Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => Politics => Topic started by: Pb on June 02, 2017, 12:24:31 PM
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It seems to me if one believes that CO2 generation by burning fossil fuels is dangerous, the most effective thing to do would be to replace coal and oil electric plants with nuclear and natural gas electric plants...
The startup cost would be pretty high, but it in the end it would be pretty cost effective I believe. Much much cheaper than mucking around with wind and solar, I think.
Actually, I said the left hates nuclear power, but it seems like the general public hates nuclear power also...
What is going on?
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What is going on?
Hypocrisy and Idiocracy.
A bunch of people are completely uninformed on nuclear energy and refuse to educate themselves, and another bunch of people are doing politics, not climate science.
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The startup cost would be pretty high
This is a bit of an understatement. They are very high and I don't think anyone has been willing to do so without significant government subsidizing. I'm not anti nuclear by any means, but from what I recall the economics of it just don't pan out very well under current conditions. We have existing nuclear plants that aren't renewing their license and instead shutting down.
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You can thank Jimmy Carter for that. We should be reprocessing the spent fuel instead of trying to find a politically acceptable place to bury it.
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This is a bit of an understatement. They are very high and I don't think anyone has been willing to do so without significant government subsidizing. I'm not anti nuclear by any means, but from what I recall the economics of it just don't pan out very well under current conditions. We have existing nuclear plants that aren't renewing their license and instead shutting down.
Those costs are all regulatory and bureaucratic. Reduce that overhead to say, French standards, and operational startup costs are well in the ballpark for costs vs output.
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This is a bit of an understatement. They are very high and I don't think anyone has been willing to do so without significant government subsidizing. I'm not anti nuclear by any means, but from what I recall the economics of it just don't pan out very well under current conditions. We have existing nuclear plants that aren't renewing their license and instead shutting down.
By far the startup costs are "high" because of environmentalists and lawyers, and irrational public fears. The licensing, regulatory, and legal costs are ENORMOUS.
Yes, a nuclear plant is "expensive" but it's raw energy output is staggering, to the point that any business, without all the neo-Luddite interference, can easily make a stable financial plan to recoup it's higher construction costs. Because the ratio of power produced to the expense of producing it is still so insanely high. Actually, the energy output is so high, that a nuclear plant can even afford the bureaucratic and legal costs, what the business or utility can't handle is the time, because the main tactic by the environmental Left is to drag them through the courts for decades until the project is abandoned.
(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi156.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Ft33%2FAJ_Dual%2Flog_scale_zpsojruzzvp.png&hash=e8e3cd119dfd9fba082535fb34acdf551292ff21) (http://s156.photobucket.com/user/AJ_Dual/media/log_scale_zpsojruzzvp.png.html)
And what's WORSE is that the environmentalist political pressures have made implementing newer, cheaper, and SAFER reactor designs impossible. Designs that are literally "walk away safe". i.e. you can throw every control and lever in the plant to it's worst possible setting and leave, and the core will never melt down or explode. Pebble bed reactors, LFTR's, passive gravity fed/cooled designs, all sorts of neat stuff like containerized modular sealed reactors that would need no servicing and can be transported and replaced intact. And some of these even address the nuclear weapon "proliferation concerns" so that we can "allow" less trustworthy countries to have them as well.
And even with the "old" designs (Fukushima is 1950's tech, built in the 60s, with only modest upgrades, and would never have melted down if Japan had built a 500-year tsunami seawall around the plant, or even simpler, just placed the backup pump generators up on a hill or stilts... or something. Even with the accidents, no "Western" commercial power nuclear plant has ever killed anyone with radiation. While the statistical increase in cancer from natural radioactivity released by coal plants does actually kill thousands of people every year.
God... everywhere I look around, there are more and more reasons for "physical removal" or Pinochet helicopter rides for the various strains of the Left. What they advocate and agitate for actually does kill people, or at least degrade/harm all of society even when the Left is moderated by Western Constitutional Republics.
Imagine if we had so much energy we could do mass-desalinization of seawater, especially in poor arid countries. We could recycle most anything, no matter how energy intensive it was.
The real proof would be if/when fusion is perfected, and it's inherently "safe" in ways fission isn't, the Left will still fight it. Because they fight everything.
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. . . And even with the "old" designs (Fukushima is 1950's tech, built in the 60s, with only modest upgrades, and would never have melted down if Japan had built a 500-year tsunami seawall around the plant, or even simpler, just placed the backup pump generators up on a hill or stilts... or something.
All they needed to do was heed the old warnings on stone monuments up in the hills - erected some centuries ago after ANOTHER tsunami - which read something along the lines of "Don't build closer to the ocean than this because of tsunamis."
Ah, but those were OLD - what did the old timers know?
You can thank Jimmy Carter for that. We should be reprocessing the spent fuel instead of trying to find a politically acceptable place to bury it.
Yeah - I remember hearing at the time that the French - leaders in fuel reprocessing - considered Jimmy C. the best POTUS that France ever had. :facepalm:
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You can thank Jimmy Carter for that. We should be reprocessing the spent fuel instead of trying to find a politically acceptable place to bury it.
That's actually an insignificant cost.
The real cost is in the delays in construction caused by permitting requirements and lack of standardization.
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The real cost is in the delays in construction caused by permitting requirements and lack of standardization.
I dunno about that. We've had already built, already running, and even already licensed nukes going offline because they can't compete with natural gas. If coal can't even compete with natural gas, I don't see nuclear having much of a chance.
http://www.power-eng.com/articles/npi/print/volume-7/issue-3/nucleus/lessons-learned-from-kewaunee-s-closing.html
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I dunno about that. We've had already built, already running, and even already licensed nukes going offline because they can't compete with natural gas. If coal can't even compete with natural gas, I don't see nuclear having much of a chance.
http://www.power-eng.com/articles/npi/print/volume-7/issue-3/nucleus/lessons-learned-from-kewaunee-s-closing.html
In the article, the company that is shutting down that one reactor is looking to expand reactors elsewhere. I don't think inability to compete is all that's going on there.
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Maybe so. I have a relative who worked there and when he told me about it he had the same explanation - natural gas is too cheap. Maybe there's insider info he didn't know or didn't share but as far as I can tell all that upfront money was already invested in that place and they still decided that decommissioning (also not cheap!) was the smart business move.
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Maybe so. I have a relative who worked there and when he told me about it he had the same explanation - natural gas is too cheap. Maybe there's insider info he didn't know or didn't share but as far as I can tell all that upfront money was already invested in that place and they still decided that decommissioning (also not cheap!) was the smart business move.
It would be interesting to see an itemized cost per KW breakdown from that plant that lists everything from "normal" costs, such as repairs, maintenance and technical, through "non-operational" stuff like administration and human resources; then additionally see the costs for regulatory costs, from EIRs, to attorneys, to cash reserves for lawsuits and fines, etc.
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It would be interesting to see an itemized cost per KW breakdown from that plant that lists everything from "normal" costs, such as repairs, maintenance and technical, through "non-operational" stuff like administration and human resources; then additionally see the costs for regulatory costs, from EIRs, to attorneys, to cash reserves for lawsuits and fines, etc.
The single biggest expense for nuke plants is capital cost. You gotta pay the interest on those loans(or if you don't get loans, count the income you could have gotten investing all that money into something else...).
Fuel cost is negligible. I think the next biggest is operational.
Regulatory cost is significant, especially if you count the expense of thins like construction delays from regulations there.
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Actually this might really be the Russians. They financed a lot of the early "green" groups. Including Comunists, Socialists and many environmental groups that had those same tendencies. Many of those groups through lawsuits and fearmongering including certain Hollywood movies unfortunately produced an irrational fear of nuclear power into the group think of a large number of Americans and in the world in general. So finally we see it really was the Russians that did it.
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One thing I didn't know about until recently is that spent fuel rods are having to be stored on-site even for reactors that have been shuttered. So, there's no revenue but the utility still bears the cost of maintaining a small private army to protect the spent fuel rods.
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I dunno about that. We've had already built, already running, and even already licensed nukes going offline because they can't compete with natural gas. If coal can't even compete with natural gas, I don't see nuclear having much of a chance.
http://www.power-eng.com/articles/npi/print/volume-7/issue-3/nucleus/lessons-learned-from-kewaunee-s-closing.html
Coal plants were being pulled offline because of Obama's (now dead, as it was killed by Trump) Clean Power Plan.
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Coal plants were being pulled offline because of Obama's (now dead, as it was killed by Trump) Clean Power Plan.
Not just that, they can't compete with the price of natural gas at this time. Removing Obama's plan helps coal, but all the analysts I've been hearing say that it's not going to be enough, that it amounts to a drop in the bucket.
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Coal plants would be shutting down anyway. Natural gas is very cheap, cleaner, and newer gas-fired power plants can quickly ramp up and down as electrical demand fluctuates day to day.
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To my mind coal has always been on the way out. My beef was Obama pushing it out prematurely versus letting it phase out naturally through market forces. While I'm glad Trump reversed the Obama stuff, I'm not in favor of throwing taxpayer money at coal (or any energy sector) to now prop it up. They need to make it or break it on their own.
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I heard just recently that Richard Branson supports the Paris nonsense, claiming that coal is a dying industry, and all sorts of jobs are being created in the booming clean energy sector.
Which makes one wonder why government needs to do anything at all. =)
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It seems to me if one believes that CO2 generation by burning fossil fuels is dangerous, the most effective thing to do would be to replace coal and oil electric plants with nuclear and natural gas electric plants...
The startup cost would be pretty high, but it in the end it would be pretty cost effective I believe. Much much cheaper than mucking around with wind and solar, I think.
Actually, I said the left hates nuclear power, but it seems like the general public hates nuclear power also...
What is going on?
Not completely hypocrisy and idiocy. Aside from the potential of another Three Mile Island or Chernobyl, there's the pesky question of what to do with the spent fuel rods, which stay "hot" for a very long time. 40 years ago, when I lived and worked in Connecticut, I went on a canoe trip with several friends. We started on the Salmon River and paddled downstream, merging into the Connecticut River and then proceeding several miles farther before reaching the take-out spot. On the neck where the salmon River meets the Connecticut River there was an active nuclear plant, called Connecticut Yankee. It was started up in 1968, IIRC, and eventually decommissioned in 1998. The decommissioning process took seven years, being completed in 2007.
BUT ... the spent fuel rods are still there. They're the elephant in the room -- nobody wants them, so there they sit.
http://www.connyankee.com/html/fuel_storage.html
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Nuclear reactors can be operated safely. The Navy has been doing it since the early '50s.
99.9% of the "problems" with reactors is overhyped bullshit, and outright lies as to the dangers. The expense is overwhelmingly due to excessive and overly burdensome regulations foist upon an uneducated and gullible electorate by ignorant, sanctimonious environmental zealots and the "progressives" that control them.
As stated above, reprocessing the spent rods deals with a huge percentage of the "waste" and would essentially nearly eliminate the storage issues.
I certainly favor a renewable, green approach to energy and currently support an "all of the above" position. We currently have the ability to produce and operate nuclear reactors that are essentially truck shippable (wide load obviously). Prep a site, provide a reliable source of cooling water, truck in the reactor(s) and fuel on site. A couple of redundant plants and you just provided all the electricity a medium sized town will need for 10-20 years. All in a foot print smaller than a NFL football stadium.
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We currently have the ability to produce and operate nuclear reactors that are essentially truck shippable (wide load obviously). Prep a site, provide a reliable source of cooling water, truck in the reactor(s) and fuel on site. A couple of redundant plants and you just provided all the electricity a medium sized town will need for 10-20 years. All in a foot print smaller than a NFL football stadium.
How many cities could one American supercarrier power?
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I don't know/remember the rating but they have 4 plants.
Way back in the dark ages (1982) I was TDY to Pearl Harbor for training (arduous duty if ever there was any =D ) when Hurricane Ewa hit the islands. Knocked hell out of one of the smaller islands and the Navy dispatched a Los Angels class fast attack boat to provide essential power for basic "absolutely gotta have it" services.
They did a bit of on the spot engineering and refitting and basically reversed the ships shore power system to power the island.
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How many cities could one American supercarrier power?
A Nimitz Class carrier has 8 gens rated at 8 MW each, so theoretically 64 MW of power. There are probably engineering constraints on paralleling all eight gens and actually getting that power off the ship, but Navy Chiefs tend to be pretty crafty, and failing that there's always Warrant Officers.
DOD brochures say that a carrier can "provide enough power to supply a city of 100,000 people". No idea if that's "Water and 1 LED each" power or "Fire up the AC and have a rave" power.
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BUT ... the spent fuel rods are still there. They're the elephant in the room -- nobody wants them, so there they sit.
Check them as baggage on American Airlines - no human being will ever see them again.
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There are several examples of ships powering towns.
http://www.historylink.org/File/5113
That of course was with conventional fossil power.
There was also a Hawaiian island powere by a nuclear sub.
So apparently it's doable at least for coastal areas.
One thing I'm reminded of is the fact that when steam power first started, there were a lot of accidents with boilers, piping. etc. until we got the engineering down pat. Just think, nowadays the steam going into a modern turbine is hot enough to heat steel to a red heat.
So, we learn. I'm all for nuclear power, but I wonder how much domestic uranium is available in the U.S. and its possessions.
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This is very interesting. What about thorium reactors?
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I heard good things about Cobalt-Thorium G
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Cobalt-Thorium G
Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost, if you keep it a secret! Why didn't you tell the world?
"It was to be announced at the Party Congress on Monday. As you know, the Premier loves surprises." :lol:
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"Why does the left hate nuclear power? "
Because Jane Fonda told them to.
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Because it can lead to independence. Can't have that.
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So, we learn. I'm all for nuclear power, but I wonder how much domestic uranium is available in the U.S. and its possessions.
20% less than what we had 8 years ago.... =|
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20% less than what we had 8 years ago.... =|
And that is Russian influence worthy of a thorough investigation, not a whitewater . . . errrrrr . . . I mean whitewash.
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Remember a "reset button" was pressed and that grants full immunity to Democrats.
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Domestic uranium? Enough in SW Virginia to run this country for a century or so. No digging, lunatics killed that.
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So, we learn. I'm all for nuclear power, but I wonder how much domestic uranium is available in the U.S. and its possessions.
We only hold 138,200 tons of reserves. However, Australia is friendly and friendly to mining, they have 30% of the world's known reserves. Enough to hold us over for a century or two. There's enough uranium in the oceans to hold us for multiple centuries. But we also have enough thorium to hold us over for maybe a thousand years or so.
Oh, we also have spent nuclear fuel. Which is only BARELY used before it is discarded. So we could reuse our current nuclear 'waste' stockpile about a hundred times before we needed substantial new fuel. It's not easy, and if done badly is dirty as one can imagine. Only France does a good job of it.
If we can't figure out fusion within the next thousand years, we don't deserve to keep a technological society.
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Domestic uranium? Enough in SW Virginia to run this country for a century or so. No digging, lunatics killed that.
I know. I saw the protesting yard signs when this was going on. :(
They'd welcome coal mines and coal burning power plants though. :|
Chris
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So maybe it's Big Rock vs. Big Glow?
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We only hold 138,200 tons of reserves. However, Australia is friendly and friendly to mining, they have 30% of the world's known reserves. Enough to hold us over for a century or two. There's enough uranium in the oceans to hold us for multiple centuries. But we also have enough thorium to hold us over for maybe a thousand years or so.
Oh, we also have spent nuclear fuel. Which is only BARELY used before it is discarded. So we could reuse our current nuclear 'waste' stockpile about a hundred times before we needed substantial new fuel. It's not easy, and if done badly is dirty as one can imagine. Only France does a good job of it.
If we can't figure out fusion within the next thousand years, we don't deserve to keep a technological society.
Thanks! Good info.
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Simple, really.
The left hates anything that might be useful or convenient to humans. Because we're not supposed to be comfortable. Because that's raping the earth mother.
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Simple, really.
The left hates anything that might be useful or convenient to humans. Because we're not supposed to be comfortable. Because that's raping the earth mother.
Yes, anthing that tends to destabilize or stress a communist target society, is a good thing.
The less comfort, the better the ground for the collectivists/communist seeds to sprout and grow.
Oh, and as mentioned, Jane Fonda, among other Communists, told them to hate nuclear power, so they believe it.
Incidentally:
All they needed to do was heed the old warnings on stone monuments up in the hills - erected some centuries ago after ANOTHER tsunami - which read something along the lines of "Don't build closer to the ocean than this because of tsunamis."
Ah, but those were OLD - what did the old timers know?
...
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/century-old-warnings-against-tsunamis-dot-japans-coastline-180956448/
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It seems to me if one believes that CO2 generation by burning fossil fuels is dangerous, the most effective thing to do would be to replace coal and oil electric plants with nuclear and natural gas electric plants...
The startup cost would be pretty high, but it in the end it would be pretty cost effective I believe. Much much cheaper than mucking around with wind and solar, I think.
Actually, I said the left hates nuclear power, but it seems like the general public hates nuclear power also...
What is going on?
"Why does the left hate nuclear power?"
Because Hanoi Jane told them to.