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[mernst23]

Your desperate attempt of reflection is ridiculous, everything you did is calling people who don't share your opinion anti-vaxxers equivalents.

It's nice to claim that renewable energy can't cover the completle energy needs in the USA, despite the fact that several studies show the incredible potential (the USA could be a renewable energy paradise) of renewable energy in the USA, which could several times covers the energy needs of the USA.
http://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/USStatesWWS.pdf

That paper literally only discusses the capability of meeting apparent power capacity estimates for loads in 2050. There is no road map or discussion of the necessary requirements of pretty much an entire electric grid transformation required to meet these goals, as you pretty much need to scrap the entire energy grid as currently designed and start over. Distributed generation models and/or microgrid models depend on baseload entities such as nuclear and gas to bail them out when the sun doesn't shine, or wind speed is too high or too low.

As a fun aside. Our service territory has about 14000 mw load demand right now at 8 am on a wednesday. Of that 14000, 10000 is being suplied by 5 nuke sites which have a capacity of 10500, while 25 wind sites are supplying 10mw. That's right, 10 of an installed 3000 capacity.

 

[Hari Seldon]

It is not between nuclear and renewable, it is between nuclear and super cheap natural gas plants that they can build anywhere in 12 months with little red tape.

 

[Buba Big Guns]

Your desperate attempt of reflection is ridiculous, everything you did is calling people who don't share your opinion anti-vaxxers equivalents.

It's nice to claim that renewable energy can't cover the completle energy needs in the USA, despite the fact that several studies show the incredible potential (the USA could be a renewable energy paradise) of renewable energy in the USA, which could several times covers the energy needs of the USA.
http://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/USStatesWWS.pdf

21 energy experts, from institutions including Columbia University, Stanford and the Brookings Institution published a scathing rebuttal to that report. If all your "arguments" are based on it, then I'd be doing a little more research if I were you.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/...ists-squash-hopes-for-100-percent-renewables/

The scientists concluded that Jacobson's work ”involves errors, inappropriate methods, and implausible assumptions." Jacobson is standing behind his study saying there is ”not a single error" in his paper...seems like a really great scientist if he won't listen to anyone who finds faults in his study.

Some choice quotes:

”I had largely ignored the papers arguing that doing all with renewables was possible at negative costs because they struck me as obviously incorrect," said David Victor of the University of California, San Diego. ”But when policy makers started using this paper for scientific support, I thought, ‘this paper is dangerous.'"

The rebuttal also included this warning: ”Policy makers should treat with caution any visions of a rapid, reliable, and low-cost transition to entire energy systems that rely almost exclusively on wind, solar, and hydroelectric power."

I laughed my ass off when Bill Nye gave this guy the spotlight in his very first episode of his new show. Just shows how everyone is susceptible to buzzwords and misinformation.

https://youtu.be/c7baTdyHv8g

oh hey they updated

That was really interesting. Thorium based molten salt modular reactors along with renewables will definitely be the way to go. Glad China is taking the lead.

 

[TheRedSnifit]

As a fun aside. Our service territory has about 14000 mw load demand right now at 8 am on a wednesday. Of that 14000, 10000 is being suplied by 5 nuke sites which have a capacity of 10500, while 25 wind sites are supplying 10mw. That's right, 10 of an installed 3000 capacity.

Lol.

Sounds like money well spent.

 

[Syrus]

Thats a damn shame. Alot leas pollution if we used nuclear over fossil fuel. I find it funny people think we can power the US on wind and solar alone

 

[Jay Sosa]

What some of you always seem to forget is that yes, maybe nuclear power can be super awesome....but as long as they're built buy us greedy and stupid humans there will always be problems. Cutting corners, paying off officials to look away, dumping waste without the right security precautions to save money.. and so on and so forth.

It's nice that theoretically it might be awesome and safe but given our track record it might be better not to risk it.

 

[Buba Big Guns]

What some of you always seem to forget is that yes, maybe nuclear power can be super awesome....but as long as they're built buy us greedy and stupid humans there will always be problems. Cutting corners, paying off officials to look away, dumping waste without the right security precautions to save money.. and so on and so forth.

It's nice that theoretically it might be awesome and safe but given our track record it might be better not to risk it.

Thats...simply not true lol. The nuclear industry is one of the most regulated and highly engineered industries in the world. Not only on a federal level, but on a worldwide scale with international bodies, the UN, IAEA etc. overseeing all nuclear activity

 

[Wilsongt]

Guess who's paying for the failed reactor recoup costs?

The tax payers!

http://www.postandcourier.com/busin...l&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=user-share

 

[DrROBschiz]

Guess who's paying for the failed reactor recoup costs?

The tax payers!

http://www.postandcourier.com/busin...l&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=user-share

The technology nor the science behind it arent to blame

Though I will say that even with Gen4 LWR designs... they need to be handled by the absolute best in terms of resource management. And Im not a fan of even the latest iterations of this dying design


Its a damn shame these plants wont be able to deliver and the taxpayers are stuck with the bill for this massive failure (though after reading the article it looks like there will be many legal battles ahead)

We needed Alternative and simpler Nuclear decades ago

Making giant LWR plants runs such high risk even though we still have many Gen4s going up around the world

 

[Ganhyun]

As a fun aside. Our service territory has about 14000 mw load demand right now at 8 am on a wednesday. Of that 14000, 10000 is being suplied by 5 nuke sites which have a capacity of 10500, while 25 wind sites are supplying 10mw. That's right, 10 of an installed 3000 capacity.

So, each of the wind sites could provide up to 3000 if it were windy enough? Just want to make sure I am understanding properly.

 

[Jay Sosa]

Thats...simply not true lol. The nuclear industry is one of the most regulated and highly engineered industries in the world. Not only on a federal level, but on a worldwide scale with international bodies, the UN, IAEA etc. overseeing all nuclear activity

then how did fukushima happen?

https://www.google.at/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/environment/2012/oct/15/fukushima-disaster-avoided-nuclear-plant

In a reversal of its insistence that nothing could have protected the plant against the earthquake and tsunami that killed almost 20,000 people on 11 March, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) said it had known safety improvements were needed before the disaster, but had failed to implement them.

"When looking back on the accident, the problem was that preparations were not made in advance," Tepco's internal reform taskforce, led by the firm's president, Naomi Hirose, said in a statement on Monday.

And how does something like that happen, if everything is so totally safe and regulated:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/08/nuclear-waste-accident-2-years-ago-may-cost-more-than-2-billion-to-clean-up/

The dump's filtration system, which was supposed to "prevent any radioactive releases," subsequently failed.

LANL officials have since acknowledged several violations of its Hazardous Waste Facility Permit including the failure to follow proper procedures in making the switch to organic litter, and the lack of follow-up on waste that tests showed to be highly acidic.

sounds great

or this:

http://www.businessinsider.de/hanford-nuclear-site-tunnel-collapse-2017-5?r=US&IR=T

The later discovery of the roof cave-in triggered a broader safety alert, since such an incident may have led to a release of radioactive materials

 

[Buba Big Guns]

then how did fukushima happen?

https://www.google.at/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/environment/2012/oct/15/fukushima-disaster-avoided-nuclear-plant



And how does something like that happen, if everything is so totally safe and regulated:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/08/nuclear-waste-accident-2-years-ago-may-cost-more-than-2-billion-to-clean-up/





sounds great

or this:

http://www.businessinsider.de/hanford-nuclear-site-tunnel-collapse-2017-5?r=US&IR=T

How many nuclear reactors are there in the world? Fukushima was one of many, where human error was the root cause of failure (proper procedures, practices and regulations were not followed), not cronyism and corruption which you implied. You can see the waste management and maintenance record of pretty much any nuclear plant, it's all public information. Something like Fukushima happening with modern reactors and practices would be extremely rare...

You can make that argument for any energy source in that case, and the entire electrical grid. It's all run by humans, and no energy source is waste free.

Heres a video from Canada's nuclear regulator explaining it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vggzl9OngaM

You just posted random buzzwords without even understanding how the industry or the plant designs even work

 

[Jay Sosa]

You just posted random buzzwords without even understanding how the industry or the plant designs even work

I posted articles by the Guardian and arstechnica. But whatever makes you feel superior over us stupid people that don't agree with you.

Btw: Found some more buzzwords for you.

http://www.nature.com/news/nuclear-power-plants-prepare-for-old-age-1.20499

The plant’s damaged bolts are just one example of the maintenance issues facing ageing nuclear reactors around the world. The International Atomic Energy Agency and the NRC are developing management guidelines for these facilities, but the problem may be most acute for the United States, whose fleet of 99 reactors is the oldest and largest.

Former NRC chair Allison Macfarlane says that the industry has been struggling economically in the face of cheap natural gas, and that many nuclear power companies are investing the bare minimum when it comes to maintenance and upgrades. She would rather see a transition to newer — and safer — reactor designs than attempts to push old ones to their limits

But that is not the whole story, says Dave Lochbaum, head of the nuclear-safety project at the Union of Concerned Scientists advocacy group in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The ultrasonic inspection that identified the damaged bolts at Indian Point — a technique that is now mandatory — came about only after the state of New York challenged the adequacy of visual inspections nearly a decade ago, he says.

All of these article underline exactly what I was saying in my first post: Theoretically nuclear power might be great, the reality paints a vastly different picture.

 

[DrROBschiz]

I posted articles by the Guardian and arstechnica. But whatever makes you feel superior over us stupid people that don't agree with you.

Btw: Found some more buzzwords for you.

http://www.nature.com/news/nuclear-power-plants-prepare-for-old-age-1.20499







All of these article underline exactly what I was saying in my first post: Theoretically nuclear power might be great, the reality paints a vastly different picture.

Former NRC chair Allison Macfarlane says that the industry has been struggling economically in the face of cheap natural gas, and that many nuclear power companies are investing the bare minimum when it comes to maintenance and upgrades. She would rather see a transition to newer — and safer — reactor designs than attempts to push old ones to their limits

This sentiment has been echoed in this thread over and over

And it needs to happen

 

[Jay Sosa]

Sure, but it doesn't because that costs a lot of money that seemingly no one is willing to spend.

 

[Nikodemos]

Former NRC chair Allison Macfarlane says that the industry has been struggling economically in the face of cheap natural gas, and that many nuclear power companies are investing the bare minimum when it comes to maintenance and upgrades. She would rather see a transition to newer — and safer — reactor designs than attempts to push old ones to their limits

This sentiment has been echoed in this thread over and over

And it needs to happen

The biggest problem with the LWR is its original sin. As initially designed, it was not envisioned to be upscaled in a civilian setting. It was created as a compact power source for warships and subject to the stringent maintenance standards of military equipment where money is no issue. Basically no part of the previous sentence applies to civilian LWRs. And therein lies the problem, because LWR technology is inherently flawed, due to its working fluid (critical water), and needs constant monitoring. As Alvin Weinberg's team noted in their report published in the mid-80s (30 years ago!!!), LWRs don't do well when upscaled, and tend to be capricious and unstable in operation at larger dimensions.

Now, what did the companies do, after 30+ years of no new nuclear build? Let's build that 1.2 GW behemoth and trust in the powers of handwavium for all the issues that should arise! They fell right into the feedback loop trap. Large LWRs are expensive and time-consuming to build, so let's shoot for the moon and go for the largest. Except of course by making it bigger, any problem which arises will be equally amplified. There's no such thing as economy of scale when building LWRs. The bigger it is, the bigger and more costly the fixes will be when problems arise.
Unfortunately, the current nuclear industry people have regular heavy-industrial backgrounds, where economy of scale is king. Which is why they desperately need fresh blood, with non-heavy industry backgrounds.

 

[DrROBschiz]

The biggest problem with the LWR is its original sin. As initially designed, it was not envisioned to be upscaled in a civilian setting. It was created as a compact power source for warships and subject to the stringent maintenance standards of military equipment where money is no issue. Basically no part of the previous sentence applies to civilian LWRs. And therein lies the problem, because LWR technology is inherently flawed, due to its working fluid (critical water), and needs constant monitoring. As Alvin Weinberg's team noted in their report published in the mid-80s (30 years ago!!!), LWRs don't do well when upscaled, and tend to be capricious and unstable in operation at larger dimensions.

Now, what did the companies do, after 30+ years of no new nuclear build? Let's build that 1.2 GW behemoth and trust in the powers of handwavium for all the issues that should arise! They fell right into the feedback loop trap. Large LWRs are expensive and time-consuming to build, so let's shoot for the moon and go for the largest. Except of course by making it bigger, any problem which arises will be equally amplified. There's no such thing as economy of scale when building LWRs. The bigger it is, the bigger and more costly the fixes will be when problems arise.
Unfortunately, the current nuclear industry people have regular heavy-industrial backgrounds, where economy of scale is king. Which is why they desperately need fresh blood, with non-heavy industry backgrounds.

Nail on the head

Unfortunately that feedback loop is very similar the ones that lock down fossil fuel investments and capitalism in general

They made such a massive infrastructure around one fuel type that to propose any other alternative would have doomed everyone involved.... and thats exactly what should have happened years ago

But in a capitalist society companies lobby fucking hard to stay alive even if the future is inevitably grim

Nuclear has huge potential but ONLY if something new is built. Solid uranium LWR's arent going to do it

 

[Buba Big Guns]

I posted articles by the Guardian and arstechnica. But whatever makes you feel superior over us stupid people that don't agree with you.

Btw: Found some more buzzwords for you.

http://www.nature.com/news/nuclear-power-plants-prepare-for-old-age-1.20499







All of these article underline exactly what I was saying in my first post: Theoretically nuclear power might be great, the reality paints a vastly different picture.

Your first post was saying nuclear companies are paying off politicians to dump their waste in sketchy ways...

What some of you always seem to forget is that yes, maybe nuclear power can be super awesome....but as long as they're built buy us greedy and stupid humans there will always be problems. Cutting corners, paying off officials to look away, dumping waste without the right security precautions to save money.. and so on and so forth.

This is just as ignorant as drive by comments spreading misinformation. Your post literally has no technical merit. I would love to see evidence of the bolded on a wide spread scale that's even worth mentioning.

Also, those articles you posted prove that the watchdogs and regulators are doing their work to find faults and deficiencies in the current operating plants.

Sure, but it doesn't because that costs a lot of money that seemingly no one is willing to spend.

Again, a little research goes a long way. There are many new start ups working on small modular and molten salt based reactor designs. China and India are pouring billions into new reactor technology. In fact, if you read the thread at all, there was a bunch of information posted such as this:

https://youtu.be/c7baTdyHv8g

 

[Hari Seldon]

The biggest problem with the LWR is its original sin. As initially designed, it was not envisioned to be upscaled in a civilian setting. It was created as a compact power source for warships and subject to the stringent maintenance standards of military equipment where money is no issue. Basically no part of the previous sentence applies to civilian LWRs. And therein lies the problem, because LWR technology is inherently flawed, due to its working fluid (critical water), and needs constant monitoring. As Alvin Weinberg's team noted in their report published in the mid-80s (30 years ago!!!), LWRs don't do well when upscaled, and tend to be capricious and unstable in operation at larger dimensions.

Now, what did the companies do, after 30+ years of no new nuclear build? Let's build that 1.2 GW behemoth and trust in the powers of handwavium for all the issues that should arise! They fell right into the feedback loop trap. Large LWRs are expensive and time-consuming to build, so let's shoot for the moon and go for the largest. Except of course by making it bigger, any problem which arises will be equally amplified. There's no such thing as economy of scale when building LWRs. The bigger it is, the bigger and more costly the fixes will be when problems arise.
Unfortunately, the current nuclear industry people have regular heavy-industrial backgrounds, where economy of scale is king. Which is why they desperately need fresh blood, with non-heavy industry backgrounds.

What you say is true, but the major problem is that the NRC is filled with the same people and they are the ones who say which designs get approval to build. And they have no clue to how approve anything that is not a LWR lol. So if you want to actually build a plant, it better be a LWR.

We need more government investment in R&D in places like Idaho. The LWR was a government design given to civilian use. That is the only way to get the NRC to approve something, build it at a national lab, and fire the existing NRC people and replace them with the people who built the prototype so they can approve civilian versions of it.

 

[Lubricus]

Southern Company, parent of mega-utility Georgia Power, has distributed a press release this morning that they have decided to continue with the construction of Plant Vogtle units 3 & 4 – currently the only nuclear power plants under construction in the country. South Carolina utilities chose to scrap construction of their units in the past few months, and Duke Energy more recently halted units that were still in the planning stage.

Georgia Power Chairman and President Paul Bowers said via the release, “Completing the Vogtle 3 & 4 expansion will enable us to continue delivering clean, safe, affordable and reliable energy to millions of Georgians, both today and in the future. The two new units at Plant Vogtle will be in service for 60 to 80 years and will add another low-cost, carbon-free energy source to our already diverse fuel mix.”

The key phrase to garner support with the PSC is “diverse fuel mix”. Despite the current messaging coming from the White House, regulators believe the era of coal powered electric generation is dead. Despite some overly rosy scenarios painted by some academics, there’s also the understanding that renewable energy – specifically wind and solar – are still not sufficiently developed to meet base load generation needs.

That leaves the remaining feed stock of natural gas, the currently favored fuel for new electric generation. The shale oil boom in the U.S. has had a beneficial by-product of lowering natural gas prices to historical lows. At this time, the supply is plentiful. This is why another phrase in Bowers’ statement is important. Those making planning decisions for the future of this plant have a 60-80 year time horizon. Fossil fuel prices have a volatile history over the past half century. The two oil price spikes were followed by a glut in the early 80’s, when natural gas was often burned off during oil production because it cost more to ship to market than it was worth. And yet, years later, fossil fuels were in short supply with dramatic spikes again.

In addition to a vote by the Georgia Public Service Commission, a vote by the United States Senate is needed to increase the economic feasibility of completing the plant. Vogtle 3 and 4 is backed by federal tax credits, which have a deadline for the plant being in-service by 2020. Originally scheduled for delivery in 2016 or 2017, Vogtle’s construction delays by prime contractor Westinghouse and their subsequent bankruptcy have virtually stalled progress. An extension of this tax credit passed the House in June via H.R. 1551. Senate action and a Presidential signature are still required to complete the construction financing package.

https://www.georgiapol.com/2017/08/31/georgia-power-decides-move-forward-plant-vogtle-construction/


I can understand their reasoning for continued construction but I also get an uneasy feeling that maybe the cost will be too high and our electric rates will be rising high in Georgia.
Georgia Power already adds 9% to Georgia Power bills to recover some of its money.

 

[Sulik2]

The USA really needs to figure out its issues with massive works cost overruns. Building roads and things costs a factor of 10x more in the USA then other developed countries. Looks like these reactors are the same principle. Lack of proper government regulation and oversight is killing the infrastructure in this country.

 

[TheCochese]

https://www.georgiapol.com/2017/08/31/georgia-power-decides-move-forward-plant-vogtle-construction/


I can understand their reasoning for continued construction but I also get an uneasy feeling that maybe the cost will be too high and our electric rates will be rising high in Georgia.
Georgia Power already adds 9% to Georgia Power bills to recover some of its money.

We've already paid out the ass for these.

 

[Lubricus]

We've already paid out the ass for these.

And we will continue to pay- from a Georgia Public Service Commission release today (.pdf)

3. That the revised forecast for Georgia Power’s share of the total capital cost of $8.77 billion is
reasonable and is approved. The actual impact on customers of capital costs over what has already
been approved is expected to be approximately $1.41 billion

http://www.psc.state.ga.us/GetNewsRecordAttachment.aspx?ID=730