[QUOTE=An Arky]
Another thing (alluded to by Johnny L.A.) is cost. We have previously had a shitty way of doing things. In some European countries, they have a bunch of reactors that have essentially the same design (facilitating economies of scale and maintenance/safety knowledge - if a particular part goes bad in one plant, you know to fix the others), whereas in the US, we have big plants with several different designs, and no new designs or strategies being implemented due to low public opinion, etc. If we want to do nuclear, we need to think about these sorts of things and have an integrated strategy to roll these things out quickly, cheaply and safely - I’m not holding my breath.
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I’m going to disagree with you, An Arky.
The biggest reason for the ballooning costs associated with US nuclear plants hasn’t been the competition between designs, but the escalating costs associated with storage and disposal fees. AIUI most states require nuclear plant operators to keep a fund of monies set aside for estimated decomissioning costs: dismantling the plant, storing and transport of spent fuel, and eventual clean up of the plant site. As time goes by not only have the storage costs escalated, but so have labor costs associated with all this. This is one reason why I don’t think that there will be any serious money spent to even consider building any new nuclear plants in the US until a long-term waste storage facility, such as the one proposed for Yucca Mountain, is available.
The second biggest reason is going to be the lessons of the Seabrook II nuclear plant. Seabrook II is a large, second or third generation plant - while it’s only one of several “mature” designs in use in the US, it’s also the “youngest” plant in the US, IIRC. It was originally scheduled to come online approximately around 1980. In the wake of TMI-2, however, the pressure to keep the plant closed, at all costs, kept it from beginning operation until 1992 or 3, IIRC. For the time between the originally planned start-up and when it finally began operating the various power companies that had invested in the plant were stuck paying off a major capital investment, with no offsetting income associated with the plant. For almost 15 years. I know that while my family lived in MA our local power company had heavily invested in Seabrook - and was therefore forced to charge some of the highest per KW rates to keep servicing the debt on that monster.
Hell’s Bells, the 1992 Dukakis campaign made political capitol about blocking Seabrook II going operational!
Unless there’s a public turn around on the perception towards nuclear power I can’t see many investors being willing to consider building more plants in the US. (But if we’re buying nuclear power from Canadian CanDU plants it’s all good. 
)
I see what you’re saying about the advantages of having several plants of a single design, An Arky, but I think at this point nuclear power is a fairly proven concept - you’ve got moderators, piping and steam. Very little that I’d call cutting edge. (Until, and unless, we start getting PBMRs or other new nuclear power techniques ready for real-world applications.) This isn’t to say that there aren’t economic advantages to standardized plans - the automobile industry should be a good example of that even with proven technologies. Just that even with those savings factored in, there is still room for competition, too. (Again, just look at the automobile industry.)
On preview: Dinsdale, without a more specific list of complaints I can’t address what exactly is bothering your friend. The problem I have with the complaints that I’ve heard and read regarding the Yucca Mountain site is that the complaints are all on the nature of the complaints that I’ve already discussed with the shipping containers. “If the water table rises…” and other rather unlikely scenarios.
First off - I think that most (not all, by any means) of the concerns being raised about the mobility of heavy metal isotopes are exaggerated. For my argument I want to talk about something that most people from the Navy’s nuclear power program hate to think about: USS Thresher. When she sank, she shattered - like an egg. Or a sub exceeding test depth. I’ve seen a piece of her hull that had been recovered and kept as a momument at NNPS Orlando. (Behind lead glass, I have to admit.) It was smaller than the fingernail on my little finger.
This accident site is a worst case scenario for storage of any kind of waste: the pressures and temperature differences involved make it guaranteed that the core of the Thresher is in pieces. Lots and lots of little pieces. With effectively no containment of anything, anymore. On top of which the water that the wreck site is in is salt water: while it’s about 0 C, the salt water is still going to corrode the metals much more quickly than anything that could ever happen at Yucca Mountain.
In spite of all these problems the isotopes from the reactor haven’t spread all over the place. If they were spreading I think that it would be safe to say that there would be a lot of pressure to do what was done to the wreck of the Estonia: build a concrete casement over the wreck to retain as much of the material at the wreck site. Currently there are regular follow-up dives on the wreck, checking for this spreading contamination.
The end result is the one that most any chemist could tell you: heavy metals just don’t go into solution very well. Even less easily when the concern isn’t for ions from dissolved metals, but for metal particulates being entrained in moving fluids: it takes very turbulent and very rapidly moving waters to pick up bits of lead or similar metals.
I can’t guarantee that the site under Yucca Mountain will never, ever, ever, ever experience such rapid flows of water. I can, and will, hazard a guess that if it ever does, there will be so much else going FUBAR with the whole planet that whatever concerns people have about contamination of the waters is small potatos.
