Who here still believes in Nuclear Power as a positive energy source? Controversial, but I do.

[Locut0s]

I'd like to know. What I'm about to say is, I know, very unpopular here so I first want to make it clear that I AM NOT some nuclear industry shill and have nothing to do with the nuclear industry personally. I'm not right wing, very left wing in fact. But I still think that properly managed, designed and constructed nuclear power is still one of the "cleanest" and best sources we have at hand. If you look at the big picture coal and other dirty forms of power have killed WAY WAY more people than nuclear. There are thousands of deaths every year just in the worlds coal mines, mostely in the 3rd world. Then there are the probably thousands of deaths caused per year due to cancer resulting from the burning of fossil fuels in one form or another. On top of this we have global warming. The direct effects of global warming are hard to measure as it's a very slow process but undoubtedly it will kill millions in the comming decades from combinations of disease, displacement, violent weather and even war. Against this backdrop nuclear is really quite clean. There have so far only been 3 large disasters/accidents including the current one at Fukushima. Three Mile Island was expensive but did not result in much if any harm to people outside the plant. Chernobyl was undoubtedly the worst however so far the best studies put the death toll from it at around 4000 or so. I know there are other numbers floating around of upwards of a million deaths but I do not believe these are very well supported by many studies. Even at the upper limit of these estimates it still makes nuclear much safer than coal in the long run.

As for the problem of storage of nuclear waste most nuclear facilities actually have ample room on site to store spent fuel in safely sealed caskets, once they have cooled off in cooling ponds. Then there is the possibility of central storage, Yucca or something similar, or several decentralized storage sites. There are also breeder reactors though these have the problem of creating more weaponized material.

I'm NOT saying that everything is hunky dorry with nuclear. In the long run I am MUCH MORE IN FAVOUR of solar, wind, and other renewables but the world is heading too fast towards dangerous warming for these to have a large enough effect at the rate they are being implemented. The industry needs to be shaken to the core and safety standards need to be seriously re-evaluated. However despite the fact that these plants ARE built with $$$ as the primary motive they STILL have a LOT of safety features built in and the most modern of them are quite a lot safer than the plants at Fukushima (built in the 70s and probably designed in the 60s). This does not mean we should be complacent, like I said we need to re-evaluate safety measures and make sure that plants are run safely. I would prefer if plants were run by the government and not industry for example. The plants at Fukushima survived a 9.0 earthquake, one of the largest in regorded human history and everything worked as it should have, the reactors scrammed and shut down. It was the resulting tsunami that delt the death blow and while it IS UNACCEPTABLE that they were not designed to survive this it is also a testament to how safe they are that they survived the 9.0 earthquake.

The workers at the plant ARE heroes and I REALLY feel for them sacrificing their lives to get these reactors under controll. They are international heroes and should be honoured as such, hopefully their families are equally compensated. I AM NOT in favour of building any new nuclear plants in the next few years until the lessons of this disaster have actually sunk in and been learned but in the long run I am.

[wtmusic]

1. K& R. nt

[Mr Generic Other]

2. nuclear power generation can never

create enough wealth to cover the cost of storing the spent fuel.
it is not cost effective or safe and should not be considered as a viable way to power our homes and industry.
comparing the numbers of deaths one source of energy is responsible for to another is hardly the way to measure value. especially when there are options which don't pose the same dangers.

[upi402]

7. ^+1,000: DER -Distributed Energy Resources are the way to go. n/t

[kristopher]

25. Want a cite?

Executive Summary
Background
Section 1817 of the Energy Policy Act (EPACT) of 2005 calls for the Secretary of Energy to conduct a study of the potential benefits of cogeneration and small power production, otherwise known as distributed generation, or DG. The benefits to be studied are described in subpart (2)(A) of Section 1817. In accordance with Section 1817 the study includes those benefits received “either directly or indirectly by an electricity distribution or transmission service provider, other customers served by an electricity distribution or transmission service provider and/or the general public in the area served by the public utility in which the cogenerator or small power producer is located.” Congress did not require the study to include the potential benefits to owners/operators of DG units.1 The specific areas of potential benefits covered in this study include:

• Increased electric system reliability (Section 2 of the Study)
• An emergency supply of power (Section 2 and 7 of the Study)
• Reduction of peak power requirements (Section 3 of the Study)
• Offsets to investments in generation, transmission, or distribution facilities that would otherwise be recovered through rates (Section 3 of the Study)
• Provision of ancillary services, including reactive power (Section 4 of the Study)
• Improvements in power quality (Section 5 of the Study)
• Reductions in land-use effects and rights-of-way acquisition costs (Section 6 of the Study)
• Reduction in vulnerability to terrorism and improvements in infrastructure resilience (Section 7 of the Study)

Additionally, Congress requested an analysis of “...any rate-related issue that may impede or otherwise discourage the expansion of cogeneration and small power production facilities, including a review of whether rates, rules, or other requirements imposed on the facilities are comparable to rates imposed on customers of the same class that do not have cogeneration or small power production.” (Section 8 of the Study)

The full study may be found at http://www.oe.energy.gov.

[Dems to Win]

3. Hell No. Renewables and conservation instead. I sent this letter to Obama yesterday:

Dear President Obama:

I am writing today to demand that you follow the lead of Angela Merkel and immediately shut down the 70s-era nuclear plants, as Germany is sensibly doing. No studies are needed or could possibly provide reassurances to allow them to keep operating.

President Obama, I have always opposed nuclear power and tried to vote accordingly. Though sometimes I've contributed to and voted for someone like yourself in spite of your pro-nuclear stance because I agreed with you on other issues.

Never again. I have now become a single issue anti-nuclear voter.
You have about 18 months to come to your senses and follow the lead of Angela Merkel of Germany and immediately close all pre-1980 nuclear plants, including those in California, and earn my vote.

If the only antinuclear candidate in the race is the Green, I will vote for the Green. No more choosing the lesser of the two evils between the Republicans and Democrats. Only anti-nuclear candidates will get my vote, period. No compromise.

Close all pre-1980 nuclear plants immediately, and enact a plan to close the rest in a couple of years. No other course of action meets the sanity test.

Respectfully,

[Historic NY]

4. Just how shall the fragile power grid be filled then......

the supply now barely meets demand. These plants took years to build and will take year to replace.

[Dems to Win]

39. Germany's doing it. When did the U.S. become the "Can't Do It" country?

[Historic NY]

41. Since the couple of major east coast black outs...

The big problem is the private power industry. I got telephone poles on borrowed time where I live. Rates are up service is down. This country couldn't fix the fragmented power grind in Iraq. So yes, I'm not confident they can do it here.

[Politicalboi]

50. Germany also had medical coverage for everyone

After WWII. Let's see 65 years later where is the US? But I agree with you. We could also use alternative fuel by next year for EVERY car if need be. They just won't do it.

[Codeine]

5. I do. I'm not going to let a worst-case scenario at a 40-yr-old plant

with a goofy design change my mind about the overall safety of nuclear energy.

[OmahaBlueDog]

6. That's an important point that few are discussing

This is a goofy design, and it's 35 years old. A plant built from scratch today would likely have only a superficial resemblance. It's like comparing a Pinto to a Prius.

I support conservation in terms of building more efficient produts, but if you are asking people to change behaviors or "do more with less", you're in the wrong country. The majority of Americans are "go big or go home" consumers, whether we like it or not. They consume a lot of power. The good news is that we have a lot of capacity to build wind farms, and we have cheap and abundant natural gas (which I'd prefer we use to fuel cars).

Coal and oil plants kill more than nuclear plants, but we never notice becuse the deaths are incremental. Black lung, oil rig accidents, COPD from breathing pollution from the coal burning plants, cancer from the radiation spread by coal plants, and the soldiers and sailors we lose in places like Iraq. Nuclear may be my 4th or 5th choice, but I'll take it over coal or oil.

[kristopher]

12. Like Chernobyl was "a bad design" ?

You can't keep blaming it on bad designs.

Please read post 11 and the link that goes with it. Take your time and absorb the material, don't just glance at it and dismiss it. The works presented there have no profit motive behind them.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=686905&mesg_id=687368

TIA.

[Maru Kitteh]

17. What do you know about what went wrong at Chernobyl? Please describe it.

[dfgrbac]

47. No containment!

The main thing that was wrong with the Russian design was that the core had no containment building around it. The Japanese containment has 6 foot thick concrete and steel walls.

[Locut0s]

18. Chernobyl WAS a bad design. nt

[kristopher]

21. Yes, I know it was.

So was TMI.

So was Fukushima.

So was Davis Besse.

Are you starting to see a problematic trend?

There are and will be many designs. Nuclear power pushed the limits of complexity making vulnerable to a new set of potential failures whenever designs focus on correcting a given set of problems. For example, France has designed one of the safest reactors on the market, but it is too expensive and almost no one wants to buy it. They are therefore going back to selling their Gen II design. There are and always will be trade-offs that mean you can never achieve the perfection you believe is right around the corner.



There are 4 problems that MIT identified in their 2003 report and said that nuclear must solve - all in one design - to be successful.

Cost - it must, without subsidies, be able to compete on an open energy market.
Safety - Self explanatory.
Waste - Again self explanatory
Nuclear proliferation

Since the once through fuel cycle is the only approach that even comes close, to that I would add the long term limitation imposed by a the massive build-up that would be required to meet global carbon reduction needs. The lack of HIGH QUALITY ore for fuel.

If nuclear were to meet just 1/3 of global electricity demand it would require about 1700 more nuclear plants. Fueling those plants with a once-through cycle would fairly rapidly deplete the high quality ore that is the norm now. As ore quality declines, carbon emissions associated with the mining and refining of the ore increase dramatically to the level of natural gas, about 400g/kwh. Solving this would exacerbate the cost, safety and nuclear proliferation problems.



Please see post 11 link for more information.

[LAGC]

32. Davis-Besse? Is that all you got?

Davis-Besse is a prime example of how safe modern nuclear power really is. Here's a plant that experienced multiple problems over the years, but ZERO RADIATION LEAKAGE into the environment. TMI was also a case of successful containment.

Nobody uses those old GM MARK I designs like at Fukushima any more. Using Fukushima to demonize nuclear power is like the Pope blaming atheists for the Church's child molestation problems. Apples and oranges, to say the least.

[kristopher]

37. That is a wonderfully expressive Header...

"Davis-Besse? Is that all you got?" My what a peppery reply.

I can almost see you, a faceless form standing with your knees bent, feet spread; in an athletes crouch with your ball glove flipping open and shut as you eye the ball just that smacked stingingly into the pocket neatly; ...and I think to myself, "You think this is a game; the kind that the pundits play on on the 24/7 talking head shows."

And I wonder how to make you see...

http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/ops-experience/vessel-head-degradation/images.html

Davis Besse: Incident history

Over the years of its operation, the plant has experienced several incidents, none of which have resulted in exposure to dangerous levels of radiation.


On September 24, 1977, the reactor, running at only 9% power, shut down because of a disruption in the feedwater system.<4> This caused the relief valve for the pressurizer to stick open. As of 2005, the NRC considers this to be the fourth highest ranked safety incident.<5>

Loss of feedwater event
On June 9, 1985, the main feedwater pumps, used to supply water to the reactor steam generators, shut down. A control room operator then attempted to start the auxiliary (emergency) feedwater pumps. These pumps both tripped on overspeed conditions because of operator error. This incident was originally classified an "unusual event" (the lowest classification the NRC uses) but it was later determined that it should have been classified a "site area emergency".<6>

Tornado
On June 24, 1998 the station was struck by an F2 tornado.<7> The plant's switchyard was damaged and access to external power was disabled. The plant's reactor automatically shut down at 8:43 pm and an alert (the next to lowest of four levels of severity) was declared at 9:18 pm. The plant's emergency diesel generators powered critical facility safety systems until external power could be restored.<8><9>


http:Erosion of the 6-inch-thick (150 mm) carbon steel reactor head, caused by a persistent leak of borated water.//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Davis-BesseHole.png


Reactor head hole

In March 2002, plant staff discovered that the boric acid that serves as the reactor coolant had leaked from cracked control rod drive mechanisms directly above the reactor and eaten through more than six inches<10> of the carbon steel reactor pressure vessel head over an area roughly the size of a football (see photo). This significant reactor head wastage left only 3/8 inch of stainless steel cladding holding back the high-pressure (~2500 psi) reactor coolant. A breach would have resulted in a loss-of-coolant accident, in which superheated, superpressurized reactor coolant could have jetted into the reactor's containment building and resulted in emergency safety procedures to protect from core damage or meltdown. Because of the location of the reactor head damage, such a jet of reactor coolant may have damaged adjacent control rod drive mechanisms, hampering or preventing reactor shut-down. As part of the system reviews following the accident, significant safety issues were identified with other critical plant components, including the following: (1) the containment sump that allows the reactor coolant to be reclaimed and reinjected into the reactor; (2) the high pressure injection pumps that would reinject such reclaimed reactor coolant; (3) the emergency diesel generator system; (4) the containment air coolers that would remove heat from the containment building; (5) reactor coolant isolation valves; and (6) the plant's electrical distribution system.<11> Under certain scenarios, a reactor rupture would have resulted in core meltdown and/or breach of containment and release of radioactive material. The resulting corrective operational and system reviews and engineering changes took two years. Repairs and upgrades cost $600 million, and the Davis-Besse reactor was restarted in March 2004.<12> The U.S. Justice Department investigated and penalized the owner of the plant over safety and reporting violations related to the incident. The NRC determined that this incident was the fifth most dangerous nuclear incident in the United States since 1979.<3>

Criminal prosecutions
On January 20, 2006, the owner of Davis-Besse, FirstEnergy Corporation of Akron, Ohio, acknowledged a series of safety violations by former workers, and entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice. The deferred prosecution agreement relates to the March 2002 incident (see above). The deferment granted by the NRC were based on letters from Davis-Besse engineers stating that previous inspections were adequate. However, those inspections were not as thorough as the company suggested, and as proved by the material deficiency discovered later. In any case, because FirstEnergy cooperated with investigators on the matter, they were able to avoid more serious penalties. Therefore, the company agreed to pay fines of $23.7 million, with an additional $4.3 million to be contributed to various groups, including the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Habitat for Humanity, and the University of Toledo as well as to pay some costs related to the federal investigation.
Two former employees and one former contractor were indicted for statements made in multiple documents and one videotape, over several years, for hiding evidence that the reactor pressure vessel was being corroded by boric acid. The maximum penalty for the three is 25 years in prison. The indictment mentions that other employees also provided false information to inspectors, but does not name them.<13><14>

2008 discovery tritium leak
The NRC and Ohio EPA were notified of a tritium leak accidentally discovered during an unrelated fire inspection on October 22, 2008. Preliminary indications suggest radioactive water did not infiltrate groundwater outside plant boundaries<15>

2009 unintentional discharge of firearm
In November 2009, a plant security officer was using the restroom and his firearm discharged while in the holster. The officer sustained a non life threatening wound to his calf. No cause was found for the discharge.<16>

2010 Replacement reactor head problems
After the 2002 incident, Davis-Besse purchased a used replacement head from a mothballed reactor in Midland, Michigan. Davis-Besse operators replaced the original cracked reactor head before restarting in 2004. On March 12, 2010, during a scheduled refueling outage, ultrasonic examinations performed on the control rod drive mechanism nozzles penetrating the reactor vessel closure head identified that two of the nozzles inspected did not meet acceptance criteria. FirstEnergy investigators subsequently found new cracks in 24 of 69 nozzles, including one serious enough to leak boric acid. Root cause analysis is currently underway by the Department of Energy, First Energy, and the NRC to determine the cause of the premature failures.<17> <18> Crack indications required repair prior to returning the vessel head to service. Control rod drive nozzles were repaired using techniques proven at other nuclear facilities. The plant resumed operation in 2010. The existing reactor vessel head is scheduled for replacement in 2011.<19>


Future

The facility's original nuclear operating license expires on April 22, 2017. On August 11, 2006 FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (FENOC) submitted a letter of intent (Adams Accession No. ML062290261).<20> The submission date for the application is August 10, 2010. This initiates a long process that results in an application approval or revocation. Public hearings<21> are a vital part of any application review and information on this process can be found on the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) website at NRC.gov. <4>. The site map contains many valuable links <22>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davis-Besse_Nuclear_Power_Station#cite_note-21


This page was last modified on 16 March 2011 at 22:20.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of Use for details.
Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.

That is a sketch of the facts. Below, the Union of Concerned Scientists puts them into a meaningful framework built around the relationship between the industry and its regulators.

Davis-Besse: One Year Later
Nearly one year ago, on March 6, 2002, workers repairing a cracked control rod drive mechanism (CRDM) nozzle at the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station in Ohio discovered a football-sized cavity in the reactor vessel head.1 Their finding is linked to two other discoveries 15 years earlier. On March 13, 1987, workers at Turkey Point Unit 4 in Florida discovered that a small leak of borated water had corroded the reactor vessel head. Their revelation prompted the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to require all owners of pressurized water reactors,2including Davis-Besse, to take specific measures to protect plant equipment from boric acid corrosion. On March 24, 1987, the NRC learned that control room operators at the Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvania had been discovered sleeping while on duty. That revelation prompted the NRC to issue an order on March 31st requiring Peach Bottom Unit 3 to be immediately shut down.3

The three findings spanning 15 years are intertwined. Turkey Point demonstrated that a small amount of boric acid leaking onto the reactor vessel head corrodes carbon steel at a high rate. Had the FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company, the owner of Davis-Besse, remembered Turkey Point’s lesson, the serious damage at Davis-Besse would have been averted. Peach Bottom demonstrated that a pervasive safety culture problem creates unacceptable conditions for operating a nuclear power plant. Had NRC remembered either Turkey Point’s or Peach Bottom’s lesson, they would have issued the order they drafted to shut down Davis-Besse. It would have been the first shut down order issued by the agency since the Peach Bottom order. But both FirstEnergy and the NRC forgot the past and relived the wrong event from March 1987 by having yet another reactor vessel head damaged by boric acid corrosion.

Many individuals, from both within and outside the NRC, have accused the agency’s move towards risk- informed decision-making as the reason for its failure to issue the order to shut down Davis-Besse. On the contrary, the NRC’s handling of circumferential cracking of control rod drive mechanism (CRDM) nozzles as reported by the Oconee nuclear plant in February 2001 was a successful demonstration of proper application of risk-informed decision-making with the sole and significant exception of its mistake in not issuing the shut down order for Davis-Besse. But even that mistake, as bad as it was, does not impugn the risk-informed decision-making process for the simple reason that the NRC deviated from that process. Had the NRC adhered to its risk-informed decision-making process, it would have issued the shut down order for Davis-Besse and capped off a stellar example of how this process can and should be used.

In February 2001, the NRC learned of a new aging mechanism, the circumferential cracking of stainless steel CRDM nozzles based on inspection results from Oconee. The NRC properly reacted to this finding by revisiting the nuclear industry’s inspection regime for CRDM nozzles. It determined that the existing inspection regime did not provide adequate assurance that circumferential cracks would be identified and repaired. The NRC did not require all plant owners to immediately address this inspection shortfall, which would have imposed an unnecessary regulatory burden on those plants with low susceptibility for the problem. Nor did the NRC allow all plant owners to address the shortfall at their next regularly scheduled refueling outage, which would have imposed an unnecessary challenge to safety margins at those plants with high susceptibility. Instead, the NRC applied risk-informed decision-making by issuing Bulletin 2001-01 in August 2001 to all owners of pressurized water reactors. This Bulletin required the high susceptible reactors to resolve the inspection shortfall by December 2001, the medium susceptible reactors to resolve the inspection shortfall at their next regularly scheduled outage, and merely collected information from the low susceptible reactors.

Only two reactors with high susceptibility for circumferential cracking of CRDM nozzles did not conform to the inspection requirements...

At this point, the NRC abandoned its risk-informed decision-making process.....

http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/nuclear_power_risk/safety/davis-besse-retrospective.html

This is a 28 page policy layman's guide to the dynamics between the NRC and the For-Profit industry it is regulating.

Download it and read it. Then, write a 500 word summary of what you've read. I don't want opinion, I just want to know if you have the facts pertaining to the regulatory process straight.

Then we will actually know if you actually felt that snap to your wrist when that ball smacked into your glove, or if you were just jerking of under the blanket hoping no one would know.

Joking aside, this paper is the largest unsolved problem leftover from Davis Besse. If you want nuclear power, then the proper way to proceed is to actually do a real policy analysis and then, provide real ideas for real policies that will fix that problem.

[LAGC]

38. Again, how much radiation was leaked from Davis-Besse?

Lots of problems sure, but what actual harm came of it? Everything was perfectly contained. The safe-guards WORK.

Look, I appreciate what you're trying to do promoting renewables, and I do agree with you that we will eventually see a world dominated by them, but the reason I stayed out of your cheer-leading threads is because I just didn't want to Kick the sheer ignorance of your post. I mean, rosy-tinted glasses don't even begin to cover it.

None of you "RENEWABLES ONLY NOW" people have explained to me how you can harness all that energy without SERIOUS and VERY COSTLY upgrades to our electricity grid. The cost of transmission lines alone is huge, and in the case of solar/wind the cost of mass-energy storage mediums is astronomical. They simply can't compete with nuclear power (which can be localized to fit within the existing grid), which even if we eliminated all subsidies would still be a bargain.

But go ahead... "woo" me with your science. Post some more misleading charts showing how we can magically get from Point A to Point C without a nuclear Point B.

[kristopher]

56. .

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x626150

[upi402]

65. Storage is not an issue - false flag

There are dispatchable DER's like methane, tidal, geothermal, fuel cells, algal... but sun can be used in the day, wind when it blows.

And the grid question? When the government forces a smart grid and enables interconnection. You could spiderweb the nation with the money thrown at nuclear energy.
Peak demand happens in the day in commercial zones, at night in residential. The south needs power in summer, the north in winter.
Smart grid can control for that and less transmission will be required. Who will have the US protocol?


Distributed Energy Resources have never been given a chance. In fact, they've been repressed by big oil and nuclear.
Your post discredits itself.

[upi402]

64. I'm saving a lot of your posts

Hope you don't mind.

but there's a lot of good info there. thanks

[Warren DeMontague]

70. "Nobody uses those old GM MARK I designs like at Fukushima any more."

http://nuclearhistory.wordpress.com/2011/03/16/general-electric-mark-i-reactors-in-the-united-states/

[OmahaBlueDog]

40. I never blamed TMI on bad design

Chernobyl and Fukushima have (in very different ways) bad design elements.

We just disagree on this issue.

[RegieRocker]

42. How many failed reactors would it take for you to change your

mind? Would it take a failed reactor that causes you to get radiation poisoning? It's OK if it isn't you right?

[Common Sense Party]

66. Ditto. There are much newer, safer designs.

And it sure as shootin' beats coal.

[HEyHEY]

8. Do you prefer it to site C?

[Locut0s]

9. Don't know much about Site C. Depends on the environmental impact assessments....

Handled properly and without too great of an impact I would probably prefer Site C to nuclear. However Dams are far from free of environmental impacts.

[HEyHEY]

10. Well, with BC government, I wouldn't trust any environmental assesment

[kristopher]

11. I have some questions for you: A. Do you *trust* the nuclear Industry?

B. Do you trust the Petroleum industry?


C. Are you aware that these 6 statements are false?

1. nuclear power is cheap;
2. learning and new standardized designs solve all past problems;
3. the waste problem is a non-problem, especially if we’d follow the lead of many other nations and “recycle” our spent fuel;
4. climate change makes a renaissance inevitable;
5. there are no other large low-carbon “baseload” alternatives;
6. there’s no particular reason to worry that a rapidly expanding global industry will put nuclear power and weapons technologies in highly unstable nations, often nations with ties to terrorist organizations.


D. Are you aware that these 5 statements are true?

1. Renewable energy resources extracted with *existing technologies* are more than sufficient to meet all of modern society's energy needs on a more reliable grid than now exists.
2. The renewable path is less expensive.
3. The renewable energy path is completely sustainable.
4. The renewable path is safer in all ways than nuclear.
5. The renewable path is faster to achieve than nuclear.

Some reading you might enjoy:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x626150

[Zoeisright]

13. +100000000000000000000000000

I am so fucking sick of the lies about safe renewable energy being spread by people on this board. It's the same bunch of fucking lies the assholes who have gotten filthy (and I mean filthy) rich off dirty, poisonous nukes, gas, and coal have been spreading to keep their golden goose laying its radioactive eggs.

[Locut0s]

15. Where did you read in my post that I don't support renewables?...

Renewables are the dream that I would be striving for. 100% renewable energy IS possible and practice. But NOT with the culture we have now. We are headed towards a nightmare with our current energy policy and I see nuclear as the least dirty of the filth that we use. It's a means to wean ourselves of the addiction that is killing us. We have to be practical about this.

[Locut0s]

14. I said as much in my original post...

I MUCH prefer renewables to nuclear. However Part D will only come about with a MASSIVE shift in political and cultural norms. At the current rate I fear that it will take a century or more before renewables provide even 50 or 60 percent of our energy needs. We don't have that much time. If we can bring about such massive change then I am ALL for it. I see nuclear as more of a stop gap measure on the way to 100 percent renewable which is the end goal. You see the apocalyptic stories that people talk about with nuclear are much more likely to be realized by our continued use and dependence on fossil fuels.

[kristopher]

16. I'm sorry but I know of no public and cultural norms that require a shift...

....massive or otherwise.

Could you be more explicit?



Remember, list C is false. I can prove that.

List D is true. I can also prove that.

[Locut0s]

19. Renewables could easily provide all the power the US needs and more...

Through a combination of solar, wind, geothermal and other renewables there is more than enough energy out there to harness and at a rate that is not all that expensive when you factor in government subsidies for oil and gas. However try and get a mega solar plant or wind farm built. We need lots of these covering relatively large areas. The Midwest has vast areas of open land that receive huge amounts of sunlight to be harvested. However any attempt to even suggest building these types of plants, expect small test sites, are usually dead in the water before you get started. There are simply too many powerful vested interests in the way. It's like trying to become president of the united states while being openly atheist. You might be the best candidate on the planet but you will never even get past step 2. Until we rid ourselves of the oil and gas lobbies and many other powerful vested interests I don't see renewables making a big dent.

[kristopher]

22. It isn't true that renewables are rejected in the manner you claim.

It simply isn't true just because there have been a couple of high profile instances. The vast majority of solar and wind project have a planning and completion horizon of between 1-3 years and encounter little true opposition. All reasons considered they walk away from about 1/3 of their first choice project sites.

As economics of renewables improves, which is happening very rapidly, the range of sites where it makes economic sense to build them will expand.

There is enough area in brownfield sites to meet all of solar's contribution. Then you have commercial rooftops and homes.

In the area of subsidies nuclear has recieved nearly all nonfossil subsidies over the past 50 years with the result that overnight costs for a new reactor rose from $2500/kwh in 2003 to nearly $8000/kwh today.

Wind and solar show exactly the opposite reaction to subsidies. Wind is competitive with coal, and solar is NOW competitive with natural gas for peaking power and is expected provide electricity less expensive than new coal by 2020 (and that was before China jumped into the market in a big way in 2009).

Perhaps you want to read this?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x626150

[Locut0s]

24. I support this 100% and look forward to the continual growth of renewables...

One more thing that we do need for renewable energy to really work though is a notional / international (canada here) smart grid. This would need to be composed of many more runs of much higher voltage lines and hopefully new superconducting lines between critical links. Expensive but desperately needed, even for todays grid.

[kristopher]

26. Agreed. We will also be enhancing the sophistication of the (I call it) neural network that...

is used to control the grid. That is already necessary as we going to battery electric vehicles.

Thank you for the polite discussion, it was refreshing.

[Sirveri]

20. I'm waiting to see if containment holds, and how much leakage we see.

If containment holds and leakage is kept to a minimum, then I will continue to support nuclear. As far as I see the future our choices will be between coal and nuclear, because the people with all the money say so, and we bend over and take it whenever they say so. With Japan we're looking at nuclear being off the table, and a wonderful future filled with coal and rising sea levels...

[kristopher]

23. Would you do me a favor?

Read post 11 and, at your leisure, the attached document.

TIA.

[Sirveri]

52. Meh, post factual world etc etc etc...

I worked as a nuclear operator on board a submarine. Pick and choose whatever you want to believe, I could care less. I know what I'm talking about because I lived and breathed it, I understand the people and the mentality. My personal experience will trump any article you will ever post.

[kristopher]

57. Ok. For some people actually taking the time to learn involves too much of an investment

... of their time and they resort to retreating to their preformed opinion based on incomplete personal experience.

In my case I was in the Air Force for 8 years, specialized in command and control and spent 2 year planning local response to all emergency events. The one for nuclear war was easy - lock the door and try to get home and die with your family.

Pro-nuclear MIT identified 4 problems with increasing dependence on nuclear power: cost, safety, waste and nuclear weapons proliferation.

But hey, I understand your time is valuable and thank you for what you've given me.

[bananas]

28. "because the people with all the money say so" - no, they don't

Even with the federal loan guarantees, nobody was interested, so the government is giving actual loans:
"Nuclear Loan Guarantees Aren’t Just Guarantees: They are Actual Taxpayer Loans" http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x231521

[bananas]

29. "because the people with all the money say so" - no, they don't

Even with the federal loan guarantees, investors weren't interested, so the government is giving actual loans,
please read: "Nuclear Loan Guarantees Aren’t Just Guarantees: They are Actual Taxpayer Loans" http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x231521

[jp11]

27. I echo your post in just about everything said

and would only add I think nuclear power WHEN/WHERE we decide to use it SHOULD include more safeguards and backups than currently are in place. Could and would every plant be 'safe' from every conceivable situation, absolutely not, BUT they could ALL have some added levels of safety, redundancy and automation to limit risk and danger to workers and anyone living nearby. We should also look at all nuclear plants and at the very least retrofit the old plants with more safety features and those near fault lines (which shouldn't have ever been built) get shutdown until they can withstand higher quake levels OR some options to deal with certain non critical structures that might not meet the enhanced standards are put in place. When you are dealing with something so potentially dangerous it makes sense to use greater safety margins instead of minimums (like 5%-10%) as seems to be the case.

Other power options, solar/wind/hydro/etc really SHOULD be what we lead off with but there is a 'place' for nuclear power in our country at least for the foreseeable future to limit and reduce our dependency on fossil fuel use for reliable power generation.

[vaberella]

30. I've always been tentatively supportive and the situation in Japan, has not changed that. n/t

[Gravel Democrat]

31. The real test would come if it was 5 miles away

"supporters" of this nonsense don't have much to worry about anyway.

5, 10, 15 or 25 years of hell and they're dead, radiation or not, old age will do it.

But they will never even have to confront the people that would complain the loudest with their justification for their risky schemes and hopes and prayers. It is mind boggling, the arrogance. And sickening.

You want to take risks, fine. You want to force me into going along with your little risk, we have a little problem. You want to risk endangering my Grandchildrens children and we have a real serious problem.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Spain

[vaberella]

34. I live in New York...no worries it is 5 miles away. n/t

[CommonSensePLZ]

33. I'm really liking the idea of Solar Power

It's free, it's renewable, it isn't as dependent on dangerous components and the numbers of the potential energy we could be harnessing from the sun are astounding.

There's a limit, I suspect, on how well a building can be designed. I question if the idea of an "earthquake-proof nuclear plant" is realistic.

Frankly I never really liked the idea of nuclear energy. Seems a very extreme, bizarre concept just to keep the lights on.

[marions ghost]

35. How do you justify

what you wrote:

"Chernobyl was undoubtedly the worst however so far the best studies put the death toll from it at around 4000 or so. I know there are other numbers floating around of upwards of a million deaths but I do not believe these are very well supported by many studies. Even at the upper limit of these estimates it still makes nuclear much safer than coal in the long run."

Add to this the deaths that will result from Fukushima, now and in the future.

There is no justification for these deaths. (And don't give us statistics on deaths attributed to coal--not the point).

If YOU died in the misery of a nuclear-related death or cancer, would it be worth it to YOU?

The callousness is mind-blowing--but your statements are useful in illustrating the thinking that goes on in the nuclear industry. AND you make them even before the disaster is anywhere near under control. Incredibly callous and obscene.

(--------------------------------------) 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 :thumbsdown:

[SidDithers]

36. So do I. I safely get the majority of my electricity from nuclear...

and I agree with everything you wrote.

Good post.

Sid

[RegieRocker]

43. Until a reactor close to you fails right?

As long as that doesn't happen to you then what the hell it's safe.

[Shagbark Hickory]

44. Nukes are a bad idea. How about forcing the largest consumers of energy (industry) to produce their

own. Then the will be ample capacity with safer generation methods. And by safe I mean something that isn't going to kill millions of people if power is disrupted to the facility.

[dfgrbac]

45. I used to work in the nuclear industry, and I'm very much against it!

In the early days of nuclear power, everyone wanted to harness it for electrical energy. But at that time scientists were still discovering how dangerous uranium and the fuel made from it was. Research was going on in the 1960s and 70s to design a spent nuclear fuel reprocessing plant to convert spent fuel to have about the same radioactivity as natural uranium. If this plan succeeded, nuclear power would not be so bad. But the government cut the funding for this research about the time Reagan got elected.

As an employee in the industry, I wondered why our corporation was determined to continue with its development of nuclear plants knowing full well we would be creating highly radioactive waste products that will last for thousands of years. Why would we want to be in that sort of business? As an energy company, we should have started research into solar, wind, etc.

The generation of megatons of dangerous waste is a far more significant point than whether the plants can function to produce electricity cleanly while their cooling systems are working okay.

[in_cog_ni_to]

46. NO. Solar and Wind. If we can afford to build Nuke plants,

we can afford to put that money into solar and wind...which is SAFE.

[LAGC]

49. How do we power our homes at night and when the wind isn't blowing?

Solar/wind aren't reliable without some means of mass-energy storage, which is far from cheap right now.

[kristopher]

55. You've already been provided that answer

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x626150

[Warren DeMontague]

69. How "cheap" do you think the cleanup from the clusterfuck at Fukushima is gonna be?

I mean, the hand-wringing about how "expensive" shit like solar panels are is ridiculous. What we're doing NOW, that's what is costing us.

[Zoeisright]

62. Fuckin' A.

Dirty energy has been a total failure. It's time to invest some REAL money in solar and wind.

[Warren DeMontague]

68. Exactly. The problem is that the outlay would be big, and the profit interests don't see the upside.

But this is more important than their bottom line.

[WatsonT]

48. Yeah I think most people who are educated on the subject are at least receptive

to the idea of nuclear power.

Right now the debate is useless as emotions are running too high for reasoned arguments to make any dent.

It's like discussing gun control the day after some school shooting. The overwhelming trends and decades of statistics won't compete with "but haven't you seen the news!".

[Rex]

51. We need to use nuclear power...from the Sun.

If we fly too high, we get burned. A power source that has just ONE fatal flaw, is a flawed resource best left alone until the right environment comes along.

[NutmegYankee]

53. I support it.

I am also not an industry shrill, but that doesn't matter to the attack experts here. I find it funny that some of these same people are getting called "Gadhafi lovers" now and they are protesting the name calling quite a BIT. They get all upset when it's their turn to get attacked. karma.

[kristopher]

54. The difference between a victim of misinformation and being a shill

The difference can be established with this quiz.



A. Do you *trust* the nuclear Industry?

B. Do you trust the Petroleum industry?

C. Are you aware that the following 6 statements are false?

1. nuclear power is cheap;
2. learning and new standardized designs solve all past problems;
3. the waste problem is a non-problem, especially if we’d follow the lead of many other nations and “recycle” our spent fuel;
4. climate change makes a renaissance inevitable;
5. there are no other large low-carbon “baseload” alternatives;
6. there’s no particular reason to worry that a rapidly expanding global industry will put nuclear power and weapons technologies in highly unstable nations, often nations with ties to terrorist organizations.


D. Are you aware that the following 5 statements are true?

1. Renewable energy resources extracted with *existing technologies* are more than sufficient to meet all of modern society's energy needs on a more reliable grid than now exists.
2. The renewable path is less expensive.
3. The renewable energy path is completely sustainable.
4. The renewable path is safer in all ways than nuclear.
5. The renewable path is faster to achieve than nuclear.





If the answers to this quiz are:
A Yes or Maybe
B No
C No
D No

Then you are probably victim of the nuclear industry's propaganda campaign.

Reference information is at this link:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x686905#687368

[NutmegYankee]

58. You make many assertions, but have little facts.

For instance, I agree that Nuclear is very expensive, but it provides a lot of useful power every day. The claim that solar and wind are cheaper, when comparing the amount and size needed to supply the grid is false. A Nuclear plant can produce 1000 Megawatts of power from one 8 Billion dollar reactor. It takes 500 $2,000,000 windmills to accomplish the same thing. That is about a Billion dollars worth. But, the wind doesn't blow everyday or maintain it's velocity, so more solar plants and Battery systems and even more windmills (to account for lower wind velocity) will be needed. Add in the land costs and the maintenance plus the rare earth metals needed for the technology, such as Neodymium for magnets and we start to get a fair estimate.

It's closer to a wash after that, particularly once you look at the amount of land area needed.


Your Quiz is bullshit.

[kristopher]

60. Do you really think so?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x626150

You asked for facts, here they are. Can you make a similar case using anything other than nuclear industry affiliated websites or sources?

RENEWABLE ENERGY WORKS NOW

The nuclear industry would have you believe that we NEED nuclear power as a response to climate change. That is false. We have less expensive alternatives that can be built faster for FAR less money. This is a good overview of their claims:
http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Library/E08-01_NuclearIllusion

In a comparative analysis by another well respected researcher nuclear, coal with carbon capture and ethanol are not recommended as solutions to climate change. The researcher has looked at the qualities of the various options in great detail and the results disprove virtually all claims that the nuclear industry promote in order to gain public support for nuclear industry.

Nuclear supporters invariably claim that research like this is produced because the researchers are "biased against nuclear power". That is false. They have a preference,however that preference is not irrational; indeed it is a product of careful analysis of the needs of society and the costs of the various technologies for meeting those needs. In other words the researchers are "biased" against nuclear power because reality is biased against nuclear power. We hear this same kind of claim to being a victim of "liberal bias" from conservatives everyday and it is no different when the nuclear proponents employ it - it is designed to let them avoid cognitive dissonance associated with holding positions that are proven to be false.

The nuclear power supporters will tell you this study has been "debunked any number of times" but they will not be able to produce a detailed rebuttal that withstands even casual scrutiny for that claim too is false. The study is peer reviewed and well respected in the scientific community; it breaks no new ground and the references underpinning the work are not subject to any criticism that has material effect on the outcome of the comparison.

They will tell you that the sun doesn't always shine and that the wind doesn't always blow. Actually they do. The sun is always shining somewhere and the wind is always blowing somewhere. However researcher have shown that a complete grid based on renewable energy sources is UNQUESTIONABLY SOMETHING WE CAN DO. Here is what happens when you start linking various sites together:

Original paper here at National Academy of Sciences website: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/03/29/0909075107.abstract

When the local conditions warrant the other parts of a renewable grid kick in - geothermal power, biomass, biofuels, and wave/current/tidal sources are all resources that fill in the gaps - just like now when 5 large scale power plants go down unexpectedly. We do not need nuclear not least because spending money on nuclear is counterproductive to the goal of getting off of fossil fuels as we get less electricity for each dollar spend on infrastructure and it takes a lot longer to bring nuclear online.

In the study below Mark Jacobson of Stanford has used the quantity of energy that it would take to power an electric vehicle fleet as a benchmark by which to judge the technologies.

As originally published:
Abstract

This paper reviews and ranks major proposed energy-related solutions to global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security while considering other impacts of the proposed solutions, such as on water supply, land use, wildlife, resource availability, thermal pollution, water chemical pollution, nuclear proliferation, and undernutrition. Nine electric power sources and two liquid fuel options are considered. The electricity sources include solar-photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave, tidal, nuclear, and coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The liquid fuel options include corn-ethanol (E85) and cellulosic-E85. To place the electric and liquid fuel sources on an equal footing, we examine their comparative abilities to address the problems mentioned by powering new-technology vehicles, including battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), and flex-fuel vehicles run on E85. Twelve combinations of energy source-vehicle type are considered. Upon ranking and weighting each combination with respect to each of 11 impact categories, four clear divisions of ranking, or tiers, emerge. Tier 1 (highest-ranked) includes wind-BEVs and wind-HFCVs. Tier 2 includes CSP-BEVs, geothermal-BEVs, PV-BEVs, tidal-BEVs, and wave-BEVs. Tier 3 includes hydro-BEVs, nuclear-BEVs, and CCS-BEVs. Tier 4 includes corn- and cellulosic-E85. Wind-BEVs ranked first in seven out of 11 categories, including the two most important, mortality and climate damage reduction. Although HFCVs are much less efficient than BEVs, wind-HFCVs are still very clean and were ranked second among all combinations. Tier 2 options provide significant benefits and are recommended. Tier 3 options are less desirable. However, hydroelectricity, which was ranked ahead of coal-CCS and nuclear with respect to climate and health, is an excellent load balancer, thus recommended. The Tier 4 combinations (cellulosic- and corn-E85) were ranked lowest overall and with respect to climate, air pollution, land use, wildlife damage, and chemical waste. Cellulosic-E85 ranked lower than corn-E85 overall, primarily due to its potentially larger land footprint based on new data and its higher upstream air pollution emissions than corn-E85. Whereas cellulosic-E85 may cause the greatest average human mortality, nuclear-BEVs cause the greatest upper-limit mortality risk due to the expansion of plutonium separation and uranium enrichment in nuclear energy facilities worldwide. Wind-BEVs and CSP-BEVs cause the least mortality. The footprint area of wind-BEVs is 2–6 orders of magnitude less than that of any other option. Because of their low footprint and pollution, wind-BEVs cause the least wildlife loss. The largest consumer of water is corn-E85. The smallest are wind-, tidal-, and wave-BEVs. The US could theoretically replace all 2007 onroad vehicles with BEVs powered by 73 000–144 000 5 MW wind turbines, less than the 300 000 airplanes the US produced during World War II, reducing US CO2 by 32.5–32.7% and nearly eliminating 15 000/yr vehicle-related air pollution deaths in 2020. In sum, use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, PV, wave, and hydro to provide electricity for BEVs and HFCVs and, by extension, electricity for the residential, industrial, and commercial sectors, will result in the most benefit among the options considered. The combination of these technologies should be advanced as a solution to global warming, air pollution, and energy security. Coal-CCS and nuclear offer less benefit thus represent an opportunity cost loss, and the biofuel options provide no certain benefit and the greatest negative impacts.
http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2009/EE/b809990c

Mods this is the one paragraph abstract shown above reformatted by me for ease of reading.

Abstract here: http://www.rsc.org/publishing/journals/EE/article.asp?doi=b809990c

Full article for download here: http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/revsolglobwarmairpol.htm

http://pubs.rsc.org/services/images/RSCpubs.ePlatform.Service.FreeContent.ImageService.svc/ImageService/image/GA?id=B809990C


Energy Environ. Sci., 2009, 2, 148 - 173, DOI: 10.1039/b809990c

Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security

Mark Z. Jacobson

Abstract
This paper reviews and ranks major proposed energy-related solutions to global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security while considering other impacts of the proposed solutions, such as on water supply, land use, wildlife, resource availability, thermal pollution, water chemical pollution, nuclear proliferation, and undernutrition.

Nine electric power sources and two liquid fuel options are considered. The electricity sources include solar-photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave, tidal, nuclear, and coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The liquid fuel options include corn-ethanol (E85) and cellulosic-E85. To place the electric and liquid fuel sources on an equal footing, we examine their comparative abilities to address the problems mentioned by powering new-technology vehicles, including battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), and flex-fuel vehicles run on E85.

Twelve combinations of energy source-vehicle type are considered. Upon ranking and weighting each combination with respect to each of 11 impact categories, four clear divisions of ranking, or tiers, emerge.

Tier 1 (highest-ranked) includes wind-BEVs and wind-HFCVs.
Tier 2 includes CSP-BEVs, geothermal-BEVs, PV-BEVs, tidal-BEVs, and wave-BEVs.
Tier 3 includes hydro-BEVs, nuclear-BEVs, and CCS-BEVs.
Tier 4 includes corn- and cellulosic-E85.

Wind-BEVs ranked first in seven out of 11 categories, including the two most important, mortality and climate damage reduction. Although HFCVs are much less efficient than BEVs, wind-HFCVs are still very clean and were ranked second among all combinations.

Tier 2 options provide significant benefits and are recommended.

Tier 3 options are less desirable. However, hydroelectricity, which was ranked ahead of coal-CCS and nuclear with respect to climate and health, is an excellent load balancer, thus recommended.

The Tier 4 combinations (cellulosic- and corn-E85) were ranked lowest overall and with respect to climate, air pollution, land use, wildlife damage, and chemical waste. Cellulosic-E85 ranked lower than corn-E85 overall, primarily due to its potentially larger land footprint based on new data and its higher upstream air pollution emissions than corn-E85.

Whereas cellulosic-E85 may cause the greatest average human mortality, nuclear-BEVs cause the greatest upper-limit mortality risk due to the expansion of plutonium separation and uranium enrichment in nuclear energy facilities worldwide. Wind-BEVs and CSP-BEVs cause the least mortality.

The footprint area of wind-BEVs is 2–6 orders of magnitude less than that of any other option. Because of their low footprint and pollution, wind-BEVs cause the least wildlife loss.

The largest consumer of water is corn-E85. The smallest are wind-, tidal-, and wave-BEVs.

The US could theoretically replace all 2007 onroad vehicles with BEVs powered by 73000–144000 5 MW wind turbines, less than the 300000 airplanes the US produced during World War II, reducing US CO2 by 32.5–32.7% and nearly eliminating 15000/yr vehicle-related air pollution deaths in 2020.

In sum, use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, PV, wave, and hydro to provide electricity for BEVs and HFCVs and, by extension, electricity for the residential, industrial, and commercial sectors, will result in the most benefit among the options considered. The combination of these technologies should be advanced as a solution to global warming, air pollution, and energy security. Coal-CCS and nuclear offer less benefit thus represent an opportunity cost loss, and the biofuel options provide no certain benefit and the greatest negative impacts.

Then we have the economic analysis from Cooper:
The Economics of Nuclear Reactors: Renaissance or Relapse
This graph summarizes his findings where "Consumer" concerns direct financial costs and "Societal" refers to external costs not captured in financial analysis.

Cooper A Multi-dimensional View of Alternatives

Full report can be read here: http://www.olino.org/us/articles/2009/11/26/the-economics-of-nuclear-reactors-renaissance-or-relapse


Another independent economic analysis is the Severance study:
http://climateprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/nuclear-costs-2009.pdf


The price of nuclear subsidies is also worth looking at. Nuclear proponents will tell you the subsidies per unit of electricity for nuclear are no worse than for renewables. That statement omits the fact than nuclear power has received the lions share of non fossil energy subsidies for more than 50 years with no apparent payoff; for all the money we've spent we see a steadily escalating cost curve for nuclear. When we compare that to renewables we find that a small fraction of the total amount spent on nuclear has resulted in rapidly declining costs that for wind are already competitive with coal and rapidly declining costs for solar that are competitive with natural gas and will soon be less expensive than coal.
http://www.1366tech.com/cost-curve/


In other words: subsidies work to help the renewable technologies stand on their own but with nuclear they do nothing but prop up an industry that cannot be economically viable.
Full report: http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/nuclear_power/nuclear_subsidies_report.pdf



What plans are out there? Here is one where achieving 100% renewable energy is described:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-path-to-sustainable-energy-by-2030


Here is a PDF link for another such plan by:
The Civil Society "Beyond Business as Usual"
http://www.civilsocietyinstitute.org/media/pdfs/Beyond%20BAU%205-11-10.pdf

Their website has lots of information:
http://www.civilsocietyinstitute.org/


Also see these other papers by Amory Lovins
http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Library/E09-01_NuclearPowerClimateFixOrFolly


http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Library/E77-01_EnergyStrategyRoadNotTaken

[NutmegYankee]

71. Yes, I still think so.

I can go get lots of opinions and pretty graphs and post them too, but why bother. You're so awesome you already have your "truth". Can you explain any of what you posted in your own words? You have this confident attitude that non-nuclear only is the only right answer and that anyone else is evil or misguided. Hilariously, I find those that those that are most confident in their opinions are also the most incompetent on the subject over and over again.

The first white paper makes a lot of bold statements are technically correct but impractical. Yes, the sun is always shining some where, but you need to get electricity from there to other areas. And electricity is notorious for taking the easier path in a grid, so we cannot do that with our current grid design. Sure we could build a new grid, if the working class like you and I will pay for it - $$$$.

The second article discusses BEV (battery electric vehicles), which I support as a future car energy source. I worked with Hydrogen fuel cell vehicle designs in college and realized they weren't practical. Our electric cars on the other hand ran great. Ok, so we can build a whole lot of wind mills and power those cars - but what about the current electric usage and heat? All that Natural Gas and Oil for home heating will need to be replaced with electricity. We are talking a massive amount of electricity need. And, the future will likely introduce even more energy intensive devices.

None of your links took the entire situation into account!

[TheWebHead]

59. I'm mixed about it

the big downside is what to do with the spent fuel rods, I guess the belief is that we'll figure out some way in the future to reprocess the spent fuel rods while eliminating the fear of plutonium-239 being used for weapons purposes. and of course while there's an emphasis on safety, it's capped by pressures to be both profitable and cost competitive with other forms of energy, so additional risk is brought into the equation. We have a lot more land to conceivably put at localized risk if a nightmare scenario like what has occurred happens, but there's still many plants that are close to population centers, as it is logical a small footprint plant can produce a lot of electricity to feed densely populated cities. So with what is happening in Japan brings fears of some apocalyptic event happening in Tokyo, it has contributed to the global loss of about $2 trillion in equity valuations. Other than a deep water oil disaster outside a major city, no other form of elecricity would come close to having that effect. A nat gas plant explosion or a coal mining accident won't make a blip of an impact with the global stock market except for the invdividual companies involved.

But let's face it, look what happened to the coal producing companies in the past week, they have skyrocketed. If you are anti-nuke, by definition you are advocating for more use of coal, because no matter what your personal hopes are about green energy use, for now only coal and nat gas are cost competitive. That may change in a few decades, but it isn't economically or politically viable to voluntarily throwing us into another deficit by mandating widespread use of energy that costs more than what we use now for 91% of our energy supply.

[Zoeisright]

61. Fuck. NO.

[Arugula Latte]

63. It's absolute madness.

Human insanity.

[Warren DeMontague]

67. This changed me from being mildly skeptical but open on it to being 100% against.

Sorry, I don't believe it can be made safe. Let me follow that- IF we can come up with a way to safely get rid of the waste (I don't mean "bury it and hope that in 100,000 years people can still understand the warning signs we put up") IF we could design reactors that passively shut down, cool off, and barring that seal themselves in Chernobyl-style concrete entombments automatically without any human intervention in the event on an emergency, then maybe it might be something worth considering.

But we won't, we can't, and the risks are just too great. We can't risk poisoining the Earth, killing children, and rendering large parcels of land uninhabitable. The risk is too great.

Between this and the BP oil spill, the take-away is clear: Humanity needs to get off it's butt and solve this, for once and for all, developing and INVESTING IN clean, renewable sources of energy that don't warm the planet or poison people and land.