Still support nuke power plants?

[Whack-a-Mole]

@DSeid

One, you are setting up the straw man of doing it all itself, which clearly is not what I am discussing.

What straw man?

From the cite you provided (bolding mine):

The analysis indicates that a network of land-based 2.5-megawatt (MW) turbines restricted to nonforested, ice-free, nonurban areas operating at as little as 20% of their rated capacity could supply >40 times current worldwide consumption of electricity, >5 times total global use of energy in all forms.

You are suggesting with your cite that wind power can provide the power needed for the US.

You have not answered my problems with that claim.

Land use was just one issue I raised (actually matt did but I agreed).

You addressed nothing else.

I am not saying there is no room for wind power (or solar).

I am saying we need an answer to coal which provides the bulk of our power generation.

Wind cannot come remotely close to doing it short of an epic and ruinous effort.

[sleestak]

@levdrakon

The fact that the roofs blew off these nuke plants is sufficient evidence nuke plants aren’t plane-proof.

This is incorrect. Nuke plants are plane safe. I’ve posted this on the board more than once.

Link.

My father ran that test specifically to find out what would happen if a plane hit a containment dome. The answer is that you’d end up with everyone on the plane dead and a small pile of rubble on next to the dome. In that test the plane was moving at 480 MPH. The wall is 12 feet thick. The deepest dent in the wall is roughly 3 inches. The test was run on the sled track at Sandia National Labs.

That article you linked to has incorrect information about the plane aspect.

What would happen if a plane crashed into a nuclear plant?
No one knows. U.S. nuclear power plants are built to withstand hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, and small plane crashes. Their “containment walls” are typically made of two to five feet of reinforced concrete with an interior steel lining. But the NRC didn’t anticipate the type of attacks seen on September 11—large passenger airliners loaded with fuel slamming into targets. Both the NRC and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have said that U.S. nuclear plants were not designed to withstand such an impact, and the NRC has ordered a study of plant designs to look at what would happen in such a scenario.

That is factually incorrect. Sandia ran the test on that specific scenario back in about 1988 or so. I remember that I was still living at home when my Dad came home with pictures of the test (Hey, this is what I did last week. Neat, huh?) Also, containment domes are normally about 12 feet thick IIRC.

The containment building itself is typically an airtight steel structure enclosing the reactor normally sealed off from the outside atmosphere. The steel is either free-standing or attached to the concrete missile shield. In the United States, the design and thickness of the containment and the missile shield are governed by federal regulations (10 CFR 50.55a), and must be strong enough to withstand the impact of a fully loaded passenger airliner without rupture.[2]

Link.

You really ought to do a little research before posting factually incorrect information.

Slee

[Una_Persson]

@matt

I’ve never associated clean coal with carbon capture, but you’re the coal person. I know little about CCS technology but I have a nodding acquaintance with the scrubbing of CO2 from natural gas by amine contact. Don’t want to hijack too much but I’d love to hear your thoughts on CCS.

My point about “clean coal” was in response to DSeid’s post mentioning natural gas and “less dirty coal” as “lower impact fossil fuels.” Gas I agree with but as far as CO2 is concerned, coal really has issues.

Well you know I have to comment on the “c” word, even if the thread is being marginalized in Grande Olde Great Debates tradition by gonzomax et al, and no one is going to do anything about it.

CCS is something I’ve studied in great detail, as one of my jobs I’ve been tasked with is leading a team to create computer models to simulate CCS technologies. I’ll give you a very short summary: it’s unproven past a score of MW or so, there are oodles of problems with transport and storage of the CO2, amine systems can be nasty in terms of byproducts and chilled ammonia systems have lots of ammonia to leak, algae and solid sorbent systems are pipe dreams, the amine/chilled ammonia systems take an inordinate amount of power and steam to run (which reduces the net generation of the units by, well, the trade mags say from 8-50%, but I think 20-35% is a better estimate) and all of that energy must be replaced by…well, typically burning more fossil fuels. And very often you have to outfit the plant with above BACT controls to clean up the gas before it enters the CC system, because they’re finicky. And with the price of gas now and projected into the next 30 years, it can’t compete economically.

Unless Al Gore manages to convince Obama that shale gas drilling is a crime against God and all that’s holy, CCS is pretty much dead IMO. It’s cheaper and easier to, say, convert a coal plant to gas co-firing to reduce CO2 emissions, and even to try a complete conversion to natural gas in some cases. Or retiring the coal units and replacing them with a combined cycle GT. Sure, there’ll be a plant here, and there, out of the thousands of coal plants in existence which employs CCS, probably as a proof of concept with DoE funding or as a publicity stunt to impress regulators.

A solid sorbent system might be a much better play as the storage issues are then eliminated, but those systems can take…IIRC, from 50% to 90% of the plant generation. I saw one study where the solid sorbent took 130% of the plant generation…how can that be a winner?

Technology may find a better solution, so I know people will keep looking. Because despite the wishes of both the nuclear and renewables guys, as well as myself mind you, coal is here to stay for all of our lifetimes. The EIA thinks so, the IEA thinks so, the WEC thinks so…there is a broad consensus that coal will keep anywhere from 50% to 100% of its current balance of power even in the far future, barring Something Big happening, of course.

[Una_Persson]

@DSeid

I said “less dirty” and in the context thought it was clear that I was mainly intending lower CO2 coal. Some of that is accomplished just by getting rid of the oldest plants. Some is by doing basic improvements on current ones that Una has frequently bemoaned are not done because the cost incentive is not yet sufficient to motivate it. Capture and sequestration may not work cost-effectively, and Una’s previously informed me that co-firing with biomass is not so easily widely achieved, but there are or perhaps will be other approaches attempted. There is too much coal resource here that the industry will not at least try to develop ways to utilize it.

Shale gas has changed the game markedly. All my clients who studied biomass are now beating down my door to study gas co-firing or other gas solutions. I have to tell you, my biomass supplier clients are scared. I had a conference call this week with several large biomass energy firms (large being in a relative sense; none of them supplies that many TPY) and it was like a funeral, 2 hours of bitching and moaning about gas. Two biomass companies informed me they will be probably ceasing operations because no one is that interested in biomass anymore.

A supplier which I’m on retainer for was incredibly happy that they could deliver biomass at $7 per MBTU to a coal plant, and the plant would only need $20M in capital cost to implement the co-firing. I informed them that unfortunately the plant has decided to go with a long-term contract for gas at $6 per MBTU with only $5M in capital to implement it. You might as well tell someone their puppy was just run over by an 18-wheeler. And it sucks for me too, because I’m hired to try to help them market their product…damn it.

The future of coal I see given what’s going on right now is: most utility coal plants under 200MW-250MW will close due to Utility MACT rules, CATR (read the fine print in that - it’s going to require scrubbers in everything but name), and the remaining plants will be scrubbed, rather clean plants with natural gas supplying 10-20% of their heat input depending upon their location to a pipeline. I see biomass not being a factor any more unless there’s a perfect storm at a site where there is cheap, good-quality biomass, or Al Gore decides he hates shale gas and wants to start the PR machine rolling.

Note I’m only talking US here. For other countries…that’s a much longer post.

[Whack-a-Mole]

@Una_Persson

Technology may find a better solution, so I know people will keep looking. Because despite the wishes of both the nuclear and renewables guys, as well as myself mind you, coal is here to stay for all of our lifetimes. The EIA thinks so, the IEA thinks so, the WEC thinks so…there is a broad consensus that coal will keep anywhere from 50% to 100% of its current balance of power even in the far future, barring Something Big happening, of course.

Considering coal plants produce near 33% of our carbon emissions (and with China and India surging ahead I expect that will only get worse) that is depressing.

Indeed when the oil runs out (or rather runs out enough to become prohibitively expensive for everyone to use gasoline) then electric or hydrogen powered vehicles will have to take their place. That will be a huge demand on power generation so I guess even more coal plants. I know this won’t be for a few decades yet but I might live to see it. Kids today certainly will.

Swell.

[levdrakon]

@sleestak

This is incorrect. Nuke plants are plane safe. I’ve posted this on the board more than once.

Link.

Uh, I was talking about the pool. That thing they’re spraying water into desperately, and you can spray water into from the outside of the building because like, the roof blew off and I’m pretty sure that’s on video somewhere.

You really ought to do a little research before posting factually incorrect information.

Slee

I think it would be better if you didn’t cite your father as your authority if you don’t understand what it is your father did.

[matt]

@DSeid

I said “less dirty” and in the context thought it was clear that I was mainly intending lower CO2 coal.

I got that, but I’m not sure there is such an animal. What there is is more efficient powerplant designs. Guess I’m picking nits though.

Levdrakon, you seem to be consistently misunderstanding me so I guess I’m not communicating very well, but I’ll try again:

I’m not talking about what nukes can do in fifty years time either. I’m talking about what they can do OVER THE NEXT FIFTY YEARS, starting right now, today, as China, India, Brazil, Indonesia and hopefully other countries industrialise and grow and pull up their living standards. The world is going to be increasing its energy demand and building new power plants over THAT WHOLE TIME, probably on an S-shaped curve. Some of those plants will be nuclear or renewable, the more the better as far as climate change is concerned.

Some of the IPCC economic scenarios and the resulting predicted temperature rises are shown here: http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/IPCC_temp_projections.bmp (Those tall error bars on the right are because the climate sensitivity is very uncertain.)

The yellow trajectory is what happens if we cut emissions sufficiently to match the uptake of the carbon sinks, which means the Western world slashes it fossil use AND THE REST OF THE WORLD DOESN’T DEVELOP AT ALL. The Western world may be able to slash fossil use, but as for the other, they will use whatever is available and cheap. Can’t be stopped and it would be dreadfully immoral to try.

If China and india build more nukes and fewer coal plants over that time, we may end up with the A1B trajectory rather than the A1F trajectory, which leaves the world with a degree less warming in 2100. That may be worth something. That may be worth the survival of civilisation, according to some. If they build all-nukes, or all non-fossil at any rate, then we’re definitely good. I won’t be around to see it but I have kids who might.

At the moment China is building coal plants like there is no tomorrow but the price of coal is rising fast - it’s more than doubled in the past five years. Coal, Australian thermal coal - Monthly Price - Commodity Prices - Price Charts, Data, and News - IndexMundi Nuclear and renewables will become more attractive as the coal prices rise. China is building, or having built, some Westinghouse AP1000’s (23 in progress, 120 proposed!) but China has also bought a lot of the Westinghouse technology. China will be developing, building and selling their own version. At which point, messageboard squabbles about nukes being too expensive and renewables competitive will be trumped by a marketplace that we don’t control anymore. Subscribe to read

That is what we are facing. Being pro-nuke or anti-nuke back home really isn’t going to be relevant. Safety is definitely a concern in the nuke debate and that argument will run and run. (E.g. The WHO estimates Chernobyl will result in a TOTAL of 4000 extra deaths whereas Greenpeace estimate 1000,000.) But the “too expensive” or the “takes too long” arguments are bullshit. If they weren’t bullshit, China wouldn’t be building nukes. China IS building wind turbines as well (ironically, according to wiki the wind power is causing grid problems. Although I don’t trust that wiki article much anyway - it claims 41.8 GW of installed capacity(with a blog as its source) and then that 780 MW is 30% of the installed capacity in China. Doesn’t add up.) I’ll try to find out more about that.

[Whack-a-Mole]

@Una_Persson

Shale gas has changed the game markedly. All my clients who studied biomass are now beating down my door to study gas co-firing or other gas solutions. I have to tell you, my biomass supplier clients are scared. I had a conference call this week with several large biomass energy firms (large being in a relative sense; none of them supplies that many TPY) and it was like a funeral, 2 hours of bitching and moaning about gas. Two biomass companies informed me they will be probably ceasing operations because no one is that interested in biomass anymore.

(Up front I want to note I am not arguing with you nor am I telling you your job which you know far, far better than I do…this is thinking out loud for me.)

I noted before that gas fired plants seem most susceptible to fuel prices.

They seem low right now but a look at gas prices show them a fair bit higher in the not too distant past.

I also noted earlier that fracking seems to be causing some environmental concerns (ala the guy who can light his tap water on fire after a gas mining operation started near him).

It also seemed from a cite I gave earlier that there is about 10 years left on “easy” to reach natural gas. There is plenty left after that but it will be harder to get and thus more expensive.

I would think biomass would be a more stable (price-wise and availability-wise) power source.

Again, I do not think I am telling you anything you do not already know about this (and then some). Just curious how it all pans out because natural gas, to me, looks attractive until you delve a little deeper. I am missing something and not sure what it is.

[DSeid]

In terms of both the less dirty (I can’t bear to even call it “cleaner”) coal issue and China as well, this may be of interest:

China has emerged in the past two years as the world’s leading builder of more efficient, less polluting coal power plants, mastering the technology and driving down the cost.

While the United States is still debating whether to build a more efficient kind of coal-fired power plant that uses extremely hot steam, China has begun building such plants at a rate of one a month. …

… Western countries continue to rely heavily on coal-fired power plants built decades ago with outdated, inefficient technology that burn a lot of coal and emit considerable amounts of carbon dioxide. China has begun requiring power companies to retire an older, more polluting power plant for each new one they build. … With greater efficiency, a power plant burns less coal and emits less carbon dioxide for each unit of electricity it generates. Experts say the least efficient plants in China today convert 27 to 36 percent of the energy in coal into electricity. The most efficient plants achieve an efficiency as high as 44 percent, meaning they can cut global warming emissions by more than a third compared with the weakest plants.

FWIW.

[Whack-a-Mole]

@DSeid

In terms of both the less dirty (I can’t bear to even call it “cleaner”) coal issue and China as well, this may be of interest:FWIW.

As I posted earlier tonight China has colossal pollution problems. Their smog in some cities makes Los Angeles seem a clear day in the countryside by comparison.

Google some pictures. They are dramatic. I wish I could find a pic from a guy who took a pic out his window in China (I forget which city) where in the wee hours of the morning you could see distant skyscrapers and a few hours later you could barely see a few blocks.

I am guessing, even for the Chinese, the reality is catching up with them and cannot be avoided (if nothing else it affects things like tourism which is a valuable industry too). It is not out of the kindness of their hearts or concern for the environment. It is a realization they are courting pollution of such epic proportions that the results will be calamitous.

I’m glad to hear they are embracing clean(er) coal plants.

Still doesn’t address the CO2 problem though (for which it seems there is no solution for industrial sized coal burning power plants).

I am guessing they are building coal instead of nukes because:

A) It is faster and they need the power now
B) Cheaper up front costs

As someone else noted though looks like the Chinese are also pursuing nuclear in a big way too.

[Una_Persson]

@Whack-a-Mole

They seem low right now but a look at gas prices show them a fair bit higher in the not too distant past.

They certainly were.

I also noted earlier that fracking seems to be causing some environmental concerns (ala the guy who can light his tap water on fire after a gas mining operation started near him).

Yes it is. The question is, are those environmental concerns of a few farmers, or even a few hundred, less than, or greater than, the net benefit from the gas? And what if you trade a few burning water wells for stopping mountaintop mining? Hard decisions, and I’m not being sarcastic, nothing is easy in this industry nowadays.

It also seemed from a cite I gave earlier that there is about 10 years left on “easy” to reach natural gas. There is plenty left after that but it will be harder to get and thus more expensive.

People believe otherwise, that it’s more like 20-60 years before we start really hitting the barrier. Our fuels experts believe that gas prices don’t start to ramp up until 2040 or 2050. However, even 10 years is something which is “long term” for most utilities, who short-sightedley and foolishly demand cost-justifications with paybacks in 1-2 years. Of course you can blame PUCs for some of it. “You’re going to raise the electric rates of Ma and Pa Kettle by 10% just so you can invest in some hare-brained scheme to use biomass? Not in my America, missy!” Believe me, I’ve heard testimony which is about that stupid.

I would think biomass would be a more stable (price-wise and availability-wise) power source.

I think GM biomass fuel crops could really revolutionize this, provided we’re allowed to use them. There are many environmental movements working hard to ban all GM plants.

Again, I do not think I am telling you anything you do not already know about this (and then some). Just curious how it all pans out because natural gas, to me, looks attractive until you delve a little deeper. I am missing something and not sure what it is.

The only thing you’re missing is that people in the industry are choosing to believe the more optimistic estimates on gas supply, both because there is quite a bit of uncertainty about the shale gas estimates, and because many wells have been producing at much higher rates and lower depletion than estimated at first. A fellow in my group has been studying Pennsylvania wells for some time and gave a report to me last month saying how “pleasantly shocked he was to be wrong” about his pessimistic depletion rates of the wells.

Recall too that gas doesn’t have to be that cheap to compete with coal in an era of “minimum possible capital investment and risk.” It’s frightfully easy to get permission to put up, say, 1.3 GW of CC GTs, as Dominion/VEPCO recently found out. If they had wanted to put 1.3 GW of coal, they would be trying to get approval until 2015. CC GTs are nice and easy - no fuel handling, no ash handling, no scrubber, no FF/ESP, no mercury capture, no heavy metal worries, no giant 20-story boilers to build, no need to build a rail spur, and even better very few maintenance and operations workers. And at 60% efficiency too…gas can get quite a bit more expensive than coal nowadays and still be cool. Utility MACT and CATR are going to change the face of coal power more than anything since the CAA Amendments of 1990.

My international clients are looking long-term, very long term. They seem to be able to accept 20-year or 30-year payoffs on plants. And they don’t have gas resources available, so it’s coal all the way.

[even_sven]

@Whack-a-Mole

2. It is China. Do you think they give a moment’s thought to hippies wanting clean air? Their pollution problems are dramatic. I have seen pictures of rivers that are literally (no hyperbole) black…or red in one case.

Actually, the Chinese people are very concerned about air pollution, and I found it to be a pretty common topic of conversation that always brings up a lot of fretting. It worries a lot of people, but they aren’t quite sure what the alternative is. There are plenty of people who remember when China was “eating-shoe-leather-and-tree-bark” poor, and so people are appreciative of their economic rise in ways we can’t really understand and really don’t want to impede that. A lot of people just don’t have any answers…kind of like how we don’t have any answers about our own fuel problems.

I think the Chinese people in general are fairly wary of nuclear power, if not just because they have a pretty good idea of the inadequacies of safety and construction standards.

[Una_Persson]

@DSeid

In terms of both the less dirty (I can’t bear to even call it “cleaner”) coal issue and China as well, this may be of interest:FWIW.

Sure, and even in the US new coal plant proposals are often UC design as well, with similar efficiencies. Of course we’re not really building very much of anything in coal…

[Una_Persson]

@Whack-a-Mole

Still doesn’t address the CO2 problem though (for which it seems there is no solution for industrial sized coal burning power plants).

Well, here in the US I’m in about 1 meeting a day with an industrial coal plant owner looking to replace coal with gas. Boiler MACT changed everything with industrial units, like Utility MACT could with, well, utilities. Hellfire and damnation, I just checked Outlook and I have 2 meetings tomorrow with people looking to convert their coal boilers to gas, and one of them is over my lunch. Goddamnit.

But your point is valid, other than that, or shutting down, there really isn’t too much they can do to reduce CO2. (OK, biomass is an option in many cases, and thankfully Boiler MACT was changed at the 11th hour to be favourable to biomass - in its draft stage, you could burn 90% biomass and still be legally a “coal” unit, and have to meet all coal unit emissions!)

[Whack-a-Mole]

@even_sven

Actually, the Chinese people are very concerned about air pollution, and I found it to be a pretty common topic of conversation that always brings up a lot of fretting. It worries a lot of people, but they aren’t quite sure what the alternative is. There are plenty of people who remember when China was “eating-shoe-leather-and-tree-bark” poor, and so people are appreciative of their economic rise in ways we can’t really understand and really don’t want to impede that. A lot of people just don’t have any answers…kind of like how we don’t have any answers about our own fuel problems.

I think the Chinese people in general are fairly wary of nuclear power, if not just because they have a pretty good idea of the inadequacies of safety and construction standards.

Makes sense.

I guess my comments on the “hippies” which were derided earlier is in the US it has been those “hippies” (or environmentalists in this case) who demand environmentally friendly industry.

Just look around Russia and Eastern Europe (as a result of the Soviet days) and they have terrible pollution problems. Makes the US seem peachy.

I do not think the Chinese government, anymore than the Soviet government, care one whit what the guy on the street is fretting about. They will do what will make the powers-that-be wealthy and maintain their lifestyle.

Just in this case those guys are now living in that smog. More, it is becoming apparent it is a real risk to their arc of growth and prosperity.

It is really, really bad in some places. Even an utterly despotic government would have to pay attention at this point (I am not calling the Chinese government despotic).

[matt]

@Una_Persson

I think GM biomass fuel crops could really revolutionize this, provided we’re allowed to use them. There are many environmental movements working hard to ban all GM plants.

The solar energy conversion efficiency of biomass is pitiful (about 0.5%). GM is going to have to do a lot to improve that, but the potential is there (maybe up to 6%). Personally I like the idea of really big solar chimneys with GM biocrops grown in the covered area beneath them. Beating the greenhouse effect with greenhouses!

Maybe I just like the idea of 1000m high towers, too…

[Whack-a-Mole]

@Una_Persson

People believe otherwise, that it’s more like 20-60 years before we start really hitting the barrier. Our fuels experts believe that gas prices don’t start to ramp up until 2040 or 2050. However, even 10 years is something which is “long term” for most utilities, who short-sightedley and foolishly demand cost-justifications with paybacks in 1-2 years. Of course you can blame PUCs for some of it. “You’re going to raise the electric rates of Ma and Pa Kettle by 10% just so you can invest in some hare-brained scheme to use biomass? Not in my America, missy!” Believe me, I’ve heard testimony which is about that stupid.

While it looks like it died recently in the US how would a Carbon Tax affect things?

I work at the Board of Trade in Chicago (I am not a trader but I know more than a few) and it seemed an industry in trading carbon was developing. Congress seems to have stopped it for now (Cap and Trade).

If (big IF) Cap and Trade were implemented would that change the calculations you just described noticeably?

[Whack-a-Mole]

@matt

The solar energy conversion efficiency of biomass is pitiful (about 0.5%). GM is going to have to do a lot to improve that, but the potential is there (maybe up to 6%). Personally I like the idea of really big solar chimneys with GM biocrops grown in the covered area beneath them. Beating the greenhouse effect with greenhouses!

Maybe I just like the idea of 1000m high towers, too…

Who cares if it is pitiful?

I thought the idea was you could use seawater (so no need to use precious fresh water…sea water we have in spades) and you could put it in the most god forsaken places on the planet (ala Death Valley or the Sahara Desert) which has zero use otherwise. Sunlight is free and those places have lots and lots of it.

Once past the initial investment upkeep wasn’t too bad or onerous and you started cashing in.

I know I am glossing over parts and Una just showed how her biomass clients are feeling the pinch but the numbers she cited for them to provide fuel were only a little more than cheap natural gas (I know that “little” adds up…still not like they are out of the ballpark).

[levdrakon]

@matt

Levdrakon, you seem to be consistently misunderstanding me so I guess I’m not communicating very well, but I’ll try again:

I’m not talking about what nukes can do in fifty years time either. I’m talking about what they can do OVER THE NEXT FIFTY YEARS, starting right now, today, as China, India, Brazil, Indonesia and hopefully other countries industrialise and grow and pull up their living standards.

I think I understand what you’re saying, and I’m going to try again to explain what I’m saying. When you talk about what nuke power could do right now, you’re still speaking theoretically. Any nuke plants being built right now aren’t going to get built any faster than they are right now. Here in the states we only have one current project moving forward, but give it a few more weeks and even that may be stalled. Don’t blame me for the bad news. I don’t make nuke projects fail or take 13 or more years. But I can remind you that is the reality we live in, right now.

Do you understand what I mean by “realistic?” Realistically, small towns and villages in poor but developing countries need a 1MW turbine more than they need a 1000MW nuke plant, and one is a heck of a lot cheaper for their government to buy, right now. For a lot of the developing world, the choice isn’t a multi-billion dollar nuke plant vs. coal or oil. It’s a wind turbine vs. coal or oil. Or solar vs. coal. Probably a medley of energy sources vs. coal or oil. We could help with their wind turbines. I don’t want us helping them become nuclear powers. If they could handle nuclear power they’d already have it. The jump from oxcarts to nuke plants isn’t as easy as plugging in the new all-in-one AP1000 McNuke.

The world is going to be increasing its energy demand and building new power plants over THAT WHOLE TIME, probably on an S-shaped curve. Some of those plants will be nuclear or renewable, the more the better as far as climate change is concerned.

The world is going to be increasing its energy demand, but that doesn’t mean its going to follow the US’s footsteps exactly. We’re addicted to everyone having at least one car. Other countries could skip that step, couldn’t they? Younger countries don’t need to use wasteful technologies because they can (hopefully) skip a lot of that BS and use newer more efficient technologies.

At the moment China is building coal plants like there is no tomorrow but the price of coal is rising fast - it’s more than doubled in the past five years. Coal, Australian thermal coal - Monthly Price - Commodity Prices - Price Charts, Data, and News - IndexMundi Nuclear and renewables will become more attractive as the coal prices rise. China is building, or having built, some Westinghouse AP1000’s (23 in progress, 120 proposed!) but China has also bought a lot of the Westinghouse technology. China will be developing, building and selling their own version. At which point, messageboard squabbles about nukes being too expensive and renewables competitive will be trumped by a marketplace that we don’t control anymore. Subscribe to read

That last link doesn’t work for me.

The fact that Westinghouse is selling nuke technology to China doesn’t impress me any more than BP selling oil to China. US tobacco companies love selling their cigarettes overseas, but that’s not because tobacco is good for you. It’s profit! For the company. Not me, not my village. Selling cigarettes in the US is frowned on, and we’re getting frownier.

I really don’t want China turning around and bringing even more of their friends into the nuclear power club by selling on the nuclear technology we sold them. If China can go all nuke, let them I guess. Not much I can do about that.

[sleestak]

@levdrakon

Uh, I was talking about the pool. That thing they’re spraying water into desperately, and you can spray water into from the outside of the building because like, the roof blew off and I’m pretty sure that’s on video somewhere.
I think it would be better if you didn’t cite your father as your authority if you don’t understand what it is your father did.

I fully understand what he did. I understand the testing that they did quite well. Certainly better than you.

You made the claim

The fact that the roofs blew off these nuke plants is sufficient evidence nuke plants aren’t plane-proof.

Planes won’t hurt a containment dome. That testing was done a long time ago and the results were clear.

Slee