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Duke Energy Scraps Plans For Florida Nuclear Plant, Forced To Delay Others
mdsolar writes
"According to the Associated Press, 'The largest utility in the U.S. is scuttling plans to build a $24.7 billion nuclear power plant in a small Gulf Coast county in Florida, the company announced Thursday. Duke Energy Corp. said it made the decision because of delays by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in issuing licenses for new plants, and because of recent legislative changes in Florida.' Meanwhile, 'Duke Energy's plans to build two nuclear reactors in South Carolina have been delayed by federal regulators who say budget cuts and changes to the plans require more time. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission told Duke in a letter that a final hearing on plans to build the William S. Lee nuclear plant in Cherokee County would have to wait until 2016. The original target had been this past March."
Either these kinds of plants are ok or they are not. If not, ban them. If so, get the hell out of the way.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I don't think the gulf coast is a good place for a nuke plant anyway what with hurricanes getting stronger and more frequent
That's a CYA policy. Parents have a nasty habit of making a ruckus if a school gives their kids anything they didn't agree to. It's probably a permission ship to be able to give iodine tablets to the students in the event of a meltdown. So even though those tablets would likely help keep the kids from getting thyroid cancer parents would bitch at the school for doing it without permission.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
Like it or not, poor oversight can't be removed from a discussion of the technology. If you are building a nuclear plant, you need to be confident that you will be able to maintain responsible oversight/operations/maintenance of the facility for 60 plus years, with oversight/maintenance/storage of the waste for longer. You can have every confidence in the design, in the current owners and the operators when it begins operation, but they will likely be retired if not dead by the time the plant closes. All it takes is one few year period where bad management / operations / regulation comes in and a disaster can happen.
For the record, cheap natural gas and a general lack of growing electricity demand is making developing a nuclear plant pretty questionable at the moment. You have to spend (i.e. borrow) a ton of money up front, on the expectation you will need the energy in 5-10 or more years and that the price of power will have increased sufficiently. Alternatively you can wait it out, see what happens to demand and if needed throw up a gas-fired plant quickly for much less capital and a pretty reasonable operations costs.
All of the nuclear accidents in history have happened because of poor oversight, not to the fault of the technology itself.
The oversight IS a part of the technology. If the technology were flawless and relatively safe then extensive regulation and oversight would not be needed. I'm not opposed to nuclear power but pretending that the oversight can be separated from the equipment is naive.
They *lost* billions because the government forced them to cancel it, and now you want to double their losses by making them pay the same amount to the government? I don't care if it was the government's money to begin with; you don't get to give a bunch of money to someone to buy something, then steal it from them, then demand the money back!
I mean I'm no fan of corporations -- I've nearly been arrested protesting quite a few though Occupy, the Tar Sands blockade, etc....but seriously?