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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.
To make plutonium for weapons you have to run the reactor is a completely uneconomic way (balls out for a very short time). Otherwise you just get a mix of plutonium isotopes and you are back to running ultracenterfuges to get your weapons grade.
So aside from being completely wrong, you have a point.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Wrong. The light-water reactors used in the U.S. are not particularly useful at making weapons grade plutonium. If they were so wonderful at churning out nukes, then places like Hanford Washington would never have existed.
You seem to be confusing the safe light-water commercial reactors used in the U.S. with the RBMK reactors that were used in the Soviet Union. They really were designed for dual-use operation and are inherently less safe than U.S. commercial reactors.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
Why aren't they (the anti-nuke people) willing/able to pursuit the more logical course of action--the denial of operating extensions for obsolete, unsafe reactors
Because "they" are just some imaginary straw-men that /. loves to bash whenever their fanboy technology continues to fail their expectations? People against new nuclear plants are, of course, also against license extensions. You making a straw-man argument that basically questions the rationality of the irrational straw-man that you and your ilk created is testament to the complete cluster-fuck of nonsense this topic has at /. Seriously, you people should get out more, instead of circle jerking each other off all the time. . .
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.
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
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.