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Nuclear Energy: The Good News and the Bad News In the EPA Clean Energy Plan
Lasrick writes: Peter Bradford explains what the EPA's new Clean Power Plan has in store for nuclear energy. He provides an excellent explanation of the details of the plan, and how the nuclear industry benefits (or doesn't). "The competitive position of all new low-carbon electricity sources will improve relative to fossil fuels. New reactors (including the five under construction) and expansions of existing plants will count toward state compliance with the plan's requirements as new sources of low-carbon energy. Existing reactors, however, must sink or swim on their own prospective economic performance—the final plan includes no special carbon-reduction credits to help them."
Citation on the number of deaths per terawatt?
The few accidents have been very localized and killed very few people.
Coal, oil, and natural gas on the other hand, have harmed everyone.
Your item two is in serious conflict with item one. How can nuclear energy be part of our nations power supply if the industry is responsible for the total end costs. The article explains that at a cost of 19 cents/kwh no one will build any nuclear power plant since solar and wind can be built for much less. So, really, if nuclear isn't subsidized, it isn't going to happen.
Nuclear power has always depended on subsidies and it can't survive without those subsidies. It is just too expensive and it seems unlikely that there will be any serious change in the economic arena.
so should every power source. it works or it doesn't. on its own.
The problem right now is that people don't want to see new, safer, more efficient nuclear plants being built, because they're nuclear!
Unfortunately, it means that they spend their time protesting right outside the gates of older, creaky, less safe and more expensive nuclear plants that the operators would actually love to shut down so they could build and operate the newer, safer, more efficient designs.
Believe it or not, the folks that actually live near and work at nuclear plants have more than a passing interest in safe nuclear power, and don't want their kids glowing after dark any more than any other parent. I know, it's crazy, but it's true!
If these people could get their heads out of their asses they might realize that, if nuclear energy must be utilized, that allowing newer, safer plant designs to be built would be the smartest path. Though I'm afraid clear and logical thinking isn't a strong point of the anti-nuclear crowd.
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If every home had a car or two with a battery that could be tapped for grid supplementation
That is a MASSIVE 'IF"... And you're assuming I WANT my car battery to take wear and tear to balance the grid...
The barriers here are only political.
You may have a different idea of what "only" means than I do... those are some of the biggest barriers that exist, they don't go away just because you wave your hand and say "politics be gone!".
A new nuclear power plant takes decades to plan and construct.
Then perhaps that is the problem that needs fixing. We designed, invented, built, and used nuclear power and weapons from scratch in less time than it takes to build one plant. When no one knew how to use them.
Perhaps the problem is not with nuclear power, but with the politics? :)
How the hell can Fukishima increase nuclear related deaths when nobody died from it???
And if we're counting radiation induced cancer and subsequent deaths (which, from fukishima is basically non-existent) then why do we give coal/oil/etc. a pass on pollution induced deaths?
the problem is that we live in a world where businesses are not held accountable for their actions. Look at VW. Their CEO resigns and gets a 30 million golden parachute. Look at GM and Toyota. Token fines that aren't even a fraction of their annual profits for something that deaths were linked to. Christ, look at Fukushima. Just the idea that some of the people responsible might get indicted is historical and even there it's only happening because of a bizarre loophole the 1% forgot to close. It's the old "Don't spill the blood of kings" crap.
If you want to have a gov't run nuke plant then fine. Take the profit motive out of it. But I wouldn't even trust that because sooner or later a bunch of those free market yabos are gonna want to hand it of to a private contractor in the name of efficiency. Until you can tell me how to stop that or make it more profitable for the plants to be safe than dangerous in the _short_ term then I won't trust nukes.
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Chernobyl for one was certainly not "very localized" and whether it "kill[ed] very few people" is contested.
The figure of "just a few thousand" as given by the WHO for Chernobyl ignores the huge uncertainties given by the nature of radiation exposure, and is not least thanks to an 56 year old agreement with the IAEA that provides the latter with "an effective veto on any actions by the WHO that relate in any way to nuclear power".
(Source: http://www.theguardian.com/com... )
Chernobyl was communist fuck-ups that lied about what they were doing with the reactor, what went wrong with the reactor, and who died.
The US, are not communist fuck-ups. Maybe, a different kind of fuck-up, but not likely to the same degree.