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User: mdsolar

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  1. Re:Economic Reasons on Central New York Nuclear Plants Struggle To Avoid Financial Meltdown · · Score: 1

    Actually, burning coal produces no nuclear waste at all and cuts the cabon-14 burden in your body. In terms of radiation hazard it is better than benign. http://slashdot.org/journal/279815/fossil-fuel-use-cuts-bodys-internal-radiation-burden

  2. Re:Natural Gas Price Volatility on Central New York Nuclear Plants Struggle To Avoid Financial Meltdown · · Score: 1

    Infinite in fact. Stranded wind is free.

  3. Re:What a waste on Central New York Nuclear Plants Struggle To Avoid Financial Meltdown · · Score: 1

    It is the smaller reactors that are being shut down mostly. You need more people per MW capacity to run these which makes them too expensive. To build, they are also more expensive per MW capacity. It is big reactors that get economies of scale, but demand growth is curtailed owing to new light bulbs and better appliances so there is no demand for huge new plants. And, even so, these are too expensive as well compared to wind or solar coming on line in the same year.

  4. Re:Library on Central New York Nuclear Plants Struggle To Avoid Financial Meltdown · · Score: 1

    No, wind power's effect on wholesale electricity prices is indeed a threat to nuclear power as detailed here. http://will.illinois.edu/nfs/RenaissanceinReverse7.18.2013.pdf

    I think you have a lack of understanding of electricity markets that will be hard for you to remedy with doing some reading.

  5. Coke from Mexico on Central New York Nuclear Plants Struggle To Avoid Financial Meltdown · · Score: 1

    Strangely, you can get real Coke made with sugar from Mexico. There are lots of places in the world to do nuclear experiments, China, India, Iran.... When they get it figured out, we can buy it from them. For now, it does not seem to be economical here.

  6. Check the book out from the library if you can't afford it. It is better than just babbling when someone has already done the work. You should remember that wind power is the reason one of the other nukes closed. So, it is not just natural gas that is cheaper than nuclear power.

  7. Re:Reinventing Fire on Central New York Nuclear Plants Struggle To Avoid Financial Meltdown · · Score: 1

    The analysis is quite detailed and covers the questions you raise.

  8. Lax regulations on Central New York Nuclear Plants Struggle To Avoid Financial Meltdown · · Score: 1

    Compared to the nuclear weapons industry, regulations are quite light. For example, there are large quantities of missing fuel and spent fuel that would never be tolerated under Nunn-Lugar.

  9. Indian Point? on Central New York Nuclear Plants Struggle To Avoid Financial Meltdown · · Score: 1

    Why not urge your representatives to pass legislation to require Indian Point to close before any others?

  10. It is kilowatts times hours, not divided by hours. Converting euros to dollars gives $0.1646/kwh which is higher than in New York based on your figures. Don't think you've got the whole picture though.

  11. Reinventing Fire on Central New York Nuclear Plants Struggle To Avoid Financial Meltdown · · Score: 1

    You are incorrect. Amory Lovins has done the detailed analysis on this. Large scale renewables with extensive transmission is the absolute cheapest possible system. He prefers more local generation for (esthetic) efficiency and robustness in the face of certain natural disasters and enemy attacks. But, moneywise, big renewbles are the cheapest generating system. http://www.rmi.org/reinventingfire

  12. Re:Fracking isn't legal in NYS on Central New York Nuclear Plants Struggle To Avoid Financial Meltdown · · Score: 1

    Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

  13. Re:Natural Gas Price Volatility on Central New York Nuclear Plants Struggle To Avoid Financial Meltdown · · Score: 1

    That is likely going to come to an end. Synthesis of methane using ultra-cheap renewable energy such as stranded wind will likely stabilize gas prices at a low level going forward.

  14. Re:Scary on Central New York Nuclear Plants Struggle To Avoid Financial Meltdown · · Score: 2

    At Vermont Yankee, they tried all three, cutting staff, getting out of requirements to install sirens and deferred maintenance that led to a cooling tower collapse and radioactive materials leaks.

  15. Re:Highly unusual? Hardly. on US Nuclear Commander Suspended Over Gambling · · Score: 1

    Oops. Allen left the Marines, not the Army.

  16. Re:Highly unusual? Hardly. on US Nuclear Commander Suspended Over Gambling · · Score: 1

    Petraeus left the CIA not long ago. Allen left the Army as well. The "unusual" claim seemed strange to me as well.

  17. Re:Regression toward the mean on Arctic Ice Extent Tops 2012's, But Is 6th Lowest In History · · Score: 1

    When this term is used for stocks it has a different sense because the statistics are far from normal. To quote the WP link above,

    "In finance, the term mean reversion has a different meaning. Jeremy Siegel uses it to describe a financial time series in which "returns can be very unstable in the short run but very stable in the long run." More quantitatively, it is one in which the standard deviation of average annual returns declines faster than the inverse of the holding period, implying that the process is not a random walk, but that periods of lower returns are systematically followed by compensating periods of higher returns."

    You are not the first person to suggest that a non-linear term should be included in the fitting function for this.

    The term is used correctly, but it bugs me that in 2150, when the mean will be pretty much pinned near zero for the satellite period, 2012 will be a movement towards the mean and 2013 a movement away yet the statistical behavior will not have changed in this time neighborhood.

  18. Regression toward the mean on Arctic Ice Extent Tops 2012's, But Is 6th Lowest In History · · Score: 1

    The idea that this year, following an extreme year, can be formally called regression toward the mean seems OK but it seem clearer to say something like a return to closer to the trend line. Anybody got a better description than that?

  19. Re:On the topic of Nuclear waste, a question on Its Nuclear Plant Closed, Maine Town Is Full of Regret · · Score: 1

    It is water that is contaminated with fission products. A minor component is tritium, a form of hydrogen, but that is not the main worry. Filtering and chemical treatment might draw the contaminants out of solution, but they are overwhelmed by the volume of contaminated water produced daily.

  20. Re:Wiscasset cask leaks? on Its Nuclear Plant Closed, Maine Town Is Full of Regret · · Score: 1

    The radionuclei are temporarily immobilized in the dry casks, but they are still radioactive. So, when they decay, some energetic decay products escape.

  21. Extractive industries leave ghost towns on Its Nuclear Plant Closed, Maine Town Is Full of Regret · · Score: 1

    This is the fate of all nuclear power plants. This one was unsafe and too expensive to fix, but the fuel will run out for all the rest even if somehow they become economic again. Exhaustible resources just have these sorts of problems.

  22. Just 100 on Satellite Images Suggest N. Korea Has Restarted Small Nuclear Reactor · · Score: 1

    No, there are only 100 commercial reactors and only 93 of them are running right now. http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/reactor-status/ps.html

  23. Commercial Satellite? Academic Institute? on Satellite Images Suggest N. Korea Has Restarted Small Nuclear Reactor · · Score: 1

    The announcement comes from an academic institute using commercial satellite data. That seems a little nerdy.

  24. Re:Many have died on Fixing Fukushima's Water Problem · · Score: 1

    Read the link I provided. That was controlled in the study.

    Nuclear accidents kill just like natural disasters. However, they are entirely preventable.

  25. Re:Many have died on Fixing Fukushima's Water Problem · · Score: 1

    You seem to have a fanciful view on this that is quite far detached from what has actually happened. http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201301110086