Nuclear is already scaled up. To find a large scale plant, you merely need to look.
Good luck getting people to live like they do in the developing world. That’s a realistic winning campaign if I ever saw one.
Actually they have been provided several times in this thread. It’s just a bit boring to search the thread to find them and post them again. No one really seems interested in them anyway.
The bottom line on costs was lot of overlap, depending on the assumptions made and the particular circumstances. As a cite provided by Whack-a-Mole put it:
Those calculations do not monetize greenhouse gases or perceived safety risks.
WarmNPrickly, you really must realize that the nuclear industry is in no position to displace many coal plants right now. IF we monetize GHG emissions AND subsidize the industry by guaranteeing their loans, etc., THEN maybe, just maybe, we can get enough plants in America to replace the plants that are due to age out. These 104 American nuclear power plants were designed to have 40 year lifetimes and the average age is about 30. (source). Yes, many are being given 20 year extensions, but the risks, which we must recognize are nonzero and potentially catastrophic, do go up as they get older.
And the 20 year extensions obviously only buys a little time. We will need to be taking a large share of these 104 plants off line in the next several decades. “Pushing” new nuclear might keep up with that, replacing aging older plants with newer safer ones with improved designs, but it is not by itself going to make much net progress.
You are also being dense if you believe that lev was proposing that we all “live like they do in the developing world” - the concept is that as new systems are built they will be built with more efficiency and less waste as part of the design.
[QUOTE=DSeid]
IF we monetize GHG emissions AND subsidize the industry by guaranteeing their loans, etc., THEN maybe, just maybe, we can get enough plants in America to replace the plants that are due to age out.
[/QUOTE]
Actually, I’d say that if you simply guarantee them that if their plan is approved they will, with 100% certainty, be able to build the things without interference, without lawsuits, etc etc, then they could be built today without any subsidies larger than for any project of this size. You wouldn’t need to guarantee loans if the folks making those loans thought the risks were less…the risks that, having invested millions or billions of dollars that the project might get canceled because of pressure applied by groups opposed to the construction. Or that the time to build it would be stretched out, making just starting to recoup the ROI longer…and longer…and longer.
Yeah…the things are expensive. No doubt, they are a large upfront capital cost. But they have life spans defined in decades, and the costs of running them, once built, are pretty small. The REAL risk, however, comes from how much resistance the company trying to build the things will get to, well, building the things. Take that out of the equation and I think that nuclear becomes viable right there. Of course, that’s the kicker, isn’t it? You can’t really take those factors out, since the well has been so completely poisoned by the various anti-nuclear groups out there, and the public has been so indoctrinated with how dangerous nuclear power is, that it would be impossible to take those sorts of obstructions out of the mix.
-XT
Are you unaware of the problems Areva has had? The cost over-runs are now about as big as the original estimated cost. And the problem wasn’t from pressure from opposition groups. It was inspectors finding things like “cracks in the concrete base and steel reinforcements in the wrong places”.
That sort of “interference” is not the sort you’d want to guarantee them they could avoid.
The nuke industry would never do any cost cutting that would be harmful. It is the evil citizens and regulators that don’t give them the trust they have earned. Just have faith in nuclear plant construction companies and operators and all will be well.
Are you suggesting Bechtel, and GE and other construction companies would cut corners? Shame on you.
That is the most frightening thing I have ever heard.
Subsidies for projects of this size? Huh? A 1000MW nuclear plant isn’t the Great Wall of China or the pyramids of Egypt, for Chrissysakes. Well, apparently it is, but it sure as heck shouldn’t be, when wind and solar are regularly adding 1000MWs here, and another 1000MW there, quietly, without all this ridiculous fuss we’re getting from the nuke industry.
The nuke industry is an anachronism. The leaders of the nuke industry actually think they have the government and the citizenry by the balls. You need our precious invaluable energy, so you’re going to pay for it. Oh boy are you going to pay for it.
It simply isn’t true. The nuke industry was already a failure, but then global warming comes along and they think they’ve got us by the balls again, with their lofty pie-in-the-sky stories of cheap, limitless energy.
The US government isn’t falling for it anymore. More and more governments around the world aren’t falling for it anymore and they’re finally starting to take a sober look at what they’re being sweet talked into.
The nuke industry does not have us by the balls. We don’t have to play the game by the rules they set.
We can shop around now, like we’re supposed to be able to. That’s the American way.
After all the time that has passed it’s disappointing to see the situation develop into a Chernobyl level event. With all the planning Japan put into their early warning system for tsunami’s there was substantially less forethought put into the effect on the power plants.
Of course I still support Nuclear Powerplants. Look at Fukushima, a HUGE earthquake, couldn’t even take it down, the only thing that cause it to go into meltdown was a massive tsunami that hid it.
Problem: Tsunamis hit the coast and [a lot of] our cities are on the coast, where to put a power plant?
Solution: Chuck it in a valley somewhere, slightly inland, with a river tributary near it. As we know, a Nuclear power plant needs a lot of water, so thats why the river helps. And then you don’t even need it in a valley if it is 50 miles inland! And now we can go back to supporting the most reliable and cheap energy source that is worthwhile having.
Japan’s nuclear plants are neither cheap nor reliable. That’s the real problem. Always has been.
Nuclear reactors are never cheap, nor is a nuclear power plant reliable. Especially in Japan, where just when you need power the most, they must shut down.
Why do people commend the Fukushima plant for surviving the quake? It doesn’t look it survived the quake very well. Have you seen it lately?
Lots and lots of buildings in the same area survived the quake just fine. Check out videos from inside the evacuation zone. It was only the coast that got hit with the tsunami. The towns and buildings inside the evacuation zone look like they survived the quake just fine and everything is, or would be, business as usual, if it weren’t a radiation contamination evacuation zone, that is.
At first I though the people who claimed “the reactors survived the largest quake ever! And a huge tsunami!” were being ironic. Sarcastic.
Now I think maybe they are serious. That makes them crazy people.
No, they are not. The fact is the huge quake did little to it at all. What took it down was the tsunami and even that would not have done so if disaster planning had been just a bit more robust.
Interestingly two separate articles in the NYT today that complement each other well -
The T.V.A. released plans to spend “millions” to upgrade their nuclear plants.
Perhaps the NRC may wish to revisit that position?
And also in today’s paper, T.V.A. to take 1,000 MW of coal fired capacity off line by 2018. Not that they had much choice it seems. Still -
The two articles a bit related, you think?
I can’t tell if the true nuclear defenders are actually ignorant of facts, or if they know but somehow suffer from some sort of delusion.
Since March 11 the Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant, the Fukushima Daiichi and the Fukushima Daini power plants are all unusable. Onagawa had already suffered two previous accidents so only one reactor was working on 311, but the turbine was damaged by a fire caused by the quake.
Get that through your denier heads. Please.
That’s three reactors down, and all three are at risk due to the loss of power. Fukushima Daini also lost all four reactors from the quake. Fires and turbine damage, as well as tsunami damage. Those four reactors and fuel rods are all still at risk, either from another quake or loss of power to the plant.
The six reactors at Daiichi (which means one) we know more about, but there was a total of eight active reactors knocked out by the quake or tsunami damage. And currently there are 13 reactors at risk, at three plants.
None of them are providing any power or relief to the damaged area. And Daiichi is causing all kinds of grief, harm and tension, due to the extreme seriousness of the disaster.
Now you can still say “the reactors/power plants withstood the quake”, but you would be a liar.
That is all.
You either do not read or do not understand what you read, FX.
That is all.
A previous quake/tsunami on the other side of the island damaged another nuclear power plant on 16 July 2007.
In 1983 and 1993 quakes also caused damage at nuclear power plants in Japan. It’s not like this is the first time a tsunami has damaged nuclear plants.
Maybe you get your data from idiot media sources, I don’t know. The reason Fukushima 1 is in crisis, and lost all it’s reactors, and all the other disastrous consequences, was the quake.
Earthquakes cause tsunamis, and the tsunamis damaged the cooling systems at Fukushima 1. The diesels couldn’t get cooling (so they won’t run), the fuel tanks were washed away, and even the cooling intakes and turbines were destroyed, by the quake.
You can dance around it, say the tsunami did it. Like the tsunami isn’t part of the quake. If it makes you feel better, you go right ahead.
Yes, that is the part you do not understand of what you read.
No one has stated anything that you seem to be responding to. No one has claimed that the plants are up and running and just fine. They are stating that the quake is one hit and the tsunami was a second hit. Disaster planning did not adequately plan for the tsunami but the massive ground shaking by itself didn’t do much harm. A wall a bit higher, or even just bit more protection of and redundancies of back up power, and the tsunami would have not done much harm either.
The lesson to learn is that the NRC’s still extant position that mandated planning for “simultaneous events” is not needed because it is “too unlikely”, is untenable. TVA is anticipating the change and to their credit is smart enough to begin such an analysis before it is mandated. What with shutting down that much coal capacity they need to be ahead of the curve on reassuring people that their nuclear plants are safe. It is exactly at the time of one event that another event becomes less unlikely.
The extent of quake damage is still unknown, for all three power plants. Phrasing it as “the massive ground shaking by itself didn’t do much harm” is weasel words.
It’s like saying “sure the house caught on fire, after being smashed by a 12 meter wave, but it wasn’t the ground moving that caused that. It was the gas leak.”.
Get a clue. Please.
What the hell do you read? This is not a secret.
Between tiptoeing around calling other posters liars and generally snide behavior, you are out of line.
Stop making this stuff personal and stick to discussing the facts.
[ /Moderating ]