US Approves Two New Nuclear Reactors 596
JoeRobe writes "For the first time in 30 years, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved licenses to build two new nuclear reactors in Georgia. These are the first licenses to be issued since the Three Mile Island incident in 1979. The pair of facilities will cost $14 billion and produce 2.2 GW of power (able to power ~1 million homes). They will be Westinghouse AP1000 designs, which are the newest reactors approved by the NRC. These models passively cool their fuel rods using condensation and gravity, rather than electricity, preventing the possibility of another Fukushima Daiichi-type meltdown due to loss of power to cooling water pumps." Adds Unknown Lamer: "Expected to begin operation in 2016 or 2017, the pair of new AP1000 reactors will produce around 2GW of power for the southeast. This is the first of the new combined construction and operating licenses ever issued by the NRC; hopefully this bodes well for the many other pending applications."
About time (Score:5, Insightful)
It's about time we did something to address our growing energy needs.
Now if we can get politicians to quit treating building more oil refining capacity as a political football, we might take another meaningful step toward energy independence.
Re: (Score:3)
Don't start celebrating yet. I'm sure the greens will have something to say before it's up and running.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:because we learned nothing from Fukushima (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes much better to keep drilling in the gulf - that's never been a problem...
Re:because we learned nothing from Fukushima (Score:5, Informative)
Oh it's still an environmental problem, but most of it is conveniently out of plain sight:
http://articles.cnn.com/2010-12-07/opinion/cousteau.gulf.oil.spill_1_oil-spill-deepwater-horizon-ixtoc [cnn.com]
Re:because we learned nothing from Fukushima (Score:4, Interesting)
Well then do not eat shrimp or fish or clams or mussels that came from the gulf.
The gulf has seen bad spills before (Ixtoc I). Oil seeps into gulf naturally. The Gulf of Mexico does get oil in it all the time and has been for 1000s of years. It might be one of the best places to have a spill. Which really ticks the environmental people off. Don't get me wrong, spills are bad and should be avoided. They going to happen at some point for some reason. Steps should always be taken to minimize them.
I recall from memory, and I do not have an online account with them, but on the print edition of Scientific American [scientificamerican.com] a few years back there was a report of an experiment on the space shuttle, in which they tried to estimate the natural seepage of hydrocarbons in the gulf of mexico by photo analisys of day views, since the oil slicks had a different reflectivity. The photos were quite amazing, it was really pervasive.
Re:because we learned nothing from Fukushima (Score:5, Insightful)
Per kilowatt nuclear is the safest when all things are taken into account. The problem with nuclear power is the worst case scenario: Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima. So that is the balancing effect.
A crude analogy would be comparing cars to airplanes by mile traveled.
Re:because we learned nothing from Fukushima (Score:5, Informative)
Per-kilowatt I'm amazed at how expensive this is. $7/W just in construction costs? Yeah, I know nuclear has a higher capacity factor than wind and solar, but still... ouch.
And the article summary repeats the whole "passively cooled" thing as if that equals "safe". :P First off, it's not even a true passive system. The "passive" system must successfully activate within 30 minutes, and only works for 72 hours. It's only passive in that it doesn't require electricity once started, and assuming that it works properly. Secondly, "passive" does not automatically equal 'safe' anyway. For example, a number of graphite-moderated reactors have been declared "safe" because of a negative void coefficient, so if you lose your working fluid and air gets in, the reaction still slows down. Great, except that hot graphite *burns* or otherwise erodes (burning graphite is what spread the Chernobyl radiation).
In general, "passive safety" is an excuse to cut down on containment structures, which have saved our collective behinds many times over. And the AP1000 is no exception, with its bargain-basement containment design. I'm amazed that the construction cost on these is still this high despite the corner-cutting.
Re:because we learned nothing from Fukushima (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm pretty sure there are no (commercial) graphite moderated reactors in the US. (Wandering slightly from that point: I'm also reasonably happy to leave policing other countries' nuclear policy to IAEA rather than the US...) So I'm not sure that's a great example.
I'm not clear on what the bargain basement containment is that you refer to. But I have my own understanding of the changes, which I'll share... From what I've heard/read/learned, past light water reactors in the US use used a single containment vessel: steel reinforced concrete, which is also the reactor building. Newer ones have a solid steel containment vessel AND a concrete reactor building (with less steel reinforcement maybe?.
Why this is better/adequate? Steel is much better as a secondary pressure vessel (think Fukushima hydrogen pressure -> explosion). Steel also conducts heat much better than concrete, so you get heat out of the containment without transferring mass out of containment. Then you drip water on the outside of steel containment to remove the decay heat building up inside, and this also controls the pressure, too. The concrete reactor building is your plane shield.
That said, manufacturing that giant steel vessel is an added cost that other reactors didn't have. They also made the actual pressure vessel more expensive to fabricate by getting rid of some of the weld seams. (Said seams end up being the most likely candidate of problems after 40 years of reactor operation, though such failure has not occurred in the US... Fukushima maybe? I don't think we know yet.)
(I am a nuclear engineering grad student, but keep in mind curriculum doesn't spend that much time on actual reactor containment design... so I'm not an expert, per se)
Re:because we learned nothing from Fukushima (Score:5, Informative)
Three Mile Island was a panic, but nothing actually happened. Chernobyl was an actual disaster and Fukushima was a very real problem. Fukushima is/was NOT as bad as some coal power related incidents, it just happened faster, and had the new N word in it, so it gets attention. Coal fires due to mining have actually created some rather large exclusion zones of their own here in the U.S.
Re:because we learned nothing from Fukushima (Score:4, Funny)
Re:because we learned nothing from Fukushima (Score:5, Informative)
The problem with nuclear power is the worst case scenario: Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima.
The problem is the willful ignorance of the media because the mysteriousness of nuclear power provides an almost unlimited source of material for media hyperbole. The differences between Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima are so enormous - not just the outcome but the risks taken and events leading to the accident - it is ridiculous to include them in the same list.
I would encourage people to understand these accidents and, in particular, look at the culture of safety/corruption in the organisations/countries involved. Chernobyl became operational before a key safety requirement was met (and, ironically, attempts to address this led to the accident). We now know that there were safety concens over Fukushima but TEPCO wasn't going to shut a profitable power station. Where safety regulators have the final say and are not corrupt, nuclear power, like everything else, will be much safer. Most aspects of everyday life are not 100% safe, e.g. walking down stairs, driving, flying etc., but in the USA/Canada and many European countries, at least, nuclear power should be low down on our list of things to worry about. My worry is that investment in nuclear power may detract from investment into developing sources of renewable energy.
Re:because we learned nothing from Fukushima (Score:5, Interesting)
What we learned from Fukushima is that this is EXACTLY what we need to do - we need to start building modernized reactors that roll in decades of safety research and engineering into their design, as opposed to repeatedly service-life-extending old clunkers with ancient safety designs.
And if we don't go with nuclear - what's our other option? Gas, the industry which has contaminated more groundwater in the past five years with drilling activities than almost the entire history of civilian nuclear power?
The nuclear industry has an excellent track record - it took decades before the first incident of a civilian reactor letting out any measurable contamination, and that incident was triggered by a natural disaster that killed over 25,000 people instantly, hitting a reactor that was so old that it was originally scheduled for permanent shutdown prior to the earthquake.
(I don't consider Chernobyl to be a civilian reactor - even if the Soviets tried to claim it was "civilian", the only reason one builds graphite-moderated water-cooled reactors is to have the option of using it as a cheap source of weapons plutonium.)
Re:because we learned nothing from Fukushima (Score:5, Insightful)
Nail, hit head.
Nuclear power done right brings a lot to the table:
1: It is energy dense, so it doesn't take up valued land. Solar and wind farms are great, but energy losses through wires cause those to become not feasible.
2: A reprocessing, "breeder" reactor can reduce the need for high level waste dumps.
3: Reactor fuel is relatively cheap and abundant. When uranium becomes an issue, there is always thorium (although that is still a research leap ahead.)
4: Safety. The deaths per terawatt figures completely show this.
And it only will get better. The reactors in use today are designs built when disco was in fashion and people wore leisure suits. Modern reactor designs are generations ahead in safety, usability, and economy than the existing reactors that are on life support. Take an implemention of a traveling wave reactor. If done right, there would be zero need to enrich uranium, and the by-products are useful items.
Had we had nuclear power R&D in the 1970s and 1980s, I'd probably say we would be at least 20-50 years ahead in technological growth than we are now. Even the need for petroleum wouldn't be much, as any oil would be used for polymers, rather than burned. Even used plastics can be "boiled" via a thermal depolymerization reaction and reused.
I'm happy to see some sort of energy progress in the US other than gas and oil.
Re: (Score:3)
I agree - if nuclear had more R&D in the 1980s and 1990s, most likely the waste challenge would be solved. There are plenty of candidate technologies for it - the IFR had the potential to provide 100% of this country's electrical needs for decades, if not a century, using only waste from our existing LWR installations as fuel. The waste from an IFR would be low-volume and only "hot" for a few hundred years, unlike current LWR waste.
As to fusion, we need to stop shooting for the "ideal purist" approach
Re:because we learned nothing from Fukushima (Score:4, Informative)
As to fusion, we need to stop shooting for the "ideal purist" approach of fusion-only energy, and look into subcritical fission reactors using fusion as a neutron source as a stepping stone. Pure fusion is the ideal final goal, but we'll never get there without a more short-term realizable intermediary step of some sort.
This is silly. There's been enormous progress on fusion over the decades. ITER [iter.org] may be the first time we actually achieve long term self-sustaining reactions.
But there's practically no cross-over between fusion neutron sources, and fusion energy sources. If you want a neutron source, build a Farnsworth–Hirsch fusor and save yourself a lot of time and trouble - but those things will never be self-sustaining (unless Polywell's work out, but it seems more like those were a badly monitored experiment then real progress).
Re: (Score:3)
This produces weapons grade material though no?
No, indeed. You still need to refine to weapons-grade level. And if someone is doing that, then they probably would have built the plant anyway.
Deaths from nuclear are notoriously hard to estimate because they play out over decades. *Potential deaths* from nuclear are pretty damned high given worst case scenarios.
And are notoriously exaggerated.
Deaths from solar? literally zero. But but, people fall off the roofs...which is ridiculous.
It happens, no? Then it's not ridiculous. It's worth keeping in mind that actual deaths from nuclear power, from mining through to nulcear accident, are so few, that even deaths from people installing wind or solar is comparable.
Solar is quite ready to take over grid scale 'production' of energy. What isn't yet ready is the storage of that energy for later use. Hydrogen fuel cells being the most likely candidate but more research and funding is needed.
Not for base load power. You mention "storage". That increases the cost per watt of solar considerably. For
Re: (Score:3)
Re:because we learned nothing from Fukushima (Score:4, Informative)
You're correct here - Many of the safety features in this plant (and even its predecessors) would have allowed Fukushima to have survived the tsunami without any core damage.
For example, in addition to the diesels, the ABWR design has a gas turbine in the (heavily reinforced) turbine building.
The ESBWR design (similar in safety features to this AP1000) could have survived the loss of both that gas turbine and all of the diesels thanks to the PCCS - Maintaining PCCS operation only requires you to bring a fire truck onsite within 72 hours.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Antimatter? really? Please realize that science fiction is indeed science fiction. Antimatter can not be harvest as a natural resource, it is at best a really really expensive form of energy storage because we have to create antimatter before we can use it.
Fusion may be possible sometime this century, maybe.
As for solar? in the southeast we can get about 1kw per meter a day at 20% efficiency. With a 1 square mile array we could get a little over 2.2 gw.
20% is entirely doable with solar thermal, and it can e
Re: (Score:3)
No, we can dramatically reduce the energy consumption of certain tasks. But the net effect of most energy efficiency measures is simply an increase in productivity - not a reduction in aggregate demand.
Energy efficiency has close to no point to it if it is not met with the possibility of reducing energy consumption below some key number where it still pollutes the environment.
Re:because we learned nothing from Fukushima (Score:5, Insightful)
By "we learned nothing" do you mean we didn't learn to stop relying on 40 year-old nuclear power plants built using 50-60 year old designs? Because I'm pretty sure building new designs shows that we did, in fact, learn exactly that.
Re:because we learned nothing from Fukushima (Score:5, Insightful)
We can compare the oil spills in the gulf, and not just the BP one, there are others that have been reported to still be spewing out crap. Those are "gifts that keep on giving". There are large swaths of the seabed that are just lifeless now.
Contrast that to the area around the worst nuclear disaster in world history. Years later, it has become a game preserve. Were it not for the rad meters, it has become an ecological paradise where nature has come back.
If Chernobyl is the worst nuclear disaster we ever will have, while undersea drilling is still a nascent technology where a blowout can happen at any time, I'm all for nuclear power with only caveat.
The caveat is that in today's economy, there is no responsibility. Stakeholders have been replaced by shareholders. A reactor head can be made out of pot metal, be installed, and it fails. The company that made it can just shrug, file bankruptcy, the owner of the company take his golden parachute and live in the Bahamas. What would be needed is regulation where if there is malfeasance, there will be people going to prison and fortunes taken away, and not just pawns thrown under the bus to appease the masses, then back to business as usual.
Re: (Score:3)
No. It's become the city of Hiroshima, just like it was before.
Re:About time (Score:5, Insightful)
Nah, Georgia Power Scam! (Score:5, Informative)
Nah, it's all a scam by Southern Company (parent of Georgia Power) to boost profits. I've been a shareholder for 30+ years. I live in Marietta. What they have done is to effectively double the price of electricity across the state to fund building the reactors rather than taking out a loan to build them. It's bait-and-switch. Once they have the money to build the reactors, the prices will never go down. They will have X years to build the reactors and in the mean time will come up with a number of excuses as to why our electricity prices didn't go down. Inflation, cost to operate, environmental regulations, you name it, any "reason" that they can come up with to pad their salaries and options. I'm a little guilty myself; their dividends aren't bad...
I'm looking for a direct quote from last fall from a Georgia Power rep (Jeff Wilson?) talking about how they have all sorts of hydro power, but I can't find it after a half-hour of scouring the Internets. Link's probably dead anyway. That's what I get for not printing. An article came out where there was a report from Georgia Power or Southern Company, generated by them where the company found itself as a huge polluter. A spokesperson from Georgia Power/Southern Company totally downplayed the report and dismissed it going so far as to say that they have lots of renewable power deployed. There was a quote "from the horse's mouth" IIRC about how there was so much power generated (50MW? installed IIRC) at Lake Sinclair. If you lived around the area and ONLY if you lived around the area and actually paid very close attention talking to workers, you would know that the guy was lying through his teeth. They aren't generating ANY power there because there isn't enough water now to even be run through the turbines. Installed capacity != realized capacity. If anyone can find this article, please post it. It was probably from the AJC or Athens or Milledgeville press.
Here's one that I dug out of my email on Georgia Power's water usage [macon.com].
Another on coal ash pollution [macon.com].
We have two of the world's top ten dirtiest power plants in operation RIGHT HERE IN GEORGIA!!! One of these (Cartersville) powers Atlanta, so I can't complain too much. :)
Source [momtastic.com]
Go to Milledgeville and behold the brown afternoon/evening skies. Been like this for longer than I've been around. They may actually be closing that plant because they're too cheap to install scrubbers.
There is such thing as clean coal or at least "cleaner" coal. And I'm just as much for nuclear as the next guy, but that's not what this is about.
Just another move by Southern Company to increase profits. Nothing else.
(See post [slashdot.org])
Re:Nah, Georgia Power Scam! (Score:4, Insightful)
You are going to be one of the few not screwed when the dinosaurs start running out. And they'll be closing those dirty plants down the way when coal is more expensive than gold. Isn't this still a good outcome long-term, even if it costs now?
Re:Nah, Georgia Power Scam! (Score:5, Informative)
"clean coal" is about as expensive as nuclear power and it has a lot of problems because it sequesters CO2 by pumping it underground at high pressure. In the event of a fracture event the sudden release of CO2 can prove fatal for anyone living in low areas. A similar effect occurs naturally in certain areas of Africa where CO2 suddenly released from deep lakes occasionally wipes out entire villages. If that happens in a suburban or urban area, 10s or hundreds of thousands could die. The risks are just too great.
Natural Gas? (Score:3)
Don't worry. We'll be out of oil soon and our civilization will be pulled kicking and screaming into the future.
By future you mean Natural Gas? We are only at the beta testing stage, at best, of alternative energy. Yes this is a damn shame, we should have worked more diligently on it after the first energy crisis of the 1970s, but that didn't happen and we have the reality we must deal with today. Today there is little alternative to oil beyond nuclear and natural gas. We still have decades of research and testing ahead of us before solar, wind, tidal, batteries, etc may become viable large scale alternatives.
We c
Re:About time (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:About time (Score:5, Insightful)
Using more energy is a good thing because its a sign you are capable of things that require that much power.
Or a sign of inefficiency.
Re:About time (Score:5, Insightful)
When on average about 2/3rds of the energy we use is thrown away as waste heat before we can actually use it (never mind that ultimately ALL energy we use ends up as heat), there's plenty of room for reductions in energy use through efficiency.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:About time (Score:5, Insightful)
Arguing for efficiency is fine, but that's not what GP was doing.
And we are improving the efficiency. Smartphones that run circles around desktops that used 100x more energy, LED lamps that use way less energy than incandescents, better insolation materials while reducing heat that needs to be produced, etc.
But that doesn't mean that we won't still need more energy. Hell, developing countries alone will need it to reach anywhere near what we have right now.
Re:About time (Score:4, Interesting)
But that doesn't mean that we won't still need more energy. Hell, developing countries alone will need it to reach anywhere near what we have right now.
And this is their opportunity to become the next big energy suppliers as oil runs out. Many of them are lucky enough to have vast renewable resources. A single North African nation alone could power all of Western Europe easily with solar thermal, and the EU is actively trying to get capacity built there (I knew there was a reason we helped Libya).
The only problem is that they need help with the technology, which is why they are still building nasty coal powered stations.
Re:About time (Score:4, Insightful)
More people is a good thing too? Everyone in the world coming up to US energy consumption?
Another way to get more energy per individuals is to have fewer individuals. Now that would be progress!
Consider - until 1980 most people in China, the world's most populous nation, used very little energy - electrical or petrol.
They are increasing, per capita and en masse. China as it raises the standard of living of each individual places an increasing burden upon available resources as they approach the level, per capita, of the United States - a nation at least 5 times the population of the United States. Think about where this is going.
Re:About time (Score:4, Insightful)
Thank you, President Carter. Rather than address the problem we should just all put on a sweater?
Re:About time (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:About time (Score:4, Funny)
I remember when I didn't have seven items in the same room needing an outlet - there was a TV, a lamp and maybe a small floor heater.
Okay, okay, I'm getting off your lawn now ..
Re:About time (Score:5, Insightful)
How about if we use less energy? Sound familiar?
I'm all for more efficient devices that use less energy while still giving me everything the more power hungry devices give me. I'm not willing use less energy if it means that I lose anything by doing so.
I remember when I didn't have seven items in the same room needing an outlet - there was a TV, a lamp and maybe a small floor heater. Now I have a computer, with a monitor, a sound system and a laser printer, each with its own cord...
Yeah, yeah, yeah...let's assume every single person on the planet cuts their total energy usage by half (which is an insane and completely unrealistic goal). We had a population of 3 billion people in this planet in 1960. By 2000, we had doubled that to 6 billion. Basically, you've cut the standard of living of everyone and the only thing you've accomplished is gain us a few decades before we're right at the same place again, except now it's even harder to cut down on energy usage because there's less to cut. That's not counting the fact that as the developing countries catch up, their population will be using more energy.
Do you want to lower your carbon impact on this planet? Have less children. Contributing to negative population growth is the greenest thing you can do.
Re: (Score:3)
How about if we use less energy? Sound familiar?
Money...meet mouth. How many of those things have you unplugged since posting?
Re:About time (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
It's about time we did something to address our growing energy needs.
Now if we can get politicians to quit treating building more oil refining capacity as a political football, we might take another meaningful step toward energy independence.
How about if we use less energy? Sound familiar?
I remember when I didn't have seven items in the same room needing an outlet - there was a TV, a lamp and maybe a small floor heater. Now I have a computer, with a monitor, a sound system and a laser printer, each with its own cord. The item in the room consuming the most power is the computer. Further, I have various wall-wart powered devices, which are on less frequently. I don't think my electric needs are unique, either. With 100 million people on computers, whether at home or work, we're chewing through the watts like crazy, even with energy saving lamps.
Do you know that the refrigerator you buy today, holds 3 times as much, and uses 3 times less electricity, then one you could buy in the 1970s?
Also: if your computer is consuming more power then your floor-heater (the single most inefficient way imaginable to heat a space) then you've got real problems.
Re:About time (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:About time (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm guessing you're referring to the flawed analysis? That is nowhere near the same thing as a design flaw. The NRC DID call them on it and delayed approval until the analysis was done to their satisfaction. That sure seems like they care, doesn't it? I am guessing because I don't want to play the guess which scripts you have to allow to make this page work game right now.
Other than that one, all I can find are vague innuendos complaining that Westinghouse didn't instantly address problems found in other, different designs (not even THEIR designs!) within hours of discovery.
What (if any) outstanding issues might there be? I'm all for caution (particularly as a resident of Ga.), but some of this is total nonsense and the rest seems to be addressed.
Re:About time (Score:5, Insightful)
I stopped watching after about 10 minutes. Gundersen does have a master's degree in Nuclear Engineering, but it seems he's always been a consultant rather than directly involved in the industry. Arguments presented in the first 10 minutes below in italics
We've never tested a large water tank on top of a reactor in a full scale test.
I don't really understand this; the actual source of heat is irrelevant when you are engineering a gravity-fed water tank, and that's pretty damned well understood.
It hasn't been approved yet. What's the rush? We should incorporate design changes from Fukushima and restart certification.
IOW, we're almost done with a design, so lets make a bunch of changes now and restart certification. I'll tell you what the rush is: we need to build new reactors and decommission the old known-to-be-unsafe ones. You know, the ones the people funding you are trying to get shut down. Just because a 1957 Chevy is dangerous to drive doesn't mean we should delay rolling out a Volvo S60 because it isn't "perfect" yet. Yes we should keep changing new designs but at some point you have to say "this is way better than what we currently have, let's build them".
Pressure at Fukushima raised up to 0.7 lbs within AP1000's design limit. The control rods might not go down when you try to stop it (after a partial meltdown, which falls into the "no shit" category).
This would be relevant if the reactors were at all similar internally. Hint: Fukushima was an ancient boiling water design, obsolete even when it was built. The AP1000 is much newer non-boiling design, and is much more amenable to passive cooling approaches. Yes, it is true that modern gasoline engines are not built to specifications for safe steam engines, which had quite a problem with boiler explosions.
Tank on the roof could fail. Seismic analysis indicates weight on roof is always bad (they appear unaware of counterweights used in tall buildings).
The alternative of course is tanks on the ground and active pumps, which is where we came from previously and are trying to avoid now. In other words, no solution is acceptable, let's not build anything. A corollary of that is that crappy old designs will continue to run. If this ends up a bad design for earthquake zones, it would still make sense to build them in seismically stable locations and replace known-bad power sources.
Terrorists could try to blow up the water tank!
This is apparently coordinated with an earlier attack on the primary method, since the water tank is the backup. People need to seriously give up on the airliner hijack thing -- yes our old rules on dealing with hijacking were flawed. They've now been patched, and passengers and the air force know what [not] to do. In fact those rules were already patched *on 9/11* as Flight 93 demonstrated. Terrorists are also opportunistic anyway, and will always seek an easy new attack route, rather than one that has been tried before (leaving responders prepared).
Shrapnel from an exploding neighboring reactor could peirce the tank!
Cool let's build the AP1000 and shut down the ones that can explode, ok? The alternative is to find new sites for a nuclear plant, which will take from decades to never given the same groups opposing them.
Typical (Score:4, Interesting)
They'll build them in the South and then send the power up North where the states refuse to allow them.
Re:Typical (Score:5, Interesting)
The idea being the the South makes money from them by taking on the risk (perceived or otherwise) of running them in their backyard. Either in increased employment (so local growth) or increased tax revenue for the county, or cheaper electricity for the locals.
Just like France makes good money selling electricity to the UK and Germany (as those two countries have somewhat of a nuclear-phobia, that seems to be increasing). The electricity prices in France are 10% of what I pay in the UK, and I'm on a cheap UK tariff provided by a French electricity company! I'm sure the money goes somewhere...
Re: (Score:3)
Germany is still running an electricity surplus and is actually selling to France currently ( http://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/deutschland/trotz-atomausstiegs-deutschland-exportiert-strom-nach-frankreich/6183796.html [handelsblatt.com] ).
UK doesn't seem nuclear-phobic to me (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Typical (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Typical (Score:5, Funny)
wow, i thought you were joking until I looked it up
http://blogs.oracle.com/templedf/entry/it_s_the_tachyon_signature [oracle.com]
Re:Typical (Score:5, Informative)
up North where the states refuse to allow them
Err... [sandia.gov]
Re:Typical (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a renaissance of manufacturing going on in the American south. Look at all the foreign auto makers that have built factories there. Wages are affordable for the company, there are no union entanglements like those which have ravaged Detroit, areas where good paying jobs are few and far between receive them - everyone wins.
Re:Typical (Score:4, Interesting)
Perhaps also important, you can go outside in a tshirt and jeans November - March, meaning that skilled manufacturing jobs (machining, etc) are less likely to make flight for warmer climates (see also: Los Angeles). Now that we import much of our steel, there's no reason to keep the manufacturing clustered in one of the most miserable parts of the continental United States.
;) You can enjoy hobbies like sailing in the winter. It's no wonder that southern cities are seeing double digit growth while great lakes industrial cities are collapsing.
Hey North, NEWSFLASH - we have air conditioning now, it's safe to come down here
Re:Typical (Score:5, Interesting)
From Minneapolis I sneer at you and say, I wouldn't trade my down comforter and mild summers for all the mosquitos in Mississippi. :)
Re: (Score:3)
SSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Are you crazy? Don't encourage them!
Sheesh!
Great news! (Score:5, Insightful)
If we are going to adopt electric cars in a big way, we need this badly.
Glad to hear it.
-Eric
Re: (Score:3)
However, we need replacements for the numerous coal plants that WILL shut down over the next
Re: (Score:3)
The new reactors would power 1,000,000 homes or 500,000 electric cars.
MOST people don't recognize the load that a mass switchover to electric cars would put on the power grid.
To drive your typical car 1000 miles you need about 250-350 kWh. Which is anywhere from one half to one quarter your typical household's monthly usage.
Never mind that 98% of the time you will charge your EV at night or whenever there is excess generation capacity because the utility company will happily charge you lower rates to do so. A very large portion of our vehicle fleet could be electrified without adding any additional generation capacity.
Re: (Score:3)
Those are some moderately misleading numbers...
~20% of our electricity comes from nuclear power.
That 20% or so consumes a billion or so in subsidies.
Solar, on the other hand, gets ~$400 million in subsidies, and supplies what, exactly? Less than 1% of our electricity? MUCH less than 1%?
A much better way of looking at subsidies is "bang for the buck" - and nuclear seems
Liquid Floruide Thorium Reactors Please! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Liquid Floruide Thorium Reactors Please! (Score:4, Funny)
I submitted plans for a flow-through microcapillary array making use of liquefied and diluted fissile fuel to Battelle Memorial Institute while working there (2004-2005). Modern day reactor pebbles are rarely used to more than a quarter of their fissile capacity--primarily because there is so little fissile material in the bulk rock that, at that point, it fails to generate enough heat to be useful. By dissolving and diluting the material the fission reactions could be metered to near atomic identity (one for one, ensuring no unused fuel on the flow out end).
The primary design problem was operating close to absolute zero. Good luck pushing any liquid through an array of microcapillary tubes and through the fission chamber (filled with gamma radiation to creat the fission events) at that temperature.
The primary political problem was a ban on combining breeder reactors with actual production reactors. The design for the microcapillary flow-through chamber involved the generation of the liquid fuel (breeder) to be, more or less, on the lab bench adjacent to the electricity producing reaction chamber engine. Due to problems in the past, and concern over record-keeping and stolen fissile material, the generation of the fuel material must be in a seperate facility from the reactor which is attached to the electricity producing turbines.
All of that aside... nuclear reactors are really a method for human corpse disposal. The trees were much taller until you sinners began dropping out of that tower you were building, and those corposes have lots and lots of water in them. The Egyptians used to press the bodies into bricks--some bricks (eg. Methuseleh), would take hundreds of years to dry out and press together. Stonehenge and Woodhenge are the dregs and the froth from the tun when they began stewing the bodies together en masse. Nuclear reactors were developed in the attempt to dry and press the bodies without clogging up all of the world's real estate. A nuclear reactor is a crematorium array.
Re: (Score:3)
If I could, I would moderate you +1 'weird'.
That's all well and good, but... (Score:3, Funny)
...as soon as someone forgets to pay the gravity bill, it's Fukushima all over again!
Fairewind comments on AP1000 (Score:4, Insightful)
"The NRC thinks the probability of three nuclear reactors having a meltdown within 3 days is ZERO. They chose this to minimize the cost of development of the AP1000 reactor."
That's because the NRC is a sock puppet for the Commercial Nuclear Industry.
https://plus.google.com/107839599438746451936/posts/gEhU26JjGWV [google.com]
And three, two, one... (Score:5, Insightful)
Cue the environmentalists to come running out of the woodwork, filing every lawsuit they can find, protesting the work site, and in general trying to slow down and interfere with the construction of said nuclear power plant.
The level of public ignorance never ceases to amaze.
Re:And three, two, one... (Score:5, Informative)
Big questions. (Score:4, Interesting)
$6.36 per Watt (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:$6.36 per Watt (Score:4, Insightful)
Because that is installed capacity (GW) and not actually energy production (GWh). So since your solar only produces power 1/2 of the day and reduces power based on latitude and season your actual costs $/GWh is much higher.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:$6.36 per Watt (Score:4, Informative)
Well, your $3/watt and falling solar is useful on average 12 hours a day.
That's a common misconception--it's actually only about an average of 5 hours per day in an ideal location. Capacity factor for PV is rarely greater than about 0.2.
Re:$6.36 per Watt (Score:5, Informative)
At best (clear days all the time and solar panels that move to point at the Sun), you can get 50% of the power rating averaged over the day. For fixed direction installations, that drops to a third. So 100 watts of maneuverable solar panel corresponds to 50 watts of average power for perfect weather conditions and 100 watts of fixed direction solar panel under the same conditions corresponds to about 33 waters of average power over the day.
The remaining big negative factor for solar is land use. It requires a lot of land to set up an installation of 2.2 GW average power. For maneuverable panels, you'd need almost 9 square kilometers of light gathering area (at 500 W per square meter). For fixed panels, that's 13 square kilometers of light gathering area. There's a modest hidden inefficiency here since solar panels intercept some light for panels behind them when the Sun is near the horizon.
On the nuclear reactor side, the problem is the big liabilities. The reactor design mitigates some of those liabilities, but not by any means all of them. You still need to figure out what to do with the fuel rods, for example. And until the US figures something out, those rods will be stored on site.
A remaining potential advantage for this particular reactor design is that if they can build a number of these, then they can enjoy economies of scale in construction, regulatory and safety issues, and other matters in which more working reactors can generate experience to make that activity less costly. It appears that there are six such reactors under construction, two in the US and four in China (with another eight reactors planned in China according to Wikipedia).
Reading through the Wikipedia article (and links), it appears that the four Chinese reactors under construction are going to generate 4.4 GW of power and cost $8 billion dollars to build. That (if true) changes the economics decisively in favor of nuclear power (though perhaps at substantially higher risk of safety and other liability issues).
No, no it won't. (Score:5, Informative)
Nuclear operating costs are far lower than fossil fuel plants... but they are higher than solar photovoltaic, wind, and hydro in almost all cases.
As for the "nuclear is always on" claims, that's true for the most part. The thing is, not every hour of electricity is worth the same. The Southeast (and most of tUSA) has surplus capacity even after the GWs of coal retirement hit 2016-2018. What we need in order to keep the price low is inexpensive *peaking* capacity. Guess when load is highest? Yip. When the sun is shining; more precisely, summer months on clear days at around 3pm M-F non-holidays. Guess when the cost of generating electricity with fossil fuel is the highest? Yip, during peak hours [thanks to economic dispatch, a good thing].
As for me, I'm not opposed to nuclear power, and I do believe that carbon emissions are the most important challenge of our generation. Nuclear waste is a real problem /. tends to gloss over [by either ignoring it in absolute terms or ignoring the foreign policy and transportation implications of reprocessing]. I'm opposed to the cost. Nuclear is far more expensive than renewables, we don't need the nighttime capacity, and if the First Nuclear Age is any indication, cost per MW will go up over time, not down.
Re: (Score:3)
Sorry; saying "No it won't", and claiming nuclear and fossil-fuel generated electricity costs more than photovoltaic just makes it appear that you are uninformed.
Solar power is tied with off-shore wind as the WORST bargain. Nuclear power is HALF the cost of photovoltaic.
Levelized total cost per kWh, based on 2016 technology and economy:
Natural gas 6.3-12.5
Hydro 8.6
ON-LAND wind 9.7
Geothermal 10.2
Biomass 11.3
Advanced nuclear 11.4
Coal 9.5-13.6
Photovoltaic 21.1
OFF-SHORE wind 24.3
Solar thermal 31.2
This includes
Re:$6.36 per Watt (Score:4, Informative)
Good question. This wikipedia entry on electricity cost by source [wikipedia.org] has the US DOE estimates for total cost.
The main reason is that nuclear plants average 90% of listed ("nameplate") capacity, while solar PV averages just 25%, giving nuclear a 3.6x multiplier on cost-effectiveness, more than making up for the 2.12x shortfall in cost-per-nameplate-watt shortfall.
Re: (Score:3)
"So, once capacity factor is taken into account:
$6.36/watt, divided by 0.9 = $7.06 per watt for nuclear
$3/watt, divided by 0.2 = $15 per watt for solar in Arizona, $20/watt or more in areas with less sun:
You're missing only one thing, the cost of capital. Since PV goes in basically overnight, theres no carrying costs. Nuclear plants take years to build, so you have to write down the interest in the meantime.
Right now that's not a huge effect because of the low interest rates. 20 years ago... it's what reall
Better analogy (Score:5, Funny)
That amount of power is sufficient for approximately 1.81 time-travelling DeLoreans.
Not a big deal. (Score:4, Interesting)
Now, we need NRC to push approval for the micro reactors. We have a large number of coal plants that are going to be shut down over the next 10 years. The choice is what to replace them with. Ideally, small thorium reactors are the ideal choice (though I also like the idea of adding thermal storage combined with a small natural gas boiler).
The other issue that we have, is that many of the nuke plants are old like Japan's. These plants are going to be closed down over the next 20-30 years. Right now, they are LOADED with large quantities of 'waste' fuel. That 'waste' will need to go to WIPP to be buried for 20K years or more. HOWEVER, if we get the GE PRISM reactor going, then we can drop these into place at each of these sites, and fuel them with the 'waste' fuel. The much smaller amount of output from it would then last only 200 years, of which the worst part is over in something like 50 years.
Seriously, all of the waste fuel that exists in America combined with thorium (which we have plenty of), combined with AE and Natural gas could fuel America for the next couple of centuries.
The Race to The Bottom Begins! (Score:3)
Now the legions of contractors and subcontractors will sweep in on a tidal wave of self-service and mediocrity to see who can offer the lowest price for their labor and the best kickbacks to the politicians and NRC people in charge of protecting us.
It doesn't matter how good your design is or how strict your regulations are when the people that build, own, maintain and oversee nuclear power plants prize money over all other things, including the safety of the population. This is why we continue to have huge industrial disasters. Not because nuclear power is unsafe, or drilling for oil in the gulf is unsafe. It's because the people in positions of responsibility are weak, selfish idiots.
How To Be Modded Down When Discussing Nuclear Pwr (Score:4, Insightful)
How to be modded up: create a duality of only nuclear and coal options for energy production; belittle the dangers and significance of nuclear disaster; insist that there isn't any issue with waste from nuclear plants and that we will 'use it all up'.
How to be modded down: mention that uranium is a finite source and that we WILL eventually deal with a depletion in the same way we're facing oil; inject that the costs of insuring nuclear plants are outrageous and that no private firms will (leaving it to governments [ie: citizens] to cover in the event of an emergency); highlight that it takes DECADES to get a plant to operating status (how is that going to help now, next year, or in the next 10 years?) Fact is: nuclear is *expensive*. Finally, a sure-fired way to be modded down is to insist that we have technology accessible to us NOW that can reduce emissions and is not nearly as expensive (environmentally or economically) as nuclear will be.
FYI, on my own habits - i rarely mod down a post, unless it's blatantly ignorant of any factual matter, and even then it's rare. As suggested, i try to use my mod points to mod up, not down. Would love to see a bit more of that here for a more balanced display of discussion on this subject...
Re:No More Nuclear Waste Siting Problem? (Score:5, Informative)
PRISM [wikipedia.org] / IFR designs [wikipedia.org] in general (and Molten salt breeders [wikipedia.org], in theory) turn that "waste" into enough fuel to supply the earth ... forever, assuming we build pyroprocessing [wikipedia.org] facilities (PUREX generates a lot of waste ... no good).
Re:No More Nuclear Waste Siting Problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
PRISM [wikipedia.org] / IFR designs [wikipedia.org] in general (and Molten salt breeders [wikipedia.org], in theory) turn that "waste" into enough fuel to supply the earth ... forever, assuming we build pyroprocessing [wikipedia.org] facilities (PUREX generates a lot of waste ... no good).
"In theory". Aye, there's the rub.
We really need more active research in this area instead of relying on experiments conducted in the 1960's.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No More Nuclear Waste Siting Problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, but all the disposal problems have not been solved. There is one remaining issue of "environmentalist" obstructionism. I use quotes, because these people are damaging the environment, not protecting it.
Re:No More Nuclear Waste Siting Problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
There is one remaining issue of "environmentalist" obstructionism. I use quotes, because these people are damaging the environment, not protecting it.
This is true. If you oppose nuclear, a coal plant will be built in its place, which is far, far more dirty and dangerous.
Re: (Score:3)
That fracking stuff looks pretty questionable too. Pumping the ground full of mystery sauce...
Re:No More Nuclear Waste Siting Problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
Burning it may be cleaner than coal - but getting it out of the ground in a safe and clean manner is proving to be far less clear-cut.
I live on top of the Marcellus Shale formation - I'd rather have a nuke plant or two open up a mile from me than to have gas drilling anywhere in this state. The drilling companies have an attitude of "it's safe, we're drilling responsibly, trust us, nothing has ever gone wrong, that spill didn't happen, we don't need to change anything because it's fine the way it is". Compared to the nuclear industry - "Even though we already have the lowest deaths per terawatt-hour count of any form of power generation, we're STILL working to improve our safety designs." - This is the thing that earns the most trust from me, the fact that they are constantly striving to improve safety, instead of constantly denying that there could possibly be any problems and refusing to change anything.
Re:No More Nuclear Waste Siting Problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
whoosh
Is that the sound of the GP's post going over your head? Because he's absolutely right. There are many excellent technical solutions to the question of waste disposal, but all of them are rendered infeasible by political considerations.
Re:No More Nuclear Waste Siting Problem? (Score:5, Interesting)
There's no such thing as nuclear waste. There's just stuff you haven't configured your *other* fast breeder reactor to burn, yet.
Re:No More Nuclear Waste Siting Problem? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:No More Nuclear Waste Siting Problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nuclear energy when well maintained is a relativity good energy source. Its pollution for good or for bad is highly concentrated meaning the good means it can be captured and moved to a safer location, the bad is if a little bit leaks out it could be very deadly, and difficult to pick up again. However right now our pollution problem is in extra carbon. Nuclear energy can help reduce our carbon dependence, the combined risk of continued use of Coal even when treated well is worse then nuclear energy being properly respected and governed.
Re:No More Nuclear Waste Siting Problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, because that's what is holding up nuclear power. After all, the problem with heavy metals and other pollutants used to manufacture "green" energy such as solar cells and wind turbines have already been solved, as well as the problems with mercury, other contaminants, and even radioactive materials that comes from burning coal has also been solved. Oh, and that whole CO2 thing that fossil fuels tend to emit? Also solved.
Re:No More Nuclear Waste Siting Problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No More Nuclear Waste Siting Problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, I object to burying 95% perfectly good fuel just to dispose of 5% waste. Run that FUEL through an appropriately designed reactor first, then process out the waste and load the rest back in.
Re:No More Nuclear Waste Siting Problem? (Score:4, Interesting)
I believe France is the only country that currently reprocesses spent nuclear fuel. Another environmentalist hangup.
Re:No More Nuclear Waste Siting Problem? (Score:5, Informative)
All that said, as a native Nevadan I am not opposed to the Yucca Mountain project. It's gotta go somewhere and while there are better places, there are a whole lot worse. At some point you just need to make your decision and act on it. I am however opposed to the regulatory environment that has kept newer, more efficient nuclear designs from seeing the light of day in the US. Land of the Risk Averse!
Re:No More Nuclear Waste Siting Problem? (Score:5, Informative)
If these fear mongers really want to protest against nuclear waste they should be picketing coal plants.
Options and population (Score:3)
Basically, Germany considered only two options:
- close all nuclear plants down as fast as possible
or
- keep all old nuclear plants running for as long as possible
Trying out completely new designs was not considered, especially since new experimental designs showed problems.
Also consider that Germany is densely populated compared to the USA, and not very large either. A nuclear accident would be a severe blow to Germany, as well as a failure to properly store nuclear waste.