Posted on 06/28/2009 5:56:47 AM PDT by angkor
After the Internet, the next big thing will be cheap and clean energy. Coal, oil and gas pollute and are increasingly expensive: We need alternatives. Because nuclear energy (stored among particles inside atoms) is millions of times more dense than chemical energy (stored among atoms in molecules), nuclear reactors belong high on our long list of energy alternatives.
Nuclear energy is released during fission and fusion. During fission, large elements like uranium are split into smaller elements. During fusion, small elements like hydrogen are combined into larger elements. These two processes have occurred naturally since the beginning of time -- 13.7 billion years. The Earth is warmed naturally by its own nuclear fission reactors within and also by the sun, that big nuclear fusion reactor.
Today, 20% of our electricity is provided by 104 nuclear energy plants in the United States. These are already cheaper and cleaner than burning coal, oil and gas with all their pollutants, especially CO2. But these plants are all run on big old nuclear reactors, which nobody but the utility companies likes very much.
[snip]
Alas, we had to pass. The problem with their business plans weren't their designs, but the high costs and astronomical risks of designing nuclear reactors for certification in Washington.
The start-ups estimate that it will cost each of them roughly $100 million and five years to get their small reactor designs certified by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. About $50 million of each $100 million would go to the commission itself. That's a lot of risk capital for any venture-backed start-up, especially considering that not one new commercial nuclear reactor design has been approved and built in the United States for 30 years.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
China currently has SEVEN nuclear power plant projects underway, some of which include up to SIX REACTOR UNITS at a single site.
Nuclear energy is safe and efficient. It could take care of most of our energy needs and it could make electricity cheaper for all. With cheaper energy, the economy would grow. But the last thing the left wants is to increase wealth across the board. The left wants to split society into warring factions. Then the left can consolidate power by redistributing ever-diminishing wealth among the warring factions.
>>> The current regime wants us to pay out the rear end for energy. <<<<<
Zer0 defunded all research/maint for Yucca Mountain.
But this negligence has been ongoing for 30 years.
It is so preposterously stupid that one can only consider it come kind of conspiracy to drag America down.
And American citizens let it happen, in the past, and right now.
It may take real change to get reactors built.
We need intense development of safe, small nuclear reactors. The latest designs are self-regulating, meaning if coolant is lost they shut down, rather than melting down.
I’ve been saying for years the waste should be dropped, suitably packaged, to be subducted at the mid-Pacific subduction zone. It would be cost effective with virtually no chance of environmental contamination, and just about a zero chance of harming people.
Ironically, the French bought their unified reactor design from Westinghouse USA.
Also ironically, the French have built reactors for China.
China is now using its own reactor designs.
As Metcalfe says above (and adding to even more irony), we (America) continue to produce the most innovative and efficient reactors, but they can’t be built here.
BO and his congressional allies want us to live like Third World peasants, and have an economy to match. Only then will their liberal guilt be rectified. Of course they, as our Overlords, will maintain their lifestyles and freedoms.
Zero will be behind US nuclear plants once GE gets their next generation plant certified. Watch for Zero to kill Westinghouse once they satisfy china.
This confirms one thing that I have started to suspect, and that is that new technology leads to smaller, safer, more efficient reactors. We could easily put these things on small plots of land, or build several on a site that would only hold just one old unit now. Much better than filling the landscape with windmills (that won’t turn most of the time where I live) or expensive, inefficient solar panels.
I blame the past 2 generations that were raised to believe that the USA sucks and deserves to go down. There is no reasoning with these people. Even if you point out they too are getting screwed, they act as if we all deserve it because the USA is "bad."
>>>> I’ve been saying for years the waste should be dropped, suitably packaged, to be subducted at the mid-Pacific subduction zone. <<<<
There are any number of potential disposal methods, however France decided to go ahead with nuclear power and to defer on the disposal question by considering its sites to be temporary.
This is probably the way to go.
That is not about energy it is about revenue. That bill is more about tax revenue, than it is about energy. It is about control of every aspect of your life. They want to take our freedom of choice by dictating to us. I use the word dictate because that is what it is called.
In his article though he says CO2 is a pollutant. Tell that to plants who need it to survive, or we who eat those same plants our we do not survive. Just because they EPA says its a pollutant, doesn’t make it a pollutant. Our lives are dependent of that very gas for food.
(This editorial ignores one key fact. The current regime wants us to pay out the rear end for energy.)
And the democrats will do it with the votes of the ignorant and foolish who vote for them and do not know communism exists in America, the democrat party is communists and the GOP is liberal.
(That is not about energy it is about revenue. That bill is more about tax revenue, than it is about energy.)
Indeed it is but there is no one I know who will stop these fools and monsters in D.C.
We should install these all over the country...
Mini nuclear plants to power 20,000 homes
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/nov/09/miniature-nuclear-reactors-los-alamos#history-byline
Hyperion Power Generation
http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com/
Westinghouse, Nuscale and Babcock and Wilcox are currently designing these types of reactors. This article is about the B&W design. The kicker in the article is at the end. Even though these designs can be ready to go in 4-10 years the regulatory process will delay them much longer.
http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/22867/?nlid=2105
>>>>> Much better than filling the landscape with windmills (that won’t turn most of the time where I live) or expensive, inefficient solar panels. <<<<<
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.506/pub_detail.asp
If we replace oil with electricity, we are going to have to build some 300 new coal-fired power plants, or gas-fired power plants, or hydroelectric power plants, or geothermal power plants, or nuclear power plants, or millions and millions of bird-killing windmills, or thousands and thousands of square miles of solar farms, to produce all that new electricity it will take to run our cars. And we’ll have to build thousands and thousands of miles of new power lines criss-crossing the country to transport all the extra electricity to where hundreds ofmillions of cars are plugged in
In this case, 'point of view' is of more importance than 'scientific facts'.
If, everytime a politician opens his mouth, pollution comes out, then C02 is a pollutant.
(politicians should be declared hazardous waste sites, as well).
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