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Watts Bar Unit 2 Is The First New US Nuclear Reactor In Decades (washingtonpost.com)
tomhath writes from a report via The Washington Post: The Tennessee Valley Authority's (TVA) Watts Bar Unit 2 is the first nuclear reactor to come online since 1996, when the Watts Bar Unit 1 started operations. The new reactor is designed to add 1,150 megawatts of electricity generating capacity to southeastern Tennessee. By summer's end, authorities expect the new reactor at this complex along the Chickamauga Reservoir, a dammed section of the Tennessee River extending northward from Chattanooga, to steadily generate enough electricity to power 650,000 homes. But while nuclear reactors account for the lion's share of the carbon-free electricity generated in the United States, the industry faces this new set of circumstances in a state of near-crisis. A combination of very cheap natural gas and deregulated energy markets in some states has led to a growing number of plant closures in recent years. A new report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance says that renewable energy, including solar, wind and hydroelectric will overtake natural gas as an energy source by 2027.
They couldn't squeeze another 60MW out of the design?
Its good to see new reactors come online, but I wish we had the balls to licence new reactor designs that are passively safe.
But while nuclear reactors account for the lion's share of the carbon-free electricity generated in the United States, the industry faces this new set of circumstances in a state of near-crisis. A combination of very cheap natural gas and deregulated energy markets in some states has led to a growing number of plant closures in recent years.
Meanwhile, the federal government continues to massively over-regulate nuclear energy and does other brain-dead things. For example, if you operate a coal power plant and do nothing other than routine maintenance, then you are grandfathered to whatever environmental standards were in effect when it went into operation. On the other hand, if you decide to make "major" improvements, the entire operation must now come into compliance with current regulations. Naturally, operators are lining up to upgrade and increase the cost/regulatory burden of their operations. Not!
Thankfully, natural gas is relatively clean, but it won't last forever. Our broken policies have resulted in nobody wanting to touch the best energy source in modern history (nuclear) and while the government and environmentalists continue tripping over themselves to throw wads of cash at companies in the "renewable" space, those old coal power plants continue to emit more radioactive contaminants then even the oldest nuclear power plants because we actually make it more expensive for the operators to fix it than to just leave it as is. To top it off, rather then devoting serious effort into spent nuclear fuel reprocessing (like into a form usable in modern reactor designs), we keep loading it in leaky drums and burying it in the ground because nobody will build a new reactor because nobody wants to spend 100 years and $100B to get a new reactor going.
I would rather have one of these than a hydropower dam close by. Statistically a lot safer.
Good job TVA finally bringing another nuclear reactor online. It's clean, it's safe, and it's advanced.
Shame on slashdot "editor" BeauHD for adding in the unrelated story about renewable energy overtaking natural gas.
DID YOU BOTHER TO READ THE SUBMITTED ARTICLE???
Seriously nice article today about Sourceforge and Slashdot Media all improving must have missed that there are people running the show who can't read.
http://arstechnica.com/informa...
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It is sad that our newest reactor is a 50+ year old PWR design. Stop the insanity and build small breeder reactors.
The ironic thing is, this radioactive "waste" clearly still has lots of potential energy in it, or else it wouldn't be dangerous in the first place.
IMO, what's needed is a process to use this stuff after it's no longer suitable for use in the original reactor.
I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure there are other reactor designs that would allow building smaller scale power generators that run on this waste material, instead of trying to bury it, shoot it into space, or what-not.
Yep
Westinghouse says that the minimum requirement for making the largest AP1000 components is a 15,000 tonne press taking 350 tonne ingots.
The very heavy forging capacity in operation today is in Japan (Japan Steel Works), China (China First Heavy Industries, China Erzhong, SEC), France (Le Creusot), and Russia (OMZ Izhora).
New capacity is being built by JSW and JCFC in Japan, Shanghai Electric Group (SEC) and subsidiaries in China, and in South Korea (Doosan), Czech Rep (Pilsen) and Russia (OMZ Izhora and ZiO-Podolsk).
New capacity is planned in UK (Sheffield Forgemasters) and India (Larsen & Toubro, Bharat Heavy Electricals, Bharat Forge Ltd). In China the Harbin Boiler Co. and SEC subsidiary SENPE are increasing capacity.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-power-reactors/heavy-manufacturing-of-power-plants.aspx
There was a bit of a scam going on at the time taking advantage of the government offer to buy all Plutonium produced. That's the core of the story. Besides there is still Plutonium being produced in the USA anyway by a military owned facility so the ban has plenty of loopholes and can be repealed if needed anyway.
The ironic thing is, this radioactive "waste" clearly still has lots of potential energy in it, or else it wouldn't be dangerous in the first place. IMO, what's needed is a process to use this stuff after it's no longer suitable for use in the original reactor.
There was. A burner reactor called IFR. Research on the *operational* prototype was killed by Clinton and it's demolition was funded in the 2005 Energy Act signed into law by W.Bush. From everything I read about it (despite the lack of material technologies required) it was a remarkable success able to consume weapons grade material and DU. My main interest in it was from the perspective of nuclear disarmament and a way to make those materials useful in another way.
I'm pretty sure there are other reactor designs that would allow building smaller scale power generators that run on this waste material
Well in IFR's case it was an Integrated facility that would reprocess, store and burn wastes. The 2005 Energy act also funds research into some of the things IFR could do like produce electriciy and hydrogen for vehicle fuel (which would mean the current fleet of vehicles would still function) but where would that leave the oil and coal industry? You really only have to look to their lobbying efforts of both sides of politics to under why such a technology will never come to market even if it is proven technology.
Oil and Coal interests would prefer any advancement in Nuclear technology remain unavailable and that all the blame be attributable to greenpeace and NIMBYs.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
It's not NIMBY that stops nukes. It's an electricity price of 14 cents/kwh and that's with the government providing free insurance. Gas can do electricity at less than half that, wind is at 4cents and solar will be cheaper than gas by 2020. Why would you build a power plant that produces power at 2-4 times the price of other sources? Because the only ones that are building these new nukes are the ones that are forcing their rate payers to pick up the cost.
Without a public utilities commission that's willing to bend their rate payers over and fuck them good and dry, a nuke isn't even feasible. And it's astonishing that there are two states willing to let their utility companies fuck their residents six ways to Sunday. If I was a rate payer in Georgia I'd be fucking livid that I'm being committed to paying 2 times the price for power for the remainder of my life unless I move.
So are we just ignoring the fact that Greenpeace has been consistently blocking nuclear plants for decades?
No, I don't think you are ignoring it, just not paying attention to what is relevant. It takes a few hours of research and checking the governing laws to see that this greenpeace/NIMBY argument is bogus and the vitrol attached to it is noise that deflects from blaming the real culprits impeding nuclear progress, the oil and coal industry.
We're just going to ignore this inconvenient truth?
Well that dogma is the common myth. I think you will find that the oil and coal lobby have far more influence over US energy policy than greenpeace ever will. As I pointed out in this post the oil and coal industry shape energy policy to suit themselves. Greenpeace certainly has had no influence over the 15 GenIII reactors proposed for the US and the link to their placement is in that post. Go see for yourself, I've also provided the sections in the Energy policy act that you should examine.
I think that truth is probably more inconvenient than many.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
If wind is so cheap why do we continue to subsidize it?
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
It's not NIMBY that stops nukes. It's an electricity price of 14 cents/kwh and that's with the government providing free insurance.
Have you thought about why the government is providing insurance? Nuclear power reactors have a history of getting their license revoked by that same government for seemingly no reason. No insurance company is going to insure that because there are simply too many unknowns, the biggest one is the government itself. No bank will lend money for any construction project unless it is insured, nuclear power plants included. To make sure the government won't pull a license on a whim the other investors require some government monetary stake in the project. This means that everyone involved wants to see the government pay for the project if they pull the license.
Few other industries work this way because few other industries have such long construction times and such a high rate of construction licenses getting pulled in the middle of the project. The high cost of nuclear power is because the government has a history of changing the rules. If the government didn't keep changing the rules then the price would come down. Any project that takes longer than the two year election cycle to complete runs the risk of the rules changing. Part of the reason these nuclear power plants take so long to complete is because the rules keep changing. The longer a project goes on the more expensive it becomes.
The cost, the long completion times, and the need for government insurance is all because the federal government cannot make up its mind on what the rules are for nuclear power. This will continue so long as we have a major political party that is openly hostile to nuclear power.
Then one might feel compelled to ask, why would any political party oppose nuclear power? Perhaps it is because of the high costs and long completion times. In other words, we have politicians that oppose nuclear power solely based on the problems they created for it.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.