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Surry Nuclear Reactors To Extend Lifespan To 80 Years (richmond.com)
QuantumPion writes: Dominion Virginia Power today will formally seek a second license extension for its Surry nuclear power plant, becoming the first utility in the U.S. to try to push the operating range for nuclear reactors to 80 years. If successful, the utility's pair of reactors in Surry County would be eligible to operate past 2050. The Surry plant, along with its North Anna sister site in Louisa County, were initially granted 40-year permits and operate today on 20-year renewals. Those two plants provide about 40 percent of Virginia's electricity.
Thank you so much anti-nuke extremists. Thanks to your inability to look at the bigger picture, we get to enjoy nuclear reactors using designs from the 1950's well into the 21st century instead of actually using safer, modern designs.
It's like if the safety problems with the Corvair had been used to shutdown all production of newer car models.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
I've been assured right here on this site that we will be able to 3D print anything, using materials from space, that's assuming space-based solar power doesn't make that moot.
Space. 3D printing. Stop being Luddites!
From a business perspective it is cheaper to ask for an extension than to spend the money to build a new one. It is economics. And all the red tape associated with a new plant and the anti-nuke fear factor makes the decision even easier.
That'll work out well.
Surry Nuclear Reactors To Extend Lifespan To 80 Years
Extend? I was hoping to live about that long anyway. And I thought nuclear reactors were supposed to give you super powers.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
The number of death associated to nuclear accidents is so small I would consider it a statistical fluke. In 2013, NASA calculated that "global nuclear power has prevented an average of 1.84 million air pollution-related deaths and 64 gigatonnes of CO2-equivalent greenhouse gas"
I like quoting Einstein. Know why? Because nobody dares contradict you.
What could possibly go wrong?
no permitting has been allowed out of the NRC since 3 mile island happened in the late 70s,
Actually it has, it's just that we were just getting around to it - some new reactors are coming online this year. However, they were made at already existing plants, IE adding another reactor to an already existing nuclear power plant, and worse, it's the old design - they finished up a reactor that had construction suspended back in the '80s.
That being said, in order to keep nuclear power plant ages 'reasonable', you're looking at that we should be completing 4-8 reactors/plants a year. 200 reactors for current power needs, 400 to 'green up' our power by eliminating coal. Estimates, which is why I'm only being single digit specific. 200 plants, 4 built a year, gives you an average lifespan of 50 years. Probably means that you'd have a few shut down at 10,20, and 30, such that the maximum age at plants without earlier problems discovered would be around 60 years, in order to compensate for the 'lemon' reactors that have to be shut down early.
I don't read AC A human right
The Washington Times. Say what you will about their ownership and/or editorial slant, but it works right out of the box without trying to figure what you need to enable.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
They need this. Dominion has a significant number of older (built in late '50's and early '60's) coal fired plants, which are all being shut down over the next couple of years because they cannot be brought up to a high enough standard to meet the new EPA requirements. They are also shutting down an 800 MWe oil fired unit built in the 1970s, because of the new EPA requirements and because it's not very economical to operate any more (it was only being used for peaking and to supply base load if one of the nuclear plants was shut down for service). We already depend on those nuclear plants for base load and we will be leaning on them more in the future
Dominion submitted an application to add a third reactor to the North Anna site in 2007. It's been in review since then. As I understand it, the plan is to put in a third generation ESBWR that will nearly double the North Anna site's output. The reactor design was finally approved late 2014. Hopefully they'll get site approval to start construction soon.
is that the results linger. They'll be cancer victims out of Fukushima for decades. Or maybe not. It's hard to say. Too many people have a vested interest in both camps to be sure how many will get cancer from the disaster.
The other problem nuclear has is that it while safety is cheap per MW it's expensive as hell on the balance sheet. At least in America we've got a long history of privatizing things to hand off the profits to somebody's brother in law. But sooner or later inflation bites into their profits and they start cutting corners....
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I understand very well how business works. 20 years into the 80 year operation of the factory it'll be time for major repairs and maintenance. Meanwhile inflation will have bit into the profitability of the plant. Best case scenario is the maintenance is done half assed. Worst case it isn't done. With Fukushima I remember the prez of TEP saying it was a once in a hundred year storm. No one pointed out to the bastard that it'd been 100 years since the last record of such a storm. I guess that wouldn't be polite...
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Reminds me of the shuttle launches in 1986. Just keep on launching them in colder and colder weather until one blows up. I guess we keep on recertifying nuke plants until one blows up.
A nuclear plant will eventually blow up/melt down in the US, just like in Russia and Japan. And when it does, we will suddenly be surprised at how costly it is to abandon a large section of the country. We will suddenly realize that nuclear is not a good deal at all. So why can't we just decide that right now, before we destroy a big part of the country?
"He took a duck in the face at 250 knots." -- William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
Thank you so much pro-nuke extremists. Thanks to your inability to look at reality you overlooked that placement of Nuclear facilities is governed by a Suitability Criteria that is an act of law.
It's pretty ridiculous to think greenpeace, hippys in combi vans, NIMBYS or any one else for that matter has any influence at all as all of their concerns are addressed in Section C.9. Pointing fingers is just a way to ignore the process and economics involved in proposing and building a Nuclear Reactor. It is a complete ad hom argument when it is made.
Especially when you consider there has been a bunch of GenIII reactors proposed. So I don't understand how their or anyone else's vision has anything to do with what reactor technology is deployed.
It's like the safety problems with the Corvair had been left in the production of newer car and they added some new untested features but they think it's better.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
is that the results linger. They'll be cancer victims out of Fukushima for decades. Or maybe not. It's hard to say. Too many people have a vested interest in both camps to be sure how many will get cancer from the disaster.
As the AC mentioned - how long does it take for the CO2 from burning fossil fuels to go away? How long for the mercury, sulfur, NOx and everything else to degrade?
At least radioactivity decreases over time. Much of the rest of the stuff is here to stay until we go in and clean it up.
And the death toll from nuclear DOES include estimated deaths from nuclear disasters.
At least in America we've got a long history of privatizing things to hand off the profits to somebody's brother in law. But sooner or later inflation bites into their profits and they start cutting corners....
Remember, I want to build NEW safer plants. Second, the USA suffered the first major accident, it hasn't suffered a major one since. Thus far, they haven't cut any significant corners.
I don't read AC A human right
"Sorry, nuclear reactors to extend lifespans to 80 years." There are reasons for the limited lifespan having to do with radiation damage to the reactor vessel metal casing. Someone needs to be able to proof that the reactor vessel will still meets its ability to contain the pressure in it for the entire 80 yrs. But I have a funny feeling that at the end of the 80 yrs they will ask for another 80 yrs.
The problem is neutron embrittlement of the containment vessel. There comes a time where it must be replaced and at that point all that's left is the steam infrastructure.
My AC you are onto it, why don't you login and post as a user? I'm pretty sure you posed about the spent fuel pools as well.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
In this case 1: appealing to feelings or prejudices rather than intellect
You don't care about their concerns, just that they don't see your 'idealized' version of the Nuclear Industry that only exists in your head. You criticize them for not understanding your point of veiw and your not even interested in theirs which you dismiss as invalid.
Your "argument" isn't even supported by the laws governing site selection of Nuclear power plants.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
I can move to the suburbs of a nice city and avoid the smog and fracking problems. I'll be dead before the CO2 causes enough problems outside of my immediate environment (vis-a-vis global warming) to care. Yeah, I know. I a prefect world we'd all go nuclear and be done with it. Specifically in a world where we don't treat 99% of the population poorly and 60% of it like shit...
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In Situ Leach Mining is pretty nasty and there are a couple of points worth considering about it.
First, it is restricted to soft ores. The *availability* of this method is not indicative of total supply. Uranium in hard ores still have to be refined with crushers before processing further.
Acid leech mining is 'in-situ' - meaning the acid is pumped into the ground to dissolve rock. The risk you introduce with this method is polluting the water table. Any failure to assess the geology properly and it poisons aquifers. Some of these are used for farming so water is a pretty important commodity especially in dry continents where they mine uranium. I beleive this type of mining is illegal in the US for similar reasons.
It's a similar externality to the coal industry releasing radionuclides in ash into the air, except into water table instead, as in both cases we are talking about a natural radio-isotope, i.e. before enrichment. So it may not be a worthwhile risk to take to get uranium that way.
The liquid tailings produced have to be contained in acid dams. This liquid has a chemical and radiological toxicity of it's own and we have to store this by-product.
Uranium mining already produces liquid acid effluents and I recall that one of these sites had a 2 megalitre acid tank, full of radioactive effluents, burst in a world heratige national park a few years ago.
It may not be wise to trust water tables to these guys based on their existing record considering that ISL will create a lot more liquid tailings than the existing processes.
However it neatly illustrates the core design issue of the once through cycle used in modern reactors. The front end industrial processes (mining) forces you to make this essential choice:
1. you crush and process the ore and use a huge about of energy to get your fuel
2. You spend less energy but take a really big risk
These are the options the Nuclear industry has to consider to get it's fuel, it's no better than coal this way, just differently bad.
Of course the third risk is if you run out of that available fuel you *have* to use hard ores which means you have committed yourself to a very low energy return for the remaining lifetime of your new AP1000 or EPR.
This might also provide enough context to understand how the thorium fuel cycle creates a second similar problem with a different waste stream and, why the development of burner reactors was so important to end mining whilst transmuting existing transuranic stocks from the once through cycle.
Mining and refining nuclear fuel is almost a footnote
I think you will find that the energy consumption of this front end industrial process is the whole reason to consider ISL and that both of the mining processes create significant negative environmental externalities.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.