Naval reactors are a very different business to a commercial power plant. They are usually quite a bit smaller, and usually a sealed vessel that is removed wholesale from the submarine rather than being 'refuelled' in place. I believe they also run a mixed-oxide fuel.
Really? Because the one plant that I know of that has been decommissioned in the US was done in 13 years. Trojan Nuclear Generating Station put out it's last watt of power in 1992, and the reactor vessel was buried at Hanford in 2005, as well as the cooling tower being imploded. Sure, there's still spent fuel on site, but that's because the government hasn't gotten off their ass to create a permanent storage facility like they were supposed to.
Not one mothball to be seen. Just a couple warehouses, a guard shack, an office building, and a helipad.
Maybe so we can shut the fossil power which is causing the sea level rise to begin with, should the climate guys be correct?
Worst case, we stop killing an estimated 50,000 people per year in the US alone from the diseases associated with the emissions of coal plants, even if you don't buy in on the climate change arguments.
I believe the GP's point is that the storage there wouldn't be necessary (outside of the cooling pools, of course) if they could put the dry-cask stored waste on a train and get it to a proper storage facility, as was planned decades ago. Then the senior Senator from Nevada became part of the Senate leadership, and ended responsibility for this issue in favor of NIMBYism.
Was Yucca Mountain perfect? Probably not, but it's far better than what we're doing today.
Trojan Nuclear Generating Station in Oregon was shut down in 1992, and demolition completed in 2005. That's 13 years from the last volt going out, to the reactor vessel being buried a couple hundred miles upriver at Hanford, and the cooling tower being imploded. Not decades, plural. Today, the only thing that remains on the site is a helipad, a couple of warehouses, a guard shack thing, the spent fuel storage, and a remaining office building. The spent fuel is only still there because Congress won't get off their ass and do something about permanent storage.
So let's not inflate things beyond what they actually are, and proven to be - it makes you look like a fool, and does a disservice to your argument.
What should probably be looked at more closely is if the plant would be in any kind of danger at a moderate amount of flooding. What are we actually talking about here? A flooded basement where some old filing cabinets and broken office chairs might rust a bit, but the plant can be safely idled until a crew gets on site to pump the overflow out, or a Fukushima catastrophe where the backup generators are underwater and access to the plant is completely severed?
Also, are these coastal plants designed so that it's impossible to retrofit them with a proper sea wall or flood mitigation in the next 20 years? I highly doubt it.
This whole article is a reactionary troll. I don't understand why mdsolar thinks that for solar to win, nuclear has to lose. I work for a god damn solar company, and would rather see nuclear base load than more coal. Being pro-solar doesn't mean you have to be anti-nuclear, and in fact makes you look like an idiot. The real enemy here is fossil fuels.
And which bridges in Pennsylvania suddenly weren't in permanent and desperately needed overhaul?
The ones on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Oh, wait...
(Yes, I know that the Pennsylvania Turnpike is still a government entity in the form of a public - private partnership, but collecting usage fees seems to be the winner for road construction these days, with the Federal Highway fund being raided constantly to pay for other things, and a non-indexed fuel tax)
I can say that a Volkswagon Rabbit isn't very good at hauling a cubic meter of yard mulch, and it makes just as much sense as what you said. As it turns out, purpose matters. The US rail network wasn't built primarily for transporting humans - that was an afterthought. It was built for transporting cargo. And there are lots of nations, including in Europe, who wish they had such an industrial rail network.
Haven't you ever wondered why every train station in every major US city, excepting a few, is in an industrialized shithole?
In the US, the telephone networks were forced open to be like what you describe under the FCC's "common carrier" rules. A particular company owns the wire, but other companies can lease circuits on them, allowing subscribers to get services from whomever they please.
Cable Television networks are not included in that. They are still very much privately owned by the descendant companies of whoever put that copper in the ground, and fight vigorously to defend that.
Except that the 'free market' was never allowed to exist in this sector. It could be argued that establishing a muni broadband service would be the 'free market' expressing itself - an actual competitor to the entrenched government-granted telco monopolies of the 1970s.
But those monopolies are more than willing to spend money preventing it from happening through legal measures and campaign contributions, rather than spending to eliminate the need by improving their networks, lowering costs, or both.
Now all they need to do is pass the thing. Does anyone know what kind of poison pill has been inserted yet, which will cause somebody to get off the boat and sink it? We all know there is one...
It's a sad state when the budget process has been reduced to such cynicism, but here we are.
Because clearly a small rural town in North Carolina is a good data point to measure 330,000,000 people.
I would be on much firmer ground saying that your idiot stereotyping is more of a product of the lack of education and level of ignorance of wherever your anonymous coward ass is from.
Bear in mind that I'm not just talking about channels, I'm talking about discrete programming blocks on each channel. Example, on my 'channel 1' I want this show from CBS, next would be this show from NBC, and then after that, a show from Comedy Central. 'Channel 2' can be a different family member's, etc.
If Apple could deliver that for $40/month, that would be a industry-busting service. Unfortunately, it will never happen, because it doesn't reward the content producers' love of shoveling drek onto the air to surround their one hit show.
Yeah, there's a massive difference between what you just described, and College Football, which is one of the things you can basically only find on cable sports networks. Sure, some games make it to over-the-air broadcast, but it's largely based on contract. I don't want to watch SEC schools on CBS, and I don't want to watch Notre Dame on NBC. What's left is whatever ESPN puts on ABC, and what's on the ESPN and Fox Sports channels on Cable.
So whatever you would have bet, just hand it over now.
More than that, video of a conference or presentation isn't nearly as editable as text. Once you mangle your language or say it in a confusing way, it's said.
With text transcripts, you can revise with inserted notes, etc. It makes it better for what you're trying to say, and better for the person you're trying to say it to.
This is why I hate YouTube. I'm searching for how to do something rather trivial, but I'm stuck on one little thing. Why can't I read in 20 seconds how to do what I'm looking for, rather than listen to some mumbling person go about asking me to subscribe to their channel, and do all the crap I've already done in order to get to the bit that I care about?
Hey YouTube Tutorial guys: I don't need a 5 minute video showing your crappy desktop wallpaper festooned with 200 icons while you laboriously type in a command, I just need the damn command.
For decades, channels have been added, but quality content adds haven't kept up. The overall signal-to-noise ratio is very VERY low on your average cable TV system, where 'signal' = content you actually give a shit about.
You're making a huge assumption that those 14 channels are 1980's style cable channels, where you get no say in the programming. What if they added a tab to iTunes where you can drag and drop shows out of a pick list onto a "TV Guide" style grid of your 14 channels, including live sport events?
That would sure as shit be worth $40/month for me, as long as the content I'm looking for is there.
The only reason I still have a cable TV subscription at all is for live sports. If ESPN went direct-to-Internet streaming without the cable company's paywall in the way, I'd tell Time Warner to go pound sand. I don't even care about "seeing the latest episode when it airs" because watching it via DVR is a monumentally better watching experience.
Cable and Satellite companies need to stop living in the 1980s already. The smartest thing the distribution networks (cable, satellite, etc.) could do is side with the consumers and break bundling agreements. Then they could offer what we really want - a la carte channel service. They'd save shitloads of bandwidth they could use on services we want (faster data, higher quality video), and we could get services from them we actually want.
As I posted above, I'd happily pay for ~20 channel service if I could pick what channels they are, and they are delivered without color dithering and compression artifacts. That would be far superior to 1500+ channels, where 1450 of them are complete shit, and the other 50 are 50% shit, and 100% of them are compressed to hell and back.
If you're just measuring the dollars-to-channels figure, cable and satellite providers will always win, because they've shoehorned so many channels into the available spectrum that are 24/7 garbage that nobody watches. Who cares how many channels you have that you never watch?
If you gave me 14 channels where I could pick what was on them a la carte, without the compression artifacting (color dithering) we get from cable and satellite, including live sporting events, I'd drop Time Warner like a paper bag of dog shit and sign up today.
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Naval reactors are a very different business to a commercial power plant. They are usually quite a bit smaller, and usually a sealed vessel that is removed wholesale from the submarine rather than being 'refuelled' in place. I believe they also run a mixed-oxide fuel.
Really? Because the one plant that I know of that has been decommissioned in the US was done in 13 years. Trojan Nuclear Generating Station put out it's last watt of power in 1992, and the reactor vessel was buried at Hanford in 2005, as well as the cooling tower being imploded. Sure, there's still spent fuel on site, but that's because the government hasn't gotten off their ass to create a permanent storage facility like they were supposed to.
Not one mothball to be seen. Just a couple warehouses, a guard shack, an office building, and a helipad.
Hyperbole doesn't serve your cause.
Maybe so we can shut the fossil power which is causing the sea level rise to begin with, should the climate guys be correct?
Worst case, we stop killing an estimated 50,000 people per year in the US alone from the diseases associated with the emissions of coal plants, even if you don't buy in on the climate change arguments.
I believe the GP's point is that the storage there wouldn't be necessary (outside of the cooling pools, of course) if they could put the dry-cask stored waste on a train and get it to a proper storage facility, as was planned decades ago. Then the senior Senator from Nevada became part of the Senate leadership, and ended responsibility for this issue in favor of NIMBYism.
Was Yucca Mountain perfect? Probably not, but it's far better than what we're doing today.
Trojan Nuclear Generating Station in Oregon was shut down in 1992, and demolition completed in 2005. That's 13 years from the last volt going out, to the reactor vessel being buried a couple hundred miles upriver at Hanford, and the cooling tower being imploded. Not decades, plural. Today, the only thing that remains on the site is a helipad, a couple of warehouses, a guard shack thing, the spent fuel storage, and a remaining office building. The spent fuel is only still there because Congress won't get off their ass and do something about permanent storage.
So let's not inflate things beyond what they actually are, and proven to be - it makes you look like a fool, and does a disservice to your argument.
What should probably be looked at more closely is if the plant would be in any kind of danger at a moderate amount of flooding. What are we actually talking about here? A flooded basement where some old filing cabinets and broken office chairs might rust a bit, but the plant can be safely idled until a crew gets on site to pump the overflow out, or a Fukushima catastrophe where the backup generators are underwater and access to the plant is completely severed?
Also, are these coastal plants designed so that it's impossible to retrofit them with a proper sea wall or flood mitigation in the next 20 years? I highly doubt it.
This whole article is a reactionary troll. I don't understand why mdsolar thinks that for solar to win, nuclear has to lose. I work for a god damn solar company, and would rather see nuclear base load than more coal. Being pro-solar doesn't mean you have to be anti-nuclear, and in fact makes you look like an idiot. The real enemy here is fossil fuels.
Not exact figures, but here's $200B (in 2007) that taxpayers paid to the telcos and never got shit from. It should be known that the excise tax from the Telecommunications Act of 1996 continued for quite some time after 2007, if it still doesn't today.
And which bridges in Pennsylvania suddenly weren't in permanent and desperately needed overhaul?
The ones on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Oh, wait...
(Yes, I know that the Pennsylvania Turnpike is still a government entity in the form of a public - private partnership, but collecting usage fees seems to be the winner for road construction these days, with the Federal Highway fund being raided constantly to pay for other things, and a non-indexed fuel tax)
I can say that a Volkswagon Rabbit isn't very good at hauling a cubic meter of yard mulch, and it makes just as much sense as what you said. As it turns out, purpose matters. The US rail network wasn't built primarily for transporting humans - that was an afterthought. It was built for transporting cargo. And there are lots of nations, including in Europe, who wish they had such an industrial rail network.
Haven't you ever wondered why every train station in every major US city, excepting a few, is in an industrialized shithole?
In the US, the telephone networks were forced open to be like what you describe under the FCC's "common carrier" rules. A particular company owns the wire, but other companies can lease circuits on them, allowing subscribers to get services from whomever they please.
Cable Television networks are not included in that. They are still very much privately owned by the descendant companies of whoever put that copper in the ground, and fight vigorously to defend that.
Except that the 'free market' was never allowed to exist in this sector. It could be argued that establishing a muni broadband service would be the 'free market' expressing itself - an actual competitor to the entrenched government-granted telco monopolies of the 1970s.
But those monopolies are more than willing to spend money preventing it from happening through legal measures and campaign contributions, rather than spending to eliminate the need by improving their networks, lowering costs, or both.
Now all they need to do is pass the thing. Does anyone know what kind of poison pill has been inserted yet, which will cause somebody to get off the boat and sink it? We all know there is one...
It's a sad state when the budget process has been reduced to such cynicism, but here we are.
Because clearly a small rural town in North Carolina is a good data point to measure 330,000,000 people.
I would be on much firmer ground saying that your idiot stereotyping is more of a product of the lack of education and level of ignorance of wherever your anonymous coward ass is from.
Because clearly one small town in North Carolina is representative of the other 330 million people.
Didn't anyone tell you that painting hundreds of millions of people with the same brush is even stupider than anyone quoted in TFA?
Bear in mind that I'm not just talking about channels, I'm talking about discrete programming blocks on each channel. Example, on my 'channel 1' I want this show from CBS, next would be this show from NBC, and then after that, a show from Comedy Central. 'Channel 2' can be a different family member's, etc.
If Apple could deliver that for $40/month, that would be a industry-busting service. Unfortunately, it will never happen, because it doesn't reward the content producers' love of shoveling drek onto the air to surround their one hit show.
Yeah, there's a massive difference between what you just described, and College Football, which is one of the things you can basically only find on cable sports networks. Sure, some games make it to over-the-air broadcast, but it's largely based on contract. I don't want to watch SEC schools on CBS, and I don't want to watch Notre Dame on NBC. What's left is whatever ESPN puts on ABC, and what's on the ESPN and Fox Sports channels on Cable.
So whatever you would have bet, just hand it over now.
More than that, video of a conference or presentation isn't nearly as editable as text. Once you mangle your language or say it in a confusing way, it's said.
With text transcripts, you can revise with inserted notes, etc. It makes it better for what you're trying to say, and better for the person you're trying to say it to.
This is why I hate YouTube. I'm searching for how to do something rather trivial, but I'm stuck on one little thing. Why can't I read in 20 seconds how to do what I'm looking for, rather than listen to some mumbling person go about asking me to subscribe to their channel, and do all the crap I've already done in order to get to the bit that I care about?
Hey YouTube Tutorial guys: I don't need a 5 minute video showing your crappy desktop wallpaper festooned with 200 icons while you laboriously type in a command, I just need the damn command.
I suppose it makes it rather easy to predict an attack if you're ever in a kerfuffle with Japan again...
That's just an injection mold seam line - it's perfectly normal.
Exactly.
For decades, channels have been added, but quality content adds haven't kept up. The overall signal-to-noise ratio is very VERY low on your average cable TV system, where 'signal' = content you actually give a shit about.
You're making a huge assumption that those 14 channels are 1980's style cable channels, where you get no say in the programming. What if they added a tab to iTunes where you can drag and drop shows out of a pick list onto a "TV Guide" style grid of your 14 channels, including live sport events?
That would sure as shit be worth $40/month for me, as long as the content I'm looking for is there.
Exactly.
The only reason I still have a cable TV subscription at all is for live sports. If ESPN went direct-to-Internet streaming without the cable company's paywall in the way, I'd tell Time Warner to go pound sand. I don't even care about "seeing the latest episode when it airs" because watching it via DVR is a monumentally better watching experience.
Cable and Satellite companies need to stop living in the 1980s already. The smartest thing the distribution networks (cable, satellite, etc.) could do is side with the consumers and break bundling agreements. Then they could offer what we really want - a la carte channel service. They'd save shitloads of bandwidth they could use on services we want (faster data, higher quality video), and we could get services from them we actually want.
As I posted above, I'd happily pay for ~20 channel service if I could pick what channels they are, and they are delivered without color dithering and compression artifacts. That would be far superior to 1500+ channels, where 1450 of them are complete shit, and the other 50 are 50% shit, and 100% of them are compressed to hell and back.
It depends on the content of the channels.
If you're just measuring the dollars-to-channels figure, cable and satellite providers will always win, because they've shoehorned so many channels into the available spectrum that are 24/7 garbage that nobody watches. Who cares how many channels you have that you never watch?
If you gave me 14 channels where I could pick what was on them a la carte, without the compression artifacting (color dithering) we get from cable and satellite, including live sporting events, I'd drop Time Warner like a paper bag of dog shit and sign up today.
I have a concern that she is letting her grandchildren walk around in an open air market where anything can and will be sold, without supervision.
Does she just drop them off at the door to the mall and fuck off to the nearest bar for a martini? Why is she doing that with the Internet?