on the basis of who can muster the strongest political power and lobbying (which usually translates into, who has the most money to spend on it). I really wish the nuclear industry had been run by people who stuck to the facts and tried to resolve their disagreements with their critics with reason, rather than steamroller them with negative PR campaigns and campaign contributions.

I believe nuclear power could have worked, and might someday. One of the problems is that we seized on essentially one design, a scaled-up version of the one used on nuclear submarines. There were other designs that were inherently safer. It seems that American capitalism needs the government to do its R&D for it.

I always favored a free-market solution: The Price-Anderson Act absolved the nuclear industry of liability for any accident, and instead had the government step in, to compensate everyone for the damage (up to $120 million, which wouldn't go too far in Chernobyl). My solution: Repeal the Price-Anderson Act, and let the nuclear power industry get its liability insurance on the free market like everyone else. If they're so safe, let them convince the insurance industry. It seems that American capitalism always needs a government handout.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[antifoidulus]

The markedly weaker yen(which has dropped about 20% against the dollar so far this year) is probably also playing into the decision. Most commodities are still priced in dollars meaning that the cost to the consumer, in yen, is increasing quite rapidly thus increasing the political pressure to bring energy costs down. The simplest way to do that is to restart the nuke plants....

Re:Nuclear Bias

[macshit]

Do you think Japan would ever risk becoming reliant on China for any significant amount of their energy supply, at least while China has its current political system?

It'd be neat as an optional "top up" source of power, but it seems a non-starter for anything more, at least in the short/medium term. For now, Japan's gotta figure something out on their own.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[ozmanjusri]

On the other hand, there is simply no choice. Nuclear power will be increasingly used because there is simply no alternative.

Not if you're a company that wants to charge a lot of money for power...

Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland all point the finger at Germany for what they claim are uncontrolled surges in renewables, which are destabilizing their grids. In addition they contend that Germany’s behaviour is also reducing the profitability of conventional power firms.

The Institute recently published “Impacts of Germany’s nuclear phase-out on electricity imports and exports” (PDF), a 99-page study that discusses not only German power flows with its eastern neighbors, but also with its neighbors to the west.

This study comes at a time when Poland and the Czech Republic are both openly complaining about Germany using their grids to transport renewable power from northern Germany to southern Germany – because the German grid is allegedly overloaded.

Meanwhile, Switzerland recently argued that it’s conventional power firms were not able to generate as much power as they should because the Swiss grid is also sometimes filled up with German renewable power.

The study also examines why the Netherland has been less vocal, despite the Dutch grid being flooded with inexpensive renewable power, which has offset electricity production from natural gas turbines in the country.

http://www.powerengineeringint.com/articles/2013/02/Study-assesses-Germanys-energy-policy-impact-on-angry-neighbours.html

Re:Nuclear Bias

[Charliemopps]

Except that, Geothermal plants release toxic gas into the atmosphere, including large amounts of CO2. Not nearly as much as coal... but then, Nuclear power doesn't release any CO2 at all. Not to mention geothermal has conclusively proven to cause earthquakes and at least 1 plant had to be shut down after it triggered tens of thousands of earthquakes over the first few days of operation.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[thesupraman]

You need to think it a little deeper.

The reason they are desperately trying to stretch out the life of the old plants is because the kneejerkers/dumb greens (yes, there are some clued up ones), and NIMBYs have made it next to impossible, and definitely not affordable, to build any new ones, in fact even to improve the existing ones..

New power plants are much cheaper to run, lower risk, lower cost of operating materials, lower waste, etc - but are simply unbuildable under the wests anti-everything regime due to the wonders of local/global pressure groups making regulators tie it up in so much red tape..

The result of this stupidity is what are now low safety (relative to modern designs) stations are kept running way beyond design life - so exactly the opposite of what should be desirable (clean, reliable, affordable nuclear power) is the result of the pressure groups.
And I suspect they want it this way, any 'disaster' is going to swell their supporters, bring money in the door, and increase their political power - why would they want safe nuclear power? (they of course being the many and varied anti-nuclear power groups).

The whole thing is of course complex as hell, but the big picture really is people ignoring technical realities, and instead treating nuclear power like it is a social issue (and of course mixing that with huge dis-information as to the realities of radiation, etc).

Re:Nuclear Bias

[thesupraman]

"A nuclear reactor offers the promise of unlimited, cheap, carbon-free energy. OTOH, there is a small risk of a very big catastrophe, Are great benefits worth great risks? Hard to say. We now have Chernobyl as one real-world worst-case scenario."

Chernobyl was not an accident, you understand? the reactor was a terrible design intentionally being pushed way outside design specs for no better reason that to see what happened... it is not a real-world worst-case scenario for western reactors, let alone any modern designs.

"Three Mile Island wasn't reassuring either. The reason why it blew, you may recall, is that a relief valve, made by Dresser, failed. It had a classic design flaw, a piston diameter that was too large for its length, like a wide window that gets wedged into the frame when you try to open it. This valve had been tested before -- and failed, about 2% of the time. Scientific American, itself a nuclear power advocate, had a good article about this"

TMI did not 'blow', it had an internal failure resulting in a shutdown, and a very small (barely detectible) amount of released radiation. You do realise that a coal power station would release more radioactive material in a few minutes of operation than TMI did, right? Not to mention the fact that again, it was an ancient design that needed specific human operator control, and thats why it had an internal meltdown, the operators stuffed up (badly) after the valve failed.

"I always favored a free-market solution: The Price-Anderson Act absolved the nuclear industry of liability for any accident, and instead had the government step in, to compensate everyone for the damage (up to $120 million, which wouldn't go too far in Chernobyl). My solution: Repeal the Price-Anderson Act, and let the nuclear power industry get its liability insurance on the free market like everyone else. If they're so safe, let them convince the insurance industry. It seems that American capitalism always needs a government handout."

I suspect you dont know what the NRC is, and dont understand how the global nuclear industry is stricly controlled by it, and therefore by proxy the USA and its government, do you? there is NO free market in the nuclear industry, it is specifically and strictly controlled by one governing body. this is part of what has held it back of course. the fact that reactors in America appear to be privately owned it really just more smoke and mirrors.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[BradleyUffner]

Three Mile Island wasn't reassuring either. The reason why it blew, you may recall, is that a relief valve, made by Dresser, failed. It had a classic design flaw, a piston diameter that was too large for its length, like a wide window that gets wedged into the frame when you try to open it. This valve had been tested before -- and failed, about 2% of the time. Scientific American, itself a nuclear power advocate, had a good article about this.

Three Mile Island didn't "blow". I (and thousands of others) wouldn't be living within 20 miles of the place right now if it had.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[Hal_Porter]

I was going to argue but actually this is exactly the right way to respond to people misquoting Nietzsche.

Have you read any Ayn Rand by the way?

Sorry, just kidding.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[nbauman]

The pressure release valve jammed in the open position, and released a lot of coolant. That's what I meant by "blow." It's like a whale. The loss of coolant led to a partial meltdown.

I used to think that Michio Kaku was an irresponsible sensationalist. I went to a meeting a few days after the accident where he showed a slide of a melted reactor core, and said, "That's what Three Mile Island looks like inside." I thought he was going beyond the evidence. Then it turned out that the core was melted. Kaku was right. I was wrong. I turned my skepticism up a notch.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[mug funky]

i was always struck by how damn similar Japan and NZ are geographically...

Re:Nuclear Bias

[mug funky]

AFAIK the main problem is finding a place geologically stable enough that your very very long borehole will stay functional.

hmm... we could always use an old frack-hole and the broken-up shale could be a heat-exchanger?

Re:Nuclear Bias

[mug funky]

they also don't much care for Japan, which happens to be down-wind from a lot of China's coast...

Re:Nuclear Bias

[drinkypoo]

It also doesn't have much output.

I'm in favor of closed loop geothermal, but it doesn't solve many problems at this point.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[AK Marc]

Current Chinese political system? What, were they friends under the previous system?

Re:Nuclear Bias

[Mashiki]

I'm surprised China didn't offer to run some power lines over to Japan "free of charge" after all the plants got shut down... Someone in china dropped the ball...

Won't happen, and Japan would refuse outright. This is the same China that's belligerently been funneling a proxy war and trying to take over and entire chain of islands that are controlled by the philippines, and and another set that are controlled by japan. Not forgetting that their(china) favorite tactic in all of this is to "ship" in people and claim their neutral supporters trying to claim these islands for the motherland.

Oh and if you're wondering why? It's because around, in, near, and under those islands there's rich deposits of rare earths, uranium, oil and natural gas.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[bill_mcgonigle]

The nuclear industry says "don't worry, we can run a 40 year old plant safely" and the regulators say "okay, we believe you"

And the startup that wants to build integral fast reactors and buy up the existing nuclear waste to use as fuel gets denied permits because the entrenched interests would suffer.

We'll get them eventually - I'm just not sure if we'll be buying them from China or India.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[Electricity Likes Me]

Also the Chinese hate Japan. For pretty understandable reasons.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[Evtim]

Borehole?! Are you up for worm-rape?

Re:Nuclear Bias

[Evtim]

It's mainly because people were so convinced by the cold war 'nuclear terror' campaigns run by the west (and probably the other side also) that they cannot see past that.

No, the other side did not run a scare campaign against nuclear power. On the contrary - the "peaceful atom" was hailed as one of the key technologies to achieve the Communist ideal, which in its purest form means the basic necessities of life are granted by birthright to everyone. In fact the sci-fi dream of many. I do not know a single person from my generation and my country that is afraid of nuclear energy.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[julesh]

That link didn't go where I was expecting it to go.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[thegarbz]

You need to think it a little deeper.

The reason they are desperately trying to stretch out the life of the old plants is because the kneejerkers/dumb greens (yes, there are some clued up ones), and NIMBYs have made it next to impossible, and definitely not affordable, to build any new ones, in fact even to improve the existing ones..

Indeed this is exactly what we saw in Australia despite the fact that not upgrading our reactor was actually worse for people's health. By that I mean the HIFAR medical research reactor which was used to manufacture isotopes was nearing end of life. Hell it neared end of life years ago and the Greens were dead set against it's replacement. It got a replacement reactor OPAL in 2006 after long draw out political battles, and HIFAR was shutdown and is in the process of being demolished.

Funny enough when OPAL had issues in 2007 which required it's temporary shutdown the country went mental not due to a reactor having problems but do to a sudden shortage of medical isotopes and difficulty importing them from elsewhere in the world. Despite this crisis, and despite the fact the reactor is effectively brand new the Greens still have shutting down OPAL as one of the primary goals of the party.

The world is mad.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[thegarbz]

The reason why it blew, you may recall, is that a relief valve, made by Dresser, failed.

Actually the reason why it blew was unexpected and unmonitored flow through a relief valve. The PORV defaulting was only a small part of the crisis model and it operating as expected is only one of a long list of things that could have been done to prevent this disaster.

This is partially to do with history. The words "process safety" didn't appear in dictionaries of past, whereas these days they are amongst the biggest departments in any process plant. Any HAZard and OPerability study would have identified the risk though the "high-flow" case that needs to be considered though all RVs. Looking back through history the almost mandatory process of HAZOPing designs, even retrospectively would have avoided many of the disasters in the process industry such as Bunsfield. After all the HAZOP process was basically modelled on avoiding these disasters.

What I'm saying is that just because there was a fault in a 30+ year old plant doesn't mean that the same plant, of the exact same design, with the exact same process risks, would be built in a way that allow the same risks to eventuate. Yes an intrinsically safe process such is the most desirable outcome, but even older processes have been made much safer through extensive safeguards.

Think of a refinery. 30 years ago the technology was still the same as it is now. They still use deadly hydroflouric acid, they still have some sadistic processes that resemble a bomb waiting to go off, however these days they are heavily instrumented, there's emergency shutdown systems, there's alarms and indications for pretty much everything. Operations aren't blind to what is going on in their equipment anymore (something that was also a cause of Three Mile Island)

Re:Nuclear Bias

[Jeremi]

Three Mile Island didn't "blow". I (and thousands of others) wouldn't be living within 20 miles of the place right now if it had.

... which is actually a pretty good indication of what's holding nuclear back. If things go sufficiently wrong, large swaths of valuable real estate and infrastructure become unlivable, and hundreds of thousands of people have to be permanently relocated.

This translates directly into the huge liability, ultra-conservative design, high expenses, and public paranoia we see regarding nuclear today. I don't see any clear way around it except avoiding the use of radioactive materials.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[AK Marc]

That'll help the Japanese economy, people might start buying Japanese stuff more if it was all 20% less.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[AK Marc]

I was going to argue but actually this is exactly the right way to respond to people misquoting Nietzsche.

He was quoting Kelly Clarkson. Who's that knee-cheese guy?

Re:Nuclear Bias

[TheTurtlesMoves]

You mite want to read this. The section on geothermal is accurate enough for our use.

Yes there is geothermal, but if you run the numbers (I have) its easy to see it really is only a very regional solution and not a very sustainable one at that. In NZ as posted below uses geothermal. But the outputs had to be reduced because it was reducing the entire area activity. Sooner or later the rock lower down cools down. Same thing for the few plants in the US. Closed loop systems have their own issues. In particular you get a few decades before that cubic kilometer has cooled down.

Seriously it gets tiresome that so many *know* the solution but then won't do even the most basic analysis on that claimed solution.

Can nuclear work for a while (100s even 1000s of years)? Yes. Can we do it safely?That is a much harder question to answer. Technically i am somewhat pro nuclear. However that is not the same as saying i trust the companies or governments or even the IAEA for that matter to do nuclear safe. And we still are not dealing with the waste we already have.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[Intrepid imaginaut]

You need to think it a little deeper.

The reason they are desperately trying to stretch out the life of the old plants is because

It's because a completed plant is a sunk cost investment. The more they stretch out the life of the plant, the more profit they make, simply put.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[AmiMoJo]

It isn't regulation or fear that is preventing the building of new reactor designs, it is economics. Nuclear is heavily subsidised and governments are looking to reduce costs, plus companies want to make safe investments with will defined ROIs instead of building theoretically better but unproven (on a commercial scale) designs.

The simple fact is that the current old designs meet the regulatory requirements and are known quantities. New designs could run into issues that end up costing a lot, or even fail entirely. History is littered with reactor designs that looked good on paper but didn't work very well in practice (we build a lot of them in the UK).

You could argue that the government needs to step in and push new technology forwards, but since saving energy is cheaper and makes them more popular by delivering improvements directly to people's homes that isn't going to happen.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[Liam Pomfret]

Eh, 2x2 spacing with Boreholes was always more effective over the long term than Forest and Forget. *idly wonders how many people reading this actually will get either of our references*

Re:Nuclear Bias

[Solandri]

A nuclear reactor offers the promise of unlimited, cheap, carbon-free energy. OTOH, there is a small risk of a very big catastrophe, Are great benefits worth great risks?

The problem is that humans suck at rationally appraising things with a small risk of a very big catastrophe. Car accidents are the leading cause of accidental death, both in raw numbers and in rate (i.e. death per distance traveled). Yet a plane crashes and the model gets grounded, the news goes into a frenzy, people wring their hands, a new batch of aerophobes is created, and the government conducts a 6-12 month investigation to try to make air travel even safer than it already is. (Yes death per time exposed is about the same for flying vs driving, but you'll be exposed to the car for a lot longer if you choose to drive to grandma's instead of fly.)

Heck, even the opposite is true. People suck at appraising a small chance at a very big benefit. That's why lotteries and casinos do so well. In both cases, fear of or desire for the rare outcome figures too prominently in the decision, while the minuscule probability of that outcome actually happening is not given enough weight.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[Xest]

"I'm not so sure that applies to the rest of the world."

Of course it does, they just need to dig a bit deeper that's all.

(Hint for the humour impaired: Read the above as sarcasm)

Re:Nuclear Bias

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, we could build new safe reactors instead of keeping unsafe* 40 year old designs in service. Seriously, new reactor designs don't have the failsafe problems that Fukushima has.

* Although it wasn't that unsafe, since it took a large earthquake and a very large tsunami to cause that disaster, and yet for some reason people forget about the damage the earthquake and tsunami did.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[Evtim]

*idly wonders how many people reading this actually will get either of our references*

Judging by the moderation of my post - none so far

Re:Nuclear Bias

[AmiMoJo]

Actually they have more or less recovered from the earthquake/tsunami. There is still a big drain from the Fukushima clean-up and the other economic problems like the Yen being too strong for about the past four years, but it turns out they really are not that dependent on nuclear power after all.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[luther349]

bad or good we don't have enough other style of power generation to justify not using it. just like the epa attack on coal plaints despite the fact we don't have enough alt power to run the usa on. its because such interest groups are only interested on there view without looking at the damage it does.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[luther349]

can we do nuclear safely of course we can really its track record is pretty good. its just the damage it can cause when something does go wrong. theirs ways of dealing with the waste such as using modern reactors its just not super cheap so they kick that can down the road like most things.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[symbolset]

Dispose of some spent fuel and shut down some unsafe old ones and you can have some new ones. Deal?

Re:Nuclear Bias

[luther349]

that's because we have a government that must pander to everyone no matter how insane they are. nobody has the balls to say shut the hell up and go home to those people.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[luther349]

once government has its grubby little fingers in anything just pack it up and go home because its over at that point/

Re:Nuclear Bias

[TheTurtlesMoves]

The problem with kicking that particular can down the road is that it causes just as much trouble. There where more leaks in the last few months, and issues continue to grow. Basically not dealing with waste is not safe and is another form of mismanagement. On top of the that the economics of nuclear is still rather debatable given that one of the biggest costs has yet to be paid.

On paper nuclear could work. However a large dose of practical implementation issues, human nature and all the wrong economic and political incentives are IMO pretty big show stoppers right now.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[EdZ]

I have no modpoints, as my Supply Crawlers were blown up during transit.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[AmiMoJo]

Which state? Be specific so we can evaluate your claim, otherwise we will have to assume you pulled it out of your arse.

As it happens both Japan and my own country (UK) have enough renewable resources to cover all our needs if fully developed. Scotland in particular is on target to be 100% renewable by 2020 (200% capacity, half renewable and the excess exported for a profit).

Re:Nuclear Bias

[AchilleTalon]

Beside whining, you have something to contribute?

Re:Nuclear Bias

[AmiMoJo]

Sounds like some power companies are looking for an excuse to give to their shareholders and a reason to block renewables since they missed the boat on the them and want to keep their existing business models alive.

e study also examines why the Netherland has been less vocal, despite the Dutch grid being flooded with inexpensive renewable power, which has offset electricity production from natural gas turbines in the country.

I don't think they understand the geography of Europe or how electricity works. You can't "flood" the grid, the flow of electricity is regulated by load. It isn't like a water pipe, you can't force more into it.

Perhaps they mean that the energy market was flooded with cheap renewable energy, which while annoying profit seeking power companies is probably not so bad for consumers.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[AmiMoJo]

How did this shit get modded up? Oh wait, it's Slashdot.

Chernobyl was not an accident, you understand? the reactor was a terrible design intentionally being pushed way outside design specs for no better reason that to see what happened

They were doing an experiment to try to improve safety after identifying a potentially serious risk in the emergency cooling system. The experiment accidentally went wrong.

You do realise that a coal power station would release more radioactive material in a few minutes of operation than TMI did, right?

Not bad, only an order of magnitude out.

there is NO free market in the nuclear industry, it is specifically and strictly controlled by one governing body.

That would explain why when TEPCO was told its plant was unsafe and should be upgraded immediately they ignored it and did nothing.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[olau]

New power plants are much cheaper to run, lower risk, lower cost of operating materials, lower waste, etc - but are simply unbuildable under the wests anti-everything regime due to the wonders of local/global pressure groups making regulators tie it up in so much red tape..

I'm not particularly against nuclear power plants (as long as I don't get to live near one) but you're downplaying capital costs. Operating costs etc. are irrelevant if the initial capital costs are too high. It's the same with fusion power - so the energy source may be cheap but unless the actual reactor ends up being cheaper to build than a fission reactor, are we really going to see any commercial fusion plants? No.

What you call stupidity is really economics 101. Old power plants have been paid of many years ago so are now virtually impossible to compete against. If you want to change that you need subsidies. That's true of many renewable power plants too.

You can claim that the costs are caused by unnecessary regulation. But AFAIK regulations are determined by nuclear engineers, not green nuts.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[ryzvonusef]

I wonder if anyone has seen them in a party together...

Re:Nuclear Bias

[WindBourne]

Give me a break. Most geo-thermal plants are CLOSED loops. The ONLY thing released is heat and steam, just like a nuke plant.
And if you want to scream about the tremors, well, then you should scream about oceans, lake, hydro, and the moon as well.

Oh, what plant was shut down after 1000s of EARTHQUAKES after a few days of oepration.
Please, back up your statement with REAL data from REAL scientists and not from Faux News.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[WindBourne]

Actually, it is trivial to deal with nukes, esp. now. We should restart our thorium work and then use the reactors to also burn up the current nuclear waste. Our current amount of 70,000 tonnes split over some 150 sites would drop to below 5,000 tonnes. The nice thing about this approach is that it is much much cheaper to burn up that waste, and then bury something that will be radioactive for only 200 years.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[WindBourne]

So, simply run plants that are physically incapable of failure. An easy one is a thorium plant. Cheap to build and impossible to fail (if designed right).

Re:Nuclear Bias

[nbauman]

You don't like NASA?

Re:Nuclear Bias

[kellymcdonald78]

Don't forget the arsenic and other heavy metals that coat the turbine blades and need to be disposed of

Re:Nuclear Bias

[nbauman]

So the free market, where consumers make rational choices, doesn't work?

Re:Nuclear Bias

[jbengt]

I would argue the opposite. Humans suck at rationally appraising things with a small risk of a very big catastrophe. The simple expedient of multiplying the probability by the potential loss ($) substantially undervalues the actual risk when very big events are at stake.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[drinkypoo]

No, I mean, the output is not particularly wonderful for the input, which goes way beyond producing the equipment.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[LordLimecat]

Just going to put this out there:
  * Im pretty sure the coal plants didnt continue running after the tsunami.
  * Im also pretty certain noone died from either coal pollution, or from radiation after the tsunami (3 frontline workers got "concerning" doses, were released from hospital after a day)
  * That there were functional problems with the plant design doesnt mean that the concept of "get energy from nuclear fission" needs to be thrown out the window.
  * For all of their problems, the number of deaths from nuclear energy over the last ~60 years is far lower than the number of deaths from coal mining accidents.

The problem is and always has been perception.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[operagost]

I'm sure that won't alarm the anti-fracking crowd.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[TheTurtlesMoves]

This does not address the issue of running such plants safely. And please don't start with the "LFTR are 100% safe and nothing bad can happen", because if you do it demonstrates a pretty big misunderstanding of nuclear power in general. In particular you still have decay heat and if there is a core breach, the hot salts are either reactive with water or soluble. Making then just as problematic.

Sure they have advantages but almost all of these advantages have nothing to do with Thorium. But rather the fact that they are a homogeneous reactor (primary coolant is also the fuel). You get just about every advantage with U as you do with Th. And to top it all off a breading ratio of 1 has not been shown with Th either.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[CptNerd]

What has NASA done for us lately?

Re:Nuclear Bias

[Daniel Dvorkin]

I feel that there is a lot of stigma against nuclear energy these days (particularly here on Slashdot), and for good reason. However, I don't often see people making a case FOR nuclear power

I can only assume that your post crossed over from a different "Slashdot" in some alternate universe.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[nbauman]

Couple of communications satellites, telescopes in orbit.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[WindBourne]

Yeah, and the answer for that, is Simbol Materials.

In addition, most of those are sellable. BUT, the amount of those pollutants are minor compared to any other other form of large energy.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[WindBourne]

And yet, we have had MULTIPLE molten salt reactors and one commercial thorium reactor. All that is required for dealing with thorium salts, is to have multiple containment. Issue solved.

Finally, the nice issue of Th, is that is not fertile. That alone should be of interest.

However, anybody that thinks that either fossuel fuel, or wind, or solar will handle 100% of our energy is just a loon.

Finally, unlike most here, I HAVE worked with nukes and have a strong respect for them. In fact, I have suffered through an accident with P32 and deuterium. To work with that, we were required to go beyond my general physics that I had.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[Immerman]

It may be true that newer designs have better profit margins, but look at it from a business perspective: You have a plant that is currently making money. Sure you could acquire massive debt to build a new plant that will take decades to pay for itself in order to increase your average profit margins - but even if you did so, why would you shut down the old plant? As long as you're not going to be the one paying for the eventual catastrophe it makes more sense to keep running it as long as it's profitable.

Also factor in that any attempt to build a new reactor will almost certainly incite public outcry and perhaps draw unwelcome attention to current "cost saving" practices, potentially shutting down your current cash cow, and upgrading becomes a PR nightmare.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[kellymcdonald78]

Great, they can pull out the Li, Mg and Zn. What about the Arsenic, Mercury, Vanadium, Boron, Hydrogen Sulphide and Benzine? Some of the concerns about Fracking don't come from the hydraulic fluid being pumped into the ground, but the crap that's already down there. Dewatering shale gas reservoirs brings up all sorts of nasty stuff. The Geysers in California has had a number of problems in disposing of heavy metals in the past. With Arsenic and Benzine contamination detected down wind. The problem is folks anointing one power source as the be all and end all. The reality is we need a balanced approach to power generation, every method of generates pollution, has drawbacks, and is better suited to different locations.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[ae1294]

I was going to argue but actually this is exactly the right way to respond to people misquoting Nietzsche.

Have you read any Ayn Rand by the way?

Yes I read half her book before realizing that she is just another parasite like all the rest of you...

Re:Nuclear Bias

[ae1294]

Do you think Japan would ever risk becoming reliant on China for any significant amount of their energy supply, at least while China has its current political system?

It'd be neat as an optional "top up" source of power, but it seems a non-starter for anything more, at least in the short/medium term. For now, Japan's gotta figure something out on their own.

No not willingly... But it would have made a good PR stunt and cost them nothing. If Japan would have excepted (they wouldn't) it would have been a good export... It's not like the people of china can vote out their government and a little internal propaganda goes along way... ie (we are so much better than them they would never offer to help us)...

Re:Nuclear Bias

[TheTurtlesMoves]

We have had 2 molten salt reactors and none did *any* breading at all, aka there was no thorium. There was a little 233U. They where tiny and current plans are delayed or planed to take 20years or more. Its a long way from mature and as i said its not the Thorium make them good. In fact the whole molten salt thing was suggested to solve all the issues with Thorium fuel cycles. For example the really nasty gamma emitters that are suppose to make proliferation so hard, also make reprocessing very hard. Then there are neutron economy issues with the 233Pa... The list goes on, including the marginal breeding ratios.

32P is used as a tracer and is not even a gamma emitter, has a short half life and is reasonable safe to deal with on the scale of things (aka 234U etc). At least in the quantities that its available in. Deuterium is not radioactive at all, and is only dangerous if you drink it in quantities that will replace a significant portion of your current body water. Its controlled, but not much, we used it all the time in NMR.

You clearly know much less about nuclear physics that you are pretending to know. I don't believe for a second you have ever worked with a nuke.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[macshit]

Also the Chinese hate Japan.

Er, more correctly, some Chinese hate Japan. Many Chinese do not, of course, particularly amongst the younger generations (I live in Japan and know quite a few Chinese people). The same is true of Korea (a younger Korean I know described the well-publicized antipathy towards Japan as "sort of true, but kind of an old-person thing").

In any case, Japan does a lot of business with China (not only does Japan outsource huge amounts of manufacturing to China, but China is Japan's biggest export market, by far), and if this sort of project had gone through, it would be "strictly business," not based on mutual admiration....

Re:Nuclear Bias

[Electricity Likes Me]

Unlikely. Russia's ideal that it would be Europe's energy provider was rapidly overshadowed by it cutting off gas supply to the Ukraine in winter when they wanted to put the squeeze on them for contract re-negotiation - that *was* strictly business. People who hold no particular ill-will to Japan aren't the problem - they're apathetic. The people with strong opinions - who do remember these things (or simply studied history and pay attention to Japanese politics) - are the ones who'll end up shaping what policy looks like.

And in a situation where you're creating a very serious, fundamental dependency, that's going to turn nasty easily.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[pngai]

Earthquakes are a symptom of built-up stress, a result of a continuing natural process (movement of tectonic plates). As you know from your choice of the word "induces", the boreholes are relieving stress which would otherwise be released later in a more violent way.

This is a good thing.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[RockDoctor]

we could always use an old frack-hole and the broken-up shale could be a heat-exchanger?

Wearing my geological hard-hat ... the idea is starting from as poor position. Shales are sedimentary rocks, deposited in water, so they formed at low temperature (a few tens of degrees centigrade, no higher). They'll have got hotter with burial, but that will have been heat coming in from elsewhere (a small contribution from local radiogenic heat, but even the "hottest" shales, 300+API, are only a few hundreds of ppm U+Th+K). So, to get best efficiency it would almost always be better to go to the source of that heat. You'd then get a higher temperature difference and thus higher possible efficiency.

Carnot covered this in the foundations of thermodynamics nearly 2 centuries ago and it's not wrong.

Getting a large enough volume of rock sufficiently finely fractured to release enough heat for long enough to amortise the energy cost of building the wells ... that's the problem. You need as high a rock temperature as possible (for efficiency, above) at as shallow a depth as possible (to reduce the investment of energy, materials etc in the well). As someone mentioned up-thread - this adds up to being in a volcanic region, for optimal geothermal energy production. Which doesn't mean that it won't work elsewhere, just that it won't be optimal.

While still wearing my geologist's hard hat, and packing my bags to go and work on a Norwegian oil well tomorrow afternoon, I don't give a shit about whether I'm working on an oil well, a gas well, a water/ mud/ CO2 injection well, or a geothermal well. They all need geological planning and on-site supervision for well safety and optimisation. Which is my pay cheque, thank you. Not that saying that is going to quiet the conspiracy nutcases.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[RockDoctor]

Technically i am somewhat pro nuclear. However that is not the same as saying i trust the companies or governments or even the IAEA for that matter to do nuclear safe. And we still are not dealing with the waste we already have.

Which is why, for decades, I've been proposing that where ever possible, nuclear waste should be stored in locations that would guarantee that the first people to die if it is mis-handled are the politicians in charge of it.

In Britain, that means a relatively shallow waste repository in the London Clay Formation, with the entrance through the House of Commons. In Paris, it's not so clear. You'd probably have to have the repository much deeper in the "Greensand" (equivalent ; I've not drilled in the Paris Basin ; did I say that I'm a geologist?) to be below the aquifers in the Chalk Group. Berlin ... sorry, I know nothing about it's regional geology. Ditto for Washington DC.

But the important principle is simple : politicians will only pay for proper maintenance of waste dumps if they will be the first to die. So, you arrange for the politicians to be the first to die. Painfully, if possible. In the words of the meerkat, "Simples!"

Re:Nuclear Bias

[RockDoctor]

my own country (UK) have enough renewable resources to cover all our needs if fully developed. Scotland in particular is on target to be 100% renewable by 2020

And how are England, Wales and Northern Ireland going to manage if, as seems entirely plausible, the people of Scotland vote for independence in the 2014 referendum?

FWIW, in the 30 years that I've been living in Scotland, I've never yet heard a Scots Nationalist give a coherent answer to the Shetland question. If it's good for Scotland to take control of the majority of the north Sea oil production and secede from the UK, then it is exactly as good for Shetland to secede from the newly independent Scotland, and take over half the (UK sector's) oil reserves with them. Maybe they'd join up with the Noggins - the two nations have always got on well.

I get a vote. I haven't decided which way to vote. I suspect the vote is going to be quite close.

(On a sideline ... if Scotland breaks up the UK, would the English and Welsh be stupid enough to stay entangled with the mess that it Northern Ireland? That's totally unrelated to this topic. But it's amusing to consider the apoplectic fits that raising the question would provoke in "Loyalists.")

Re:Nuclear Bias

[WindBourne]

Actually, they can pull out a lot more. They do not because it is not economical.
And the geysers had issues because they WERE an open system. Now, they are moving all of their wells to closed.
The reason is that they have plenty of heat, but were losing pressure by taking too much water. So, all of the grips about minor items will go away.

Now, I FULLY agree that we need a BALANCED energy policy. Basically, we have far too many idiots that run around screaming that we should be all wind/solar and drop all of the others. Or some that scream that it should be all nukes and drop all of the others, etc. etc. etc. Hell, on the other side of this conversation is an idiot who is pretty much anti-nuke. Ppl like that get old.
When O said that our energy policy should be ALL OF THE ABOVE, he was dead on the money for that. Even coal can be used, if we simply convert it to methane and use that in electricity and commercial transportation.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[WindBourne]

Last time I checked, TWO is multiple.
And yes, I was in the biological world and a different one. I NEVER said that I was in power (and I doubt that you are as well). And yeah, I was not thinking when I posted. I should have said tritium, not deuterium. BUT, I still had to have the radiation courses to work with these back in early 80s. Things were a bit different than they are now.

Finally, it looks like things are going to my way anyways. Apparently, O has appointed a Secretary that will be pushing Thorium pretty hard. So, I am excited. And I do not expect us to take 20 long years to get the first reactor out. I hope for 5-6, but would expect 10.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[Rich0]

Having a single source for short half-life medical isotopes for a country the size of Australia is just insane. It isn't like you can fly them from Japan or the US before they decay. Just flying them across Australia is probably pushing it.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[Rich0]

You do realise that a coal power station would release more radioactive material in a few minutes of operation than TMI did, right?

Not bad, only an order of magnitude out.

Genuinely interested here - is it really only an order of magnitude out? If so you're saying you really do agree with the post you replied to, as I doubt most people would be bothered by the emissions of a coal plant over a few hours (which is more than an order of magnitude above a few minutes). Did you actually agree, or were you being sarcastic?

I really don't have a horse in this race. I think society needs to embrace nuclear power, but I don't trust the typical US corporation to run it.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[LienRag]

I'm not a specialist, but as far as I know the real reason is that dismantling a nuclear plant has a HUGE cost (no dismantlement was ever finished, so there is no way to even know the actual cost of the full operation), and nobody has the money to fund it for all the plants that are to be dismantled.

Re:Nuclear Bias

[TheTurtlesMoves]

It takes 10 years to build a plain power plant. 10 for a new design is dreaming. Your going to need at least 5 years of regulatory stuff at the very outside, then add live reprocess (kinda needed for the neutron economy). After its built it needs to be run for some years before you can call it validated.

MSR do have one very large advantage here. They don't need to validate the fuel element which takes years and is very expensive. Of course again this has nothing to do with Th.

no more homer simpsons and cut cutting MR burns

[Joe_Dragon]

no more homer simpsons and cut cutting MR burns

Bad Summary

[ohnocitizen]

This is becoming a Slashdot hallmark. The summary contradicts the article.

the nuclear renaissance is already dead due to the inherent short-sightedness of the "free market."

From the article linked in that very sentence:

Wall Street was already leery of the historically high costs of nuclear power. An abundance of natural gas, lower energy demand induced by the 2008 recession, increased energy-efficiency measures, nuclear’s rising cost estimates, and the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station further diminished prospects for private investment in new US nuclear plants.

Avoiding nuclear power because of (higher investment cost + greater risk of liability + less demand) does not sound like shortsightedness. It sounds like a wise move.

Re:Bad Summary

[CncRobot]

You should know by now, every move by the "free market" is evil and destructive to the middle class. Don't go confusing the issue with facts, those aren't welcome in a discussion that may turn political.

Re:Bad Summary

[Shikaku]

Coal and oil have their own hidden costs that are not apparent on any balance sheet and not easily calculatable.

Pollution has many known health effects. While a nuclear plant does pollute as long as the radiation is contained its effect is much smaller. With air pollution you have increased healthcare costs due to the treatment of any lung issue that arrises just to start, as well as increased Earth temeperature due to greenhouse gasses which makes us use more electricity which makes more pollution... etc.

Re:Bad Summary

[ArsonSmith]

Actually the free market is destructive to the poor. If we had more free market there would be far fewer poor people around to vote.

Re:Bad Summary

[mad flyer]

Check on all governemental subsidies before claiming nuclear power is disadvantaged...

And don't even get me started on the "Price-Anderson" tricks...

Once again, it's not the chance of an accident happening the big factor. It's the extend of the damage when such accident happens.

(Check out "we almost lost Detroit" for a better historical perspective of these shenanigans)

Re:Bad Summary

[Anonymous Coward]

While a nuclear plant does pollute as long as the radiation is contained its effect is much smaller.

Even ignoring containment issues, coal power plants produce more radioactive waste than nuclear power plants.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste
http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/1018/do-coal-plants-release-more-radiation-than-nuclear-power-plants

The issue is how much less efficient combustion reactions are than fission reactions. It takes so much more material to produce a given amount of energy that the trace amounts of radioactive materials in coal combustion outweigh the concentrated amounts used in nuclear fission.

Re:Bad Summary

[thegarbz]

The high investment costs and demand are not the work of the "free market". They are the work of vocal activists and government red-tape.

It's interesting to see nuclear being branded as too expensive these days. When it was first introduced it's price was one of it's most desirable features. The design and materials haven't changed much, so the only answer left can be external requirements like insurance and regulatory compliance.

The free market really is shortsighted.

Re:Bad Summary

[AK Marc]

OK, just checked again, Nuclear gets disadvantaged in many ways.

Re:Nuclear plants are strong

[aliquis]

Citation needed.

Foolspeak

[Anonymous Coward]

The free market is not inherently short-sighted. Every day people plant trees, for profit, without government force, such that they can be harvested 100 years from now. The asset will increase in value constantly, it is not necessary for any one investor to wait 100 years to get their payout.

Amazon's profits have NEVER been paid to investors (since going public, and probably before I just don't know that for sure). Not one penny. They have never paid a dividend. Nor has Google, nor many, many, many quickly growing companies. People invest in these companies, because they expect the company to grow, and will in turn sell there shares to people who will likely never see dividends themselves, and so on, until eventually, many years from now, a group of investors will (after buying out the previous generations), will begin receiving a trickle of actual profit.

The free market, when and to the extent it is allowed to exist is EXTREMELY far-sighted.

Even the bias towards 'quarterly profits' is truly indicative of where government regulation prevents the ideal outcome-- quarterly reporting would not be such a major factor in the decision process were regulations not so rigidly defined around such a reporting scheme.

Re:Foolspeak

[cheesybagel]

The problem with nuclear power plants is many fold. The cheapest models generate 250 MW and that is too much for many applications. Smaller reactors, like those used in naval vessels, usually use highly enriched uranium not available for civilian purposes. The cost in steel and concrete plus construction time (not less than 3 years more likely 5) mean you will have to wait a long time until your investment starts to pay off. You will have to fight a ton of regulations, legislation, protests, attempts to stall the project via injunctions, etc.

LNG power plants can be build in smaller units and put in place in 6 months or a year. In the long run they are more expensive to use because of the higher fuel costs. However the sheer multiplicative effect of having a shorter cycle time in adding generating capacity is very important. Plus LNG power plants can spool up and down to meet demand better than a nuclear power plant. Both have their uses. But it heavily depends on local conditions. If there is a LNG pipeline nearby it probably is the most sensible solution, unless there are nearby coal sources, or rivers to dam, if none of those apply nuclear is your best bet. Especially if you want low air pollution. Thus France, Japan, South Korea rely on nuclear a lot. While countries like US and China with large coal reserves still extant burn coal.

Re:Foolspeak

[TopSpin]

The free market, when and to the extent it is allowed to exist is EXTREMELY far-sighted.

The summary is a troll. Attributing the 'free market' to nuclear power indicates either ignorance or deceit and we're left to ponder which is worse.

Nuclear reactors represent astonishing amounts of wealth and coordination. It is a hallmark of advanced nations that such things are created. For a reactor to exist in the US it must have the blessing of all levels of government. Financing is often backed by one or more government entities. Federal and state governments must actively regulate it. First responders at each level are prepared for emergencies. Rate payers are involved in voting on proposals prior to construction and regulating on-going rates. The timeline (in contemporary Western nations and certain Asian nations) is at least a decade for construction and licensing is a matter of fractions of a century. People are sourced from rarified cohorts such as military navel reactor operators.

In the end the actual operator is a small and even negligible part of the equation. Invoking the 'free market' mantra when dealing with the troubles of nuclear power is a cop out.

Re:Foolspeak

[rastoboy29]

I'd like think that what you're saying is true, that the insane focus on quarterly earnings is due to government regulations, because that would make it (relatively) easy to fix.

I can even see how it might be true.

But I'd love to see some evidence that this is the case. Please!

Re:Foolspeak

[renoX]

> Nuclear reactors represent astonishing amounts of wealth and coordination. It is a hallmark of advanced nations that such things are created.

Except for one "little detail": creating nuclears reactors are one piece of a chain: mining ore, refining, disposing of the combustible and disassembling the nuclear reactor itself.
And in France, *we haven't dissambled our unused nuclear reactors*.
So I wouldn't call this a success .. for now!

Re:Nuclear plants are strong

[quenda]

There is no chance of restarting the three damaged reactors. Are you comparing to hydro dam failure? That is indeed worse.
But what about coal power in Japan? They must have numerous coal and gas-power stations along the coast, but I can find no information about any of them being seriously damaged by the tsunami.

Letting go of imaginary numbers

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to get very wrapped up in all the different calculations for all the different costs of various energy sources. Then I began to realize that most the 'costs' were violently manufactured and society never really has ever had much say in what it wants to use. I've since exited this merry-go-round of endless and unsolvable arguments about which is better in absence of letting people in society actually choose for themselves precisely because that is the only means by which to determine such things. In that absence, all we are debating about is make believe arbitrary numbers and figures that have no bearing on actual subjective preferences.

To see just a bit of what I mean about the inability to compare different services, take a look at this discussion on what happened to the nuclear power industry in england during the 90s when english people were permitted some freedom to actually choose what they wanted. Nuclear solutions stopped being even remotely feasible when real costs were permitted to be accrued to the actors responsible: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNnRXwPSGJk

Hopefully this will help you to get off this silly ride too.

Re:Letting go of imaginary numbers

[Anonymous Coward]

You claim the costs are manufactured, yet blame "real costs" for England's assault on the carbon cycle.

Cheap Electrical power wins!

[bobbied]

Although natural gas is now very cheap, you would still have to import scads of it to generate electrical power enough to supply what Japan lost when it shut down the atomic energy industry. In addition, you would need to build the generation capacity to replace the nuclear power plants. Therefore, I believe that the restarting of many nuclear power plants is necessary.

Nuclear is not any more dangerous than much of the alternatives out there so this is NOT a bad thing. It's the market providing electrical power in the most cost efficient and timely manor possible, in a country that needs cheap and abundant power to recover. Hopefully they have fixed any systemic issues in their government oversight program and can avoid future issues, but these kinds of issues are not about nuclear power, but effective government.

Good for Japan! Now lets start building some safer plants and really do this right..

Re:Cheap Electrical power wins!

[Malenx]

Tchernobul and Fukushima have not been decommissioned?

Re:Cheap Electrical power wins!

[jcdr]

There are actually more like hazardous stacks of radioactive wreaks that need constant attention.
A truly decommissioned plant is safe and can be converted into an other uses.

Re:Cheap Electrical power wins!

[thegarbz]

And yet between them have killed less people than most other major process catastrophies throughout history.

While we're on the subject of land, Fukushima Daiichi has a 10km exclusion zone around it. That's 77000 acres of land which is uninhabitable for a period of time.

Taking a look at the worlds largest solar power plant and scaling it from 300kWh to the 7.5GWh that Fukushima Daiichi generated, and it would use 72000 acres of land, permanently.

But OMG radiation right?

Re:Cheap Electrical power wins!

[theVarangian]

Nuclear is not any more dangerous than much of the alternatives out there so this is NOT a bad thing. It's the market providing electrical power in the most cost efficient and timely manor possible, in a country that needs cheap and abundant power to recover.

Whether or not it is dangerous depends on many things including whether you build nuclear powerplants in tsunami prone areas and on top of major earthquake faultlines... both of which the Japanes have done. With all due respect to Japan's need for cheap and abundant energy I think critics of nuclear power do have a point if Japan's neighbors have to worry about radioactive fallout everytime that country is hit by an earthquake or a tsunami. I am not trying to bash the Japanese, there are serious issues with nuclear reactors in India and with Soviet era plants in Russia and Eastern Europe just to name a few. I've also got my doubts about the state of Chinese reactors and some of the older ones in the USA and W-Europe.

Re:Cheap Electrical power wins!

[Jeremi]

And yet between them have killed less people than most other major process catastrophies throughout history.

In the most literal sense, that's probably true. But immediate death isn't the only problem that comes from a radiation disaster. Uprooting entire communities on a few hours' notice is not pleasant for anyone, and results in all kinds of indirect social costs.

And of course there is the monetary cost. Belarus estimates its costs from the Chernobyl disaster at $235 billion, and to this day Chernobyl is still eating up 5-7% of the budget of the Ukraine.

Taking a look at the worlds largest solar power plant and scaling it from 300kWh to the 7.5GWh that Fukushima Daiichi generated, and it would use 72000 acres of land, permanently.

Land that nobody was living on. That's a key difference -- when a solar plant goes up, it does so in a controlled and planned manner. People aren't turned out of their houses in the middle of the night and told they can never go home again. Neighborhoods aren't torn apart. Lives aren't ruined.

Re:Cheap Electrical power wins!

[jcdr]

Sure that the amount of radioactive material released by Tchernobyl and Fukushima is far below the 4.2 million m3, but there will last far far longer and have been disseminate without bound in the environment. The consequence is that it's difficult to predict where there will be concentrated, mostly by organic processing, but not only. There is report that some new buildings contain irradiated material for example.

Re:Cheap Electrical power wins!

[jcdr]

And if you take in account the risk perception by the population ? I think that you underestimate how much emotional can be the decision to live near a nuclear reactor with your children. And you cannot avoid emotional decision in a human community. The basis of this emotion is not only based on the number of dead, but also to the consequence on the survivors. In the two major civil nuclear accident, you have to add that the authority have massively lied about the scale of the problem. How can you expect that now people will believe pro nuclear saying that it's now under control ? There said that since the first civil nuclear plant and have been proved false at too many occasion.

Aircraft and cars for example kill a number of people each year, but even if the former is massively safer than the second, the risk perception is not necessary lower for the aircraft.

Re:Cheap Electrical power wins!

[AmiMoJo]

While we're on the subject of land, Fukushima Daiichi has a 10km exclusion zone around it.

20km actually. The land area isn't really the big issue, it is the fact that entire towns and cities are now uninhabitable. People were forced to leave their homes and their jobs disappeared instantly. Of course there was not nearly enough accommodation available tens of thousands of people all suddenly looking for somewhere to live either.

Numbers are not the real issue, people suffering is. In Japan the media has covered that aspect in much more depth, where as everywhere else the focus has been on the cold hard facts. That is natural I suppose, few foreign viewers will sit through extended subtitled interviews with people in foreign lands they know little about.

By the way, picking a totally unsuitable technology like solar PV and comparing it to nuclear does not make you smart. You could have at least compared it with solar thermal collectors.

How else

[ozduo]

do you build nukes?

"inherent short-sightedness of the free market."

[John Hasler]

Horseshit. There has never been anything remotely resembling a free market associated with nuclear power. As for shortsightedness it is hard to imagine anything more shortsighted then the way governments have reacted to nuclear accidents.

Re:Nuclear plants are strong

[cheesybagel]

They are using those old mothballed coal power plants right now where the nuclear reactors are offline but the cost of the imported coal is so high it is worsening the trade deficit and making Japan poorer as a result.

Re:Nuclear plants are strong

[cheesybagel]

PS: Gas power plants make less financial sense because of the low density of LNG means the transportation costs are quite high. Natural gas is cheapest where you have a LNG pipeline doing the transport.

Fukushima and regulatory failure?

[dgharmon]

"Supposedly, they are overhauling their nuclear regulatory agencies to fix the massive failure and regulatory capture that led to Fukushima being run unsafely"

Where do you source your 'facts'. Fukushima was never run unsafely. Fukushima was built in a known earthquake zone. Fukushima experienced an earthquake and flooding from a tsunami leading to a failure of the emergency generators which led to coolant failure which led to reactor mentdown. No amount of 'regulatory capture' could have prevented this.

Re:Fukushima and regulatory failure?

[miletus]

Perhaps regulatory capture would have required that the last line of defense against a meltdown, the backup diesel generators, should not have been in the basement of a plant located in a tsunami zone?

Re:Fukushima and regulatory failure?

[hawguy]

Perhaps regulatory capture would have required that the last line of defense against a meltdown, the backup diesel generators, should not have been in the basement of a plant located in a tsunami zone?

The earthquake exceeded the design limits for the plant - if they put the generators on towers or on the tops of buildings, they may have crashed to the ground when the quake hit. There's no guarantee that moving the generators higher would have made things better. In retrospect it's not hard to come up with a design that perfectly addresses all of the issues from the last disaster, the hard part is coming up with a design that addresses all of the issues of the next, unknown disaster.

Re:Fukushima and regulatory failure?

[rubycodez]

utter nonsense, the gensets at a nuke plant are huge and anchored to structural concrete, they aren't going to shake loose and fall off. are you imagining some pull-start unit on a cart for your house?

Re:Fukushima and regulatory failure?

[hawguy]

utter nonsense, the gensets at a nuke plant are huge and anchored to structural concrete, they aren't going to shake loose and fall off. are you imagining some pull-start unit on a cart for your house?

No, I'm picturing a 30 ton genset sitting on top of a structure designed to withstand a magnitude 7.9 quake getting hit with more ground movement than it was designed for when a 9.0 quake hits offshore, resulting in support structure failure.

Re:Fukushima and regulatory failure?

[drinkypoo]

Where do you source your 'facts'. Fukushima was never run unsafely. Fukushima was built in a known earthquake zone.

Every second that Fukushima was running was unsafe, because of where it was built; in a known tsunami zone, below ancient markers still standing explaining just what a bad idea it was.

No amount of 'regulatory capture' could have prevented this.

Preventing the US government from forcing Japan to place the reactors there would have prevented this... whoops

Re:Fukushima and regulatory failure?

[Electricity Likes Me]

Alternatively, decommissioning that reactor and replacing it with a more modern intrinsically safe design. The fundamental issue remained that the reactor needed active cooling to be safely shutdown.

Of course there's also other things: for example, designing the generators so they were hermetically sealed against water, and could have air intakes deployed to an arbitrary height for example. There wouldn't have been a problem then, since the water inundation wouldn't have stopped them from being powered up.

Re:Fukushima and regulatory failure?

[drinkypoo]

This what worries me about nuclear power. Ever since I was a kid it was "nuclear this" and "clean energy that" but as it is actually implemented in this country we have a bunch of shitty plants just like the ones in Fukushima which are situated on flood plains, near old fault lines that are supposed to be big when they finally go one day, and with spent fuel lying around waiting to become someone else's problem. I really want limitless cheap energy, but that's not how it's working out, is it?

Re:Fukushima and regulatory failure?

[theVarangian]

Perhaps regulatory capture would have required that the last line of defense against a meltdown, the backup diesel generators, should not have been in the basement of a plant located in a tsunami zone?

The earthquake exceeded the design limits for the plant - if they put the generators on towers or on the tops of buildings, they may have crashed to the ground when the quake hit. There's no guarantee that moving the generators higher would have made things better. In retrospect it's not hard to come up with a design that perfectly addresses all of the issues from the last disaster, the hard part is coming up with a design that addresses all of the issues of the next, unknown disaster.

They built that plant by the sea, in a country well known for tsunami disasters and made assumptions on how big tsunamis can get and where they can happen. Building the plant farther inland on higher ground would have at least left them with only the earthquakes to worry about, not both quakes and tsunamis.

Re:Fukushima and regulatory failure?

[AK Marc]

generators where they were wasn't an issue. Sealing them to work underwater and having intake and exhaust 60 feet in the air is easy. I've seen more done for under $10,000. It's a silly disaster when a small amount of remedial work would have prevented it.

Re:Fukushima and regulatory failure?

[AK Marc]

Preventing the US government from forcing Japan to place the reactors there would have prevented this... whoops

I hadn't heard that the US placed the plant. I can only imagine how much we controlled nuclear energy use in the land of Godzilla, but I didn't hear anything about it before.

Re:Fukushima and regulatory failure?

[luther349]

very true people seem to think you can perfectly addresses all issues when the simple fact is you cant. they got hit by 2 back to back disasters the first cutting there backup feed line from other plaints the second taking out the rest of there backup systems. and people are blaming them for what the perfect storm and acts of nature they where ready for but not all at once.

Re:Fukushima and regulatory failure?

[rubycodez]

the limiting factors on a nuke plants resistance to earthquakes mainly has to do with "plumbing", breaking pipes.

Note the buildings holding three new generators at Fukushima Diachi were fine and could have saved the day except their switchyard was in poor location that flooded

Re:"inherent short-sightedness of the free market.

[AlphaWolf_HK]

Exactly. There are leagues of politicians and activists who are going out of their way to prevent nuclear power from being affordable so that it doesn't happen, which is exactly what they want. This is much more of the government being short sighted.

I think the editor just has an axe to grind with capitalism. Granted its not perfect, but neither is democracy. However both have historically worked better than the alternatives.

In any case, that's no reason to throw out you're supposed objectivity. This is exactly the kind of shit that kdawson used to pull, and everybody hated him for it until he finally left Slashdot.

Re: Nuclear Stupidity ..

[dgharmon]

"I feel that there is a lot of stigma against nuclear energy these days"

No, we're against the stupidity of building a nuclear reactor over where two tectonic plates rub up against one another.

Re:Nuclear accidents shouldn't be possible

[jcdr]

Yes, there isn't any safe type of power generation, but the high concentration of long half live highly radioactive isotopes make the nuclear generation in a category of his own regarding long term risk.

Re:Nuclear plants are strong

[mad flyer]

Coal prices are negociated on quite a long span... No price changed yet on the current supply contract (australia and vietnan)

Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors

[weilawei]

I'm surprised no one seems to have mentioned this, but we ran a very safe (for the time) molten-salt reactor, AKA the LFTR (liquid fluoride thorium reactor). Later, total decommisioning was found to be an issue, but we've done what scientists and engineers do: find solutions. From Wiki: "Much of the high cost was caused by the unpleasant surprise of fluorine and uranium hexafluoride evolution from cold fuel salt in storage that ORNL did not defuel and store correctly, but this has now been taken into consideration in MSR design.[22]"

Nuclear is here to stay, in one form or another, unless humans cease to exist. Note that I didn't say "cease to exist tomorrow or next week." Try to think long-term. If you still can't wrap your head around the idea that nothing in the universe comes for free, and that we are stuck on a very small rock, your Buxton Index might not be the same as mine.

Re:Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors

[Anonymous Coward]

And when they actually try to build the new variant will probably find another few 100s of issues nobody thought of before.
There's a reason no private investor has even the slightest intention of spending money on nuclear.

Re:Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors

[KonoWatakushi]

It is easy to spout such nonsense out of ignorance, but there is a wealth of research that shows that the concept is perfectly sound. Moreover, they ran a test reactor for about five years and discovered no issues that were not easily solved. The only thing that remains is a solid engineering and development effort, and a government that will allow it to happen. Technology doesn't develop itself, and nuclear is no exception.

Private investors are already funding nuclear development--though mostly outside of the US. The primary barrier to development of this technology is the suffocating regulatory environment. The nuclear regulatory commission is profoundly anti-nuclear, and they make their money by dragging out reviews for a decade while billing by the hour. They also have no provision for licensing and development of newer and better technologies, so we are stuck with reactors that are a relic of times long past.

Re:Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors

[KonoWatakushi]

The decommissioning mess was created by politicians, and should have been avoided. Unfortunately, they abruptly cancelled the program with no provision for cleaning up the salts. This would have been a straightforward and inexpensive proposition if they were not left to sit for decades.

Re:Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors

[olau]

It is easy to spout such nonsense out of ignorance, but there is a wealth of research that shows that the concept is perfectly sound. Moreover, they ran a test reactor for about five years and discovered no issues that were not easily solved. The only thing that remains is a solid engineering and development effort, and a government that will allow it to happen.

... and huge subsidies to pay for it.

Maybe that would be worth it, maybe not.

Re:Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors

[KonoWatakushi]

Loan guarantees are not subsidies, and nuclear is guaranteed to generate cheap and clean power over the long term. Other energy sources (including fossil fossil fuels and renewables) do require huge subsidies, but nuclear is not among them.

LFTRs are nothing like conventional nuclear plants. There have been five studies over the years that place the median cost around $2/W installed, allowing it to undercut even coal. This isn't magic or wishful thinking, it is the logical result of a radically different design. Molten salt reactors are passively safe, run and at atmospheric pressure, and are not cooled by water. Hence, they do not require the enormous concrete containment domes, 9-inch thick pressure vessels, or highly redundant engineered safety systems.

Fluoride salts are among the most chemically stable substances on earth. There is nothing to explode, nothing to react violently with air or water. Indeed, nothing to propel radioactivity into the environment should things go south. Even if you physically rupture the reactor, the salt will just drain, cool, and solidify. Afterwards, the mess is totally solid--you can go pick up the pieces of salt, and stick them back in a reactor.

Re:Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors

[crdotson]

A valiant try, but you don't get it. The US energy policy for many years has been "ook radiation scary!". :)

I frankly think that the anti-nuclear crowd isn't going far enough. Generating ANY energy is clearly just too dangerous.

Re:Nuclear accidents shouldn't be possible

[walshy007]

long half live highly radioactive

The more radioactive something is, the shorter it's half-life. Just so you know. The worst of the worst have half-lives of seconds, The still nasty stuff has one of days/weeks, etc.

not the least bit surprised

[v1]

with another summer coming up, Japan has been hurting for power after the shutdowns. Such a small land mass and so many people, nuclear power is really their best option. It takes a LOT of power to AC that many people on a sweltering Japanese summer day.

Nuclear energy could be a great boon if...

[Anonymous Coward]

The damn hippies, closed minded politicians, oil companies, coal producers and so on would shut their mouths.

Nuclear energy is a amazing thing that is really a great boon to us. But the problem is everyone tries to cock block it (mostly due to old concepts and misinformation) so we are stuck with old technology and old technology doesnt stand up so yes we have problems with it. But what people dont realize is they dont want new nuclear plants, so we have ones that are way to old and have problems, those problems make people not want more nuclear energy so instead of letting us use new designs and build new plants they make us us the old unsafe ones.

Its essentially like saying "Seat belts? You shouldnt be using cars at all, we dont want you making cars or redesigning them at all because too many people die in them" so instead of making cars safer and better people are stuck using the unsafe models because the general consensus is the old models arent safe.

Nuclear energy has a bad name because everyone is all "GO GREEN!" and automatically thinks that nuclear energy will poison our planet and rape our familes. Why? Because of bad information and bad misconceptions. Nuclear energy is more efficent, uses less resources, more potent and cleaner than what we use now. PLus its use could be lowered in a lot of places where water and wind energy could be also. A major city that taps in nuclear, wind and or water reduces the need for any one of them since they are using them together. Nuclear energy in some places could be the sole source of energy if need be, but in a lot of places it could be used with other forms of natural energy combined.

Re:Nuclear energy could be a great boon if...

[weilawei]

+1, but I'm out of mod points. It's not phrased in a PC manner, so I expect this'll wind up at the bottom of the heap, but hey, AC is pretty spot on.

Re:Nuclear energy could be a great boon if...

[AmiMoJo]

You have no idea.

For us as consumers it is better to save energy. It costs less and the money is spent improving our homes and our lives directly. The average Japanese or German home uses 1/3rd the energy that a US one does and they are not walking around in the dark or freezing cold or anything like that.

For politicians nuclear is a huge burden on the state due to massive subsidy. It is also unpopular. In a democracy that isn't going to get you very far.

For power companies they look at the high costs and uncertainties of nuclear and decide it is better to stick with dirty but known methods. Why get into constant fights with the government over subsidy and regulation over nuclear? Plus renewables are popular and improve your company image, while being fairly competitive on price (especially wind, hydro and geothermal).

It's the damn nuke-u-like brigade who are blind to the realities of the world and think because nuclear looks good on paper it must be the best option in real life who are fucking things up.

Re:Nuclear energy could be a great boon if...

[olau]

I'm sorry, but you are misinformed. Even without hippies etc., new nuclear plants are expensive. They are not competitive. Look it up if you don't believe me.

People are proposing new designs - but how's having to work out the kinks of new designs going to cut already high capital costs?

Nuclear energy in some places could be the sole source of energy if need be

Now where would that place be? I don't think it's anywhere on earth.

(Hint: a new nuclear power plant needs to deliver near constant output to be cost-effective, but consumption is far from constant. You can only use 100% nuclear with storage or heavy, heavy subsidies.)

Re:Nuclear energy could be a great boon if...

[swillden]

The average Japanese or German home uses 1/3rd the energy that a US one does and they are not walking around in the dark or freezing cold or anything like that.

It's worth pointing out that the median German home is 1/2 the size of the median US home, and Japanese homes are even smaller. So it's likely that most of that conservation is achieved not by more efficient heating/cooling/lighting but by having less space to heat, cool or light. Americans could invest in LED lights, more insulation, tankless water heaters, etc., and reduce their energy budgets by a non-trivial amount, but reaching European, much less Asian, levels would require living in smaller homes.

Of course, you can argue that Americans don't need so much space and should downsize their homes, but that's a non-trivial lifestyle downgrade, rather than just a slight alteration of approach as you're suggesting.

Re:Nuclear energy could be a great boon if...

[AmiMoJo]

Size doesn't have much to do with it actually, if your house is properly insulated.

If your homes were as good as ours it would be a major lifestyle upgrade for you, and you wouldn't have to downsize at all.

Re:Nuclear energy could be a great boon if...

[swillden]

Size doesn't have much to do with it actually, if your house is properly insulated.

This is clearly false, since for a given insulation factor heat transfer is proportional to exterior surface area, and exterior surface area has an obvious (though not simple; layout matters a lot) relationship with square footage of living space.

Also, insulation is not free. Increasing insulation for a given home increases the cost of the home. It may or may not decrease total cost of ownership, depending on the cost of energy. You're assuming that it will lower TCO, which is true to a point, but only to a point. Personally, I've done the math and energy costs would have to rise substantially before adding insulation to my 350 m^2 home would be cost-effective.

Re:Nuclear energy could be a great boon if...

[AmiMoJo]

You missed the point. If your house is insulated it doesn't need much, if any heating or cooling. Obviously extremely large dwellings will need significantly more, but not on the scales we are talking about. Also you can get a lot of heating for free by reflecting in light during the day or recycling waste heat from hot water boilers, appliances and cooking.

Insulation doesn't cost much, especially if installed during construction but even afterwards it can be fairly cheap to do now. My house is fairly large, bigger than typical US dwellings, and I was only quoted £350 for full cavity wall insulation and loft insulation. That would pay for itself in a year or two maximum. Double glazed windows are pretty much standard now. Draft exclusion costs very little.

Re:Nuclear energy could be a great boon if...

[mcguiver]

For us as consumers it is better to save energy. It costs less and the money is spent improving our homes and our lives directly.

I agree that we should not be wasteful in our energy usage, but why should I have to give up some comforts that I enjoy just because we are too afraid of the unknown (nuclear)? I enjoy having a home that gives my kids room to run. It is nice to be able to run a dishwasher to do my dishes for me. It is really nice to have a clothes dryer for all of the laundry that inevitably comes with having young kids.

Nuclear can supply us with inexpensive, clean energy. Everyone talks about the extensive nuclear subsidies, but the subsidies are nothing compared with what renewables get. And it is nothing compared to the indirect subsidies that coal and natural gas yet by not having to deal with their waste stream. The very fact that nuclear plants are able to be reasonably competitive in price (current low natural gas prices aside) is absolutely amazing considering that nuclear plants are paying a "tax" to cover the cost of waste disposal. In addition nuke plants are required to maintain a decommissioning fund to cover the cost of cleanup when the plant shuts down.

Compare that to coal, gas, and renewable sources. Coal and gas emit tons of pollution freely. There are abandon wind and solar farms where the owners just walked away leaving their crap to pollute the land. Yet these costs have never been added into the subsidy calculation.

If we want cheap, affordable, clean power then nuclear is the only way to go. Unfortunately the public is largely ignorant about the realities of nuclear and instead has been fed a steady diet of Hollywood and environmentalist propaganda that over hypes the terror potential and completely misses the boat on even the most basic technical points.

We also have a Congress and NRC that includes a bunch of ignorant louses that also fail to grasp a basic understanding of the way a nuclear plant works or the actual effects of radiation. The result is insane regulations that cause plants to spend millions and millions of dollars on safety equipment to protect from 1-in-a-million type scenarios. They are able to push through endless regulations but can't manage to assess and promote new technologies in reactor design and waste management to deal with the real problems that do currently exist.

The science and technology is there to make nuclear a great asset. Unfortunately we are stuck with ignorant politicians and public that are driven by smarmy propaganda and hype.

Re:Nuclear energy could be a great boon if...

[jamessnell]

Well said friend

Re:Nuclear energy could be a great boon if...

[swillden]

If your house is insulated it doesn't need much, if any heating or cooling.

Only if you live in a mild climate. Where I live you absolutely need significant heating in the winter, and you'll be more comfortable with some cooling in the summer... no matter how well-insulated the house is, because, for example, in the winter it's not uncommon to go weeks with the temperature rarely rising above freezing.

Re:Nuclear energy could be a great boon if...

[AmiMoJo]

If you live in the house during that time you are generating heat. Body heat, appliances, cooking etc. You do not need additional heating if it is very well insulated. There are houses in the colder parts of the UK and northern Europe like that, even in Norway where they don't see daylight for six months.

Re:Nuclear energy could be a great boon if...

[AmiMoJo]

I agree that we should not be wasteful in our energy usage, but why should I have to give up some comforts that I enjoy just because we are too afraid of the unknown (nuclear)?

No no no, you get to have more comforts by saving energy! Better insulated buildings are more comfortable to live in with more consistent temperature inside and no drafts. The money you save on heating can be spent on other things you want.

You can have a dishwasher that doesn't cost you so much to run. You can have your nice big house and more money to spend on your kids education and on family outings. Plus there won't be as much pollution around, so less cleaning and they are less likely to suffer from respiratory diseases.

Re:Nuclear energy could be a great boon if...

[redlemming]

It seems like this discussion is comparing apples and oranges.

Having some houses in Europe, even in Norway, that are very well insulated does not mean that all houses in Europe are equally well insulated. For less well insulated houses, house size would then become a factor.

I think you'd need to do some more research before you could justify concluding that the quality of insulation, rather than house size, determines the (purported) ability of Europeans to consume less energy.

To start with, are we sure we're measuring energy consumption correctly, and doing it in the same way for both populations? Are we comparing energy consumption of houses, or do commercial buildings get added into the mix? What about buildings that are both commercial and residential?

Further, without some more detailed data on where and how energy is being consumed, it is hard to compare the energy consumption of two groups of people and draw useful conclusions. For example, 1. Is most of the difference in energy consumption coming down to heating and cooling the house, or are there other high sources of energy consumption (perhaps different patterns of preparing food, or patterns of lighting usage) that affect the energy usage? 2. Is air conditioning, cleaning, and/or humidification (or dehumidification) used to the same extent in the two populations? 3. Are the population numbers in cold areas, or windy areas, or areas with both high heat and humidity, the same? For that matter, cold humid areas might results in different patterns of energy usage from dry humid areas. 4. Are the energy differences primarily associated with losses in people's houses, or with commercial buildings, or with inefficiencies in the generation and distribution of power?

Another possible complication would involve looking at fundamental building technology. Are there differences in the numbers of wood versus brick houses (or other structures) between Europe and the USA, and if so what impact does this have on the cost of insulation? What other environmental impacts do different housing technologies have? Are there differences in the ratio of newer to older houses between the two areas, and what impact does this have on energy consumed?

Another set of things to think about would be 1) how much energy is consumed to produce the technologies needed for high insulation, 2) how much energy is needed to transport and install these technologies, and 3) how much energy is needed to rebuild older houses to bring them up to modern standards. Also, 4) what energy costs are associated with legislation of high-insulation standards, the implementation of these standards, and the enforcement of them? Then, 5) what are the long term energy costs of maintaining the high-insulation technologies?

Further, energy costs are not the only consideration. It takes time and money to do things, so if we are spending time and money to "improve" the environment by improving the insulation of homes, what environmental problems are we forced to not work on because our supply of time and money is finite?

Are there subtle negative environmental impacts from the use of the more modern, high-insulation technologies, such as issues resulting from some aspects of the production, distribution, installation, and maintenance processes for these technologies?

We might also ask if there are negative environmental impacts, or other types of negative impact, such as negative impacts on a society, resulting from having smaller houses. Are there things people have to do differently, in the course of their lives, as a result of living in a smaller house that have a negative impact on the environment? Are more people living in shared houses or apartments in one society than the other, and what impact does this have on the society?

Finally, what subtle, long-term health impacts might result from long term exposure to closed environments, such as we find in extremely well insulated houses?

Re:Nuclear energy could be a great boon if...

[mcguiver]

I agree that conserving energy is a good thing, there is no point in being wasteful. However, conservation will only get you so far. You can only insuate a house so tight, energy efficient appliances can only go so far, etc. The question is where do we get the rest of our energy from? Two major factors in considering where we are going to get our energy from are cost and pollution. You can become as efficient as possible, reduce your monthly consumption by 25%, but if your energy costs are doubled then you are still paying more. Likewise, if you go for cheap and replace nuclear and renwables with coal then even with conservation you still end up polluting more.

As nations increase their standard of living the demand for energy will only increase. Nuclear is the best option we have to provide clean, affordable energy.

Re:Nuclear energy could be a great boon if...

[swillden]

There are houses in the colder parts of the UK and northern Europe like that, even in Norway where they don't see daylight for six months.

Cite?

Re:"inherent short-sightedness of the free market.

[mdielmann]

I think the editor just has an axe to grind with capitalism. Granted its not perfect, but neither is democracy. However both have historically worked better than the alternatives.

Unfortunately, capitalism is such a general term that it means almost nothing. It's kind of like saying "mammals do pretty well in most environments". It doesn't say much about humans, or if I want to visit some of those locales. Free market capitalism seems to have as many problems as heavily regulated capitalism, just different problems. Like most things, it probably works best with a certain balance, which has rarely if ever been achieved.

Re:Nuclear plants are strong

[quenda]

Natural gas is cheapest where you have a LNG pipeline doing the transport.

Liquid pipeline? Don't you mean CNG?

Re:Nuclear plants are strong

[cheesybagel]

If the prices are negotiated in dollars and the dollar goes up against the yen consumer purchasing power will decrease.

Re:"inherent short-sightedness of the free market.

[drinkypoo]

As for shortsightedness it is hard to imagine anything more shortsighted then the way governments have reacted to nuclear accidents.

How about the way governments have handled regulation of nuclear power and waste?

Case for nuclear

[wakeboarder]

You can make nuclear safe, but it depends on your tolerance level. I personally don't understand why their aren't places in the world that you can't put a plant, don't put them next to population centers, don't put them next to high risk areas. Fukushima and Chernobyl are the outliers on the graph, they both had bad conditions that led to their demise. Plus, all of the plants that have failed were gen 1 plants, there are designs now that shut down by physical design. It is possible to build a safe nuclear plant, 99% or more of them have run just fine, every day and provide a good base power to supply our needs. A big problem in our society is we want to have our cake and eat it too. We want cheap power, but somehow we have convinced ourselves that we can turn the lights on, but shouldn't have to deal with the consequences. You can't build wind, it kills the birds and it looks bad in a backyard. You definitely cannot build hydro, it is too damaging. You cant have coal, it makes the world too warm. And now you can't have nuclear, not anywhere, because of two accidents. (Thank goodness for natural gas and the timing of it). Someday, we will figure out how to develop a cheaper energy source (maybe fusion, maybe something else, but that day is not today, and we need something to tide us over until then)

Re:"inherent short-sightedness of the free market.

[AlphaWolf_HK]

Replace the you're with your of course (damn tablet autocorrect).

Re:Nuclear accidents shouldn't be possible

[walshy007]

In a similar amount, I'd take plutonium over polonium any day.

Re: Nuclear Stupidity ..

[AK Marc]

And doing so with a design and layout that guarantees a meltdown in case of a flood. The water at a high level would flood the generator and fuel, and there would not be enough time to shutdown the reactors. Either build the generators to resist floods, or build passively cooled reactors. You can run a generator underwater if it's designed for it and the intake is run down from above the water level. And you can design reactors to run cooling based off waste heat until it's safe. But no, they put an unsafe design in an unsafe location. Though I haven't heard enough facts to tell if there would have been a meltdown without the flood. The flood did cause it, but rumours have it that #3 would have melted down from the earthquake, but since backups and such were out, we may never know for sure.

Production by saving

[Max_W]

A house of 10000 square feet (1000 square meters) for a couple, a car of 12000 pounds (3000 kg) are unsustainable. Not matter what sort of energy is being used.

The catastrophe in Japan was caused by excessive energy usage on geological scale, the same as no less catastrophic New York and New Jersey flooding last November.

Japan could just change business dress code, and they would not need these additional power stations. Instead of heavy business suites and long sleeve white shirts, which require immense amounts of energy for air-conditioning of offices, transportation inside air-conditioned motorized vehicles, daily dry cleaning, they could introduce compulsory classic style shorts and short sleeve shirts. That's it. Problem solved.

But the social change is the most difficult. It is easier to build new nuclear or coal power stations, cause new climate catastrophes, spoil the land completely, than to change people's attitudes.

Re:Production by saving

[GameboyRMH]

A 12000lb car? An H2 weighs about 8klbs, your average sedan is about 3klbs. 12klbs is almost the weight of a semi truck.

Re:Production by saving

[Max_W]

Yes, I've made a calculation error in pounds. I am from a metric region.

By the way, that is how at least one aircraft and one spacecraft were lost. One has to remember how many pounds in kilogram and how many feet in meter.

I don't know about this...

[Doalwa]

it seems to me that the average risk of devastating Earthquakes and resulting Tsunamis haven't really changed in favor of the Japanese population...the folks over there sure like to gamble.

The linked article is pretty interesting

[olau]

Hey, if you are interested in nuclear power, do read the article Unknown Lamer links to: How to close the US nuclear industry: Do nothing. It has nothing to do with Japan, but offers an explanation to why there's little development of nuclear in the US. Excerpt:

In phase two, from roughly 1978 to 1990, rising nuclear construction costs met falling fossil fuel prices, emerging energy efficiency efforts, and the success of independent power generators enabled by the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978. The result was an end to nuclear construction in the United States.

And:

Those who have not followed the development of competitive power markets over the past 35 years sometimes blame the collapse of new nuclear orders on a loss of public confidence and a surge in costly overregulation following the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island. If these were the true causes, the remedies might indeed lie in more political support and a streamlined licensing process, but neither evidence nor experience supports this scenario.

Re:"inherent short-sightedness of the free market.

[olau]

This is discussed in TFA:

Those who have not followed the development of competitive power markets over the past 35 years sometimes blame the collapse of new nuclear orders on a loss of public confidence and a surge in costly overregulation following the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island. If these were the true causes, the remedies might indeed lie in more political support and a streamlined licensing process, but neither evidence nor experience supports this scenario.

How to close the US nuclear industry: Do nothing

(I'm not going to repeat the long explanation afterwards backing up the above claims.)

I guess they discovered..

[EmagGeek]

.. that you can't boil rice with naive idealism.

MOD PARENT UP

[Medievalist]

The original article was a total troll anyway:

However, it looks like unless action is taken the nuclear renaissance is already dead due to the inherent short-sightedness of the "free market."

Reality check: the inherent robustness of the free market would prevent any "nuclear renaissance" in the absence of government interference, because nuke plants aren't economically viable in a free and fair market.

The rest of the world could have working LENR reactors or sustainable biofuels and Internet nuke shills would still be calling for massive government intervention and sponsorship to build their beloved fission plants. Somehow the tax-funded market distortion required, and the militarization of power production that results, just doesn't bother a die-hard nuke shill, even though they almost always claim to be free market libertarians. A real libertarian, though, would understand that the market has ruled against fission and that argument's been over for decades, instead of crying for more Bush/Cheney style, taxpayer funded market distortions.

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[Eunuchswear]

The rest of the world could have working LENR reactors [...] A real libertarian, though [...]

Unsuprisingly, someone who believes in crackpot science also believes in crackpot politics.

Re: Nuclear Stupidity ..

[Eunuchswear]

And don't forget to put the fucking hydrogen recombiners in.

Re:Nuclear accidents shouldn't be possible

[kellymcdonald78]

Plutonium 239 is not highly radioactive. It's an alpha emitter which you can hold it in your hand without concern. Sure, you don't want to inhale any dust as long term exposure to soft tissue can cause cancer, but its not "melt your face off" radioactivenas depicted in the movies. Beyond that it is a toxic heavy metal, but gram for gram, caffeine is far more poisonous.

Feeling Validated

[jamessnell]

I'm feeling validated to see this. When I heard they said they were coming off nuclear power, I laughed pretty hard. That's because it's a massive population in a tiny area. They use large amounts of power and don't have oil resources. I figure their only option at all is to run on nuclear power. I think they'll want to obviously heavily beef-up their safety regulations. They should also really seriously consider LFTR reactors as an alternative, since they seem very viable and a lot safer (and more productive). I hope Japan's paid their debts when it comes to atomic-based nightmares. Nuclear power has it's problems, but it does also have its merits. And there are no comparable alternatives, despite what "green" types will claim.

Careful, that sort of thing can backfire on you.

[Medievalist]

The rest of the world could have working LENR reactors [...] A real libertarian, though [...]

Unsuprisingly, someone who believes in crackpot science also believes in crackpot politics.

Since my post endorsed neither LENR nor libertarianism, I must assume you have crackpot reading skills. Very sleazy Breitbarting of my post, by the way; did you take a shower afterwards?

But if you're looking for someone to endorse LENR, you could try NASA Langley.

Oh, snap!

The current situation is that we now have over two decades of hundreds of experiments worldwide indicating heat and transmutations with minimal radiation and low energy input. By any rational measure, this evidence indicates something real is occurring. So, is LENR "Real?" Evidently, from the now long standing and diverse experimental evidence. And, yes - with effects occurring from using diverse materials, methods of energy addition etc. This is far from a "Narrow Band" set of physical phenomena. -- Dennis Bushnell, Chief Scientist, NASA Langley Research Center

Re:Nuclear accidents shouldn't be possible

[jcdr]

I appear that the reality is a bit more complex: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-level_waste