Posted on 02/09/2012 10:22:34 AM PST by kidd
I’m not entirely sure that your timeline is correct. The issue was that after the Three-Mile Island accident, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission required that all power reactors have an evacuation plan which had to be approved by the appropriate local authorities. At Shoreham, the local authorities refused to participate in the formulation of an evacuation plan. The site received permission to perform low power startup testing which includes acheiving criticality (self-sustaining neutron chain reaction) and it did perform this testing.
I believe that the utility was hoping that some arrangement could be made to get its evacuation plan approved and so loaded fuel and performed the testing while awaiting that arrangement.
The evacuation plan of a nuclear site is periodically tested with the agencies involved in the plan participating in drills. It isn’t good enough for a utility to formulate a plan, since it has to be tested.
And I readily concede that your timeline may be correct. These events happened over twenty-five years ago, and my mem’ry of things yesterday are already fuzzy.
Yep, and the ignorami cannot conceive that it will never be viable for large scale power production for a modern society.
The Left is largely innumerate. The fact that they think they should be allowed to drive energy policy, in the face of this fact, is hubris of the most extreme kind.
We still are not much better at controlling the magnetic plasma containment fields. it ain’t gonna be 2020 unless there is a dramatic breakthrough in magnetic field control in the next couple of years. Then, after the first self-sustaining fusion machine is demonstrated, commercialization of the technology will take at least 10-15 years.
You are correct. Under Cuomo’s prodding, the local authorities refused to work on an evacuation plan.
I'd like to see the numbers.
There is actually no federal money going to the utility. The Feds gave a loan guarantee which means they will pay off the creditors if SNC defaults on the loan.
Employees, administration, and supplies cost a nuclear power plant $0.0137 per kWh on average in 2008. Fuel, including contributions to the Nuclear Waste Fund, amounts to about $0.0049 per kWh, bringing the total operating costs of a nuclear power plant to approximately $0.0186 per kWh.
http://nuclearfissionary.com/2010/03/15/operating-costs-of-a-nuclear-power-plant/
http://nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/WebHomeCostOfNuclearPower
http://world-nuclear.org/info/inf02.html
Plus the first wall problem - bombardment by 14 MeV neutrons will necessitate its replacement every year or so. And the problem of tritium economy - basically, every tritium atom create in the blanket must be captured so that it can be recycled and I don’t know of any 100% efficient chemical processes. And neutron economy - unless you have a fertile or fissile blanket, every neutron out of the Deuterium - Tritium reaction must be captured by a lithium atom.
I suspect that these problems must be faced by inertial confinement schemes as well.
And we’ll just call my grad school advisor ‘Al’ - you may have worked with him.
And then there is this from your second link:
If the Nuclear Power Industry delivers generating capacity at $1500 per kilowatt it will likely place the price of electricity produced at around 3 US cents per KWHr. This would be similar to the price of electricity generated by Eastern Australian Coal-Power which is in the range of 2.2 - 4.5 AUD cents per KWHr. It will be well worth watching to see if the Industry can deliver this outcome. Reports from 2009 indicate the initial cost of an AP1000 in America is over $3500 per KW.The $3500 cost is probably more realistic, and that's without adjusting for the effects of government subsidies. That would place nuclear at over the twice the cost of coal.
The bottom line is that without government subsidies, the free market wouldn't support nuclear power, the same as wind and solar.
Well, that may very well be true which is why I said, IF we have to go nuclear.
We have better alternatives - the biggest energy problem facing us are the Leftists in government.
Meanwhile, going nuclear is a great idea unless they put one near where you live. Or near your loved ones. Or where your food sources are.
Or nuclear waste that sooner or later seeps into our water supply or sea life (containers that apparently are corroding on the ocean floor - glowing oceans - apocalyptic Biblical foretelling of people around the world dying of poisoned waters (many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter. Revelation 8:11.)).
Well, that may very well be true which is why I said, IF we have to go nuclear.
We have better alternatives - the biggest energy problem facing us are the Leftists in government.
Meanwhile, going nuclear is a great idea unless they put one near where you live. Or near your loved ones. Or where your food sources are.
Or nuclear waste that sooner or later seeps into our water supply or sea life (containers that apparently are corroding on the ocean floor - glowing oceans - apocalyptic Biblical foretelling of people around the world dying of poisoned waters (many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter. Revelation 8:11.)).
The alternatives are:
1)natural gas, which if no new pipelines are allowed to be built will cause the price of gas to skyrocket and make it more expensive than nuclear again. If you build the power plants near the sources and ship the electricity, you will lose ~5% in line losses, and BTW, no one wants transmission lines because technically ignorant folks like you are scared of the pseudoscience claims of EM fields causing cancer.
2) Coal - Cheap, but very dirty, with radioactive emissions way in excess of what is allowed for nuclear plants and currently under heavy attack from the leftist watermelons in DC.
http://www.powermag.com/environmental/Chart-a-New-Course_3955.html
The nuclear "subsidies" include the insurance fund, which the utilities pay every cent and the research costs done by the DOE for nuclear energy, including fusion. The oil/gas "subsidies" include the depletion allowance.
Watts Bar Unit 2 is active again, as will Bellafonte bew after this one is finished.
There's at least two basic problems with these things: 1) Fukushima-type accidents which are catastrophic and long-lasting, and 2) the nuclear waste problem.
We have much safer sources of energy available. The biggest energy problem, as I said, is getting the Leftists out of the way so we can tap our reserves of natural, safer energy .
Malarkey. Nuclear power is not a prerequisite for that.
Your histrionic hyperbole falls flat quite quickly, because if nuclear power was necessary for the "energy requirements of maintaining the products and services of a technical/industrial civilization", such a civilization would not currently exist since nuclear power is currently non-prevalent.
...you lose...
It is a fertile valley called Adji Chay. It is said to be the location of the original Garden of Eden.
They can build one next door to me - no problem.
Nuclear power currently represents (approx.) 20.3% of all U.S. electric power. While not the dominant form of generation, it is now a necessary and significant portion, the loss of which would cause severe hardship in the serviced areas.
"...you lose..."
What was that for? Why should I continue discussing this in a civil manner if you are intent on being an infant?
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