Blahb you are brainwa$hed, we don't expect you to understand-Insanity has a convenient way of masking itself as intelligent, then making excuses for what goes wrong when it always does; the consequences are not for you to deal with; that's convenient/$tupid Science-- we're all Japan now...even a 5- year- old knows this...you nuke physicists/ scientist$ have sub-spec brains, engineers too!
@Rosyheart1 Actually, as long as you don't swim in the coolant fluid, you'll be fine. Fukushima is an excellent example of how safe nuclear power is. A devestating earhquake, in top 5 ever hardest earthquakes, followed by an equally devastating tsunami of 15 metres high, failed to damage the plant.
If they had housed their backup generator indoors, nothing would've happened.
dude millions of people are running around poisoned and dieing because of nuclear accidents. they are saying no to all nuclear energy. dude who pays you
@wolfgang8u In reality there are only a few hundred confirmed victims of nuclear power. The building of the Hoover Dam alone claimed more lives.
And you really should discount everyone from the Tjernobyl disaster, as that plant was sub-spec, even for the first generation of nuclear generators. And still they had to disable the safety mechanism and make a lot of mistakes before an accident could happen.
@Blahb27 In reality who is keeping the death tool? And under what cercumstances do they rule out what counts as caused by radioactive exposure in comparison not natural lukemia deaths (as only one example of death) THe particles from Chernoble where carried all around the world once it enterd the jet streams now who is counting that who is tracking every single particle and where it lands. Or even who injests or inhales it. Now japan with three confirmed melt downs. Oh no radioactive ocean water
@wolfgang8u Mate, where do you get your information. Wherever it is, they don't know much.
A single or few particles inside you do not kill. You wouldn't even notice it. You need a massive amount of exposure before it becomes lethal. And there were no meltdowns in Japan. And even if they had, the reactor vat is designed so that the core would fall into a specially designed basin, disperse and cool down by itself.
but we can't use Uranium or other metals, those metals produce very much waste, we need to use Hydrogen isotopes, to make nuclear fusion ! It's more clean, more safe, more efficient !
but it continue to be the most efficient than fossiles
@gkyy3c there's a joke amongst scientists that nuclear fusion will always be 20 or so years away because thats whats been said for decades. the difficulty with fusion is it takes so much energy to get the heat required for this reaction they've only ever been able to make it cost effective once for a couple of seconds (ie. there was more energy coming out then being put in). the difficulty comes from containing and finding away to exploit energy thats basically like a little sun
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I live in the downwind prediction area of a nuke. Hurricane Andrew destroyed the emergency warning system. The utility company wanted to put two nuke units back on line before repairing the emergency warning system. I can do without nukes.
I think greenhouse gases are the lesser worry. The world is slowly but surely running out of oil. I feel we should use nuclear power to help as a bridge to truly renewable energy sources. "Drill here, Drill now" is going to fall way short of what we actually need. Nuclear will help lessen reliance on imported oil, and help conserve oil for other vital uses.
I'm not an environmentalist by any stretch of the imagination, I just believe in the truth. Coming from an admitted environmentalist just makes this video that much more impressive. Well done, and thanks for not distorting the truth to prove a political point.
We shouldn't replace one bad option - coal - with another - nuclear power.
We need a massive investment in new technologies and new alternatives. We can't tiptoe anymore. We need a windfall profits tax to get the funds to do this right.
You keep thinking, incorrectly, that nuclear power plants need fresh water to function. You are also "forgetting" that coal power plants also use water for coolant purposes, and there are 6 times as many coal plants than nuclear.
You are avoiding the point that nuclear power is generating far more carbon free electricity than renewables.
We desperately need electricity that doesn't produce greenhouse gasses.
I recognize the arguments made here are persuasive with regard to the dangers of coal plants and mining. I support moving past them as fast as possible.
A lack of water for nuclear plants may be a harbinger of a lack of water for coal plants too.
so we move to Bryant cycle Gas cooled Fast reactors, they require half the water and what is used is completely separated from the nuclear fuel, meaning it could be pumped back for use by the public (though most likely not for human consumption to avoid a political nightmare)
Global Warming? Before buying into ALL the hype and main-stream media panic inducing psuedo-facts concerning "global warming", do some of your own research. Check NASA, check other scientists, just do your own research and draw your own conclusions. Then ask Mr.Edwards how to address 1/7th of a myth.
I've done quite a bit of research on my own, trust me. :) The topic has certainly been muddied and sensationalized, and people have misinterpreted it in leadership and media--The Day After Tomorrow is a vast exaggeration, of course, and I groaned when I heard of municipalities buying too little salt for the winter because of global warming...
But it's certainly not a myth. I'd be glad to speak on the specifics, here in comments or email me at kuronekoyama AT gmail.
John Edwards recently said that doubling US nuclear plants would only address 1/7th of the global warming problem.
Is it even possible to double our nuclear power plants, given the complicated nature of siting and resolving the waste issue?
Would the cost of subsidizing so many nuclear power plants be less efficient in reducing greenhouse gasses than doing something else with that same money?
For the last [explicative] time--the US federal government is NOT subsiding nuclear power. They are providing loan guarantees (for a total of 4 plants which will be built at 2 sites) to offset the artificially (viz. the political risk associated with the baseless anti-nuclear movement) inflated financial risk associated with building a nuclear power station. The only way this money will ever be spent is if the anti-nuclear movement halts construction or operation of these 4 new plants.
I was not referring to the bill you are discussing. I was referring to the nuclear plants that have already been built with government money both via rate hikes and in direct payments.
By the way, just because this bill doesn't give direct subsidies now doesn't mean their lobbyists won't seek them once they have begun building them.
I presume you would oppose such subsidies but that won't stop legislators who get campaign contributions from the industry from giving out that money anyway.
The cite the section of a federal appropriations act which provides direct payments to any commercial nuclear power plant project. There was limited funding from DOE for Nuclear Power 2010, but it was quite limited. There is not current federal money being given out to my knowledge.
Rate hikes in regulated areas are not government subsidy or payment. The state government is allowing the utility to charge more for electricity. I agree with your insinuation that regulated electric economies are wrong. Notwithstanding, TVA and South Texas Project--the ones building new plants, I believe (correct me with a source if I am mistaken), operate in free markets. Most electricity is deregulated in this country.
Every 1GW nuclear plant built prevents 3.4 million tons of coal from being burned every year. New plants do even more with less. Electrical generation accounts for 48% of CO2 emitted, so nuclear has already done more than any other green technology.
Waste is only a political issue.
Solar, wind, and other green sources already have immense subsidies. What more would you have them do? The remaining CO2 is from things like transportation (solvable with air car or hydrogen economy), industry, etc.
In an earlier comment, the author of the above video correctly noted that risk is a product of probability and consequence. But then he stated that "there's no way to even guess at the probability" of a terrorist attack against a nuclear power plant.
That's very interesting. So he advocates a technology with an INCALCULABLE RISK. That is exactly why most people oppose nuclear power.
That is because it is almost impossible to judge the actions of individuals. They can judge the results of the attack itself fairly easily, but not the likelihood of an attack itself. It is the same reason that nobody had a defense for 9/11: they knew it was possible, but not likely. The effects of aircraft on buildings are better understood than that because they can test it, human reactions are much harder to predict. Using your method, skyscrapers are a bigger risk than nuclear power plants.
That's a straw man. If the risk of skyscraper collapse and the risk of radioactive contamination are both UNKNOWN, then obviously one cannot state that "skyscrapers are a BIGGER risk than nuclear power plants."
That was the EXACT same argument that you just made:
"there's no way to even guess at the probability" of a terrorist attack against a nuclear power plant. That's very interesting. So he advocates a technology with an INCALCULABLE RISK.
Look familiar? I just pointed out that several deadly terrorist attacks have happened against buildings yet none have occurred to nuclear plants. I'm just pointing out that you aren't being consistent with your arguments.
I made no comparison with skyscrapers. That's YOUR obfuscation. It's irrelevant.
So there's no inconsistency on my part, and you have no reasoned rebuttal. The risk of nuclear power is incalculable, as admitted by kuronekoyama.
Your flawed manner of looking at risk would also mean that any activity is an incalculable risk and inherently dangerous. You are making the argument that if "no way to even guess at the probability" then it must be bad. That's just being foolish.
The skyscraper comparison is to point out that even if we say all violent terrorist attacks are equally improbable, several have been committed against skyscrapers and none at nuclear plants.
You are so anxious to say the case is closed that you are making careless mistakes and putting words in other people's mouths. kuronekoyama admitted that "there's no way to even guess at the probability" of a terrorist attack, not that the risk of nuclear power in incalculable.
Try solving the problem instead of denying it exists, you can get much better results that way.
Ah, the old standby of those who make emotionally based or untenable arguments--when proved wrong, or spurious, call the other person a liar and not worth your time. Classic.
With the money needed for one new nuclear power plant one can purchase 20 turnkey high tech and highly automated thinfilm solar module factories with a yearly output of 160 MW per factory from Oerlikon.
So, with these 20 Swiss Oerlikon solar module factories one can produce solar modules with a total peak power of 48'000 MW in 15 years, which is actually 30 times more peak power than what a new French EPR nuclear reactor delivers.
Applied Materials (California) also offers similar factories.
That would be correct, if it cost no money and required no raw materials to run the Oerlikon factories and produce the solar panels. Unfortunately, the cost of construction is only part of the overall cost of the factory. Raw materials will be intense, because silicon is very expensive. It's also produced at relatively low capacity, meaning any sudden demand will cause shortages and slow production of the solar panels themselves.
The most expensive raw material of Oerlikon thinfilm modules is basically window glass. The thin layer (0.001mm) of silicon is applied with Silane (cheap): There is no need for silicon polycrystalline material whatsoever. Since houses need to be protected from rain anyway, you might just want to use window glass with a thin layer of silicon.
Define cheap. We're talking about 20 factories each producing over 500,000 square meters of panel per year (assuming a generous 30% efficiency). In total, about 108 million square feet of glass coated with silicon by chemical vapor definition each year.
As I said, the substrate (window glass) is the most expensive part. The silicon coating is neglectable. Silane is cheap (this is not polycristalline silicon). Also, 25% of the earth crust is silicon.
1 Million square meters of thin film solar panels require one cubic meter of silicon. The raw silicon needed for 10 million square meters fits in one truck.
What's the cost of 10 million square meters of glass? What's the cost of enough silane to produce 10 cubic meters of silicon? What's the energy cost to perform chemical deposition on 10 million square meters of substrate? What are the other operating costs of the plants?
You can't simply look at the cost of constructing these plants and assume that they will produce their maximum capacity for free from that point on, or even that they can produce it at current market rates.
As I said: You do need a roof anyway. And so does the solar module factory. Oerlikon actually placed solar modules on their production facilities to generate a significant portion of their electricity needs to operate the factory.
Nukes calculate with 60 years of operation at over 90% capacity. Don't calculate with load follow even though electricity consumption during day time is more than doubled. Don't calculate the waste costs. Don't considering the CO2 emissions of the bulldozers in the Uranium mines with low Uranium content etc.
When you say "Nukes calculate," who do you mean? There are a lot of independent and regulatory groups that perform those calculations. NRC, IAEA, MIT all come to mind. It's not the people who run the plant. And they use real-world data, not ideal numbers.
No load following:
That's because nuke plants don't load follow, they're baseload.
You have never heard of the concept of selling electricity to another country? France makes a LOT of money selling their surplus electricity to other consumers who don't have clean energy.
If it is so easy to make money with nuclear power plants, why aren't the private investors lining up and why do the nuclear power operaters require subsidies?
The investors ARE lined up, they have been since nuclear energy was created. Why do you think they got built so fast? The problem is that governments control what can be built and the laws that govern their operation.
Nuclear energy gets less subsidies than most other energy sources. Check the IEA if you don't believe me. Nuclear gets lots of R&D money, but thats it. Renewables get more money overall.
Just google it, thats what I did. They aren't hiding who is interested in building new plants. At least 2 licenses have already been bought. How many follow will partially depend on how smoothly things go for the next year or two.
Then who is financing France's new reactors? If there is a profit to be made, a bank is there. They just need to see that the risks are manageable.
Ah, but there's a lot of promising work in passive extraction of uranium ore from seawater. It is as of yet too expensive to be economically viable (costs about three times the market price of ore), but as the technique improves and the price of mined uranium increases, it will quickly have its day.
It will never be economically viable, because the mass of uranium collecting polymer needed to generate a certain amount of power is far lower than the mass of material needed to generate the same amount of power with photovoltaics (without all the collecting, processing waste handling etc.).
You can also generate electricity with biogas from berries, but if the amount of energy put in to grow and collect the berries is far higher than the electricity produced with it, what's the point.
I could have said the same thing about solar cells a decade ago. Technology is a wonderful thing. If the nuclear resurgence continues, I'd expect to see new research into that area as potential profits increase. It is the exact same reason why PVs are finally doing so well.
Good, if nuclear fission is so great and we can collect it easily and cheaply from sea water, I guess there is no reason to invest in fusion reactors anymore. I know what can be done with those 15 billion tax-dollars invested in the ITER too.
Sorry, but fusion kicks the ass of every other energy source. It is as good as it can get until matter/antimatter reactions, if those would even work. Fission and renewables can give us plenty of energy, fusion can give EVERYBODY excess energy.
Because they are ready to go now, energy demand isn't just going to wait for fusion to be ready. Fusion won't be ready for at least another 50 years. They still need to build the tools that will build the tools that will make the gizmo, which still has to be designed. Its the same reason why people put money into solar 50 years ago, when it sucked.
Nuke operators have been paying into an escrow account for years to finance the construction of a long-term waste repository. That's what's been paying for construction at Yucca Mountain (and, incidentally, what financed the numerous studies that pointed to Yucca as the best location).
No, your information about the nuclear waste fund is incorrect. The money being collected from nuclear utilities is certainly NOT "more than enough to solve the problem."
Even though the premises of the program underestimate the cost of nuclear waste disposal, the fund is still in danger of going broke. The Department of Energy said so last year.
"In danger of" and "already" broke are not the same thing. When they do go broke, then there will have been a shortage, till then nothing is wrong. The biggest reason that costs have gone over is because of the constant obstructions at Yucca. Its the most studied piece of land and the world, yet that still doesn't seem to be good enough. They are forced to do new studies and waste more time even though the reports all say the same thing. That is why I say the waste isn't the problem.
Any large power plant including coal is a risk concentration because millions of people depend on one single power facility. What if some bad people knock out a couple of large coal or nuclear power plants at once?
I think I counted 14 reactors that the planes had to fly over on the routes they took. Attacking a nuclear plant is a dumb way to die while accomplishing nothing and getting EVERYBODY pissed off at you. Google "concreteplane" and see if that is really a threat.
What would happen if a few GW power plants were knocked out? (Doesn't need to be nuclear can be coal as well). There wouldn't be any electricity for a year or so? Is this good for economy?
First off, there are already reserve plants as it is. Nuclear plants need to go offline to refuel, so the back up is already designed into the system.
Second off, how would the plants be knocked out? I'd love to see somebody try to disable a nuclear plant, the best PR the industry could ever get. The biggest weakness of the energy market is in the same place it has always been, source won't change a thing.
I'd still like to know how? A cooling tower doesn't need much to work, so I'd guess it would probably be a couple weeks/months of reduced power until it is rebuilt.
A generator is FAR harder to fix than a tower. A tower is relatively simple and easy to do since it isn't much more than rebar and concrete. A generator will need to be tested, the fault found, a repair attempted, and then potentially replaced. Every step requires slow, careful, work done by a variety of experts.
A high-rise building is incredibly complex compared to a cooling tower. A tower just needs to be stable and provide a draft with access at the base, not the case on a building.
Do you want to know the costs of photovoltaics per kWh (no moving part, no radiation, no extensive heat or pressure) if operated for 60 years as well?
I don't plan to be building my roof OUT OF glass. I'd love to put a solar panel on TOP of my roof, but you can't just say that it's subsumed in the cost of building.
Windows, perhaps--but most places outside of city high-rises don't have a whole lot of window space, and what there is isn't facing the sun an optimal amount of time.
It can't be subsumed because it a huge additional cost that isn't "business as normal." If I'm not mistaken most of those designs have the panels on top of an already functional roof. Not the same thing. Either way, the design still isn't economically feasible compared to a normal roof.
Of course it is economically feasible compared to a normal roof. Otherwise home owners wouldn't obviously forgo tiles and substitute them with solar modules from the start.
Also, China actually installed 77% of all solar thermal collectors of the world in 2005. The Chinese know, that building a nuclear power plant to run inefficient electric heaters is more expensive than simply placing solar thermal collectors on ones roof.
You obviously don't understand ROI. Based on my own experience, a normal roof on an average sized house can be covered in a one day by 5 people. How long does it take to install solar panels and wiring? Can any contractor do this or does somebody else come in? Most people who install solar panels are fairly well off, they can afford to have a $24,000 roof that won't pay for itself for 17 years or so.
Solar thermal is not solar cells. Totally separate technologies with no produced electricity.
Microfactory has also forgotten to account for the build times of these new factories. Since only Oerlikon makes them and they admit to having a 300MW backlog, placing new orders won't help much. How many companies (at once) do you think can build nuclear plants in the US? We've had 44 going at once in the past as I recall. So today that would be about 44,000-66,000MW in 5-7 years? Not that we could afford it. :)
You have a really big hang up on subsidies don't you? Which is weird because Oerlikon gets rather heavy subsidies and tax breaks because of its research. The EPR is an entirely new design with an inexperienced company that is having major labor and management issues, so of course it is behind. The numbers I gave are the conservative ones as it is. In sheer fast MWs nothing can beat nuclear and fossil fuels.
You know, I generally just don't like to pay taxes.
R&D at Oerlikon is funded by Oerlikon and not by the state. And even if it wasn't: Thinfilm solar cells is a new technology and deserves R&D subsidies. Nuclear fission is over 50 years old.
Besides the EPR not only got R&D subsidies. WORSE: It got export subsidies.
I don't like subsidies much either, but I'm not oblivious as to how they are used.
Why do you say Oerlikon doesn't get any R&D subsides, when I've seen them including said subsidies into their business plan? Just because it is new doesn't mean it should get money. Wind is hundreds of years old and the "modern" solar cell was patented in 1946, so don't be making age comparisons. Nuclear at least has made far larger improvements and makes a significant impact on global warming.
Not even the companies buying Oerlikon factories receive any subsidies.
Only the home-owners generating clean electricity receive a certain amount per kWh and this useful since it reduces load on the grid and it rewards those who generate the most kWh and not those who just do some random research with 60 year old technology.
The company admits that it is relying on subsidies to stay competitive! I gave you a list of countries that were giving subsidies to manufacturers, not consumers. Stop being in denial about it, it really isn't that big a deal.
If subsides worked like that then no country could afford to have them. I'd also like to point out that that the only energy source using really old technology is hydro, and that is because it is so hard to replace the water turbines. At least get your facts straight.
I'm all for the improvement and growth of solar cells, but this isn't a reasonable idea. Especially since the company website says that the output is only 30MW a year and that 3 units will need to be bought in order to make the micromorph tandem modules. The 300MW backlog that Oerlikon has doesn't make matters any easier. So thats 6 factories producing super efficient solar cells (where did you find the cost numbers again?) at 180MW per year. Your case was better before you created numbers.
"12/6/06 - Oerlikon has been awarded a contract totalling CHF 320 million from German API GmbH in Offenbach. The order includes eight Kai 1200s, 40 laser scribing and 16 TCO systems as well as the associated equipment. Oerlikon Solar will supply turnkey production systems with an annual produced capacity of 160 MW." That's 200M Euros for a single 160MW factory.
I suppose "lackey" is at least a step up from "paid lobbyist" which is one of the other accusations I frequently get...
Let's compare carbon footprints, shall we? CarbonFootprint dot com. I got 6.698 tonnes per year--it's nothing to write home about, but it's about one third the US average. How do you fare?
It would actually be kind of interesting to compare what everybody has who comments on your vid. See who is actually doing their part in action as well as words.
4.925 tonnes, with 4.296 tonnes coming from secondary sources.
He doesn't have claims about the absence of technical problems to waste disposal: he has facts. Nuclear waste disposal is a political problem, not a technical one. The number of answers to the problem is almost funny, except that most greens (and their lobbyist controlled politicians) don't want waste to have a solution. It is their biggest objection to nuclear, and actually getting a solution would destroy their position.
Have they reopened the nuclear plant shut down by the recent earthquake in Japan? I believe it is the largest nuclear facility in Japan? I guess the engineers goofed up on that one!
That's the Kashiwazaki Kariwa plant, and no, it's still offline. The estimates before it reopens range from "months" to "at least a year."
Ironically, the engineers didn't really goof. It performed very well during the earthquake despite being outside its planned operating parameters. Redundant safety layers in action.
The reason it's staying shut down now is mostly for precautionary purposes as they check over pretty much every square inch of the plant and make sure it's safe.
No, they goofed by building the largest nuclear reactor in the world on a fault line and setting a standard that did not fulfill its requirements in keeping it seismically safe. It leaked. They were slow to react and still have not been forthright with the information as to what really happened even after the IAEA investigated the facility.
It leaked minuscule amounts of radioactive material. The radioactive release from the ENTIRE plant totaled a little more than 100,000 Becquerels, or about the same amount of radioactive material that is in three home smoke detectors.
Another release that was atmospheric rather than in water totaled 402 million Becequerels, but this is still about one ten millionth the legal limit.
"After the 2007 earthquake, suspicions arose that another fault line may be closer than originally thought to the plant, and possibly running straight through the site." -Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency of Japan (Oops!) If you really call yourself an "environmentalist", investigate the facts from the source.
Since you'd like to go to the source, the IAEA had this to say (pulling text from Wiki):
The official report issued by the IAEA stated that the plant "behaved in a safe manner" after a 4-day inspection. Other observations and recommendations were:
-"Safety related structures, systems and components of the plant seem to be in a general condition, much better than might be expected for such a strong earthquake, and there is no visible significant damage"
I'm still not sure what any of this has to do with the environment and whether or not I'm an environmentalist, though.
Nuclear power is, at the very worst, even if everything the nay-sayers claim is true, a hazard to human health. It's not an environmental hazard, unlike the coal and other fossil fuel plants it could potentially replace.
According to that mad money guy on MSNBC tonight, it takes three years to build a nuclear plant but seven given all the extra obstacles. He believes those obstacles should be set aside but they probably include environmental and escape impact studies and the NIMBY politics.
Still he and Chris Matthews sided with you in the view that nuclear has to be part of the solution to high priced oil and global warming.
Those figures sound about right. The two-step licensing is what really halted nuclear energy.
The environmental impact studies don't take very long and weren't a very big holdup on construction. I don't think they should be removed, they are too valuable.
Escape impact studies? Not sure what you are talking about here.
NIMBY hurt a lot, still does. Though now there are YIMBY (yes in my backyard) people in favor of nuclear energy. Apparently, this is the norm in France.
The emergency evacuation plans are prepared by the local government, the state, and the national guard. The utility company has very little impact on these plans since the decisions regarding evacuation are not controlled by them.
Most people around TMI don't care. It gives them a nice tourist trap.
I think there is one group still monitoring the situation, but they haven't recorded any post-accident differences. The average radiation count is still lower than Denver's.
What took up the time and money was the open public forum where ANYBODY could ask a question that the utility HAD to respond to. They did this both before the plant was built and after it was built, but before it could begin operations. Activists would argue over colors just to take up time.
Thankfully the process has been streamlined somewhat. I'm anxiously awaiting the first plant to start the process so that the US can make another step forward in its desire to reduce pollution.
If we had the guts to commit to doubling fuel efficiency in our cars by 2015, required every taxi fleet to go hybrid, put together a comprehensive national conservation plan, eliminated trade barriers to alternative fuels, and expanded investment in new tech, we wouldn't need to expand nuclear.
Any change in our fuel efficiency now will have a delayed impact because the old cars still need to turn over off the road. Transportation only accounts for less than a third of our GHG emissions.
Taxis account for practically none of our emissions nationally.
Conservation is, as always, a great idea.
How about the last two? Give some details for what you're talking about.
That really wouldn't do all that much very quickly. It would also place much more power in the hands of the US government than I am comfortable with. US electrical generation will increase ~30% by 2030, the measures you are recommending won't even touch that figure.
Some taxis are going hybrid on their own, let the market handle it.
National conservation plan would hurt business, so people won't support/follow it. We didn't sign Kyoto for this reason.
You realize that just about everything in the US gets subsidized right? Currently nuclear gets less subsidies than most renewables since there are so many investors. I think that nuclear will be even less subsidized now that utilities are actually allowed to build new plants. I'd love to see less subsidies in all businesses, but renewables would be taking a HUGE hit if it happened.
Since Yucca Mountain, for political or ecological reasons, doesn't appear likely to serve as a receptacle for high level nuclear waste and that waste is dangerously building up at each and every plant, where they are now forced to remain, how can you advocate creating new plants?
What makes you say on-site storage is dangerous? It'd be safer to put it in a geologic repository, certainly, but it's a matter of one infinitesimal risk compared to another somewhat smaller infinitesimal risk.
Consider what terrorists would have to do to steal nuclear supplies from on-site storage. They'd have to get past the multiple fences, moats, guard posts, security forces, etc., just to get to the dry storage casks... Then they'd have to load one of the HUGE steel-and-concrete casks onto a truck... Then they'd have to drive that truck someplace where they have the complicated equipment necessary to separate the usable fissile material from the waste without killing themselves.
And once they've got that fissile material, then what? As I said before, getting the fissile material is the easy part, building a bomb is the hard part. It took the Manhattan Project for us to figure out how. Unless they've also kidnapped the world's top nuclear scientists, or have the cooperation of a state that is already nuclear-enabled, it'll be tough to build a bomb.
But if they have the cooperation of a state that's already nuclear-enabled... Why would they need to do any of this? They could just borrow a fully-made bomb.
And if a dirty bomb is your worry, rather than an actual nuclear weapon... Again, it'd be much easier to steal Thorium-227 from a hospital.
If nuclear power is so necessary, and it requires government insuring the investors against losing their money in order to get them to invest in it, would you have any objection to the government skipping the middle man and simply owning the nukes instead of allowing private investors to make money while avoiding risk?
I would have mixed feelings. On the one hand, I think they could handle it fairly efficiently, quasi-socialist as that may be for me to say. On the other, checks and balances are always good to have. If the government's running the plants, then the whole system is essentially self-policing, which tends to lead to corruption. I'd much rather have the power industry and the NRC in an adversarial relationship, because that keeps both sides more honest.
Do think the credibility of the NRC is less than the honesty of the US government? If not, sticking with the NRC is better.
Based on my experience with corruption in France, the NRC has a relatively spotless record. If the power generation is state owned there is MUCH less public input in the operations, management, and placement of the plant itself.
If there is no significant risk to investors because the plants are so safe and make money back for their investors, presuming they get permission to build, why do they need loan guarantees?
It is a significant financial risk because it's such a huge financial investment with such a long payoff schedule. In the long run it's an investment with a huge rate of return, but it's risky enough to make investors skittish.
That's capitalism. And, purely in terms of capitalism, I still don't see why ratepayers or taxpayers should cover that risk and get nothing back in return.
Besides, the government actually makes money on the loan guarantee program. The utility has to pay a fee to the government in order to get the loan guarantee--that fee is equal to the estimated cost of the loan guarantee, given the fairly low probability of defaulting.
If the utility defaults, which the vast majority don't, then the government gets that money for free.
Well, I've learned a great deal about loan guarantees and I have to agree that I would support loan guarantees and even subsidies for an intelligent solar, wind or other alternative that, unlike nuclear, has no significant negative impacts on the environment.
I was hoping you would know something about it- Ft. Saint Vrain was a HTGR in Colorado, the only commercial one ever constructed in the US. It used heated gas to produce steam and power turbines- but I can't find out how they cooled the condenser. Fresh water, probably.
Again, how many nuclear plants do you think we'll need to stop global warming?
Given that your support for nuclear power is based entirely on your desire to stop global warming, you must have some scientifically justified number of plants or why bother going down that road?
I've heard numbers in the range of 300 plants to satisfy our electricity demands, but that would be uneconomical and wouldn't deal with the issue of transportation-related emissions.
We're not going to beat global warming with just a bunch of nuke plants. We'll beat it with a combination of nuke plants, wind farms, distributed solar systems, increased mass transportation, energy efficient buildings... etc.
I'd say that nuclear should be at least 40-50% of our electricity generation in my ideal portfolio. 20% would be wind, the rest would be a combination of biomass, hydro, geothermal, etc., the miscellany.
That would require building anywhere from, say... 75 to 150 new plants, in total. Spread out over a reasonable timeframe.
That is a REALLY low number of plants. It would handle pollution from the US, but thats it. All stats from the eia.
By 2030, electricity generation will have almost doubled what it currently is. If we wanted to only HOLD our current pollution levels then every plant made during that time would need to be nuclear or renewable. That only takes care of pollution from electricity so it won't really be making things better yet.
I was advocating for the US, not worldwide. Being a US citizen, I consider the extent of my policy influence to be the US border. Outside those borders, it's a diplomatic effort.
Worldwide, it would require a lot more than 75-150 plants, that's for sure. Even for the US, 75-150 plants would also have to be coupled with energy efficiency and decreases in personal transportation.
What is needed depends largely on what you base your assumptions on. For example, If you use CO2 than just concentrating on getting rid of fossil fuels will get rid of 95% of that. While if you measure NOx or SOx and then transportation becomes much more important.
I don't think that we are going to be seeing a reduction in personal transportation anytime soon. Gas is still too cheap for us to be making huge changes in how we move ourselves.
I'm all for a nuclear fueled hydrogen economy myself. I haven't really seen anything else that could begin to be implemented in the next 10 years or so. Though I must admit that the aircar looks like the perfect solution for city travel.
The situation would only be better if we assumed that all of the industrial, commercial, and transportation sectors pollution was reduced despite the continuing economic growth of 2nd and 3rd world countries.
The good news is that burning fossil fuels is the largest (95%) emitter of CO2 and that there is a solution in the form of renewable and nuclear energy. The bad news is that neither energy source is growing anywhere near fast enough to do much good.
Maybe I'm just clueless, but I thought that the cooling systems used by nuclear plants like Turkey Point in Florida and Pilgrim on Cape Cod eliminate the need to evaporate all that fresh water in the cooling towers. Pilgrim definitely draws its cooling water directly from the ocean. The water used in the inner cooling loop is fresh, but this is negligible compared to the water used in cooling towers.
damn hippies...
Toadphillips 4 months ago
Blahb you are brainwa$hed, we don't expect you to understand-Insanity has a convenient way of masking itself as intelligent, then making excuses for what goes wrong when it always does; the consequences are not for you to deal with; that's convenient/$tupid Science-- we're all Japan now...even a 5- year- old knows this...you nuke physicists/ scientist$ have sub-spec brains, engineers too!
Rosyheart1 6 months ago
take a trip one way to Fuckushima Casino & hotel Resort...insanity...insanity
Rosyheart1 7 months ago
@Rosyheart1 Actually, as long as you don't swim in the coolant fluid, you'll be fine. Fukushima is an excellent example of how safe nuclear power is. A devestating earhquake, in top 5 ever hardest earthquakes, followed by an equally devastating tsunami of 15 metres high, failed to damage the plant.
If they had housed their backup generator indoors, nothing would've happened.
Blahb27 6 months ago
dude millions of people are running around poisoned and dieing because of nuclear accidents. they are saying no to all nuclear energy. dude who pays you
wolfgang8u 10 months ago
@wolfgang8u In reality there are only a few hundred confirmed victims of nuclear power. The building of the Hoover Dam alone claimed more lives.
And you really should discount everyone from the Tjernobyl disaster, as that plant was sub-spec, even for the first generation of nuclear generators. And still they had to disable the safety mechanism and make a lot of mistakes before an accident could happen.
Blahb27 6 months ago
@Blahb27 In reality who is keeping the death tool? And under what cercumstances do they rule out what counts as caused by radioactive exposure in comparison not natural lukemia deaths (as only one example of death) THe particles from Chernoble where carried all around the world once it enterd the jet streams now who is counting that who is tracking every single particle and where it lands. Or even who injests or inhales it. Now japan with three confirmed melt downs. Oh no radioactive ocean water
wolfgang8u 6 months ago
@wolfgang8u Mate, where do you get your information. Wherever it is, they don't know much.
A single or few particles inside you do not kill. You wouldn't even notice it. You need a massive amount of exposure before it becomes lethal. And there were no meltdowns in Japan. And even if they had, the reactor vat is designed so that the core would fall into a specially designed basin, disperse and cool down by itself.
Blahb27 6 months ago
but we can't use Uranium or other metals, those metals produce very much waste, we need to use Hydrogen isotopes, to make nuclear fusion ! It's more clean, more safe, more efficient !
but it continue to be the most efficient than fossiles
sorry for the bad english, i'm from brazil XD
gkyy3c 2 years ago
@gkyy3c there's a joke amongst scientists that nuclear fusion will always be 20 or so years away because thats whats been said for decades. the difficulty with fusion is it takes so much energy to get the heat required for this reaction they've only ever been able to make it cost effective once for a couple of seconds (ie. there was more energy coming out then being put in). the difficulty comes from containing and finding away to exploit energy thats basically like a little sun
AussiePolitics 1 year ago
Nuclear energy is clean, cheap, and has high yeilds of power. Those who think otherwise are uninformed.
chuckeieio 3 years ago 10
This comment has received too many negative votes show
That's quite ironic in itself
iman1357 3 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
I live in the downwind prediction area of a nuke. Hurricane Andrew destroyed the emergency warning system. The utility company wanted to put two nuke units back on line before repairing the emergency warning system. I can do without nukes.
TRUMPHENT 3 years ago
I think greenhouse gases are the lesser worry. The world is slowly but surely running out of oil. I feel we should use nuclear power to help as a bridge to truly renewable energy sources. "Drill here, Drill now" is going to fall way short of what we actually need. Nuclear will help lessen reliance on imported oil, and help conserve oil for other vital uses.
ibphotos 3 years ago
Comment removed
Stefnir94 3 years ago
I'm not an environmentalist by any stretch of the imagination, I just believe in the truth. Coming from an admitted environmentalist just makes this video that much more impressive. Well done, and thanks for not distorting the truth to prove a political point.
angelandsaint 3 years ago
Well done, all the data presented in this video is completely accurate
Bleezz 3 years ago
We shouldn't replace one bad option - coal - with another - nuclear power.
We need a massive investment in new technologies and new alternatives. We can't tiptoe anymore. We need a windfall profits tax to get the funds to do this right.
Join me in seeking a new way and quickly.
1obamaman 3 years ago
John Edwards says that if we doubled our nuclear powered plants we would only address 1/7 of the global warming problem.
What do you think of that?
1obamaman 4 years ago
Doubling all available renewable energy sources will address less than 2% of the "global warming problem."
pixman83 4 years ago
I have been saying for a while on this site that nuclear power plants require too much water to cool at a time when water is in short supply.
In the past month, brownouts at nuclear power plants in the southeast have been discussed due to a need to divert water from them to the public.
Check - maybe Checkmate.
1obamaman 4 years ago
You keep thinking, incorrectly, that nuclear power plants need fresh water to function. You are also "forgetting" that coal power plants also use water for coolant purposes, and there are 6 times as many coal plants than nuclear.
You are avoiding the point that nuclear power is generating far more carbon free electricity than renewables.
pixman83 3 years ago
We desperately need electricity that doesn't produce greenhouse gasses.
I recognize the arguments made here are persuasive with regard to the dangers of coal plants and mining. I support moving past them as fast as possible.
A lack of water for nuclear plants may be a harbinger of a lack of water for coal plants too.
1obamaman 3 years ago
so we move to Bryant cycle Gas cooled Fast reactors, they require half the water and what is used is completely separated from the nuclear fuel, meaning it could be pumped back for use by the public (though most likely not for human consumption to avoid a political nightmare)
Bleezz 3 years ago
OUR, have you seen the number of coal plants china is putting up?
Devolve0 3 years ago
Global Warming? Before buying into ALL the hype and main-stream media panic inducing psuedo-facts concerning "global warming", do some of your own research. Check NASA, check other scientists, just do your own research and draw your own conclusions. Then ask Mr.Edwards how to address 1/7th of a myth.
angelandsaint 3 years ago
I've done quite a bit of research on my own, trust me. :) The topic has certainly been muddied and sensationalized, and people have misinterpreted it in leadership and media--The Day After Tomorrow is a vast exaggeration, of course, and I groaned when I heard of municipalities buying too little salt for the winter because of global warming...
But it's certainly not a myth. I'd be glad to speak on the specifics, here in comments or email me at kuronekoyama AT gmail.
kuronekoyama 3 years ago
John Edwards recently said that doubling US nuclear plants would only address 1/7th of the global warming problem.
Is it even possible to double our nuclear power plants, given the complicated nature of siting and resolving the waste issue?
Would the cost of subsidizing so many nuclear power plants be less efficient in reducing greenhouse gasses than doing something else with that same money?
1obamaman 4 years ago
For the last [explicative] time--the US federal government is NOT subsiding nuclear power. They are providing loan guarantees (for a total of 4 plants which will be built at 2 sites) to offset the artificially (viz. the political risk associated with the baseless anti-nuclear movement) inflated financial risk associated with building a nuclear power station. The only way this money will ever be spent is if the anti-nuclear movement halts construction or operation of these 4 new plants.
lwnf360 4 years ago
I was not referring to the bill you are discussing. I was referring to the nuclear plants that have already been built with government money both via rate hikes and in direct payments.
By the way, just because this bill doesn't give direct subsidies now doesn't mean their lobbyists won't seek them once they have begun building them.
I presume you would oppose such subsidies but that won't stop legislators who get campaign contributions from the industry from giving out that money anyway.
1obamaman 4 years ago
The cite the section of a federal appropriations act which provides direct payments to any commercial nuclear power plant project. There was limited funding from DOE for Nuclear Power 2010, but it was quite limited. There is not current federal money being given out to my knowledge.
lwnf360 4 years ago
Rate hikes in regulated areas are not government subsidy or payment. The state government is allowing the utility to charge more for electricity. I agree with your insinuation that regulated electric economies are wrong. Notwithstanding, TVA and South Texas Project--the ones building new plants, I believe (correct me with a source if I am mistaken), operate in free markets. Most electricity is deregulated in this country.
lwnf360 4 years ago
I in no way meant to suggest that regulation is wrong. Areas without regulation suffer the most.
1obamaman 4 years ago
Every 1GW nuclear plant built prevents 3.4 million tons of coal from being burned every year. New plants do even more with less. Electrical generation accounts for 48% of CO2 emitted, so nuclear has already done more than any other green technology.
Waste is only a political issue.
Solar, wind, and other green sources already have immense subsidies. What more would you have them do? The remaining CO2 is from things like transportation (solvable with air car or hydrogen economy), industry, etc.
pixman83 4 years ago
In an earlier comment, the author of the above video correctly noted that risk is a product of probability and consequence. But then he stated that "there's no way to even guess at the probability" of a terrorist attack against a nuclear power plant.
That's very interesting. So he advocates a technology with an INCALCULABLE RISK. That is exactly why most people oppose nuclear power.
Case closed.
pippicat 4 years ago 2
That is because it is almost impossible to judge the actions of individuals. They can judge the results of the attack itself fairly easily, but not the likelihood of an attack itself. It is the same reason that nobody had a defense for 9/11: they knew it was possible, but not likely. The effects of aircraft on buildings are better understood than that because they can test it, human reactions are much harder to predict. Using your method, skyscrapers are a bigger risk than nuclear power plants.
pixman83 4 years ago
That's a straw man. If the risk of skyscraper collapse and the risk of radioactive contamination are both UNKNOWN, then obviously one cannot state that "skyscrapers are a BIGGER risk than nuclear power plants."
pippicat 4 years ago
That was the EXACT same argument that you just made:
"there's no way to even guess at the probability" of a terrorist attack against a nuclear power plant. That's very interesting. So he advocates a technology with an INCALCULABLE RISK.
Look familiar? I just pointed out that several deadly terrorist attacks have happened against buildings yet none have occurred to nuclear plants. I'm just pointing out that you aren't being consistent with your arguments.
pixman83 4 years ago
I made no comparison with skyscrapers. That's YOUR obfuscation. It's irrelevant.
So there's no inconsistency on my part, and you have no reasoned rebuttal. The risk of nuclear power is incalculable, as admitted by kuronekoyama.
Case closed.
pippicat 4 years ago
Your flawed manner of looking at risk would also mean that any activity is an incalculable risk and inherently dangerous. You are making the argument that if "no way to even guess at the probability" then it must be bad. That's just being foolish.
The skyscraper comparison is to point out that even if we say all violent terrorist attacks are equally improbable, several have been committed against skyscrapers and none at nuclear plants.
pixman83 4 years ago
You are so anxious to say the case is closed that you are making careless mistakes and putting words in other people's mouths. kuronekoyama admitted that "there's no way to even guess at the probability" of a terrorist attack, not that the risk of nuclear power in incalculable.
Try solving the problem instead of denying it exists, you can get much better results that way.
pixman83 4 years ago
Life is too short to waste time with those who peddle obfuscation.
pippicat 4 years ago
Ah, the old standby of those who make emotionally based or untenable arguments--when proved wrong, or spurious, call the other person a liar and not worth your time. Classic.
lwnf360 4 years ago
I did not accuse pixman of lying. It's a shame that you don't know what "obfuscation" means.
pippicat 4 years ago
It is a pity that you cannot listen to reason, and resort to emotional arguments.
lwnf360 4 years ago
Umm ... no. My last statement a week ago was not an "argument" at all.
Bye.
pippicat 4 years ago
With the money needed for one new nuclear power plant one can purchase 20 turnkey high tech and highly automated thinfilm solar module factories with a yearly output of 160 MW per factory from Oerlikon.
So, with these 20 Swiss Oerlikon solar module factories one can produce solar modules with a total peak power of 48'000 MW in 15 years, which is actually 30 times more peak power than what a new French EPR nuclear reactor delivers.
Applied Materials (California) also offers similar factories.
microfactory 4 years ago
That would be correct, if it cost no money and required no raw materials to run the Oerlikon factories and produce the solar panels. Unfortunately, the cost of construction is only part of the overall cost of the factory. Raw materials will be intense, because silicon is very expensive. It's also produced at relatively low capacity, meaning any sudden demand will cause shortages and slow production of the solar panels themselves.
kuronekoyama 4 years ago
The most expensive raw material of Oerlikon thinfilm modules is basically window glass. The thin layer (0.001mm) of silicon is applied with Silane (cheap): There is no need for silicon polycrystalline material whatsoever. Since houses need to be protected from rain anyway, you might just want to use window glass with a thin layer of silicon.
microfactory 4 years ago
Define cheap. We're talking about 20 factories each producing over 500,000 square meters of panel per year (assuming a generous 30% efficiency). In total, about 108 million square feet of glass coated with silicon by chemical vapor definition each year.
kuronekoyama 4 years ago
As I said, the substrate (window glass) is the most expensive part. The silicon coating is neglectable. Silane is cheap (this is not polycristalline silicon). Also, 25% of the earth crust is silicon.
1 Million square meters of thin film solar panels require one cubic meter of silicon. The raw silicon needed for 10 million square meters fits in one truck.
microfactory 4 years ago
I don't think I'm asking clearly...
What's the cost of 10 million square meters of glass? What's the cost of enough silane to produce 10 cubic meters of silicon? What's the energy cost to perform chemical deposition on 10 million square meters of substrate? What are the other operating costs of the plants?
kuronekoyama 4 years ago
You can't simply look at the cost of constructing these plants and assume that they will produce their maximum capacity for free from that point on, or even that they can produce it at current market rates.
kuronekoyama 4 years ago
As I said: You do need a roof anyway. And so does the solar module factory. Oerlikon actually placed solar modules on their production facilities to generate a significant portion of their electricity needs to operate the factory.
microfactory 4 years ago
Nukes calculate with 60 years of operation at over 90% capacity. Don't calculate with load follow even though electricity consumption during day time is more than doubled. Don't calculate the waste costs. Don't considering the CO2 emissions of the bulldozers in the Uranium mines with low Uranium content etc.
microfactory 4 years ago
When you say "Nukes calculate," who do you mean? There are a lot of independent and regulatory groups that perform those calculations. NRC, IAEA, MIT all come to mind. It's not the people who run the plant. And they use real-world data, not ideal numbers.
No load following:
That's because nuke plants don't load follow, they're baseload.
kuronekoyama 4 years ago
Some nuke plants in France run load follow because they're no baseload customers despite all the inefficient electric heaters in France.
And of course, the rest depend on the energy storage lakes in the Alps.
microfactory 4 years ago
You have never heard of the concept of selling electricity to another country? France makes a LOT of money selling their surplus electricity to other consumers who don't have clean energy.
pixman83 4 years ago
If it is so easy to make money with nuclear power plants, why aren't the private investors lining up and why do the nuclear power operaters require subsidies?
microfactory 4 years ago
The investors ARE lined up, they have been since nuclear energy was created. Why do you think they got built so fast? The problem is that governments control what can be built and the laws that govern their operation.
Nuclear energy gets less subsidies than most other energy sources. Check the IEA if you don't believe me. Nuclear gets lots of R&D money, but thats it. Renewables get more money overall.
pixman83 4 years ago
Ok, so show us the line of private investors.
microfactory 4 years ago
Bank of America, Exelon, NuStart, TVA, TBD Florida P&L, Detroit Edison, TXU, Amarillo Power, Morgan Stanley, AmerenUE, Entergy, UniStar, Southern Energy, Progress Energy, NRG Energy, Dominion, South Carolina E&G, Duke, Progress Energy, Prudential , etc.
I can keep going, but I think you get my point.
pixman83 4 years ago
Any actual proof?
In Europe, there's not one single bank interested in investing in nuclear power.
microfactory 4 years ago
Just google it, thats what I did. They aren't hiding who is interested in building new plants. At least 2 licenses have already been bought. How many follow will partially depend on how smoothly things go for the next year or two.
Then who is financing France's new reactors? If there is a profit to be made, a bank is there. They just need to see that the risks are manageable.
pixman83 4 years ago
Waste costs:
Indeed they are calculated, and they pay those costs during construction.
Bulldozers:
Because those emissions are negligible compared to the stored energy in the fuel they produce.
kuronekoyama 4 years ago
They are not at all negligible if the Uranium mines have a low Uranium content, which they all will be in the future.
microfactory 4 years ago
Ah, but there's a lot of promising work in passive extraction of uranium ore from seawater. It is as of yet too expensive to be economically viable (costs about three times the market price of ore), but as the technique improves and the price of mined uranium increases, it will quickly have its day.
kuronekoyama 4 years ago
It will never be economically viable, because the mass of uranium collecting polymer needed to generate a certain amount of power is far lower than the mass of material needed to generate the same amount of power with photovoltaics (without all the collecting, processing waste handling etc.).
You can also generate electricity with biogas from berries, but if the amount of energy put in to grow and collect the berries is far higher than the electricity produced with it, what's the point.
microfactory 4 years ago
I could have said the same thing about solar cells a decade ago. Technology is a wonderful thing. If the nuclear resurgence continues, I'd expect to see new research into that area as potential profits increase. It is the exact same reason why PVs are finally doing so well.
pixman83 4 years ago
Good, if nuclear fission is so great and we can collect it easily and cheaply from sea water, I guess there is no reason to invest in fusion reactors anymore. I know what can be done with those 15 billion tax-dollars invested in the ITER too.
microfactory 4 years ago
Sorry, but fusion kicks the ass of every other energy source. It is as good as it can get until matter/antimatter reactions, if those would even work. Fission and renewables can give us plenty of energy, fusion can give EVERYBODY excess energy.
pixman83 4 years ago
Ok, so fusion is great. So why pump all this tax money in the fission reactors?
microfactory 4 years ago
Because they are ready to go now, energy demand isn't just going to wait for fusion to be ready. Fusion won't be ready for at least another 50 years. They still need to build the tools that will build the tools that will make the gizmo, which still has to be designed. Its the same reason why people put money into solar 50 years ago, when it sucked.
pixman83 4 years ago
Waste is only covered for a few decades. If there's an issue in 1000 years no-one will pay for it.
microfactory 4 years ago 2
Nuke operators have been paying into an escrow account for years to finance the construction of a long-term waste repository. That's what's been paying for construction at Yucca Mountain (and, incidentally, what financed the numerous studies that pointed to Yucca as the best location).
kuronekoyama 4 years ago
It's 1/10 of a cent per KW as I recall. It's still more than enough money to solve the problem.
pixman83 4 years ago
No, your information about the nuclear waste fund is incorrect. The money being collected from nuclear utilities is certainly NOT "more than enough to solve the problem."
Even though the premises of the program underestimate the cost of nuclear waste disposal, the fund is still in danger of going broke. The Department of Energy said so last year.
pippicat 4 years ago
"In danger of" and "already" broke are not the same thing. When they do go broke, then there will have been a shortage, till then nothing is wrong. The biggest reason that costs have gone over is because of the constant obstructions at Yucca. Its the most studied piece of land and the world, yet that still doesn't seem to be good enough. They are forced to do new studies and waste more time even though the reports all say the same thing. That is why I say the waste isn't the problem.
pixman83 4 years ago
Any large power plant including coal is a risk concentration because millions of people depend on one single power facility. What if some bad people knock out a couple of large coal or nuclear power plants at once?
Is this risk included in any cost calculations?
microfactory 4 years ago
No, it's not, because risk is a product of probability and effect, there's no way to even guess at the probability.
kuronekoyama 4 years ago
so what? 9/11 happened - so there is a remaining probability not taken into account.
microfactory 4 years ago
I think I counted 14 reactors that the planes had to fly over on the routes they took. Attacking a nuclear plant is a dumb way to die while accomplishing nothing and getting EVERYBODY pissed off at you. Google "concreteplane" and see if that is really a threat.
pixman83 4 years ago
What would happen if a few GW power plants were knocked out? (Doesn't need to be nuclear can be coal as well). There wouldn't be any electricity for a year or so? Is this good for economy?
microfactory 4 years ago
First off, there are already reserve plants as it is. Nuclear plants need to go offline to refuel, so the back up is already designed into the system.
Second off, how would the plants be knocked out? I'd love to see somebody try to disable a nuclear plant, the best PR the industry could ever get. The biggest weakness of the energy market is in the same place it has always been, source won't change a thing.
pixman83 4 years ago
What if only the cooling tower would be destroyed?
microfactory 4 years ago
I'd still like to know how? A cooling tower doesn't need much to work, so I'd guess it would probably be a couple weeks/months of reduced power until it is rebuilt.
pixman83 4 years ago
The Swiss nuclear power operator just had an unplanned outage of 5 month in a 1.2 GW power plant, because they had a problem with the generator.
I doubt a cooling tower is an easier fix, considering how many month and years it takes to build a highrise building.
microfactory 4 years ago
A generator is FAR harder to fix than a tower. A tower is relatively simple and easy to do since it isn't much more than rebar and concrete. A generator will need to be tested, the fault found, a repair attempted, and then potentially replaced. Every step requires slow, careful, work done by a variety of experts.
A high-rise building is incredibly complex compared to a cooling tower. A tower just needs to be stable and provide a draft with access at the base, not the case on a building.
pixman83 4 years ago 2
That's very interesting. So you advocate a technology with an INCALCULABLE RISK. That is exactly why most people oppose nuclear power.
Case closed.
pippicat 4 years ago 2
That last message of mine is out of place because this YouTube discussion software is so lame.
I recommend the Yahoo ER group instead:
groups(dot)yahoo(dot)com/group/energyresources
pippicat 4 years ago
Do you want to know the costs of photovoltaics per kWh (no moving part, no radiation, no extensive heat or pressure) if operated for 60 years as well?
microfactory 4 years ago
Sure. You seem to think I'm against solar energy, when I'm not. Solar rocks. But it's not the silver bullet you're painting it to be, NOTHING is.
kuronekoyama 4 years ago
I don't plan to be building my roof OUT OF glass. I'd love to put a solar panel on TOP of my roof, but you can't just say that it's subsumed in the cost of building.
Windows, perhaps--but most places outside of city high-rises don't have a whole lot of window space, and what there is isn't facing the sun an optimal amount of time.
kuronekoyama 4 years ago
Of course you can subsum the costs of building with thinfilm solar modules. Würth Solar among others actually developed such roofs.
The solar modules are black. (No seethrough glass)
A solar module facade is already less costly than a stone facade.
microfactory 4 years ago
It can't be subsumed because it a huge additional cost that isn't "business as normal." If I'm not mistaken most of those designs have the panels on top of an already functional roof. Not the same thing. Either way, the design still isn't economically feasible compared to a normal roof.
pixman83 4 years ago
Of course it is economically feasible compared to a normal roof. Otherwise home owners wouldn't obviously forgo tiles and substitute them with solar modules from the start.
Also, China actually installed 77% of all solar thermal collectors of the world in 2005. The Chinese know, that building a nuclear power plant to run inefficient electric heaters is more expensive than simply placing solar thermal collectors on ones roof.
microfactory 4 years ago
You obviously don't understand ROI. Based on my own experience, a normal roof on an average sized house can be covered in a one day by 5 people. How long does it take to install solar panels and wiring? Can any contractor do this or does somebody else come in? Most people who install solar panels are fairly well off, they can afford to have a $24,000 roof that won't pay for itself for 17 years or so.
Solar thermal is not solar cells. Totally separate technologies with no produced electricity.
pixman83 4 years ago
Microfactory has also forgotten to account for the build times of these new factories. Since only Oerlikon makes them and they admit to having a 300MW backlog, placing new orders won't help much. How many companies (at once) do you think can build nuclear plants in the US? We've had 44 going at once in the past as I recall. So today that would be about 44,000-66,000MW in 5-7 years? Not that we could afford it. :)
pixman83 4 years ago
You can build several Oerlikon factories in one year without subsidies.
You can also build several Applied Materials factories in one year without subsidies.
The new EPR reactor in Finland is already taking years and won't be finished before 2011 - despite all the French subsidies.
microfactory 4 years ago
Once again, not according to the company website.
You have a really big hang up on subsidies don't you? Which is weird because Oerlikon gets rather heavy subsidies and tax breaks because of its research. The EPR is an entirely new design with an inexperienced company that is having major labor and management issues, so of course it is behind. The numbers I gave are the conservative ones as it is. In sheer fast MWs nothing can beat nuclear and fossil fuels.
pixman83 4 years ago
You know, I generally just don't like to pay taxes.
R&D at Oerlikon is funded by Oerlikon and not by the state. And even if it wasn't: Thinfilm solar cells is a new technology and deserves R&D subsidies. Nuclear fission is over 50 years old.
Besides the EPR not only got R&D subsidies. WORSE: It got export subsidies.
microfactory 4 years ago
I don't like subsidies much either, but I'm not oblivious as to how they are used.
Why do you say Oerlikon doesn't get any R&D subsides, when I've seen them including said subsidies into their business plan? Just because it is new doesn't mean it should get money. Wind is hundreds of years old and the "modern" solar cell was patented in 1946, so don't be making age comparisons. Nuclear at least has made far larger improvements and makes a significant impact on global warming.
pixman83 4 years ago
Oerlikon does not get any subsidies.
Not even the companies buying Oerlikon factories receive any subsidies.
Only the home-owners generating clean electricity receive a certain amount per kWh and this useful since it reduces load on the grid and it rewards those who generate the most kWh and not those who just do some random research with 60 year old technology.
microfactory 4 years ago
The company admits that it is relying on subsidies to stay competitive! I gave you a list of countries that were giving subsidies to manufacturers, not consumers. Stop being in denial about it, it really isn't that big a deal.
If subsides worked like that then no country could afford to have them. I'd also like to point out that that the only energy source using really old technology is hydro, and that is because it is so hard to replace the water turbines. At least get your facts straight.
pixman83 4 years ago
I'm all for the improvement and growth of solar cells, but this isn't a reasonable idea. Especially since the company website says that the output is only 30MW a year and that 3 units will need to be bought in order to make the micromorph tandem modules. The 300MW backlog that Oerlikon has doesn't make matters any easier. So thats 6 factories producing super efficient solar cells (where did you find the cost numbers again?) at 180MW per year. Your case was better before you created numbers.
pixman83 4 years ago
Search for Oerlikon Solar 160 MW and 200 Million.
And search for Applied Materials Solar.
microfactory 4 years ago
Abbreviated from Oerlikon website:
"12/6/06 - Oerlikon has been awarded a contract totalling CHF 320 million from German API GmbH in Offenbach. The order includes eight Kai 1200s, 40 laser scribing and 16 TCO systems as well as the associated equipment. Oerlikon Solar will supply turnkey production systems with an annual produced capacity of 160 MW." That's 200M Euros for a single 160MW factory.
pixman83 4 years ago
You're no "environmentalist"; you're just a lackey for the nuclear industry.
Your claim that there are no technical problems to nuclear waste disposal is absurd on its face. You are one of the dirty players.
belmont162 4 years ago
I suppose "lackey" is at least a step up from "paid lobbyist" which is one of the other accusations I frequently get...
Let's compare carbon footprints, shall we? CarbonFootprint dot com. I got 6.698 tonnes per year--it's nothing to write home about, but it's about one third the US average. How do you fare?
kuronekoyama 4 years ago
It would actually be kind of interesting to compare what everybody has who comments on your vid. See who is actually doing their part in action as well as words.
4.925 tonnes, with 4.296 tonnes coming from secondary sources.
pixman83 4 years ago
I took the quiz, and my result was 1.32 tons of CO2 per year.
pippicat 4 years ago
Nice! You must be doing a lot to actively lower your footprint.
pixman83 4 years ago
I highly recommend being car-free – because you will find health and freedom on a bicycle.
pippicat 4 years ago
I don't have a car either; I walk, bike, and ride the bus. Like I said, most (~87%) of my waste comes from secondary sources.
Apparently not having a compost pile and going out to "movies, bars, and restaurants" is worth 3/4 of the needed world average
pixman83 4 years ago
heck yeah! live in NYC u can bike almost every where or walk and take subway
austinstock 4 years ago
He doesn't have claims about the absence of technical problems to waste disposal: he has facts. Nuclear waste disposal is a political problem, not a technical one. The number of answers to the problem is almost funny, except that most greens (and their lobbyist controlled politicians) don't want waste to have a solution. It is their biggest objection to nuclear, and actually getting a solution would destroy their position.
pixman83 4 years ago
Have they reopened the nuclear plant shut down by the recent earthquake in Japan? I believe it is the largest nuclear facility in Japan? I guess the engineers goofed up on that one!
jmtoriel 4 years ago
That's the Kashiwazaki Kariwa plant, and no, it's still offline. The estimates before it reopens range from "months" to "at least a year."
Ironically, the engineers didn't really goof. It performed very well during the earthquake despite being outside its planned operating parameters. Redundant safety layers in action.
The reason it's staying shut down now is mostly for precautionary purposes as they check over pretty much every square inch of the plant and make sure it's safe.
kuronekoyama 4 years ago
No, they goofed by building the largest nuclear reactor in the world on a fault line and setting a standard that did not fulfill its requirements in keeping it seismically safe. It leaked. They were slow to react and still have not been forthright with the information as to what really happened even after the IAEA investigated the facility.
jmtoriel 4 years ago
It leaked minuscule amounts of radioactive material. The radioactive release from the ENTIRE plant totaled a little more than 100,000 Becquerels, or about the same amount of radioactive material that is in three home smoke detectors.
Another release that was atmospheric rather than in water totaled 402 million Becequerels, but this is still about one ten millionth the legal limit.
kuronekoyama 4 years ago
"After the 2007 earthquake, suspicions arose that another fault line may be closer than originally thought to the plant, and possibly running straight through the site." -Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency of Japan (Oops!) If you really call yourself an "environmentalist", investigate the facts from the source.
jmtoriel 4 years ago
From Citizen's Nuclear Info Centre in Japan
Kamizawa: This time they were just lucky. Besides which, the size of the shake is not the only determining factor for damage to equipment.
Nishio: Even if on this occasion the design error worked in their favor, the design error might work against them next time.
jmtoriel 4 years ago
Since you'd like to go to the source, the IAEA had this to say (pulling text from Wiki):
The official report issued by the IAEA stated that the plant "behaved in a safe manner" after a 4-day inspection. Other observations and recommendations were:
-"Safety related structures, systems and components of the plant seem to be in a general condition, much better than might be expected for such a strong earthquake, and there is no visible significant damage"
kuronekoyama 4 years ago
-Conservatisms introduced in the construction of the plant compensated for the magnitude of the earthquake being so much greater than planned for.
kuronekoyama 4 years ago
I'm still not sure what any of this has to do with the environment and whether or not I'm an environmentalist, though.
Nuclear power is, at the very worst, even if everything the nay-sayers claim is true, a hazard to human health. It's not an environmental hazard, unlike the coal and other fossil fuel plants it could potentially replace.
kuronekoyama 4 years ago
THAT WAS AMAZING!!!!!!!!!
Couldn't have done better myself.
floofyproductions 4 years ago
According to that mad money guy on MSNBC tonight, it takes three years to build a nuclear plant but seven given all the extra obstacles. He believes those obstacles should be set aside but they probably include environmental and escape impact studies and the NIMBY politics.
Still he and Chris Matthews sided with you in the view that nuclear has to be part of the solution to high priced oil and global warming.
1obamaman 4 years ago
Those figures sound about right. The two-step licensing is what really halted nuclear energy.
The environmental impact studies don't take very long and weren't a very big holdup on construction. I don't think they should be removed, they are too valuable.
Escape impact studies? Not sure what you are talking about here.
NIMBY hurt a lot, still does. Though now there are YIMBY (yes in my backyard) people in favor of nuclear energy. Apparently, this is the norm in France.
pixman83 4 years ago
Regarding escape plans, there are people who live within 50 miles of these plants that want a way out if radiation leaks.
No one who lived through it has forgotten Three Mile Island. People claim that no one was hurt but I'd bet long-term studies are still being done.
1obamaman 4 years ago
The emergency evacuation plans are prepared by the local government, the state, and the national guard. The utility company has very little impact on these plans since the decisions regarding evacuation are not controlled by them.
Most people around TMI don't care. It gives them a nice tourist trap.
I think there is one group still monitoring the situation, but they haven't recorded any post-accident differences. The average radiation count is still lower than Denver's.
pixman83 4 years ago
What took up the time and money was the open public forum where ANYBODY could ask a question that the utility HAD to respond to. They did this both before the plant was built and after it was built, but before it could begin operations. Activists would argue over colors just to take up time.
Thankfully the process has been streamlined somewhat. I'm anxiously awaiting the first plant to start the process so that the US can make another step forward in its desire to reduce pollution.
pixman83 4 years ago
If we had the guts to commit to doubling fuel efficiency in our cars by 2015, required every taxi fleet to go hybrid, put together a comprehensive national conservation plan, eliminated trade barriers to alternative fuels, and expanded investment in new tech, we wouldn't need to expand nuclear.
1obamaman 4 years ago
Any change in our fuel efficiency now will have a delayed impact because the old cars still need to turn over off the road. Transportation only accounts for less than a third of our GHG emissions.
Taxis account for practically none of our emissions nationally.
Conservation is, as always, a great idea.
How about the last two? Give some details for what you're talking about.
kuronekoyama 4 years ago
That really wouldn't do all that much very quickly. It would also place much more power in the hands of the US government than I am comfortable with. US electrical generation will increase ~30% by 2030, the measures you are recommending won't even touch that figure.
Some taxis are going hybrid on their own, let the market handle it.
National conservation plan would hurt business, so people won't support/follow it. We didn't sign Kyoto for this reason.
pixman83 4 years ago
Right, so let's stop subsidizing the nuclear industry and centralizing utility power in big mega-projects supported by government money!
jmtoriel 4 years ago
You realize that just about everything in the US gets subsidized right? Currently nuclear gets less subsidies than most renewables since there are so many investors. I think that nuclear will be even less subsidized now that utilities are actually allowed to build new plants. I'd love to see less subsidies in all businesses, but renewables would be taking a HUGE hit if it happened.
pixman83 4 years ago
Conservation can only go so far, especially when most people don't conserve as much as they could anyways.
The biggest alternative fuel is biofuel and it will only reduce emissions up to 3% while increasing food costs and fertilizer pollution.
New tech takes time we don't have. We will never find a perfect solution, there are always costs, so lets start with what we have now.
Most of your suggestions influence vehicles, but it doesn't help electricity generation which is the largest polluter.
pixman83 4 years ago
Great job!!! A great shame that facts get in the way of an important debate.
bradcdm 4 years ago
Let's go back to basics a minute.
Since Yucca Mountain, for political or ecological reasons, doesn't appear likely to serve as a receptacle for high level nuclear waste and that waste is dangerously building up at each and every plant, where they are now forced to remain, how can you advocate creating new plants?
1obamaman 4 years ago
What makes you say on-site storage is dangerous? It'd be safer to put it in a geologic repository, certainly, but it's a matter of one infinitesimal risk compared to another somewhat smaller infinitesimal risk.
I mean, is it worry about terrorists?
kuronekoyama 4 years ago
Consider what terrorists would have to do to steal nuclear supplies from on-site storage. They'd have to get past the multiple fences, moats, guard posts, security forces, etc., just to get to the dry storage casks... Then they'd have to load one of the HUGE steel-and-concrete casks onto a truck... Then they'd have to drive that truck someplace where they have the complicated equipment necessary to separate the usable fissile material from the waste without killing themselves.
kuronekoyama 4 years ago
And once they've got that fissile material, then what? As I said before, getting the fissile material is the easy part, building a bomb is the hard part. It took the Manhattan Project for us to figure out how. Unless they've also kidnapped the world's top nuclear scientists, or have the cooperation of a state that is already nuclear-enabled, it'll be tough to build a bomb.
kuronekoyama 4 years ago
But if they have the cooperation of a state that's already nuclear-enabled... Why would they need to do any of this? They could just borrow a fully-made bomb.
And if a dirty bomb is your worry, rather than an actual nuclear weapon... Again, it'd be much easier to steal Thorium-227 from a hospital.
kuronekoyama 4 years ago
Your full of crap... stop the intellectual dishonesty...
Thwere is NO SUCH THING as CLEAN NUCLEAR ENERGY!
leesagrrlgrrl 4 years ago
Thank you for your cogent, well-supported argument.
kuronekoyama 4 years ago
Hey Kyle Woodlock,
If nuclear power is so necessary, and it requires government insuring the investors against losing their money in order to get them to invest in it, would you have any objection to the government skipping the middle man and simply owning the nukes instead of allowing private investors to make money while avoiding risk?
1obamaman 4 years ago
I would have mixed feelings. On the one hand, I think they could handle it fairly efficiently, quasi-socialist as that may be for me to say. On the other, checks and balances are always good to have. If the government's running the plants, then the whole system is essentially self-policing, which tends to lead to corruption. I'd much rather have the power industry and the NRC in an adversarial relationship, because that keeps both sides more honest.
kuronekoyama 4 years ago
Actually, I think the NRC's credibility is already very questionable.
1obamaman 4 years ago
And what do you base that on?
kuronekoyama 4 years ago
Do think the credibility of the NRC is less than the honesty of the US government? If not, sticking with the NRC is better.
Based on my experience with corruption in France, the NRC has a relatively spotless record. If the power generation is state owned there is MUCH less public input in the operations, management, and placement of the plant itself.
At least there wouldn't be anymore NIMBY. :P
pixman83 4 years ago
If there is no significant risk to investors because the plants are so safe and make money back for their investors, presuming they get permission to build, why do they need loan guarantees?
1obamaman 4 years ago
When did I say there is no significant risk?
It is a significant financial risk because it's such a huge financial investment with such a long payoff schedule. In the long run it's an investment with a huge rate of return, but it's risky enough to make investors skittish.
kuronekoyama 4 years ago
That's capitalism. And, purely in terms of capitalism, I still don't see why ratepayers or taxpayers should cover that risk and get nothing back in return.
1obamaman 4 years ago
And if we go purely by the free market without selective incentivization, we're going to get more coal and natural gas plants.
You know that wind and solar projects get a lot of tax breaks, subsidies, and loan guarantees, right?
kuronekoyama 4 years ago
Besides, the government actually makes money on the loan guarantee program. The utility has to pay a fee to the government in order to get the loan guarantee--that fee is equal to the estimated cost of the loan guarantee, given the fairly low probability of defaulting.
If the utility defaults, which the vast majority don't, then the government gets that money for free.
kuronekoyama 4 years ago
(Oops, the above should read "If the utility doesn't default...")
kuronekoyama 4 years ago
Well, I've learned a great deal about loan guarantees and I have to agree that I would support loan guarantees and even subsidies for an intelligent solar, wind or other alternative that, unlike nuclear, has no significant negative impacts on the environment.
1obamaman 4 years ago 2
Well, it's a start.
kuronekoyama 4 years ago
Don't get carried away, I'm still not for nuclear power.
1obamaman 4 years ago
That's why I said it's a start, and not a finish. :P
kuronekoyama 4 years ago
So the taxpayers aren't really paying for it--the program is designed to pay for itself and not need any support from taxes.
As to ratepayers... Seriously, I asked this before and you didn't answer. Where else do you think the industry's money is going to come from?
kuronekoyama 4 years ago
I was hoping you would know something about it- Ft. Saint Vrain was a HTGR in Colorado, the only commercial one ever constructed in the US. It used heated gas to produce steam and power turbines- but I can't find out how they cooled the condenser. Fresh water, probably.
sovietologist 4 years ago
Again, how many nuclear plants do you think we'll need to stop global warming?
Given that your support for nuclear power is based entirely on your desire to stop global warming, you must have some scientifically justified number of plants or why bother going down that road?
1obamaman 4 years ago
I've heard numbers in the range of 300 plants to satisfy our electricity demands, but that would be uneconomical and wouldn't deal with the issue of transportation-related emissions.
We're not going to beat global warming with just a bunch of nuke plants. We'll beat it with a combination of nuke plants, wind farms, distributed solar systems, increased mass transportation, energy efficient buildings... etc.
kuronekoyama 4 years ago
How many plants are you advocating we build so that it is a reasonable part of the solution?
1obamaman 4 years ago
I'd say that nuclear should be at least 40-50% of our electricity generation in my ideal portfolio. 20% would be wind, the rest would be a combination of biomass, hydro, geothermal, etc., the miscellany.
That would require building anywhere from, say... 75 to 150 new plants, in total. Spread out over a reasonable timeframe.
kuronekoyama 4 years ago
That is a REALLY low number of plants. It would handle pollution from the US, but thats it. All stats from the eia.
By 2030, electricity generation will have almost doubled what it currently is. If we wanted to only HOLD our current pollution levels then every plant made during that time would need to be nuclear or renewable. That only takes care of pollution from electricity so it won't really be making things better yet.
pixman83 4 years ago
I was advocating for the US, not worldwide. Being a US citizen, I consider the extent of my policy influence to be the US border. Outside those borders, it's a diplomatic effort.
Worldwide, it would require a lot more than 75-150 plants, that's for sure. Even for the US, 75-150 plants would also have to be coupled with energy efficiency and decreases in personal transportation.
kuronekoyama 4 years ago
What is needed depends largely on what you base your assumptions on. For example, If you use CO2 than just concentrating on getting rid of fossil fuels will get rid of 95% of that. While if you measure NOx or SOx and then transportation becomes much more important.
I don't think that we are going to be seeing a reduction in personal transportation anytime soon. Gas is still too cheap for us to be making huge changes in how we move ourselves.
pixman83 4 years ago
I'm all for a nuclear fueled hydrogen economy myself. I haven't really seen anything else that could begin to be implemented in the next 10 years or so. Though I must admit that the aircar looks like the perfect solution for city travel.
pixman83 4 years ago
The situation would only be better if we assumed that all of the industrial, commercial, and transportation sectors pollution was reduced despite the continuing economic growth of 2nd and 3rd world countries.
The good news is that burning fossil fuels is the largest (95%) emitter of CO2 and that there is a solution in the form of renewable and nuclear energy. The bad news is that neither energy source is growing anywhere near fast enough to do much good.
pixman83 4 years ago
Maybe I'm just clueless, but I thought that the cooling systems used by nuclear plants like Turkey Point in Florida and Pilgrim on Cape Cod eliminate the need to evaporate all that fresh water in the cooling towers. Pilgrim definitely draws its cooling water directly from the ocean. The water used in the inner cooling loop is fresh, but this is negligible compared to the water used in cooling towers.
sovietologist 4 years ago