Nuclear Power - What Now?

[bdf]

This is an attempt to look calmly, dispassionately, and rationally about the future of nuclear power. Disclaimer: I have absolutely no connection with the nuclear power industry and have no dog in this fight.

If I could wave a magic wand that would divert the course of history so that nuclear power never came to be then I would do so without hesitation. That's not possible. We can proceed only from what we have right now, not what we'd like to have right now.

We have a wide spectrum of opinion on what to do next, but most people fall into one of two polarized groups: either end all nuclear power immediately or full speed ahead. The reality is that the first option is not feasible and the second is not sensible (actually I'd say that the second option is batshit insane). The reality is that we have a number of options and none of them are good.

Why can't we shut down all nuclear power immediately?

Because it provides about 6% of the world's energy and 13–14% of the world's electricity. Some countries are more dependent upon nuclear power than others: France generates 80% of its electricity from nuclear generators; the US 19%.

We can't shut down all nuclear power right now without creating major energy problems. France almost certainly doesn't have enough mothballed conventional electricity stations to compensate for the loss of nuclear generation. Even if it did, the lost nuclear power would have to be compensated by burning more oil and coal.

In case anybody hadn't noticed, we're already on track to wiping out most of civilization with the twin threats of global climate change and peak oil. Global climate change would be exacerbated by switching from nuclear to oil, and it's already on track to disrupt the climate so much that the majority of the world's population could die either from extremes of temperature or from crop failures. We may already have entered peak oil, and demand will soon outstrip supply even if we retain nuclear power—most of the world's system of intensive agriculture relies upon cheap oil so look forward to the majority of the population starving even with nuclear power.

Of course, an intensive effort to deploy renewable/green energy sources would lessen the impacts of climate change and peak oil, but it seems there's little chance of that happening in time.

Why not full steam ahead?

The regulatory process is broken, and hence so are the behaviours of the companies that design and/or build and/or operate nuclear reactors.

As I said here, the problem in Japan was not caused by building nuclear generators, or by building them in an earthquake zone, or building them on the coast. The real problem, caused by broken regulatory processes, was not designing the reactors to cope with tsunamis in a country that gave us the word "tsunami" because it has so many of them. A disaster was then turned into a catastrophe because the regulatory processes didn't spot any problem with putting the spent fuel cooling ponds where they could be damaged by a reactor explosion, magnifying the amount and the danger of radioactive release considerably.

In essence, nuclear power is seen as too big to fail. Regulators don't want to expose design flaws and demand they be corrected in case it disrupts the nuclear power industry. Operators cover up incidents, pretend nothing happened and do nothing to prevent recurrences because it would cost money and worry the public. It recently emerged that TEPCO delayed using seawater to cool the reactors because it would damage the plumbing so badly the reactors would have to be decommissioned, so they tried other (ineffective) measures first and made the situation worse.

Until and unless we can come up with mechanisms whereby special interests and worries about profits cannot over-ride safety concerns we cannot allow further construction of nuclear power stations. Not even those of new designs that are supposed to be inherently fail-safe. I have serious doubts that we ever can fix the regulatory processes to that degree.

So what now?

Immediate term

In the immediate term we have to shut down all GE Mk 1 Boiling Water Reactors (the type in Japan) as quickly as possible. Even the ones far from earthquake zones and coasts. It's not that they're likely to have a disaster if they are far from earthquakes and tsunamis but the magnitude of the disaster no matter what the cause (operator error, faulty repairs, etc). The location of the spent fuel cooling ponds turn a disaster (however unlikely) into a major catastrophe.

In the immediate term we have to evaluate all the other designs of existing nuclear power stations to see which others are too dangerous to be permitted to operate and shut down the dangerous ones as quickly as possible (which may take several years because we have to deploy replacement energy sources).

Short term

Short term we have to continue with nuclear power. As I said at the start, we can't just close them all down immediately—too much of our energy comes from them and we don't have alternatives ready to take up the slack.

In fact, we'll probably have to phase the shutdown of even the really dangerous ones (ones where failure has a relatively high probability and ones where failure is relatively unlikely but the consequences would be very serious) over a period of years. I don't like that thought, but nor do I like the thought of long-duration, widespread power cuts during near-arctic winters.

Medium term

Medium term we must deploy alternative energy sources as quickly as possible so we can replace nuclear power stations. Preferably renewable resources (because of peak oil) but at least green sources (because of global climate change).

I have to say I have serious doubts that this will happen either. Neither climate change nor peak oil seem to have much influence on governments who appear to be more susceptible to bribes from the coal, oil and nuclear industries.

Even if it does happen, it's a big project that will take many years. Solar power is available only during daylight. Wind power is sporadic. Continent-wide power grids can even out wind power because there can be strong winds in one part of the continent and still air in another, but it means a lot of wind turbines. Some sort of storage system could even out solar power, but that is going to mean a hell of a lot of money with technologies we have today.

To give an idea of the storage problem, the CEGB (the Central Electricity Generating Board of England and Wales, before Thatcher sold it off) wanted a way to cope with surges in electricity demand of the type that occur during adverts in a popular soap opera on TV (when people switch on a kettle to make tea or coffee). So they hollowed out a mountain in Wales so they could pump water into it during low demand and power turbines from it during the adverts. These days power companies use gas turbines (essentially a jet engine powered by natural gas driving a generator) to cope with surges, but Dinorwig Power Station (which coped with surges of no more than 5 or 10 minutes) gives an idea of what would be needed to store enough solar power to cope with darkness using current technologies.

We have several storage concepts on the drawing boards and some of them may turn out to be practicable. Deploying any of those that turn out to be feasible in sufficient quantity would probably take several years.

Long term

Long term we either abandon nuclear power completely or determine if there could be any design that is intrinsically safe.

It seems like a no-brainer. If we manage to deploy sufficient alternative energy sources in the medium term then we don't need any nuclear power no matter how safe it is. But...

We have a lot of depleted uranium (DU) we need to dispose of. Depleted uranium is U-238, which is a different isotope from U-235 (the stuff used in most nuclear power generation and in one type of nuclear weapon). Uranium is typically 99.27% U-238 and 0.72% U-235, so we have a hell of a lot of U-238 left over.

U-238 has a half-life of 4,500,000,000 years. That doesn't mean that after 4.5 billion years it's all gone but that after 4.5 billion years you have half as much as you started out with. Another 4.5 billion years and you're down to 1/4 of the amount you started with. It's not the radioactivity that's the real problem (not with a half-life that long) but the toxicity. It is mutagenic and carcinogenic. Oh, and it is good at binding to DNA where it can do the most harm.

We need a good way of disposing of U-238. Problem is, we don't have any good ways of disposing of it, just very bad ways:

• One is to leave it in drums stored at separating plants. With this method we have to hope that our civilization survives the billions of years before the Sun turns into a red giant and engulfs the earth so there could be no possibility of a future civilization that might happen upon it without realizing how toxic it is.
  
  
• Another way is to inter it. Somewhere we can be reasonably sure a future civilization won't mine down to it (nowhere we can dispose of it is out of reach of future civilizations). Somewhere geological forces won't cause it to get into groundwater (Yucca mountain was proposed as such and finally rejected on geological grounds).
  
  
• Use it in breeder reactors. These turn U-238 into plutonium, which can be used to fuel more reactors (provided we don't ban nuclear power). The only downside is that plutonium can be diverted to use in nuclear weapons. It's cheaper and easier to chemically separate plutonium produced by a breeder reactor than it is to separate U-235 from uranium ore. In fact the first nuclear reactors, sold to the public as generating electricity, were dual-use breeder reactors and the plutonium was diverted by the US, Britain and France for weapons.
  
  
• We turn it into munitions. The US military loves DU munitions. The density means it has great penetrating power. It's also self-sharpening. Best of all, it's pyrophoric so burns with an intense heat. A wonderful weapon against tanks, where it turns the occupants into what the US military calls "crispy critters." There's a small downside: when it burns it produces nano-particles of uranium oxide that are carried by the winds all over the globe. Cancers and birth defects in Iraq went up by a factor of around 10 after Bush-the-smarter's gulf war and we've used a hell of a lot more in Bush-the-moron's gulf war. We're increasing the rates of birth defects and cancers globabally (many children in Iraq have been born with cancer, which was almost unheard of 20 years ago), but at least we're disposing of those big drums of DU.
  

None of those disposal methods are good ones. However, at least two new-generation reactor designs that claim to be intrinsically safe (take that with a large pinch of salt) have the ability to "burn" U-238 (they are effectively breeder reactors, but radically different from previous designs). In one of them (run only in computer simulations, so far) nuclear proliferation appears to be almost impossible. The plutonium it produces is used as fuel immediately. It may, if it actually works in reality as claimed, be the only safe way we have to dispose of U-238. See more about it here.

Conclusion

We have no good way forward from here. Really. If you think any of them are no-brainer decisions, you have no brain. They all have the potential to cause a lot of deaths, one way or another. But whichever way we go, it has to be decided upon by detailed, rational thought, not emotion.

I'm just glad that my family medical history means I probably have only 10–20 years of life remaining and that I have no children. The future is starting to look like a place I'd rather not visit.

[Junkdrawer]

1. K&R

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. We need to strike now

yes nuclear power is very, very safe and great UNTIL you need to take into account all the fuel (how do you get rid of that crap?)

And when they fail spectacularly.

But if you ignore points number one and two, yep it is very safe and great.

[Junkdrawer]

3. It wasn't an earthquake or a tsunami that caused the meltdowns...it was Station Blackout....

and the Mark I BWRs seem particularly sensitive to this. And Station Blackout can be caused by a wide range of circumstances.

[bananas]

5. And even the new reactor designs can meltdown when there's a station blackout.

[Junkdrawer]

7. Seen this? Seems that the spent fuel ponds drain w/ station blackout...

in the Mark I design:

http://allthingsnuclear.org/post/3964225685/possible-source-of-leaks-at-spent-fuel-pools-at#

[bdf]

15. The new designs in production, yes

Some of the new designs on the drawing board claim to have only passive safety measures that don't rely upon circulation of coolant or other emergency measures. E.g, the pebble bed reactor.

It's even possible that those claims are valid, although some aspects of the PBR design have critics who say there is a failure mode with the carbon catching fire.

I'm not endorsing nuclear power, just explaining that there are no good ways forward.

[Sirveri]

44. There are numerous Mk IV designs that are hardened against a station blackout.

Pebble Bed was already mentioned as one of them.

There is also a liquid salt design where the fission products are separated out upon generation, all fuel is reprocessed on site, and long lived decay heat generating isotopes are handled outside of the reactor.

Most modern reactors also have the ability to function in passive recirculation.

For some though, they want perfection. Such perfection can not exist. Nuclear is the great equalizer, no longer can a person simply devour energy, their use has potential consequences to THEM personally. No longer can they simply ignore the dead coal miners, the solar panel installers who fall from roofs and die every year, the dead birds, the destroyed habitats, the devastated foreign countries. This fear is the greatest thing that could ever be done for human power consumption. You* can educate yourself and accept the risks, or you can reduce your consumption, but no longer can you consume in abject ignorance of your actions.

*Royal you, not you personally.

[bdf]

61. Don't you mean generation IV?

I think you mean Gen IV rather than Mk IV.

The pebble bed reactor may have left the drawing board but, as far as I know, only prototype reactors are operating at present.

Dunno about any of the other Gen IV designs.

Dunno how far I trust the claims of inherent safety, either. I've encountered bad engineers (fortunately not working on anything safety-critical). I also know that even great engineers can be foiled by effects they didn't know, or even suspect, existed. Take the Tacoma Narrows Suspension Bridge (video of collapse). Or the stress fatigue caused by repeated pressurization cycles, stress concentration at the corners of square windows and method of installing the windows, which hit the de Havilland Comet. Unticipated by the designers.

Yeah, I'd prefer renewable/green power. I think that's feasible in the long term but we'll need conventional and nuclear generation for years, probably decades.

If (a very big if) some of the Gen IV/V designs are actually intrinsically safe and can burn up all the highly toxic U-238 and plutonium we don't have safe disposal methods for, I'd back them, unpopular as the view seems to be here. Lesser of two evils. I'm sure you understand me, but many here seem to have difficulty understanding what "if" means.

[Sirveri]

77. I typically use the terms interchangeably. So yes.

They have some incredibly cool designs on the board. My personal favorite is the uranium suspended in a liquid salt that after being passed through the reaction vessel leaves for instant reprocessing and reinjection to the core. Anyhow, now I'm starting to sound like the radioactive boy scout... One of the reasons I joined the naval nuclear program was because of my interest in the science and workings of the plants.

[bananas]

79. Germany and South Africa gave up on the Pebble Bed - it can melt down

edit to add a link: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=242402&mesg_id=242402

[Sirveri]

82. A meltdown is irrelevant so long as the fission products remain contained.

All that means is that the plant can no longer be used for the generation of electricity and must be scrapped.

[bananas]

83. I added a link before I saw your reply - they were going to build them without containment

The German plant released radiation and they tried to blame it on Chernobyl - they were busted.
South Africa spent billions and years before throwing in the towel.
Here's the link I added to the other post: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=242402&mesg_id=242402
Here's another link: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x233033

[Statistical]

60. GenIII+ reactors are designed to be passively safe.

Reactor cooling will occur even in a station blackout. No pumps, or electricity are required for emergency cooling. No human presence is required either.

An example would be the pair of AP1000s (Westinghouse Electric GenIII+ Pressurized Water Reactor) under construction in GA right now.

[bananas]

84. The Titanic was designed to be unsinkable.

Theory vs reality.

[bananas]

85. (dupe)

[bdf]

14. But it's worse

GE Mk 1 BWRs in Japan had three backup diesel generators to drive the pumps. US Mk1s have only two pumps.

But when you have a reactor on a coast where tsunamis occur frequently but take no measures to cope with tsunamis, it doesn't matter how many backup generators you have.

Note that the US is not noted for frequent major tsunamis. Doesn't mean they will never happen.

[bananas]

4. We don't need new nuclear at all

New nuclear is expensive, it's cheaper to replace old appliances with newer energy-efficient ones than to build a new plant. Wind is cheaper than new nuclear, and solar will be in a few years.

"On March 9, 2010, the open-access refereed journal Environmental Research Letters (ERL) published an article in which more than 50 leaders in the field of energy efficiency proposed a new unit to characterize electricity savings – the Rosenfeld (symbol: Rs).<4> One Rosenfeld is equal to 3 billion kilowatt-hours per year, which represents the electrical output of one 500-megawatt coal-fired power plant under a set of standard assumptions. In reference to such a standard coal plant, one rosenfeld of saved electricity also avoids emissions of 3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_H._Rosenfeld
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenfeld_Effect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negawatt_power

[LAGC]

8. Yeah, but what about mass energy storage?

That's the central problem with solar/wind, is the sun only shines half the day, and the wind isn't always blowing.

We need major breakthroughs in energy storage technologies to make solar/wind reliable and cost effective. I definitely support LOTS more R&D allocated to this problem area.

[bananas]

9. We don't need that for a long time

First, in the US, we have enough over-capacity that we could shut down all reactors overnight and not notice it, so we don't "need" nuclear. So we can start shutting down old reactors and building up renewables. By the time renewables have have built up to the point where we need storage, the storage technologies will be ready.

[LAGC]

10. Really?

I'm sure you have links to support that assertion? Are you saying we could effectively shave 20% of our total power supply and not notice it? No rolling black-outs anywhere? I find it hard to believe that California had all those rolling black-outs not too long ago if we supposedly had so much over-capacity...

As for storage capacity, we need it NOW, before renewables take over. That's part of the problem countries like Germany see, is they have an over-abundance of power from all their wind generators when its windy, but when its not they have to rely on backup (nuke/coal) generators to get by. Storage needs to be addressed FIRST, before we delve into mass renewables.

[bananas]

11. The rolling blackouts were a scam, they were artificial shortages

They were gaming the system to increase profits.
I'm surprised you're unaware of this.

[LAGC]

12. Okay, I'll take you at your word for it, so what about the rest of my argument?

According to Wikipedia:

Drought and delays in approval of new power plants<4> and market manipulation decreased supply. This caused 800% increase in wholesale prices from April 2000 to December 2000.<5> In addition, Rolling blackouts adversely affected many businesses dependent upon a reliable supply of electricity, and inconvenienced a large number of retail consumers.

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

Sure there was malfeasance by the energy companies, but supply was a big issue. I mean, if they had so much excess energy, why couldn't they rely on their own power instead of being dependent on other states?

Are you saying we have over 120% capacity right now and could get rid of all our nuclear power and not notice?

[bananas]

16. Here's some information

Coal is 50% of US electricity, nuclear is only 20%,
we have enough natural gas over-capacity to replace coal with gas,
which means we have more than enough to replace nuclear with gas:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x244743

US could replace coal power with existing gas-fired plants
April 20, 2010 10:51am
by Sheila McNulty

The shift from coal-fired generation to gas- fired generation sounds like something that would be lengthy and difficult to accomplish. But a new report by PFC Energy, the consultancy, indicates it is anything but. The report says US gas fired power plants average about 25 per cent utilisation, compared with 70-75 per cent for coal.

So operating existing plants at 72 per cent utilisation would theoretically increase gas demand by 30bn cubic feet per day - a rise of about 50 per cent - and displace almost all coal fired capacity. In doing so, carbon dioxide from the power sector would be cut 50 per cent, according to PFC."

<snip>

[LAGC]

23. If it was so simple, why haven't energy providers switched over?

I suspect cost is the primary issue, per your other thread that you linked to.

Maybe if we ever get around to passing a carbon tax to make it more competitive.

[bananas]

40. Yes, fuel costs, which would change with a carbon tax. nt

[bdf]

62. Cost and availability

Back in the days of the CEGB (I keep bringing them up because they knew what they were doing) gas turbines were for brief spikes in demand rather than baseline generation precisely because the fuel cost was higher.

After Thatcher sold off the CEGB the new utilities started using gas turbines for baseline generation. They "competed" via the stock exchange. Gas turbines cost a lot less to build than oil- or coal-fired plant, so shareholders got a better return if they used gas for baseline generation. Fuel costs get passed on to consumers, who can't complain because the utilities are "competing" against each other.

Oh, and anybody who thinks that natural gas should be used to replace nuclear anyway should do some research on "fracking" before reaching a final decision. There's more than one way of fucking up our planet, and contaminating the water supply with toxic and carcinogenic shit is one of them.

As I said right back at the start of this, there are no good ways forward. We need to fully and rationally evaluate all of the options rather than making emotional decisions based upon wishful thinking. Whatever we do there will be downsides, let's make sure we know in advance what they're going to be and why they're better than other options would give us.

[bananas]

80. The way forward is efficiency, renewables, and soft geoengineering

Soft geoengineering is reforestation and white roofs.
The full global warming solution: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x191961
2011 update: http://climateprogress.org/2011/01/10/the-full-global-warming-solution-how-the-world-can-stabilize-at-350-to-450-ppm/
(basically the same)

[Statistical]

69. Exactly. Power from natural gas is far more expensive than coal or nuclear.

Which is why coal and nuclear run nearly continuously (baseload) 24/7. Natural gas plants tend to be demand followers. Their output rises with demand and falls with demand in essence keeping supply and demand matched on the grid. Natural gas is good for what it does. It is one of the few power sources that can rapidly change power to match demand but replacing coal and nuclear with natural gas would mean a significant rise in a electrical prices across the country.

[kristopher]

74. Nuclear is the most expensive option out there.

It is only cheap as a result of a massive shift of cost to the taxpayers.

6 Standard myths of the nuclear industry
According to Former Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner Bradford

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.

[bananas]

19. Some areas weren't affected by the blackouts because they weren't part of the deregulation scheme

Enron and the other energy traders created artificial shortages, supply really wasn't an issue.

edit:

http://large.stanford.edu/publications/coal/references/morain/

Only residents in the territory served by Los Angeles' Department of Water and Power and the municipal utilities of Glendale, Burbank and Imperial County were immune, because those areas do not depend on the state power grid to deliver their electricity.

[bananas]

20. Arnie squashed a $9B lawsuit

http://www.democracynow.org/2003/10/6/schwarzenegger_accused_of_involvement_in_9b

October 06, 2003
Schwarzenegger Accused of Involvement in $9B California Swindle with Enron’s Ken Lay

Investigative reporter Greg Palast reveals how Republican gubernatorial candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger is part of a larger scheme to help Enron and other power companies avoid paying back $9 billion in illicit profits by replacing Gov. Gray Davis.

<snip>

[bdf]

21. Over-capacity?

Back when the CEGB (Central Electricity Generating Board of England and Wales, later sold off by Thatcher) ran things, they had a lot of over-capacity. And they knew the thermal efficiency of each and every boiler/generator set. They always arranged things so that the most efficient of them provided base-line power. As conditions required, they'd bring up systems in efficiency order. Not for surges when the adverts were shown during soap operas and people put the kettle on, because it takes around an hour to bring conventional systems up to steam. The CEGB used the most accurate weather predictions they could get so they could bring plant on-line to cope (takes an hour, remember). They didn't run more plant than absolutely necessary.

So yes, the US may well have plenty of spare capacity but a lot of it will be inefficient. As I said in my original post, global climate change and peak oil are crises in the making—we can't really afford to throw inefficient coal/oil systems at the nuclear problem without exacerbating other problems.

You have a touching faith in our ability to get all the timing right. How many Republicans in Congress are climate change deniers? How many refuse to believe that peak oil is coming? How many are voting for economic policies that will make the current depression worse and increase unemployment whilst lying their socks off by claiming those policies will decrease unemployment? How many Republicans voted down more funding for renewable energy? How many Republicans are, even now, demanding more nuclear power (so, to my disgust, is Obama).

Time to look into the past. In 1956, Shell geologist M King Hubbert came up with the theory of peak oil and predicted that the US would switch from being a nett exporter of oil to a nett importer of oil in the mid-1970s. Other geologists in the oil industry laughed at him. As it happens, his prediction was wrong: the US hit its peak production in the early 70s which triggered a crisis when OPEC held the US to ransom. That was when geologists realized that Hubbert had been right and that global peak oil would happen around now. Did anybody do anything about it? Carter put solar panels on the white house roof and Reagan took them off.

Yet you're confident we'll have storage soon enough after we've implemented renewables? Even if you were right that we can and would do it quickly, we need storage at the same time as renewables otherwise we have to keep all the conventional plant running at night, when the sun don't shine.

[kristopher]

26. Your argument re storage has no merit

Wind Power Myths Debunked
november/december 2009 IEEE power & energy magazine
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MPE.2009.934268
1540-7977/09/$26.00©2009 IEEE

By Michael Milligan, Kevin Porter, Edgar DeMeo, Paul Denholm, Hannele Holttinen, Brendan Kirby, Nicholas Miller, Andrew Mills, Mark O’Malley, Matthew Schuerger, and Lennart Soder

http://www.ieee-pes.org/images/pdf/open-access-milligan.pdf

[bdf]

46. *sigh*

You posted this link already. I explained its failings. But my explanation assumed that if you were smart enough to find the paper you were smart enough to understand my explanation. This time I'll take it slowly and go into detail.

Wind is intermittent. Wind turbines generate little power at low wind speeds and have to be shut down at high wind speeds. Average power output for a wind turbine is 20–40% of nameplate output.

Because wind is intermittent the only way you can have wind power without storage and without conventional backup is to have turbines all over the continent to supply peak load at average rather than nameplate capacity, and with a supergrid linking them. The grid you have couldn't cope with good winds in the southern states and no winds in the northern states (for example). Getting all this in place takes time, but before it is all in place you need conventional coal/oil/nuclear generation.

Getting continent-wide wind generation in place is not only slow and inexpensive, right now it's politically infeasible in the US because it would never pass the house. Even if the Dems win the presidency, control of the house and control of the senate in 2012 the GOP is adept at getting their way because the Dems are pussies.

BTW, right now coal/oil generation in the US is cheaper than wind because of various subsidies and tax breaks for oil and coal. Remove the unfair advantages and wind would be cheaper—not because its costs go down but because costs for oil and gas generation would go up. You'll have the same political problems trying to get that fixed. Oh, for those who think wind is free, you have to pay to have a wind turbine fabricated and erected and then amortize the cost over the lifetime of the turbine.

So what you'll probably get for many years is some states supporting wind and some not. Which means the states with wind will have times when they have to take power from the utilities. And that causes problems if you don't have at least an hour of storage.

Utilities keep historical data of demand for every minute of every year going back decades. They keep track of trends. They have accurate weather predictions at least a couple of hours ahead. And then they ensure that they only run the most efficient plant they have to just match the predicted load for the next hour. Why the next hour? Because it takes an hour to bring generating plant to steam (OK, these days some plant can do it in 30 minutes, but figure on an hour for safety).

Yes, if you want to get more complicated there are spin reserves and power can be brought in from other utility companies over the grid. But the amount available in spin reserves is highly variable and the grid is specced pretty much for "oh dear, we've just lost a generator, sell us some power" not "the wind over the entire state just vanished." Worst case between no wind in a state and the utility bringing enough plant on line is an hour.

Does it have to be a whole state? Nope. Any community supplied by wind power and large enough to consume the output of one conventional power plant is going to have the same problem without an hour of storage.

Can the hour-long power cut be avoided without storage? Yes, if the utilities keep more plant at steam than is necessary. They still consume fuel, although not as much as if they were under full load (they're not optimized for minimizing fuel consumption off load because utilities rarely run them for extended periods that way).

So with the phased introduction of wind power that is inevitable, and without storage, we're still going to need conventional plant wasting fuel. Utility prices will go up as a consequence of that. Or you accept frequent hour-long blackouts.

This is the reality. The paper you cited is really dealing with the eventual outcome, not the decades it will take to get there.

[kristopher]

55. *sigh*? Woof.

That is PURE coal/nuclear industry propaganda that is directly refuted in the IEEE document. It is specifically why they prepared the document. That is the point of the word "MYTH" in the title.

All you've done is to attempt an end run around reality by pretending that reality contemplates a grid comprised exclusively of wind energy.

Now listen closely you misinformation-spreading, desperate-to-discredit-renewable-energy spammer - the SPECIAL EDITION PAPER SPONSORED BY THE Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) WAS PREPARED JUST TO DEBUNK THE BULLPUCKY YOU KEEP POSTING.

Can you hear me now?



_______________________________________________________________


As an example, consider Figure 7 below, which is based on a simplified example of a dispatch model that approximates the western United States. All numerical values are illustrative only, and the storage analysis is based on a hypothetical storage facility that is limited to 10% of the peak load and 168 hours of energy. The ability of the system to integrate large penetrations of wind depends heavily on the mix of other generation resources. Storage is an example of a flexible resource, and storage has economic value to the system even without any wind energy. As wind is added to the system in increasing amounts, the value of storage will increase. With no wind, storage has a value of more than US$1,000/kW, indicating that a storage device that costs less would provide economic value to the system. As wind penetration increases, so does the value of storage, eventually reaching approximately US$1,600/kW. In this example system, the generation mix is similar to what is found today in many parts of the United States. In such a system with high wind penetration, the value of storage is somewhat greater because the economic dispatch will result in putting low-variable-cost units (e.g., coal or nuclear) on the margin (and setting the market-clearing price) much more often than it would have without the wind. More frequent periods with lower prices offers a bigger price spread and more opportunities for arbitrage, increasing the value of storage.

In a system with less base load and more flexible generation, the value of storage is relatively insensitive to the wind penetration. Figure 8 shows that storage still has value with no wind on the system, but there is a very slight increase in the value of storage even at a wind-penetration rate of 40% (energy). An across-the-board decrease in market prices reduces the incentives for a unit with high fi xed costs and low variable costs (e.g., coal or nuclear) to be built in the first place. This means that in a high-wind future, fewer low-variable-cost units will be built. This reduces the amount of time that low-variable-cost units are on the margin and also reduces the value of storage relative to the “near-term” value with the same amount of wind.

The question of whether wind needs storage ultimately comes down to economic costs and benefits. More than a dozen studies analyzing the costs of large-scale grid integration of wind come to varying conclusions, but the most significant is that integration costs are moderate, even with up to 20% wind-energy penetration, and that no additional storage is necessary to integrate up to 20% wind energy in large balancing areas. Overall, these studies imply that the added cost of integrating wind over the next decade is far less than the cost of dedicated energy storage, and that the cost can potentially be reduced by the use of advanced wind-forecasting techniques.

[bdf]

64. You're the deaf one

I have no ties to the nuclear or coal industries. I would like to replace both sources as soon as feasible. One qualification: if the claims of safety of the travelling wave reactor are correct then I'd happily use those to burn up all the very dangerous U-238 and plutonium we cannot dispose of safely even if we throw away the power they generate.

The paper you repeatedly cite is full of assumptions that cannot actually be met or ignores reality.

There is an assumption of storage capacity that gives 10% peak load for 168 hours. We don't have that. It's probably feasible for solar-thermal but not for wind. Even if feasible for wind it will take a long time to deploy and we'll need it long before we have it.

There is an assumption, typical of economists, that demand will not only drive costs down it will permit the invention of the impossible. Storage will be in big demand so we'll not only invent the impossible, the impossible will also be cheap.

They assume that there are no costs involved in bringing plant up to steam or keeping idle plant at steam. Until there are turbines distributed across the continent, providing average capacity equal to peak demand, all linked by a supergrid, conventional generation will be required. Either at steam but idling, or backed by at least one hour of storage.

I'm not expecting such a report to go into the hairy details, but that glosses over so much that it is worthless.

[kristopher]

71. That paper is written by the best experts on the topic. Who the hell are you?

[LAGC]

81. No, who the hell are YOU?

You sure seem to hold nothing back when it comes to belittling people with opinions that differ from your own, labeling people "shills" of the nuclear industry over and over again.

What exactly are YOUR qualifications? What makes YOU such an expert, Einstein?

Has your independent research latching on to fringe ideas really make your opinion so holy?

Why is the President advocating for more nuclear plants? Why is he pumping $800 million into more nuclear research for safer technologies? Is he really bought and paid for by the nuclear industry, or maybe, just MAYBE, his best experts tell him its necessary to provide a steady and reliable energy source to meet this nation's energy needs for the near-future?

Explain yourself.

[bananas]

33. M. King Hubbert became strongly anti-nuclear and pro-solar

He favored a nuclear phase-out: "the sooner we get rid of it the better off we’re going to be. I would never recommend shutting all the plants down tomorrow, but certainly phasing them out."

He was very pro-solar: "We could make the transition in a matter of decades if we begin now."

See http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=261119&mesg_id=261119

[bdf]

17. A few problems

As one person responding to you pointed out (and I stated in my original post) storage is a big problem here.

Also, how do you get rid of all that U-238 sitting around?

[kristopher]

22. Please specify in what manner "storage is a big problem here"

The lack of details in how you've conclude it is a problem (did you just hear it was from someone you trust) or details about the exact nature of the supposed problem are necessary to answer the criticism.

The best electrical engineers in the world specializing in variability on the grid disagree that it is.

You can find their opinion in this special edition article on the "myths" about wind power. See the sections related both to storage and back-up generation as the claims made about both are false for the same reason.

Wind Power Myths Debunked
november/december 2009 IEEE power & energy magazine
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MPE.2009.934268
1540-7977/09/$26.00©2009 IEEE

By Michael Milligan, Kevin Porter, Edgar DeMeo, Paul Denholm, Hannele Holttinen, Brendan Kirby, Nicholas Miller, Andrew Mills, Mark O’Malley, Matthew Schuerger, and Lennart Soder

http://www.ieee-pes.org/images/pdf/open-access-milligan.pdf

[bdf]

30. Details, details

I'm aware that continent-wide wind farms connected by a super-grid can even out wind power. Neither the continent-wide farms nor the super-grid yet exist in the US or anywhere else, although some of Europe has plans on the drawing board. And, from a quick skim, the IEEE paper you cited appears only to deal with wind power, not solar.

The IEEE paper also goes into economics about how much storage would be required in various scenarios but gives no details of how such storage could be implemented. I know of the hollowed-out mountain in Wales used for pumped storage to take care of 5-minute peaks during adverts in popular soap operas when people put the kettle on. That was a big, expensive project. So if wind needs storage, it's going to be costly and take years to implement even with better technologies.

One thing that worries me about the "best electrical engineers in the world" is their bald statement that 1kw-hour of wind power displaces 1kw-hour of conventional power. This is absolutely untrue if the wind power is so irregular that you need to supplement it with conventional power. It takes around 1 hour to bring conventional plant to steam, the fuel burnt during that hour being wasted. Having conventional plant at steam but doing nothing wastes the fuel its burning. Small surges in demand or drops in wind can be met with gas turbines, but unless you can guarantee year-round wind capability (whether that requires storage or not) then 1kw-hour of wind does not replace 1kw-hour of conventional power. Their economics may work when the full system is implemented but breaks badly in the years (decades) it will take to implement.

As for solar, I'm aware that it gets dark at night. Admittedly load in many industrialized countries is higher during the day due to heavy machinery. However, some countries promote the use of storage heaters (called heat banks in Australia) which run during the night-time off-peak period, and that would have to change.

I've seen several proposals for solar storage but none seem to have gone further than proof of concept models. All the proposals I've seen for renewable sources include solar as well as wind.

[kristopher]

27. Are you saying that making more nuclear waste will solve the problem?

[bdf]

32. Read again

I'm saying that we already have a major nuclear waste problem with U-238. Unlike other waste it has a very long lifetime (4.5 billion years) and is very, very carcinogenic and mutagenic.

I'm saying that one reactor design on the drawing board can use U-238 as fuel without risk of plutonium proliferation from conventional breeder reactors. It also claims to produce a lot less waste than other designs.

I'm not saying the claims are true. I am saying that U-238 is a very serious problem and that is, if the claims are true, the only safe way we have of disposing of it.

I did say all this in my original post. I suggest you read it again.

[kristopher]

35. So your conclusion that you blare in a headline is based on things you know nothing about?

[bdf]

47. I find your comment disingenuous and wholly incorrect

Specify the headline. Specify your evidence that I do not know what I'm talking about.

I have been scrupulous every step of the way to state that people should not take the claims of advanced reactor design as correct. I've seen too many claims about safety-critical design turn out to be incorrect. I stated time and time again that if the claims are correct then something like the Travelling Wave Reactor is the only safe way of disposing of U-238.

U-238 is a bigger hazard than post-reaction waste because that will be negligible after a million years but U-238 hangs around for many billion years and there is also a lot more of it. Plutonium, of which we have significant amounts is even more toxic than U-238 but we have a good deal less of it. Something like the TWR, if it works as claimed and if it is as safe as claimed, is the only safe way we have of disposing of plutonium.

It appears that you are either suffering from the previously-unknown condition of "if"-blindness or you are resorting to unprincipled and dishonest attacks to defend your position. I repeat what I stated at the start of this post: Specify the headline. Specify your evidence that I do not know what I'm talking about.

[kristopher]

56. Where you don't know what you are talking about -

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=702812&mesg_id=711701


And it is self evident in your assertion that the only solution to nuclear waste requires us to make more nuclear wste. What a fucking piece of Orwell that is!

You are pimping for nuclear power. Nothing more, nothing less.

[bdf]

66. You, sir, are an idiot or a liar. Possibly both.

You summarize a post of mine by straw manning my position with:

And it is self evident in your assertion that the only solution to nuclear waste requires us to make more nuclear wste.

That's not what I said, you fucking liar. That is a deliberate distortion of what I said. A classic straw man.

I said, entirely fucking correctly, that U-238 is a serious toxic hazard that we have no safe way of disposing. The safest way we have, which is still very unsafe, is to burn it in a fast breeder reactor but that produces plutonium which is even more dangerous and wonderful for making bombs.

I pointed out, you lying piece of shit, that if the safety claims of the travelling wave reactor were true, it could be used to dispose of U-238 and plutonium without any hazard of plutonium being diverted for weapons. Had you followed the link I gave, you dishonest twat, you would have seen that the travelling wave reactor claims (if that claim is true) to generate less waste than conventional reactors.

An honest, though still somewhat misleading, summary of my position would have been "we can get rid of the shitload of very nasty nuclear waste we have by turning it into a lot less waste that is somewhat less nasty because we only have to keep it out of the environment for a million years instead of hundreds of billions of years."

You are as wedded to your ideas as the rabid pro-nuclear people. Neither facts nor reason can penetrate your shell. If you cannot use facts and reason to win an argument, you (like the fucking Republicans) resort to lies. Not just in straw-manning me but in accusing me (falsely, you shithead) of being a shill for the nuclear industry. I would like, but do not expect, an apology for your blatant dishonesty. I know it's more likely Boehner will quit smoking and turn a healthy colour than you apologize.

[kristopher]

73. You have been shown to be peddliing false information. Trying to get it deleted won't help.

I have them all on file and promise the content will reappear.

Your discussion of the TWR is a standard nuclear industry tactic that has been used for 50+ years; to whit - don't worry about nuclear waste, the solution is right around the corner if we just keep channeling money into the nuclear idustry.

Self serving claptrap.

RENEWABLE ENERGY WORKS NOW

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

[bananas]

Storage isn't a problem until renewables are about 30% of generation

and by then the storage technologies should be well-developed.
Getting rid of the U-238 is a problem, and making more of it just makes a bigger problem.
None of the advanced reactors burn all the fuel, there is always high-level waste that requires geological storage.
So we're going to need geological storage no matter what.
Yucca Mountain costs were skyrocketing, we really don't know how much it would cost by the time it was finished.
The advanced fuel cycles are only theoretical at this point, they have many unsolved problems, and we don't know if they will ever be viable or cost-effective on a large scale.
We already have generated so much waste it will take decades to move it to storage or advanced reactors or whatever.

[LAGC]

6. Good article.

We definitely need to focus most of our R&D on alternative energies (especially mass-energy storage mediums to make solar/wind more viable on a large scale) but we're stuck with nuclear for the immediate future, so I'm glad President Obama is allocating $800 million towards safer nuclear technologies. If we can re-process the nuclear waste to make it safe for future generations, that's half the battle right there.

[kristopher]

25. You are grossly exaggerating the storage issue.

REad the sections on both storage and back-up generation. The reason the myths are false are the same for both.

Wind Power Myths Debunked
november/december 2009 IEEE power & energy magazine
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MPE.2009.934268
1540-7977/09/$26.00©2009 IEEE

By Michael Milligan, Kevin Porter, Edgar DeMeo, Paul Denholm, Hannele Holttinen, Brendan Kirby, Nicholas Miller, Andrew Mills, Mark O’Malley, Matthew Schuerger, and Lennart Soder

http://www.ieee-pes.org/images/pdf/open-access-milligan.pdf

[LAGC]

28. Per your link...

I guess, theoretically, if we built enough over-capacity of wind farms geographically dispersed across the nation (so that its always blowing somewhere) we could power the nation, but the sheer scale of the project would be huge. It would require very costly upgrades to the electrical grid to be able to transport all that excess energy to other parts of the nation where the wind wasn't blowing at the time. When compared to more localized nuclear power plants in every state that can use the existing grid, I don't think it can compete in price once you factor all the grid upgrades in. But I'm open to suggestions.

Also, what is the risk to migrating bird populations with so many wind farms everywhere?

[kristopher]

29. You have not drawn from the link, you've just stated more nuclear industry propaganda

It is incredible that you have no shame for engaging in deliberate deception

Wind Power Myths Debunked
november/december 2009 IEEE power & energy magazine
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MPE.2009.934268
1540-7977/09/$26.00©2009 IEEE

By Michael Milligan, Kevin Porter, Edgar DeMeo, Paul Denholm, Hannele Holttinen, Brendan Kirby, Nicholas Miller, Andrew Mills, Mark O’Malley, Matthew Schuerger, and Lennart Soder

http://www.ieee-pes.org/images/pdf/open-access-milligan.pdf

[LAGC]

31. I'm at work right now, so I only had time to peruse it.

I read the summary, and don't see how it addresses the electric transport issue (getting it from windy parts of the country to everywhere else where wind isn't blowing). I'll give it a full read once I get home in a couple hours, but it would be nice if you could just address the point and ease my concern.

[kristopher]

34. Why would you make the point if you don't know it to be true?

Is it your habit to proffer gossip as fact?

[LAGC]

36. I only know what people smarter than me have told me.

And many engineering professors at my local university have voiced this concern.

I'm open to hearing your opinion on this, I'd like to bounce it off of them if there's really a feasible solution they've never heard of, but they are pretty informed, so I bet they have heard every angle.

[kristopher]

39. Ah, the devious engineering professors - teaching the best and the brightest like you

one thing and then writing the exact opposite for publication.

I have never been able to understand why they do that...

[kristopher]

57. Well, how about the supportiing documentation from those "professors" u r hiding behind?

We're waiting.

These engineers put their name on it, let's see them refuted by sources who do the same.

Michael Milligan, Kevin Porter, Edgar DeMeo, Paul Denholm, Hannele Holttinen, Brendan Kirby, Nicholas Miller, Andrew Mills, Mark O’Malley, Matthew Schuerger, and Lennart Soder

[jtuck004]

41. It says wind would work for 20-25% of capacity and after that might reach a point where it is not

cost effective. I agree completely with that.

20%, more where it could be afforded, integrated in with the nukes and the pukes (coal - it and they are, after all, dirtier. Like my wood stove, shooting old Chernobyl particles into the sky, perhaps). I'm all for it. Got a design that doesn't kill birds, so much the better. I think the rotaries are cool. I would put up photovoltaics, and a solar heating panel, just as soon as I get $25,000 to fund my spay/neuter effort (in areas of low-income, just machines and instruments, no salaries). I like it that much.

The paper here, given to me by a local advocate says we can get ALL global energy from wind, water, and solar from Wind, Water Solar (WWS). It's a good read as well. We just have to embark on a building and design program we will still be working on when our children's children's children will be in school.

Among the things it calls for are 3,800,000 windmills, 49,000 300 MW concentrated solar plants, 40,000 300MW solar PV power plants, and 1.7 billion 3kW rooftop PV systems. 5350 100 MW geothermal power plants, 270 new 1300 MW hydroelectric power plants, 720,0000 .75 MW wave devices, and 490,000 1MW tidal turbines can power a 2030 WWS world that uses electricity and electrolytic hydrogen for all purposes.

For example: IIRC, currently 8000 5w wind turbines, and 1120 under construction, here, so we are few million short, just in windmills. Photovoltaic factories, here, were not damaged in the quake or tsunami. (They freakin' PRODUCE PV panels, and can't provide even their own electricity? That would help the case of people who want this to be believable). Despite all the hype, WWS can't keep the lights on, or maybe grandma's oxygen machine, without electricity generated by nuclear or coal or natural gas or hydro plants.

But the problem is not nuclear. It is not storage. It is people. And it has been people in nearly every great tragedy and challenge. The Tacoma Bridge ripped itself apart for nearly the same reasons (design change for savings), yet I have not heard any calls for bridge building to cease. 40,000 people a year are killed by auto accidents, so we proceed to improve the engineering on the cars, even though the problem is mostly the drivers banging into each other. This is no different. These people underestimated the potential tragedy in front of them, and have made unlivable for some portion of time the homes of up to 29000 people. Up to 800 years for some, many may never get to go back. They may have even shorted the lives of some of them (from a model here. This radiation creature should have the resources of the world pouring water on it, retaining walls, etc, cooling it down, stopping the danger, plans for a cleanup and something different. TEPCO, intheir magnanimosity, has ordered parts to replace those contaminated by seawater, intending to put these back into service, hoping that one of the severely damaged ones around them won't blow up before they get a handle on containing it.

Watch the news on NHK English? They have a model set up, 4 buildings, 3 craters (they have a terrific model builder) 1 US firetruck with a 3" or 3.5" nozzle shooting water into #3 for 4, 6, or 7 hours at a time. Trying to get power up on 2 because it doesn't have a hole in the roof to pour water in. I have watched this and come to the conclusion that the Japanese people are way too damn nice. (They bow after being rescued from 2 nights in the freezing water). Saying "Boss, I want to be a positive person, we are going to win over this reactor", is not going to save the day, folks. Someone should be saying "THE SITE NOW BELONGS TO THE GOVERNMENT, WE ARE ENLISTING HELP FROM THE UN TO GET THE GODDAMN SEABEES IN HERE WITH MASSIVE WATER INTAKE AND BUILDING CONTAINMENT WALLS FOR CONTAMINATED SEAWATER. WE ARE SPEWING RADIATION AND IT NEEDS TO STOP, YESTERDAY". I am just not sure the Japanese I have seen on tv can do this. I belive in respect, but when someone is radiating your damn country, it's time for something else.

I have no doubt nuclear is a part of our future, and should be, but perhaps homes shouldn't be sold within a 30 mile radius, put ballparks and forests for the next 20. Or put them in a natural or human-constructed cave. And get the spent fuel out of the reactor. That's just ignorant, and the core wasn't built to survive shocks from the outside fuel storage, IIRC. That's a national tragedy waiting to happen.

Personally I think their advocates would make more progress by building windmills instead of tilting at them, but I mostly respect their opinion.

[kristopher]

58. Thanks for the glowing recommendation for nuclear

Or were you just trying to make the scale of renewables seem somehow larger than that of nuclear?
Where are you going to get the storage for nuclear? 50 years now and it is sitting over the reactors trying its best to melt.


And speaking of an endeavor requiring scale - just to meet 1/3 of global ELECTRIC supply, not global ENERGY supply, we need to bring a new 1GW reactor on line EVERY WEEK for 40 YEARS!!!


From a presentation by John Holdren.

The nuclear option: size of the challenges

• If world electricity demand grows 2% /year until 2050 and nuclear share of electricity supply is to rise from 1/6 to 1/3...
–nuclear capacity would have to grow from 350 GWe in 2000 to 1700 GWe in 2050;
– this means 1,700 reactors of 1,000 MWe each.

• If these were light-water reactors on the once-through fuel cycle...
---–enrichment of their fuel will require ~250 million Separative Work Units (SWU);
---–diversion of 0.1% of this enrichment to production of HEU from natural uranium would make ~20 gun-type or ~80 implosion-type bombs.

• If half the reactors were recycling their plutonium...
---–the associated flow of separated, directly weapon - usable plutonium would be 170,000 kg per year;
---–diversion of 0.1% of this quantity would make ~30 implosion-type bombs.

• Spent-fuel production in the once-through case would be...
---–34,000 tonnes/yr, a Yucca Mountain every two years.

Mitigation of Human-Caused Climate Change
John P. Holdren

His conclusion: Expanding nuclear enough to take a modest bite out of the climate problem is conceivable, *but* doing so will depend on greatly increased seriousness in addressing the waste-management & proliferation challenges.



What does he say about renewables?

The renewable option: Is it real?

SUNLIGHT: 100,000 TW reaches Earth’s surface (100,000 TWy/year = 3.15 million EJ/yr), 30% on land.

Thus 1% of the land area receives 300 TWy/yr, so converting this to usable forms at 10% efficiency would yield 30 TWy/yr, about twice civilization’s rate of energy use in 2004.

WIND: Solar energy flowing into the wind is ~2,000 TW.
Wind power estimated to be harvestable from windy sites covering 2% of Earth’s land surface is about twice world electricity generation in 2004.

BIOMASS: Solar energy is stored by photosynthesis on land at a rate of about 60 TW.
Energy crops at twice the average terrestrial photosynthetic yield would give 12 TW from 10% of land area (equal to what’s now used for agriculture).
Converted to liquid biofuels at 50% efficiency, this would be 6 TWy/yr, more than world oil use in 2004.

Renewable energy potential is immense. Questions are what it will cost & how much society wants to pay for environmental & security advantages.

Mitigation of Human-Caused Climate Change
John P. Holdren

John P. Holdren is advisor to President Barack Obama for Science and Technology,
Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and
Co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology...

Holdren was previously the Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University,
director of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program at the School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and
Director of the Woods Hole Research Center.<2>

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

[bdf]

67. Good analysis

But could have gone further. Could have made explicit (for the hard of thinking) that while solar/wind/whatever can eventually replace coal/oil/nuke we're nowhere near there yet and the sheer numbers involved means it could take decades to do the whole job.

Could have pointed out that without storage we will need to waste fuel in conventional generators to cope with solar/wind/whatever variability right up to the point we have a full replacement system. Not much waste at the start and end, but in the middle you either keep some plant at full steam but idle or accept 1-hour blackouts if the wind dies.

Spot on about the human aspect. However, the thing about Tacoma is that when it was designed the engineers knew nothing of winds causing forced resonance. Subsequent suspension bridges incorporated stiffening structures at the edges and scale models were tested in wind tunnels. The nuclear industry is a lot worse because cover-ups are endemic. At Tacoma the engineers were confronted with something they'd never suspected could happen, and learned from it. With nuclear they cover up and state that designs are adequate when they're not. Nuclear is "too big to fail" and until we can fix the regulatory process it should also be regarded as "too dangerous to exist."

BTW, did you know I'm a shill for the nuke industry? It's a fact. It must be because somebody straw-manned what I wrote, told a few other lies and then stated that I'm a shill for the nuke industry. So I must be.

[kristopher]

75. 1/3 global electric from nukes = 1 new 1GW plant per week for 40 year.

That is one third of electric supply.
Sorry, but RENEWABLE ENERGY WORKS NOW

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


6 Standard myths of the nuclear industry
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.

[roamer65]

13. Begin the decomission of San Onofre and Diablo Canyon.

They are too close to the Pacific Ocean and the San Andreas Fault.

[bdf]

24. Fortunately and unfortunately

Fortunately neither of them are GE Mk 1 BWRs but Westinghouse PWRs (however, I've not investigated how safe those PWRs are compared to the GE Mk 1s).

Fortunately the US is not prone to tsunamis of the magnitude or frequency that Japan is.

Unfortunately, there is doubt about how well the San Onofre reactor has been hardened against quakes.

[BeFree]

18. No sacrifice?

I didn't see any suggestion of that. = conservation = economic use = efficiency

Start there.
Shut down the nukes starting now, one by one.
Of course, that is gonna cost more than anything else besides just dealing with the waste.

If we can control the atom, then we can control a molecule.
Find a way to make coal clean.

Put windmills and solar on every house and building.

Do that and we won't have to sacrifice or bomb the next Libya and the world can have peace.

Of course, if one is a doomer and wants to be rid of humans altogether, the present course of ever more nukes is the perfect solution.

[bdf]

37. Find a way to make coal clean?

We already know how to make coal as clean as possible. Fluidised-bed combustion (in the advanced designs that use it to pre-heat other fuel-air mixtures to get higher temperatures and therefore greater thermodynamic efficiency. Electrostatic precipitators. Etc. All the measures adopted by many industrialized countries with the exception of the US because the GOP hates them.

The US solution to "clean coal" is to wash the stuff with water. Seriously. Some company scammed a lot of subsidy money from the gov't by doing just that and calling the result clean coal.

Even when you do everything right, coal is still nasty stuff.

[BeFree]

38. Nukes are worse than coal any day

Yet you propose the worst as a solution? Fuck that.

[bdf]

48. Do any of you people READ?

When I started this thread, and in every post I have made to it, I have never offered nuclear power as a solution to long-term energy needs. Not fucking once, you dipshit.

In the post you responded to I didn't even mention nuclear power, you fucktard. I pointed out that there's only so much that can be done to mitigate coal and that many industrial nations (excluding the US and China) have done so. It's still not good enough. A rational person would have concluded that I thought oil and natural gas were better non-nuclear alternatives to coal

In other posts I have pointed out that the practicalities of switching to renewable/green power will mean that we will need to retain most of the existing nuclear plant (excluding the most dangerous) at least in the short term. I have also pointed out that we have vast quantities of highly toxic U-238 and plutonium with no good way of disposing of them, only some incredibly bad ways. I concluded that if some nuclear designs on the drawing board were as safe as claimed (and acknowledged that it's a big fucking if) then we might need those plants not because we couldn't generate sufficient green/renewable power in the long term but as a way of disposing of shitloads of toxic crap.

[kristopher]

59. Nuke pimp.

[bdf]

68. Dishonest Liar

Two can play at this game.

I expect to win because you keep having to misrepresent and distort what I write. Anybody can check back and see the straw men you construct and the lies you tell.

If you have to resort to lies to make your case then you don't have a case.

[BeFree]

65. "... calmly dispassionate .." in OP

You fucktard dipshit.

What happened? You went off, eh? Boiled over? Blew up?

I pointed out that we should make efforts to sacrifice and move to make clean coal burners.

Your OP fudged and fickled and then - bottom line- started saying a new nuke is our answer to a host of problems. And I say fuck that. I did not write fuck you. You however did write dipshit fucktard.

Read your OP -twice- and bottom line made the claim that nukes are here to stay and a new generation nuke is in our future. You know what I say to that, bdf?

[kristopher]

70. Your intent is clearly to promote as many of the 6 "myths" as you can manage.

You have done little but promote FALSE information that leaves readers of the thread with the precisce framing preferred by the nuclear industry:
OMG, it is either nuclear or coal!!!"



6 Standard lies of the nuclear industry

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.

[Warren DeMontague]

42. The way ahead? Stop fucking around, and put the collective will of humanity on clean renewables.

That's it. That's all.

[Sirveri]

43. Article inaccuracies from my point of view. Explained in detail below.

First thing that caught my mind was how much you think we get from nuclear. In 2008 summer peak time we got 10.7% of our electric power from nuclear, not the 20% you claimed. Take a look at the DoE's EIA department, table 9, for electrical power generation. They can be found here:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/forecasts/aeo/tables_ref.cfm

U-238 isn't harmful if it is treated in a fashion similar to asbestos.
The solution to depleted uranium is to simply bury it below ground water level, or if we decide to embrace nuclear to simply burn it in graphite moderated reactors.

Solar Thermal can sink that solar energy into a liquid salt heat battery for reclamation later. If you make the tank big enough you can store enough energy to last the entire night in theory. Or we can rely on a combination of wind, hydro, and geothermal for night time baseload.

There is no current reason to shut down the current mk1 GE BWR series in this country. None are located on major fault lines, and until this current scenario is resolved it's not clear how much they will actually release to the environment. Until that data is compiled it is not proper to condemn an entire design. That said, these plants are ageing, and it would be good to replace them with something at the end of their operational lifespan. One of the most recent plants to be constructed was Palo Verde, which had its final unit completed in 1988, which was 23 years ago.

[jtuck004]

45. Can we get on with pulling the spent fuel out of the reactors?

Put it in a pool onsite until we figure out something else? Just because we haven't figured out what to do with it yet is no reason to let it sit around until a catastrophic event causes us to wish we had moved it before that. And then get on with deciding what to do next...

btw - on the DOE website "The 103 U.S. nuclear units supply about 20 percent of the electricity produced in the United States - second only to coal as a fuel source.

http://www.energy.gov/energysources/electricpower.htm

Not disagreeing, but they are putting out more than one answer to the question.

And I do understand what you say about the Mark 1. The problem seemed to stem partly from no power. Do they really do no drills with no power whatsoever?
One of the workers in the interview video that is running around said "they said it was safe" and "were not trained for this". These seem like the statements of a guy hired for minimum wage to watch a board, not an experienced and/or well-trained operator. Should that give me pause?

[bdf]

50. Some good points

Yes, moving the spent fuel from the ponds inside the GE Mk 1s to external ponds would greatly reduce the hazards resulting from a core explosion or similar.

Thanks for point backing me up on the "20% of US electricity from nuclear" thing. I said the same in a direct reply to the guy.

The problem with the Mk 1s stemmed entirely from no power. No, they've never run a drill with no power because the whole design relies on the fact that there is power. All designs except a couple on the drawing board right now must have a source of power to keep them safe. Japan went one better than the US by having 3 backup generators instead of two, so even if one generator set was torn down for repairs/maintenance they'd still have two generators and if one of those didn't work they'd still have one generator. What actually happened was this (as far as can be determined and assuming reports were true):

1. Quake happens. Control rods and emergency rods inserted to shut down the reactor (standard procedure in an earthquake). No more triggered fission of U-235 but the decay products already there are very hot (temperature and radioactivity) so need to be cooled for 3 or 4 days while those products decay further to safe levels.
   
   
2. Reactor can't generate power for the pumps (it's shut down) so they're powered from the grid.
   
   
3. Tsunami comes along and knocks out the grid. Start up one of the emergency backup generators.
   
   
4. Tsunami floods all 3 backup generators. Oh shit.
   
   
5. Run the pumps on batteries.
   
   
6. After 12 hours, the batteries go flat. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.
   

They never practised for a no power situation. Partly because it was believed the backups meant it could never happen. Mainly because without power the result would be a disaster.

[jtuck004]

78. I can see not predicting the site of the largest quake or tsunami ever to hit there...

But for GE: Imagination At Work to not be able to imagine no power shouldn't be tolerated. Unless it was plant mgmt assuming they didn't need to plan for that, save some money.

The rods need to be in a pool. The fires need to be out.

We are 10 days out and it is being reported that they still don't have a clear picture of the damage. Someone's hedging or someone don't know. Put the Captain of the aircraft carrier in charge. Bet you would have a clear picture in 10 days. Maybe a lot less if he's good and the equipment is available.

They are trying to minimize damage to the equipment and get working what they can. The plant manager came on and said parts are on order, so they are just vamping, trying to keep enough of this stuff from blowing up to try and get at least 1 or 2 back up. Reporting that they are laying cable but won't try to turn power on until after checks on Wednesday. Else they would just put automatic pumpers on it, keep the radiation down, and get the pieces in to ponds to sit for a few years. At least down to the core. Maybe they haven't done that 'cause they are hoping this is shielding a hotter problem in a couple of the cores?

Parallels with Chernobyl. There were 4 reactors there, only one blew up in 1986. Irradiated a huge area around it, (bigger than this one with a quarter of the fuel), but the remaining 3 operated for a number of years, last one shut down in 2000. Pictures from inside in 1996 are eerie.

I wonder if they thought they could manage the heat of the rods until power and perhaps water could be restored. Maybe they assumed empty pools had water?

In the process they are playing with fire, and I think they blew it up at least twice. A vent would be better than that, but they didn't get it done, for whatever reason. MAybe too hot to get close enough to see from those armored cars.

More water. I just listened to a report that they are moving concrete pumping trucks with 50 foot booms into place, to dump water over the top of #4, can't cool it any other way, too damaged. (On the other hand, the extension cord should be delivered Friday. Those aren't really built for pumping water fast but they will get some water on there.

NHK TV is amazingly upbeat about this. Except for the occasional use of the work "bleak".

The reporter on tv (They bow to their listeners. Makes me want to bow in my post), says that spinach and milk have higher than normal levels but really are mostly safe, 5 prefectures are not shipping those, some places not accepting anything from irradiated prefectures. Said even if you do eat it you just get a years extra radiation.

Of course, they say, that could change depending on the duration of the emergency, and the wind...but they have a GREAT model builder, creating scenes of "the emergency".

They have started safety inspections on the other plants in Japan. I hope they are not diverting resources from feeding the 250,000 homeless people to do so. How do you do a safety check when the real problem was a quake and tsunami, both of historical size?

[Sirveri]

51. when in doubt, use the number in a table, not a website blurb.

They're basically upselling the amount of nuke energy we get.

As for spent fuel, They burn the fuel thrice, and refuel around every 18 months, and do a strange shuffle inside the core to maintain a specific neutron geometry. That's high level stuff that I forgot most of the equations for. As for storing it on an onsite pool... that's what they already do... As far as melted rods, once they've melted the reactor is generally considered to be scrap, it's actually better to store those rods inside the pressure vessel than to remove them since that will increase the probability of spreading contamination. So they'll wait about ten years, then the core will be cool enough to pop open and bundle it up and get rid of it. Until then let sleeping dogs lie so to speak.

As for drills, I was a navy man, so our issues are different from commercial generation because we have to generate our own power. We did have a casualty procedure for a loss of all A/C (which is probably most similar to what occurred at these plants). In this case their casualty was compounded by a loss of the diesel backups from the Tsunami, since they would generally run out and fire those up when something like this occurs. There is also a procedure called feed and bleed, which can be performed even with minimal power levels from the battery, where they feed water into the reactor and bleed steam out to relieve the pressure and remove a large quantity of heat. Basically what happened is they lost offsite power, they lost their diesel backups, then they drained their battery. When they got a truck carried diesel it they found that the plugs didn't fit and had to deal with that, and by the time they fixed everything it was too late and they steam blanketed the core. One big problem there is once that occurs the pressure is really high and it's difficult to force more water into the plant without first bleeding the steam out of it, which causes water levels to decrease further. So do they drill, in the US they do perform drills, and it's part of your regular certification that you know how to handle the plant during a casualty. Do they do that too, probably... It sounds like they interviewed a firefighter, the actual official operations staff is most certainly more highly trained.

[bdf]

49. At least you were polite. Not entirely correct, but polite.

The DoE figure of 9% you quote is for total energy supply. As I stated, around 20% of US electricity is nuclear. There is no disparity between the figures.

U-238 is very, very harmful. Far more than asbestos. Also more easily leached by groundwater. Nobody in their right mind has ever suggested we can simply bury U-238 below groundwater level. The big worry is that our civilization falls and a new one comes along not knowing of the hazards, starts mining for resources... Even deep in Yucca mountain was not considered safe enough from groundwater and new civilizations to dispose of toxic crap with a half-life of 4.5 billion years.

Storing solar-generated energy in molten mineral salts may be workable. It seems good in pilot tests. A sunny desert means you don't have to worry too much about losses. Still needs a supergrid. Oh, and a lot of people are building wind turbines without storage. And no matter what mix of technologies we finally settle on, it will take decades before we have it all in place and can finally turn off the last of the oil/gas/coal/nuclear generators. I'm not saying it's impossible, just not the "flick a switch" solution some people think it is.

None of the GE Mk 1s in the US are on faults that I know of. But there have been a lot of concerns that the containment is inadequate. Quakes are not the only thing that can cause LOCAs. Badly-supervised repairs/maintenance can make emergency cooling circuits inoperable (this has happened at least once). Operator errors can happen. There are many "once in 10,000 years" accidents that could happen. Problem with the Mk 1 is that if one of those accidents happens the placement of the spent fuel cooling ponds can turn it from a disaster into a major catastrophe.

[Sirveri]

53. False. Total energy supply makes it 8.42%, as electrical generation it is 10.7%

I've done all the math on this before. Unless they were refueling half the plants in the summer of '08.

All numbers derived from DoE's EIA department using 2008 consumption figures (2010 figures may be projections leading to reduced accuracy).
Source: http://www.eia.doe.gov/forecasts/aeo/tables_ref.cfm
Table 1: All totals in quadrillions BTU (total percent)
Total: 100.14 (100%)
Liquid Fuels: 38.46 (38.41%)
Dry Natural Gas: 23.85 (23.82%)
Coal: 22.38 (22.35%)
Nuclear: 8.43 (8.42%)
Biomass: 3.07 (3.07%)
Hydroelectric: 2.53 (2.53%)
Other Renewable Energy: 1.12 (1.12%)
Other: 0.31 (0.31%)
This is for total DOMESTIC CONSUMPTION, not necessarily for electrical generation, it also includes home heating sources, hence the reason for biomass being so high (wood burning). In addition renewable energy doesn't typical generate BTU's, so I've decided to do a further breakdown of the actual electrical grid, but I'll leave this data here because it's mildly interesting.

Table 9: Electrical Power only in gigawatts (Percent Total) using 2008 Summer figures derived from same source material. Oil and Gas was broken down in base data figures, I have combines these for simpler reference.
Total: 939.8 (100%)
Coal: 304.4 (32.39%)
Total Oil/Gas: 403.4 (42.92%)
-Combined Cycle: 157.1 (16.72%)
-Combustion Turbine/Diesel: 131.7 (14.01%)
-Oil and Natural Gas Steam: 114.6 (12.19%)
Renewable Sources*: 109.7 (11.67%)
Nuclear: 100.6 (10.70%)
Pumped Storage: 21.8 (2.32%)

* Renewable sources include: Conventional hydroelectric, geothermal, wood, wood waste, all municipal waste, landfill gas, other biomass, solar, wind. Facilities co-firing biomass and coal were classed as coal.

I found another chart that further broke down renewable sources into their base components, however there was a deviation in total values between that list and the number given in total supply. The total in the breakdown yields 110.31, a difference of 0.61GW which is only a difference of .05% (thus statistically insignificant). Total has been adjusted upwards to 940.41 for greater accuracy in second percent value.

Table 16: Renewable source breakdown in Gigawatts (Percent Renewable/Percent Total) in 2008 Summer
Total: 110.31 (100%/11.72%)
Conventional Hydropower: 76.87 (69.69%/8.17%)
Wind: 24.89 (22.56%/2.65%)
Municipal Waste: 3.37 (3.06%/0.36%)
Geothermal: 2.42 (2.19%/0.26%)
Wood and other biomass: 2.19 (1.99%/0.23%)
Solar Thermal: 0.53 (0.48%/0.06%)
Solar PV*: 0.05 (0.05%/negligable)
Offshore Wind^: 0.00 (0%/0%)

*Solar Photovoltaics (PV) does NOT include off-grid generation, High end estimates place off-grid PV power generation at 237 MW (.237GW), and 550 MW (.55GW) for communication, transportation, and other specialized off grid applications. Sum high end total estimate is .787GW, plus .05 from dedicated grid generation yields 0.837 (0.76%/0.09%). Total Solar (Thermal+PV): 1.367 (1.24%/0.15%).

^Offshore Wind is currently not generating in any on-grid capacity and was included for future projection purposes, projections indicate it will begin to come online in 2014 and generate 0.2GW per year from then until end of projections in 2035.

[Statistical]

86. You are looking at capacity (i.e GW) try looking at energy produced (i.e. GWh)

Nuclear plants have much higher capacity factor (higher uptime, more consistently delivers peak power). Despite having only 10% of the capacity they deliver 20% of the energy produced. In essence each GW of nuclear power delivers twice the energy for an equivalent amount of capacity compared to other forms of energy (have much higher capacity factor).

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/tablebrowser/#release=AEO2011&subject=0-AEO2011&table=8-AEO2011®ion=0-0&cases=ref2011-d120810c

What makes your AC work, or recharges your electric car is generation not capacity.

In terms of actual electricity generated (billions of kWh).
Coal 1855
Petroleum 45
Natural Gas 1018
Nuclear Power 802
Renewable Sources  414
Other 11
---------------------------
Total: 4148 (4 trillion kWh)

In % terms
Coal: 45%
Oil: 1%
Natural gas: 25%
Nuclear: 19%
Renewable: 10%
Other: 0%

Of which hydro makes the overwhelming majority.
Conventional Hydropower 243
Geothermal 16
Municipal Waste 17
Wood and Other Biomass 40
Solar 4
Wind 91
-------------
Total 414

Renewable breakdown in % terms of total generation
Conventional Hydropower 5.9%
Geothermal 0.4%
Municipal Waste 0.4%
Wood and Other Biomass 1%
Solar 0.1%
Wind 2.2%
---------------
Total ~10%

Capacity by itself is a meaningless metric. Capacity * capacity factor * hours in year = energy generated annually.

[Sirveri]

54. As for the rest.

If U238 is so harmful then why isn't everyone dieing left and right from it since it's buried all over the place. Just put it back in the mines we dug it up from and it's done. U235 exists as 0.7204% of stable uranium, while U238 is 99.2742%, it already exists in the ground, just put it back in the hole we dug it up from, problem solved.

My personal favorite energy source is solar thermal to replace coal and oil. It's got the ability to store heat and dump it back into the grid later. It's also centralized enough to take advantage of efficiencies of scale and attractive to investors seeking to make some money. Other power storage sources are the idea of the electric car grid linked battery. Whereby people basically allow the grid to use their own personal battery while they're not using the car, but that's a much larger infrastructure project than mineral salt thermal batteries which are already starting to be used. But I agree, since our population is expanding we will need to ramp up electrical production to compensate, or at least keep it near constant while promoting energy efficiency and conservation.

I'm aware of what happened at TMI, I have read classified documents specifically pertaining to that accident sequence, though I suspect that part of the manual is declassified (It also contains naval nuclear reactor specification specifics). That said I don't see these as a serious threat since the likelihood of both an earthquake and a Tsunami hitting the eastern seaboard is quite small. Currently the only current risk I know of is from Las Palma island, and most seem to think we have 10000 years until such an event will occur. Given our current and projected energy consumption we won't be using nuclear, coal, or oil in even 1000 years from now, because we'll have used ALL of it. In any event, considering the current casualty was basically caused and accentuated by the earthquake and subsequent Tsunami, the likelihood that such a prolonged LOCC could occur in a US plant is incredibly low due to triple redundancy.

[bdf]

72. Is U-238 harmful?

Yep. see this (it's Wikipedia so be sure to follow the citations before believing it).

Also look at the incidence of birth defects and cancers on Indian reservations where uranium was mined and around where uranium was processed (such as Hanford).

Can we get rid of it as easily as you suggest? Not really. Most of it is in the form of uranium hexafluoride and it's hard (and dangerous) to split that compound up. See this for how much is stored in the US (Wikipedia warning applies). If it could be done easily and safely, and the result disposed of as you suggest, the US wouldn't have had 686,500 tonnes of it in 2008 stored in Portsmouth, Ohio and Paducah, Kentucky.

It's a problem.

[Sirveri]

76. I typically don't study depleted uranium, or much of the enrichment process.

Although I wouldn't mind getting my hands on some of that uranium hexaflouride and a research grant. I have a theory about a non-thermal fission reactor similar to a B11 polywell fusor.

[Shagbark Hickory]

52. I didn't read it all but glad at least someone's got a plan. +!

[defendandprotect]

63. Now? Let's stop being stupid enough to use nuclear, esp to heat water for steam -- !!!

Of course, nuclear reactors in US should be shut down, as quickly as possible --

and NO NEW NUCLEAR REACTORS BUILT!!

And, we should not extend any expiring LICENSES --

No one is going back to OIL -- !!! And, yes, we have peak oil --

We can have green alternative renewable energy in time -- let's begin subsidizing it --

take the money Obama wanted to throw at nuclear industry -- and loan guarantees -- and use

it for alternatives.


YES -- Corporations are corrupt and criminal -- and have corrupted government -- a problem we

have to live with until DOJ begins to do something -- or until we have a liberal power shift to

the left!

Re this --

As I said here, the problem in Japan was not caused by building nuclear generators, or by building them in an earthquake zone, or building them on the coast. The real problem, caused by broken regulatory processes, was not designing the reactors to cope with tsunamis in a country that gave us the word "tsunami" because it has so many of them. A disaster was then turned into a catastrophe because the regulatory processes didn't spot any problem with putting the spent fuel cooling ponds where they could be damaged by a reactor explosion, magnifying the amount and the danger of radioactive release considerably.

The Tsunami washed over the storage areas -- had the tsunami hit from another direction, it might

have washed away ALL of the reactors!!

Global Warming has greatly increased seismic activity over the past 40 years -- the reactors were

built to 1970's activity -- insufficient now -- and it will always be be insufficient because

Global Warming will continue to increase seismic activity -- and the intensity of earthquakes

and the number of earthquakes and aftershocks -- and the power of tsunamis. Global Warming may

also be connected to increasing volcanic activity.



Solar power does not work only in "daylight" -- Solar power can be stored -- and is being

stored -- and increasingly!

Wind power can also be used to turn excess power over to electric companies -- though we should

end the idea of dragging electricity over the nation -- we need more local production of electricity.

Generators in buildings and hospitals -- schools. An end to monopolies in electricity!

How come we never complained about the "hell of a lot of money" connected to oil monopolies and

electric monopolies -- Enron? -- or gas industry? Or what Obama wanted to spend on new nukes?!

We need to end nuclear power reactors as quickly as possible -- and it takes something like

6 months to properly shut down a nuclear reactor.

[divvy]

87. spirit

I sincerely applaudt he spirit and content of your opening post. What we discuss, at times, can be less important that how we discuss. Sometimes, i feel, we loose sight of this on DU.

I loof forward to reading this thread

[divvy]

88. NRG's Texas Toshiba / TEPCO plant may be canceled

NRG's Texas nuclear plants that were to be built with the cooperation of Toshiba & TEPCO may be delayed or canceled

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/80619.html