Comments on: Nuclear power looks for comeback in U.S.

Is the nuclear winter ending for the industry? Applications for new nuclear plants will likely get filed this year and next.

[nicmart]

It's about time

A crack in the Luddite wall? We shall see if the global warming
devotees are sincere by their response to this, and whether the
political will exists to finally implement the waste solutions that
exist.

[lkrupp]

Nope...

Sorry, the environmental nazis will not allow this to happen.
They are absolutely opposed to nuclear, coal, oil, hydro (dams
are evil), wind (windmills kill migratory birds don't you know),
and anything else that produces energy with possible exception
of solar. On second thought they oppose solar too because it
would take millions of acres of solar panels to power a city like
Chicago.

But environmentalist extremists are a compromising lot. They
will entertain alternate energy sources as long as its human
muscle power. Can't use animals because PETA is against that.
Can't eat animals either. I was going to say that they want the
human race to regress back to the hunter/gatherer era but I
guess it would just be the gatherer era since use of animals for
anything is forbidden.

Did I miss anything?

[motorbelly]

Are we nuts?

No need to be an environmental nazi to see that the creation of nuclear waste that will haunt life for thousands of years is even worse than fossil fueling a global warming crisis right now.

Do we really need to use so much energy per human being to live the lives we want for ourselves and our children? I believe we are still blinding ourselves to solutions to our dilemmas that could still transport us, feed and power our needs without gargantuan power consumption per person.

Much of this could be accomplished with a change in thought, and that will require very little caloric energy.

[budzinsorp1]

scared to change

Most americans are afraid of the chenge especialy if it requires for them to get their fat ass up and do semething.
Have u chenged over to florecent light bulbs?????
Its always easy to talk the talk

[CompEng]

True, but...

It would also entail a great deal of sacrifice for a lot of people, especially our globe-trotting upper crust and all of us hopeless suburbanites.
A low-energy lifestyle would be world-changing for a lot of us. Of course, after the fallout, or cost of living would be a lot lower and there would be a lot of other benefits. But the sacrifices involved would be enormous.
Much easier to look to science to rescue the lifestyles we have.

[crazynexus]

nuts? Perhaps..but

The other thing to look at is the change in population. in 1960, the US had 180 Million people. Now, there's over 300 Million. The energy used has to come from someplace. I'd prefer nuclear over continual pumping of mercury and other fun things into the atmosphere from coal.

A few years ago I read that the former head of Greenpeace even said nuclear should be used as a stop gap, as coal is worse. Until alternate energy technologies catch up (such as tidal), there needs to be something in between. You can't jump from A to Q without first getting everytthing else in between.

[billmosby]

The waste is already out there...

With no solution in sight. Well, except for a few technologies that
have already been developed. Perhaps the best of them would be
the Integral Fast Reactor concept. Using that, we have a 4,000 year
total U.S. energy supply sitting around as depleted uranium (which
we'll just continue to shoot at people if nothing else is done with
it), and the waste from the process takes about 500 years to
become less radioactive than natural uranium. You could look at it
as a "radiation reduction program" in the long run.

[gatornuke]

Nuclear waste is not as big a deal as you'd think

1) The nuclear industry is the only one to fully account for all of its waste, and the amount of waste is really not that large. Just realize that the vast majority of the comercial spent fuel has been and still is being stored on site since these plants were built 30 years ago. In fact, the amount of waste is so small it could be buried in a football field a foot deep. Most of the bulk needed for dry storage is not the fuel itself, but rather the shielding structures.

2) Only about 2% of the spent fuel is actual waste. If the other 98% can be put back into a reactor. If fuel is recycled, the waste volume can be reduced significantly.

3) Most of the actual waste (that 2%) is very short lived, taking only a few hundred years at the most to fully decay. Some isotopes like Xenon and Iodine decay in a matter of hours. So if we decide to recycle the fuel this waste issue essentially goes away.

4) Some environmentalists might instead propose the alternative of covering the earth with high-efficinecy gallium-arsenide solar panels. Because of their minuscule energy density compared with nuclear, solar uses much more material per kW of generation. These solar panels don't last forever, maybe 30-50 years at the most. After their lifespan, we'd then wind up with tremendous amounts of arsenic and other toxic materials which do not decay. THAT would be the real disposal nightmare.

[Millerboy]

Launching Nuclear Waste into Space

Launching nuclear waste into space is a good alternative to burying it. Once the costs of space travel is lower, which will happen soon due to the X Prize competitons, we can always mine for more natural resources on other planets.

Mars has plenty of minerals and natural resources. Maybe even nuclear energy stored somewhere by combining some Martian rocks.

By current standards of green technology, nuclear energy is one of the safest and cleanest power sources available to humankind. Don't be blind and ignorant.

[Phillep_H]

"Nuts" or uneducated?

Radioactive material can be compared to fuel in a fire; there's only so much "heat" in the material.

Something that is going to "burn" for thousands of years, is not putting out much "heat", and is little problem.

Something that is highly radioactive, is going to "burn out" fairly soon, and will not be a problem for long.

[InAsia]

Kudos Michael

Thanks for the well written article. It seems that if the industry provided more detailed explanations outlining the improvements in control systems, overall safety, and waste disposal there could be more meaningful dialogs on the subject. There are plenty of technically adept readers on the net that surely could grasp the intricate details.

[Rod Adams]

Plenty of information is available on line

There are a number of excellent information source from both the
nuclear industry (try www.nei.org) and from individual web sites
and blogs run by some very knowledgeable people. You can begin
your search with terms like "nuclear electricity", "atomic energy",
"nuclear renaissance", "atomic insights" etc.

As you say, there are plenty of technically adept people on the net
- surely they understand how to gather and filter information.

[Mallardd]

Something else that I've always wondered about

If enough nuclear plants were built, could they
not be used to generate hydrogen to fuel clean
hydrogen burning motor vehicles and reduce our
dependence on oil at the same time? It has also
been established that coal fired power plants
emit a significant amount of radioactive
contamination, so perhaps "clean" nuclear power
is the way to go?

[billmosby]

Sure they could...

A few years ago, innovative ways to use reactors to do just that
were being researched at the Idaho National Labortory. Ways to use
the heat directly without the wasteful electrolysis step. Would take
a very high temperature reactor, though.

[Luke Weston]

Could nuclear energy reduce our depenence on oil for transport?

Yes - absolutely!

As well as direct thermochemical production of Hydrogen in Generation IV high-temperature reactors, all clean sources of electricity - not just limited to nuclear - can be used to produce energy stored up in the form of Hydrogen as a transport fuel.

[WJeansonne]

Liberal have to eat crow once again.

I love it. Every stupid cause that they take on ends up in the trash heap of history, now it's nuclear power. Now that they have latched on to Al Gore's ridiculous "Carbon Credits" band wagon, they are forced to re-consider nuclear energy. I wonder what the goofs will do next when we enter another mini ice age? One can only guess!

[billmosby]

Won't be another ice age unless...

... they quit talking. The hot air will prevent it.

[cturkin]

no

Nuclear energy, and the advanced technology that can make it safe are progressive and sensible answers to a proven issue.

This is in contrast to your head-in the sand and backwards blanket assumptions that nuclear power is bad.

http://talkclimatechange.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=105

[Rod Adams]

Not a liberal versus conservative issue

Though some clever fossil fuel industry marketers have couched
the debate about nuclear power in terms of a liberal versus
conservative approach to the world, the reality is quite different.

In the US, many of the strong proponents of the technology have
been quite liberal in their views. People like Al Gore, Sr., L.
Mendel Rivers, John F. Kennedy, and Glen Seaborg have all been
both strong supporters and liberal thinkers.

Though I often shy away from pointing to France's nuclear power
successes - since everyone else normally does that for me - it is
pretty difficult to think of that country as "conservative", yet they
produce more than 80% of their electrical power needs using
standardized, state owned nuclear power plants.

If you visit Daily Kos, you will find at least two diarists (NNadir
and David Walters) who have extensively written about why they
are advocates of nuclear power developments and life-long
liberals. Even a couple of current presidential candidates on the
left (Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama) have recognized that
clean, low cost, reliable power is a benefit for jobs, economic
development, health and the environment. In other words,
nuclear power fits with many items on the liberal agenda.

I have not always been liberal in my thinking, but serving as a
staff officer in Washington for the last six years has convinced
me of the errors of my ways. The next time I get around to it, I
will change my registration to reflect my new views of the way
that the world can become a better place.

[K.P.C.]

"One can only guess!" . . . I can guess . . .

. . . They'll blame is on SUV's, ignorant soccer mom's, corporations,
Haliburtin, Bush and Cheney.

How am I doing so far? ;-)

[gatornuke]

High-Temperature Gas-cooled Reactors (HTGR) for this

If you want hydrogen production, this can be achieved with a high temperature gas cooled reactor, such as the GT-MHR or General Electric's NGNP reactor. These technologies have already been devised, they just need to be finalized, licensed and built.

[gatornuke]

meat as a response to Mallardd/billmosby

This was meant as a response to the comment by:
Mallardd -- Sep 14 2007, 7:04 AM PDT

My apologies

[K A Cheah]

Atomic Energy is cleaner, safer & more efficient than Nuclear Energy

Obviously they are those great scientists who have overlooked the fact....: reader comment from K A Cheah
Posted on: September 13, 2007, 5:46 PM PDT
Story: Getting fuel out of water

Obviously Water holds a better promise as the Alternative Fuel: reader comment from K A Cheah
Posted on: May 28, 2007, 12:36 AM PDT
Story: Alternative fuel for thought

In our school days we have learnt in Physics that it possible to split water into its basic atomic components with the application of electricity but even great scientists overlooked the fact that
Water by itself is the better, safer & more efficient storage of power, the promise water has as an alternative fuel has been unlimited using a simple process of using electrolysis to split water into hydrogen and oxygen atomic gases only when required, where the hydrogen & oxygen atomic gases HHO's power to drive a car engine will also recharge the battery(minimum 9 volts) that originally did the electrolysis splitting of water into hydrogen and oxygen atomic gases and also the hydrogen & oxygen gases will be only produced when needed just before starting the car engine and the electrolysis process will be switched-off when switching off the car engine at the same time. These HHO gases-run engines will run cars, SUVs, trucks, buses, trains and airplanes & power stations & even rockets so cheaply and successfully that no other alternative fuels would ever be needed but these technologies will be suppressed owing to big business money and political scams from Oil Producers and other vested interests. They might even commit murder to suppress these inventions from propagating and flourishing successfully.

Please watch related report of the Water Car Inventor who had been murdered:- Link:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6yRn4IAsrU&mode=related&search =
&
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wb8wIqECwGE&mode=related&search=

[gatornuke]

there's only one problem... the laws of physics

sure, you can use electrolysis to split water, but the efficiency of this process is dismal. i think it's in the order of about 15%. the most efficient way to split water is with a hight-temperature chemical process, for which HTGRs are well suited.

Combining H and O back toguether in something like a proton exchange membrane, or fuel cell, would give you about 35% efficiency from what i recall, so by using electricity from the grid to split water and then recombine it to charge a battery you'll get about 5% of the energy you would have put in the battery by just plugging the vehicle directly into the wall outlet.

the point is that you will ALWAYS have losses in any system, and the process you're suggesting is one of the least efficient proceses you could come up with.

as much as we'd all like to have a perpetual motion machine, this violates the laws of thermodynamics. anyone who claims to have one is either a lunatic, a moron, or a scam artist.

[Philo\]

simple physics.

You are proposing to use hydrogen, which is chemical energy, not nuclear. In your example, you show that the electricity to power the electrolysis of water into hydrogen and oxygen would come from the battery, which is charged by the car's engine.
If this system is built with 100% efficiency (an engineering impossibility), you would simply get enough energy to power the electrolysis, with nothing left over to run the car.
If your system worked as advertised it would be a perpetual motion machine, as burning the hydrogen with the oxygen would produce water, which could be routed back into the tank.
I suggest you take a simple physics class at your local community college. This would help you to understand these claims.

[crazynexus]

huh?

Last I knew, splitting water to it's base elements took HUGE amounts of energy.

Heck, just taking salt out of water takes huge amounts of energy. The O-H-H bond is one of the strongest known.

[crazynexus]

Ah Friggin' thing..

Was supposed to be attached as a reply to the K H guy.

[cturkin]

yep

It does. And it still will as long as we have access to cheap dirty energy as nobody will invest in future solutions.

[K A Cheah]

It hardly took any power to split water-seeing is believing see You Tube

9v battery will create hydrogen from water: reader comment from Zupek
Posted on: June 4, 2007, 9:47 AM PDT
Story: Alternative fuel for thought

Go home, fill a small dish with water. Go get a NEW and FULLY CHARGE 9v battery. Put one wire to the postive and put it in the water and do the same for the negative.

Those bubbles you see in the water are HYDROGEN and OXYGEN. and it took hardly any power...

[K A Cheah]

Wrong it took hardly any power to split Water

9v battery will create hydrogen from water: reader comment from Zupek
Posted on: June 4, 2007, 9:47 AM PDT
Story: Alternative fuel for thought

Go home, fill a small dish with water. Go get a NEW and FULLY CHARGE 9v battery. Put one wire to the positive and put it in the water and do the same for the negative.

Those bubbles you see in the water are HYDROGEN and OXYGEN. and it took hardly any power...

Water- the divine gift has the power to give life to all beings on earth or this universe will also give power to all common internal combustion engines in the simple process of electrolysis to produce the fuels in the form of hydrogen & oxygen gases HHO that we would ever need to run everything on earth in including power stations & fuel Rockets

[riredale]

Here's the main issue in all this

I was walking through Notre Dame cathedral in Paris last summer and a friend lamented that people weren't just as religious as they were 100 years ago.

I replied that humans are always "religious" but that their church has changed. Listen carefully to many comments made about nuclear dangers, vegetarianism, windmills, or whatever. Many (make that most) people latch onto their belief system with a religious zeal, which shuts down logical, intelligent discussion. Same thing happens over in politics. Conservatives look at near-hysterical rants of the left and shake their heads at how those people have succumbed to BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome). Liberals think conservatives are dolts. And so on.

[chris_d]

How much in subsidies for this?

For a long time, the true cost of nuclear has been hidden by subsidies, and as I recall, the last energy bill had huge subsidies for new nuclear plants.

Those talking about LMFBRs should look at France's Superphenix. It cost $12.5 BILLION US dollars.

Ratepayers and taxpayers have to pick up the cost when the nuke plants have cost overruns.

[billmosby]

IFR is not typical LMFBR

It was designed to be built of smaller, easier to build modules, and
was based in many ways on a plant, EBR-II, with 30+ successful
years of operating experience. Superphenix was quite the opposite,
and in some ways a good example of how not to build a fast
reactor. No doubt an IFR would not produce particularly cheap
energy, but not too many new technologies would. If energy is
more expensive, it will actually help in many ways, starting with our
being motivated to use less in the first place, more efficiently.

[michael kanellos]

subsidies

I'm going to write more on that. basically, there are three gov. support incentives. Two--loan guarantees and direct subsidies-are also available to solar, wind etc. There is also a suborgation clause. If the permit process is ruled illegal, the government pays the utility.

But, yes, if there are cost overruns etc. who knows what will happen. Could be contract renegotiations.

[gatornuke]

Westinghouse AP-1000 will change this

a Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor (LMFBR) is what most people would consider an experimental reactor. The vast majority of conventional reactors are light water reactors (LWRs).

Some newer reactor designs, such as the Westinghouse AP-1000 (LWR) are made to overcome many of the construction hurdles by using fewer components modular design, and passive safety systems. In addition, the NRC has streamlined their regulatory process, so this shouldn't be as big of a problem as it was in the past. Westinghouse sold 4 AP-1000s to China earlier this year, at a price of $4B each. Construction is set to start soon.

Once a few of these reactors are built and the process is streamlined they're expected to decrease in price to ~$2B and take 3 years to build.

It is true that the government has offered some tax incentives to the first few plants built in the states, but this is a necessary step to jump-start the industry back up.

The biggest threat to new reactors is not the technology or financing, but the activists and politicians who don't understand the science and are too caught up in their own rhetoric to care.

[dbrands]

Why subsidize it?

If nuclear power is such a proven technology and plants have been working--more or less--since the 50s than why subsidize them at all. When the average Joe Schmoe opens a store or a repair garage, who subsidizes him?

[Daryl Jones]

Still too many problems

The current problem with nuclear power is waste. By the 1960s, the nuclear power cycle had been derived and it starting with the Uranium reactors. Next would be the fast breeder reactors that would take the processed spent fuel rods from the Uranium reactors as its fuel and convert with Uranium 238 to make Plutonium 239. The last stage is creating Plutonium reactors. At the end of this nuclear power cycle, there would hardly any nuclear waste left to be processed. However, in the 1970s, Nelson Rockefeller commission recommended against completing the cycle because of the lack of inventory control of the nuclear materials currently on hand. Since it would only take a few kilograms of Plutonium to create a nuclear bomb or a dirty nuclear bomb, the commission felt it would be prudent not to recommend the building of the fast breeder reactors and then the Plutonium reactors. Thus brings us back to the current problem with nuclear power, its waste. Furthermore, I haven?t talk about the mothballing of the nuclear power plant.

Although the article states the building of a nuclear power would be cheaper due to standards and modular construction, I would like to see the cost estimates of a 1200 Megawatt power plant and where cost-plus contracts aren?t included. Then due a net present value analysis of the project to see if would make sense.

I believe the US Navy builds mostly low pressure reactors and what is needed for nuclear power is high pressure and temperature steam system that would use a two stage high-low pressure steam turbines that would provide 70% + conversion of heat to electricity.

Although I would like to see nuclear power succeed, I see to many problems to make it feasible.

[billmosby]

An alternative

Google "Integral Fast Reactor" and see what you think about that
concept.

[GEBERWEIN]

Simple solution

In all the verbal battles that have raged about the disposal of the spent nuclear junk, not one person has sought a simple solution. First, isn't the area where this stuff came from polluted with it naturally?
Why not give it back?
It came from mines in the ground so make one of them into a disposal facility? There can't be much objection to it's doing what what comes naturally in the place where we found it.
I know this can never work because it's simple.

[billmosby]

It would be a good place...

... once the material has become less radioactive than the original
ore. Which takes next to forever with the spent fuel of today
(100,000 + years). But if all the long-lived stuff is kept in the fuel
cycle and used for fuel, the rest gets to that point in about 500
years. Which would be just about the same length of time the
debate about where to put it would last!
Google "Integral Fast Reactor" to see a system that was developed
to work that way.

[wtortorici]

I guess we can launch the nuclear waste...

into the nearest blackhole. Of course, that means we 'll have to add that expense on your next electric bill. I all adds up to that there is no low cost energy, there is a price to be paid, if not today it will be tomorrow. Biofuel is a classic example, in our rush to become oil independent, we raised the the price of every thing down the line, feed cost, transportation, and the rest of the food industry.

[jerries kid]

nuclear

there is no way we should support nuclear energy, have we forgotton all the protest about waiste dispossal? have we given up on this planets future? the cost of making energy from renewable resources is so prommissing, i cannot believe so many countries on this planet are looking at the qick remedy for there energy problem

[jerries kid]

nuclear power

i am 46, i will be dead in ten years. ciggartes, lead paint, cellular telephones, pcb's in my water, in my land in my air. does radio activity in my world really matter? yes it does, but hell, i'm already polluted. a micro wave tower on top of my building, what-ever. starving and drowning bears in th north pole,???? who gives a rats ass. after all, i am an american't. i don't have time to save myself, i'm too busy trying to get the rest of the world to catch up to my ineptitude. ban cigarettes inb this country first, then i'll consider your stupid thoughts of war. and nuclear power? that is just the dumbest thing since toilet paper.or storm windows. i got rotted walls, hemeroids, and a hefty dose of cancer. and that is a good thing.

[Dango517]

I lived near a nuke facility for years, no way!!!

You must be an idiots to promote Nuclear Technology and an idiot to listen to someone who does. Wonder how the people down wind of chernobyl feel about it. Ask someone in the city of Hiroshima what the think about nuclear power. Didn't Japan just have a reactor leak just a week or so ago? NNN and forever.

[Luke Weston]

I'm afraid the only idiot here is you.

I'm afraid the only idiot here is you.

What, exactly, does the city of Hiroshima have to do with nuclear power?

What dose of ionising radiation, above background, did the community receive as a result of radioactive releases from the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant as a result of the earthquake?

[gatornuke]

US plants are not chernobyl

The chernobyl reactor was a really bad Russian design very different from US reactors. It was an overmoderated reactor that went prompt critical during a poorly planed and executed physics experiment. US plants are undermoderated (meaning they have a negative temperature reactivity coefficient), so what happened in chernobyl is physically impossible in the LWRs we use here. Not to mention our reactors have multiple safety systems with several layers of redundancy to shut down the core in the event of an accident or Condition II transient event.

The next-gen reactors like the AP1000 have even better safety with passive systems.

Your Hiroshima comment doesn't even deserve a reply, and the Japanese leak you're refering to consists of a couple of drums of waste that fell over during the eathquake.

I'd suggest you educate yourself before you go off calling people idiots.

[ira_davis]

Your still alive and unhurt.

Why don't you move to Alaska and and become bear food.

[Ardose]

There is a way

A few decades ago, scientists at a university worked out a way to safely dispose of nuclear waste using a dilution method. They proposed that nuclear waste can be broken down and diluted with water until it is extremely weakened. This water is then introduced into the food chain through public drinking water systems, food processors and so on. The dilution weakens the radioactivity to point that individuals would receive less than they do from the environment.

Human beings and most animals have the capability of breaking down and destroying small amounts of radioactive isotopes without a cumulative effect. It would pose no risk and eliminate the radioactive waste altogether. Because the population is so huge, this disposal method could go on indefinitely. There will always be plenty of people to eat the nuclear waste.

Sometimes, you have to think outside of the box;)

[Phillep_H]

Trolling?

(nt)

[smvans7]

Billions

Yeah, they still want billions of our tax dollars to build them and then to send us a bill at the end of the month.

Why you think these companies want to build the plants, to fight global warming? No way.

They don't care about putting their nuclear waste all over the planet, as long as they get our tax dollars and can send us a bill at the end of the month.

[theroguex]

*sigh*

Some people just don't understand.

I we get rid of the arcane and draconic anti-proliferation laws in the US that prevent us from being able to reprocess spent reactor mass, we can GREATLY reduce the amount of waste produced, as well as greatly reduce the amount of time that said waste is radioactive.

Plus, radioactive waste stored underground somewhere is, well, quite a bit cleaner than belching tons and tons of carbon-rich smoke into the atmosphere, don't you think?