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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
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.
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...
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.
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.
Fukushima was a disaster waiting to happen.... just like Chernobyl. Neither plant had any indication of learning from previous experiences in the nuclear power industry and were plain cruddy designs that any newly graduated nuclear engineering student could have designed better. Both plants also required electrical power being supplied to those plants simply to operate.
I'd also point out that even if you treat the designs of these plants as typical (which they aren't, nor are they anything approaching the design of a plant that would be built today) the amount of pollution and I dare say even radioactive debris contamination is far less than what you get from other energy producing activities around the world. No, it isn't perfect and there are some embarrassments in the nuclear power industry that certainly need to be examined with proper engineering reviews and teaching those lessons to the next generation so they can improve and do better.
Still, it is a hell of a lot better to build a nuclear power plant today than it is to build dozens or hundreds of coal/oil/bio-diesel plants which generate electricity. Not only it is technically cheaper (especially if you use standard designs for those plants and not constantly try to re-invent the wheel for each new plant), but the impact on the overall environment is far less for nuclear power plants than it is for any other kind... including solar farms.
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.
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.
First of all, your memory of how Chernobyl went wrong is off. You should read the account again, it has been extensively researched by now. It was a bad design, absolutely, and the engineers on duty did not understand what they were doing to it when they deliberately ran it at too-low power for too long, but they did not intend a scram. Anyway, we can discount Chernobyl, no one will ever build a reactor like that (alas, there are still Chernobyl-type reactors operating).
I consider myself an environmentalist, so it is a bit annoying to be tainted with the "nuclear is poison" and "DHMO must be banned" brush. I think you give environmentalists too much credit though if you think they could stop nuclear power plants being built practically throughout the world. We have certainly been much less successful when it comes to coal mines and oil rigs, even though those are more harmful. The major difference seems to be that coal and oil is actually profitable whereas modern nuclear power needs more subsidy than even offshore wind power.
Also, I remember arguments from the pro-nuclear side that Japan was an example of how nuclear power could be safe and profitable when it is done right. Well, it turns out it was not done right, and suddenly there is a lot of criticism about how Fukushima was built. Where are the critical articles about German power plants? About French? They were built at the same time, were they really built so much better? Let us see how the French handle a really hot summer where the rivers they use for cooling cannot provide enough water -- they have had that problem before, but at least there was still enough water to cool the reactors after they were shut down.
Smaller nuclear power plants are even less economical, and if a storm hits you have to spread your people thin, trying to handle a bunch of spread-out plants generally located in out-of-the-way areas. That does not seem like an obvious improvement to me.
Luckily it is all academic, only China and Finland are doing significant nuclear expansion, and the ones in Finland have turned out ridiculously expensive so they will not be trying that again. England is waving pound bills around desperately, but no one is biting, despite there being plenty of existing nuclear sites available where NIMBY'ism is a solved problem.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?