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Its Nuclear Plant Closed, Maine Town Is Full of Regret
mdsolar writes in with a story about the fallout from a nuclear plant closing on a small town in Maine. "In a wooded area behind a camouflage-clad guard holding an assault rifle, dozens of hulking casks packed with radioactive waste rest on concrete pads — relics of the shuttered nuclear plant that once powered the region and made this fishing town feel rich. In the 17 years since Maine Yankee began dismantling its reactors and shedding its 600 workers, this small, coastal town north of Portland has experienced drastic changes: property taxes have spiked by more than 10 times for the town's 3,700 residents, the number living in poverty has more than doubled as many professionals left, and town services and jobs have been cut. 'I have yet to meet anyone happy that Maine Yankee is gone,' said Laurie Smith, the town manager. 'All these years later, we're still feeling the loss of jobs, the economic downturn, and the huge tax increases.'"
Think of the space probes
The real issue isn't with Maine Yankee leaving...it's that the members the town thought it would be around forever.
The problem they are experiencing is the same one that most small towns (and some big ones) experience when they tie all their hopes and dreams on one industry instead of using tax revenues generated from that industry to help pull additional industries into their city.
A small town loses a lot when the big business that was there has left.
Not quite sure why it's worth an article, or why it matters that it was a nuclear power plant though.
On one side we have a lot of people talking technology and facts about something that few people understand and can't observe.
On the other we have people who are afraid, on a gut level, about something they don't understand and a deep mistrust towards the technical people. The technical people consider these guys stupid and irrational.
A sane dialogue is a complete nonstarter. They can't even agree about what's sane.
TCAP-Abort
Settlements come and settlements go. That is the nature of the settlement! This has been the nature of settlement since the very beginning.
It does not matter if it is primitive people sleeping around a fire in tents, or a large city of antiquity, or an American town of today. Changing times bring changing economies which bring changes to where people reside.
So why the surprise? Why the dumbfounding? When situations change, people must change. They must move. They must adapt. It is the way of the world; the way it has always been.
They had 17 years to move out. I don't fault the plant closing, If you have that much lead time, I would have gotten out.
the fallout from a nuclear plant closing
Maybe the fallout will cause a mutation in the town's economy.Together with the economic downturn it could be a toxic combination, resulting in an civic apocalypse.
And in North Dakota, the opposite thing is happening. We can't all have everything, we need to select the best and least toxic way to fuel our country's demand for energy and pursue it. The Mainiacs would be screaming twice as loud if the nuclear plant had suffered an event that released even modest levels of radioactivity into their pristine environment. They should be celebrating - they gambled, they won. (Except for the multi billion dollar cleanup, even without a meltdown.)
Except that Nuclear is still the best solution if you are talking about the least toxic, unless you ignore all the fracking, and greenhouse emissions, and other issues that comes with burning carbon fuels. Renewable is not there yet to support the people.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
At some point, this is going to happen to San Francisco, and the entire so-called Silicon Valley.
While the economy of this region was once diversified, ranging from professional services to software development to computer hardware development to heavy industry, we've seen much of that flee over the years.
These days, the companies and people that remain are nothing compared to the giants of days gone by. They are strangers walking through the ruins of what was once a great civilization. They try to imitate what they see, but they lack the inherent essence of what The Valley was in its heyday.
Some people call it economic stagnation; I prefer to call it rampant hipsterism. That which mattered has been replaced by that which is superficial. Where we once had leaders and innovators, now we have manchildren who wear tight jeans, large glasses, and act with the maturity of toddlers.
When Bill Hewlett was in the room, everyone listened to him, even when he wasn't saying anything. But today, we get to hear self-entitled young men prance around in fedoras, taking photos of everything while subsequently going on about social media and Web 2.0 and Ruby-on-Rails.
If it can happen in Maine, I think it can surely happen in California. The parallels between the two are astounding.
Contrary to the other posts in this thread...
It's doubtful that the activists who caused the closure actually live in the town; they are likely from out of area, and just uniformly against nuclear power for the sake of being against nuclear power.
From the article, it looks like there isn't a NIMBY in town, and that the town is actually filled with PIMBY's ("Please In My Back Yard").
I know you're being sarcastic, but it's not just nuclear power plants that generate revenues. Where I live, there's a large wind farm that pays millions a year through council and business taxes: they make my small sleepy town mega-rich and pose zero threat to the environment, save for a few birds that think they can fly through the spinning blades now and then.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
The modern time is an abomination because economics runs our lives.
Since that's the case, it's prudent to think economically and to never rely on only a couple industries in a town.
If your employment opportunities are (1) nuclear plant or (2) "fishing, I guess" then you're in for a rough ride if either of those shits the bed.
And since economies are both cyclic and random, expect that to happen.
Futurist Traditionalism
I know you were being facetious, but the Japanese governments opposition to avoid unemployment at all costs may have factored into their decision not to shut down Fukushima earlier. Fukushima was actually due to be decommissioned in March 2011, but was granted a large extension in January/February. Part of what may have caused the government to rubber stamp the extension was the fact that allowing the plant to shut down would have resulted in a lot of well-paying jobs being lost.
The fact that the plant is in Fukushima probably exacerbated that fact. The Japanese political system is set up sort of like the US system in that the rural prefectures have a disproportionate amount of influence in the Diet. Couple that with the fact that rural Japan has been bleeding population(Fukushima lost 3% of its population between 2005 and 2010, keep in mind the earthquake was in 2011...) and you can see why there was a lot of pressure to keep good jobs in Fukushima. Unfortunately for Fukushima the pressure to keep jobs there had a lot of unfortunate circumstances, and although there aren't firm numbers to be had yet, my guess is the flight of people from Fukushima to elsewhere is only going to increase.
*Yes I am aware that even if the extension to run the plant had not been granted there still would have been a calamity at Fukushima. But it may not have been as bad, the CEO of Tepco initially did not want to dump seawater on the reactors because he thought he could save them. If you dump seawater on them there is no way they can ever be used again. Had the plant already been in the process of shutdown, there may not have been nearly as many hydrogen explosions at the plant.
Monstar L
Safe nuclear power is not a technical problem. It is a political problem. In Fukushima, the authorities knew the generators were crap. So the debate gets a third angle: do you trust the engineers? Well maybe. But do you trust the politicians?
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
We've had wind farms erected on some of the windier ridges near my hometown. One of the coolest things about them is that you can drive right up to the windmills and check them out. A majority of them are erected on farmland, and the farmers are paid about $3000/yr per windmill on their property... even if it's on land that was otherwise unused (such as very rocky soil or old pastures no longer in use). Some people complain that they make the skyline ugly, but most people I've talked to think they make rather serene vistas along the tops of the valleys.
Hold on... Where did you read that? ? ? Nuclear is by far the cleanest and most superior way to provide power. The melt down at Three Mile Island only leaked the amount of radiation as a chest x-ray. Carter even toured the facility a couple of weeks after it happened. Chernobyl was the result of shoddy, bureaucratic management - see how well that worked for the USSR. It's too bad many people are ignorant about nuclear power.
Solar is dead. Most of the US doesn't get enough sun to make solar feasible. And the lead battery technology used to store solar electricity is nasty. Have you seen what lead battery recycling has done to Mexico, India, and China? Absolutely disgusting. It destroys entire towns and small ecosystems.
Less toxic indeed. I'd personally prefer more renewables, combined with increases in energy efficiency, over nuclear any day. We've already had one windscale here in the UK, I'd prefer to not increase the chances of another. If accidents can be caused by nothing more than a stuck valve, human error, or a natural disaster; then I'd prefer to be a NIMBY in this case.....
Solar is dead. Most of the US doesn't get enough sun to make solar feasible.
http://americablog.com/2013/02/fox-news-solar-only-works-in-germany-because-its-sunny-there.html
the mining and preparation of the nuclear fuel is quite carbon dirty. Not to mention the enormous costs of the structures and transportation of the fuel and whatever.
Yeah, coal plants don't have any of those problems.
No sig today...
Tell that to the people of Fukushima, Chernobyl or Sellafield, or several other sites. In theory, it's cleaner, but those pesky humans keep messing up the "near perfect" statistics. I'm not saying wind or carbon is the solution, but Nuclear has proven to be a lot less safe and clean than the statistics promised so far.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
I have read that nuclear is not really net clean. That the mining and preparation of the nuclear fuel is quite carbon dirty. Not to mention the enormous costs of the structures and transportation of the fuel and whatever. The amount of money we have spent on Nuclear was a waste compared to much greater advances we could have made in solar to achieve the same output.
Clean or not, in solar Vs. Nuclear one big problem remains, which has conveniently left out of every economic equation: who pays for continuous availability? if any solar plant had to contract as baseline, i.e. find and/or build conventional plants to meet output at night or in bad weather, they'd be up brown creek without a paddle. After all, conventional plants have to state to the grid output and availability at the auction.
"If a boss demands loyalty, give him integrity. But if he demands integrity, give him loyalty." (John Boyd, 1927-1997)
It's not common knowledge but most coal contains small amounts of radioactive material. When the coal is burned, this is either released into the atmosphere or put in some glorified dump along with the rest of the ashes.
I say coal fired plants are plenty radioactive and not nearly as conscientious about handling as the nuclear guys.
Lets not beat around the bush. The alternative to nuclear power is coal and coal fired plants are shooting up like mushrooms all over the world.
TCAP-Abort
Which is far less than the mining or drilling for fossil fuels!
Yes you do, but a little bit of uranium goes a long way. 1kg of uranium produces as much energy as 14 tonnes of coal. That energy equivalency isn't exact, because the uranium has to be refined after mining. I have no figures for how much that adds to the carbon emissions related with producing energy from uranium but it's not a factor of 14000. And despite failures, the uranium IS easier to contain. The pollution from coal or gas can't be contained at all on a commercial scale. It just spews into the air. The issue with nuclear is the intense toxicity and radioactivity of the byproducts. That calls for very careful reactor design with multiple levels of failsafes. With coal, oil and gas we have just assumed it was OK to spew millions of tonnes of crap into the air, but it turns out that it's not OK at all. The Earth can't absorb all that shit without changes to the atmosphere and oceans that affect life all over the planet.
I know you're being sarcastic, but it's not just nuclear power plants that generate revenues. Where I live, there's a large wind farm that pays millions a year of other taxpayers' money through council and business taxes: they make my small sleepy town mega-rich and pose zero threat to the environment, save for a few birds that think they can fly through the spinning blades now and then.
There, fixed it for you. and recall that the prim promoters of wind and solar brush the necessity of backup, on-call generation under the taxpayer's carpet as well.
Do not think that I am a dr. Strangelove or something: I am just trained in analysing economic alternatives where my money and livelihood are on the table, and there's no taxpayer whom I can pass the buck to. I'd love to see a comprehensive, "all side effects in" study of such things, but all are more or less ass backwards things:" Since renewable energy is good per se, we'll subsidise it to the tune of [insert number of billion Euros here] each year, and therefore it achieves grid parity".
"If a boss demands loyalty, give him integrity. But if he demands integrity, give him loyalty." (John Boyd, 1927-1997)
The research that concluded that was based on theoretical calculations.
Empirical data paints quite a different picture. Here's a basic sanity check for you: if it took prohibitively huge amounts of diesel fuel to mine uranium the nuclear plant could not afford to buy uranium and stay competitive with oil-fired plants.
So this Fox News story was idiotic. Solar only works in Germany because it is heavily subsidized. German consumers pay a great deal more for electricity than they would without the solar subsidies. Solar will always be expensive until you figure out a way to create a much less expensive solar infrastructure, such as nano-tech based solar that you paint on a road or a roof. You have to maintain solar arrays and the low power density means large areas are needed for solar capture, and the sun does not shine at night, so you have to solve the energy storage problem too.
I have read that nuclear is not really net clean. That the mining and preparation of the nuclear fuel is quite carbon dirty.
The anti-nuclear lobby is very vocal. I suggest being careful of your sources, and doing some basic sanity checks. For example: to mine some uranium, you run the mining equipment on diesel fuel. So the cost of uranium is, at a minimum, equal to the cost of the diesel fuel used to produce it. The cost of uranium is only a smallish fraction of the cost of nuclear power (~10%?), while the cost of getting the same amount of power from diesel generators is higher (~150%?). So the CO2 emissions from mining uranium produce, at most, ~1/15 of the CO2 of fossil fuels, and probably a factor of a few less than this.
Okay, there are big error margins on these numbers, but they're enough to convince me that the claims I've seen - that nuclear power produces as much or more CO2 than fossil fuels - are bogus. And, since solar and wind power are so much less energy-dense, I would expect the CO2 emissions from mining silicon/iron/etc for renewable energy infrastructure to be greater than those for nuclear.
A heavy water reactor eliminates most of the issues with common current reactors, including being much safer as the water also acts as the control rods.
There are an enormous number of cases where government cannot find the will to do the right thing because so many people's livelihoods are dependent upon doing the wrong thing. Fixing healthcare, ending the war on drugs, reining in surveillance, saner military and foreign policy, a lot of people stand to loose well paying jobs if these things come to pass. This isn't just come greedy CEO who isn't going to make as huge a profit. Its middle class professionals and skilled workers who will be obsolete because what they do is harmful to the world.
How do we structure plans to do the right thing in a way that deals with this problem? A lot of the political pushback comes because of this issue. Congresspeople need to protect jobs in their districts, even if they are jobs that make the world a worse place. How do we do better while having a plan for the people and communities left behind?
The flip side of the argument in those in this position take a big gamble. A small town with a sustainable fishing economy expands to support a new nuclear industry that won't be there forever, but never really establishes or expands parallel industries that can survive independently. When nuclear goes, the infrastructure for it is still there, costing money, but the people and taxes to support it are not. In the meantime, its original economy from before the nuclear plant has gone through change and neglect. Its a story that plays out again and again in small formerly industrial towns. The clock turns back, but there is no support for doing that sanely, and so negative feedback loops happen, and as a nation we loose the stomach for change. If we better addressed this issue, maybe more could get done.
Also, there is plenty of stupidity to pass around:
- The author of the article made it very vague as to when the reactor shut down. It was shut down in 1997, which the article does not mention. I am not sure if the 600 workers the article talks about were involved in decommissioning or were former workers let go in 1997. If these are decommissioning workers then shouldn't it be obvious when the project would be finished? Why does everyone treat it like a big surprise? Or were they surprised back in 1997?
- The plant had run unsafe and falsified reports to the NRC. No wonder it was closed down.
- A town of 3700 has 7 fire engines and a bunch of other crap they can no longer afford. Well did they expect the gravy train to never end? Sounds like the residents of the town were idiots too.
- This lady: “Most of my family died of cancer, and I think the plant was the reason,” said Thompson, 55, a cashier at a fireworks shop. Because no cancer is hereditary, and the author trusts the gut feeling of an old woman over actual medical science. Ace reporting there.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Most of the solar subsidy goes back to Chinese companies who make the kit - companies like BMW pay 100% more for power than does a similar company in the UK - thats not good for a country based around manufacturing like Germany.
Guy points out solar works in Germany, which is cloudier than America.
Solar "works" in Germany only as a supplement to other, traditional plants.
A lot of the issues point to bad management by the town planners - there are several mentions of overspending in the article, such as for ladder firetrucks when the town has nothing over 3 storeys high, town water to even the most outlying rural surrounding areas, new sports uniforms every year, etc etc.
Much of the tax burden would be to service some of the debt that was incurred while times were good, or support maintenance on excessively built out infrastructure - otherwise there's no need for tax to be proportionally higher than any other place.
Have you ever witnessed the anger of the good shopkeeper, James Goodfellow, when his careless son has happened to break a pane of glass? If you have been present at such a scene, you will most assuredly bear witness to the fact that every one of the spectators, were there even thirty of them, by common consent apparently, offered the unfortunate owner this invariable consolation -- "It is an ill wind that blows nobody good. Everybody must live, and what would become of the glaziers if panes of glass were never broken?"
Now, this form of condolence contains an entire theory, which it will be well to show up in this simple case, seeing that it is precisely the same as that which, unhappily, regulates the greater part of our economical institutions.
Suppose it cost six francs to repair the damage, and you say that the accident brings six francs to the glazier's trade -- that it encourages that trade to the amount of six francs -- I grant it; I have not a word to say against it; you reason justly. The glazier comes, performs his task, receives his six francs, rubs his hands, and, in his heart, blesses the careless child. All this is that which is seen.
But if, on the other hand, you come to the conclusion, as is too often the case, that it is a good thing to break windows, that it causes money to circulate, and that the encouragement of industry in general will be the result of it, you will oblige me to call out, "Stop there! Your theory is confined to that which is seen; it takes no account of that which is not seen."
It is not seen that as our shopkeeper has spent six francs upon one thing, he cannot spend them upon another. It is not seen that if he had not had a window to replace, he would, perhaps, have replaced his old shoes, or added another book to his library. In short, he would have employed his six francs in some way, which this accident has prevented.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
"Solar is dead. Most of the US doesn't get enough sun to make solar feasible. "
Apparently I have been hallucinating all the sun in the Southern US States. Who knew that coulds could be so bright and shiny? Who knew that cloudiness would make me so sun... sorry, cloud-burned?
Wow. I have been learned good.
So this Fox News story was idiotic. Solar only works in Germany because it is heavily subsidized. German consumers pay a great deal more for electricity than they would without the solar subsidies. Solar will always be expensive until you figure out a way to create a much less expensive solar infrastructure, such as nano-tech based solar that you paint on a road or a roof. You have to maintain solar arrays and the low power density means large areas are needed for solar capture, and the sun does not shine at night, so you have to solve the energy storage problem too.
Solar used to only work in Germany because of the subsidies. At this point, solar is Germany is much cheaper than retail electricity. As far as German's paying much more for electricity because of solar, that's not really so clear either. If you look here:
http://www.transparency.eex.com/en/
you can see where Germany's power is coming from at any given time. Solar is doing an incredible job of peak shaving, which lowers the cost of electricity. The accounting problem then becomes that people know how much the solar subsidy costs, but don't know how much lower the cost of all the other power is because of solar.
You mention solving the storage problem, and the Germans are working on that as well:
http://bosch-solar-storage.com/
Best estimate I've seen is that solar+storage for an average retail German customer will be cheaper than grid power sometime next year.
Even if none of this is cheap enough for you, just wait a bit. Solar is getting around 7-8% cheaper every year. Best estimate I've seen for the USA is that between 1/3's and 2/3's of American's will be able to save money by 2020 with unsubsidized solar power. A great tool to play around with and see this is here:
http://www.ilsr.org/projects/solarparitymap/