Duke Energy Scraps Plans For Florida Nuclear Plant, Forced To Delay Others 233
mdsolar writes
"According to the Associated Press, 'The largest utility in the U.S. is scuttling plans to build a $24.7 billion nuclear power plant in a small Gulf Coast county in Florida, the company announced Thursday. Duke Energy Corp. said it made the decision because of delays by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in issuing licenses for new plants, and because of recent legislative changes in Florida.' Meanwhile, 'Duke Energy's plans to build two nuclear reactors in South Carolina have been delayed by federal regulators who say budget cuts and changes to the plans require more time. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission told Duke in a letter that a final hearing on plans to build the William S. Lee nuclear plant in Cherokee County would have to wait until 2016. The original target had been this past March."
Do...or do not. There is no try. (Score:5, Insightful)
Either these kinds of plants are ok or they are not. If not, ban them. If so, get the hell out of the way.
Re:Do...or do not. There is no try. (Score:5, Interesting)
Either these kinds of plants are ok or they are not. If not, ban them. If so, get the hell out of the way.
Not a matter of them being OK. Dismiss that right off.
I lived for years in a city where a battle was waged by the NIMBYs and a regional power company, with the state and Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) sitting on a fence like so many crows and cawing in some change to regulations every now and then. It nearly bankrupted the power company, submitting, resubmitting, re-resubmitting construction plans, plant wiring, cooling system designs and plumbing, environmental impact, etc, etc, etc. Effectively they would spend months building reactor housing and then have to tear it all out and start again. After years of this the writing was on the wall, it would never become a nuclear plant (at least, most likely) The plant became a gas generating plant, though most of the structure could be converted to nuclear if the present owners feel like going to battle again. The designs were fine, but courts and red tape can kill any project.
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Reminds me of Bruce Nuclear. [wikipedia.org] That went on, and on, and on, and on, after they shut it down for refurbishment and replacing the reactors to a more modern design. And it wasn't the NIMBY's, it was the environmentalists making the NIMBY's froth all over the place. And it was the environmentalists spear heading it all in the courts too.
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Don't blame all of nuclear energy because a couple freakin CEOs wanted to save a few bucks. They *knew* Fukushima was vulnerable. They *knew* exactly what happened was possible. They also knew what needed to be done to ensure the reactor would be able to withstand such a situation. They decided not to spend the money.
Saying Fukushima is a failure of nuclear energy is like saying the NSA surveillance scandal is a failure of electricity.
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Agreed... The Fukishima plant site was significantly higher in elevation before construction started. Tepco removed 25 meters of the original buff" [japantimes.co.jp], thus saving some energy costs(pumping cooling water), while incurring the risk of a tsunami.
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Sigh, as with anything else in life, you have to take the chances and determine is they are worth the costs. Take a car for example, we have the technology to ensure almost no one ever gets injured in an accident and that almost no accidents ever happen. Look at NASCAR where they roll the vehicles at 200+ MPH and smash into concrete walls and walk away. Now imagine that safety limited to 10 miles per hour in your every day driver. See, it doesn't make sense to increase the costs of the vehicle or slow the p
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They *knew* Fukushima was vulnerable. They *knew* exactly what happened was possible.
Where's your evidence?
Re: Do...or do not. There is no try. (Score:2)
Sorry, thought it was pretty well known.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/03/10/opinion/fukushima-could-have-been-prevented.html [nytimes.com]
There's more to it than that (Score:3)
So it's not about "get the hell out of the way" - it's about "get behind it in a huge way, or not".
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Not necessarily. It may just mean it's legal and has a fair return on investment for a fair level of risk. banks hate that. Banks prefer to make money hand over fist and push the risks onto others. They don't much care if it's lagal or not.
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If we banned unsafe energy production we'd have to turn off all the coal and gas plants, drain all the hydro dams (those things are nasty when they break) and stop building any renewable that required construction work (especially at heights, like roofs and tall wind turbines).
Don't get me started on the explosive liquids we put in our cars or the explosive gas that's piped to my house for heating/cooking.
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Not just opening a business (be it a pizzeria or a nuclear plant), even driving your own car is not a right, that could only be taken away by Judiciary, but a privilege, that requires an Executive-iss
Not the best place (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think the gulf coast is a good place for a nuke plant anyway what with hurricanes getting stronger and more frequent
Re:Not the best place (Score:5, Interesting)
True, although other areas also have problems. Generally you need to be on a coast for the massive amount of cooling water needed, although Palo Verde [wikipedia.org] is an exception.
The Pacific coast was going to be the site of the first U.S. plant [wikipedia.org], but public opposition forced its cancellation, and that doesn't seem too likely to change in the near future. Plus you trade hurricane problems for earthquake problems.
More plants on the Great Lakes might be a possibility. Illinois is already the top nuclear-power-producing state as it is.
Re:Not the best place (Score:5, Funny)
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>> More plants on the Great Lakes might be a possibility
Doubt it. They just shut down one in Wisconsin: ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kewaunee_Power_Station [wikipedia.org] ) . One near Chicago was shut down in the late 1990s ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zion_Nuclear_Power_Station [wikipedia.org] )
>> Illinois is already the top nuclear-power-producing state
The remaining plants are nowhere near Lake Michigan. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Illinois [wikipedia.org] )
Power Plants on Lake Michigan (Score:2, Informative)
The remaining plants are nowhere near Lake Michigan.
In Illinois there are active three nuclear power stations (Braidwood, Dresden, and LaSalle) not far from Chicago. A serious criticality incident on any one of those three would likely affect Lake Michigan. There also are Palisades Power Station (Michigan), Point Beach (Wisconsin), Donald Cook Power Station (Michigan) which are all on Lake Michigan.
Personally I wonder if having nuclear stations so close to 1/5 of the world's fresh water supply is a good idea. I'm not opposed to nuclear power but I think so
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True, although other areas also have problems. Generally you need to be on a coast for the massive amount of cooling water needed
Huh?
Might want to look at a map of US nuclear facilities.
http://www.greenpeace.orgusaennews-and-blogscampaign-blognew-maps-of-nuclear-power-plants-and-seismic-blog33826eicnt7ucmlxocrazoqgmagpsigafqjcnh-dk-ug9bf6fywq0-g_2ha_kiurgust1375544816089350/ [www.greenp...4816089350]
The majority are NOT on the coast, many are on relatively small lakes...plus we have these cool things like cooling towers, not all those plants pull cold water in and dump hot water into a water source directly. A nuclear power plant doesn't need any more access
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Re:Not the best place (Score:4, Funny)
... (but forget Lake Erie, it's too shallow to soak up a lot of heat without ecological damage)
Welcome to Lake Bouillabaisse*
* Formerly known as Erie
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It appears they only shut down 2 hours before the strong winds approach (between 70 and 75 mph).
http://www.foronuclear.org/consultas-en/ask-the-expert/how-do-nuclear-power-plants-withstand-hurricanes- [foronuclear.org]
I never thought about it until it was just brought up. Interesting.
Re:Not the best place (Score:5, Informative)
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I dis-agree.. There is a new phenomenon unaccounted for, Supersized hurricanes and storms.. Hurricane Francis(cat 3) in 2004, following by Cat-5s Katrina, Rita, and Wilma in 2005..
All had eye diameters in excess of 60 miles wide making them much more powerful than typical cat-5 hurricanes (Andrew 1992, 8miles, Camile(1969) 12-13 miles). This is a new phenomenon not recorded previously.. Note: Super storm Sandy(2012) also supersized before landfall.
Larger hurricane eye diameters lead to wider eye wa
Re:Not the best place (Score:5, Informative)
We're talking west coast of Florida here - the place least likely to be hit by a hurricane on the Gulf Coast.
Note also that Katrina hit a nuclear plant. No problems....
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We've already came wayy to close to meltdown after Hurricane Andrew(1992) went just north of Turkey Point.
If Andrew had cut across south florida a few miles further to the south and subjected the plant to strong quadrants, instead of the much weaker quadrants, we might have had to evacuate South Florida.
As it was.. even the much weaker quadrants of Andrew did some significant damage, it severely damaged a 400ft tall, 5000 ton brick smoke stack for the bunker oil/steam plant next to the reactors.. Care to
Re:Not the best place (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, it's kinda pointless to build nuclear plants in an area where oil flows ashore by itself.
Thanks, NRC! (Score:3, Insightful)
at a time when we need more power generating capacity, it's nice to see the relevant government agency doing its best to bottleneck the process!
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i know people who's kids go to school within 10 miles of a nuclear power plant. you have to sign waivers allowing the school to give your kids some kind of radiation treatment in case of a meltdown
Re:Thanks, NRC! (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a CYA policy. Parents have a nasty habit of making a ruckus if a school gives their kids anything they didn't agree to. It's probably a permission ship to be able to give iodine tablets to the students in the event of a meltdown. So even though those tablets would likely help keep the kids from getting thyroid cancer parents would bitch at the school for doing it without permission.
Re:Thanks, NRC! (Score:4, Informative)
As someone who has been sued for $200K for giving someone a sore knee (trying to get money from my insurance provider), I'm convinced sometimes greedy lawsuits just happen and there's not much you can do to avoid it. In the case of a nuclear meltdown, parents would sue for not providing lead shields and rad-x.
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Sounds like a lawyer who needed to pad his fees one month or justify his retainer.
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I'm within 10 miles of a nuclear power plant with two reactors, a shipyard that builds nuclear powered ships, and a naval base with numerous nuclear reactors floating at the docks. I have not seen any such document for any of my four children. What I have signed is a waiver giving them permission to treat my children medically in an emergency, which is a no brainer. If your district specifically calls out treatment "in the event of a nuclear meltdown" then your school board has issues.
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America could very easily reduce it's power consumption significantly, and at the same time improve the quality of its citizen's lives. American houses are very inefficient, generally speaking. It is cheaper to make efficiency and quality improvements than to build more capacity.
Unfortunately it won't happen because when capacity is reached there are two options. A massive programme of improvements to citizen's homes and business premises could be undertaken. This would reduce energy bills and improve quali
Re:Thanks, NRC! (Score:5, Informative)
The current designs of nuclear plants being built around the world have an initial design life of 60 years, not "a couple of decades". They may well go on operating for a century depending on maintenance, fuel costs etc.
The existing fleet of Gen II reactors built in the 70s and 80s are reaching the end of their initial licencing period of 40 years but after inspection and some upgrading here and there quite a few of them are getting a licence extension of ten years with the expectation that they could well get another 10-year operating extension on top of that.
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Naval nuc reactors are designed and maintained under very different standards (and cost constraints) than civilian light water reactors. For a number of reasons, the Navy system doesn't scale to commercial sizes.
But this is exactly my point: we can make nuclear power safe (as soon as we figure out what to do with the waste - that's political, not technical), we just haven't done so. And we don't seem to be making the effort to do so. The nuclear power industry at times is it's own worst enemy. They've
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One of the most skeptical-of-nuclear-power people I know is a naval nuclear technician, for that reason. He might be overreacting in the other direction, but his position is something like: we know how to do it right in the navy, and I don't trust a civilian operation to get it right.
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Ah, you must be new here. Slashdot HTML is based on RFC documents stored in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'."
I think I played this one (Score:2)
I think I played this one. It's the one where the power company turns everyone into mutants and a blond haired Bruce Campbell goes around cracking wise and blowing up the mutants.
Where'd the money go? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Where'd the money go? (Score:5, Insightful)
They *lost* billions because the government forced them to cancel it, and now you want to double their losses by making them pay the same amount to the government? I don't care if it was the government's money to begin with; you don't get to give a bunch of money to someone to buy something, then steal it from them, then demand the money back!
I mean I'm no fan of corporations -- I've nearly been arrested protesting quite a few though Occupy, the Tar Sands blockade, etc....but seriously?
Blame the government when the real cause is... (Score:4, Insightful)
Expect the same thing to be repeated in West Virginia and South Western Pennsylvania coal belts. They will blame the government, onerous regulations, etc etc and claim "clean coal" was killed by enviro nazis. All the while the natural gas is getting cheaper than even the dirty coal. If you spend more money on cleaning up dirty coal how can you compete with another thing that burns more easily, transports more easily and costs less?
We may disagree whether this boom in fracking and natural gas abundance is a good or bad. But one thing we can be sure is, these entrenched interests would blame the government at every opportunity even when the true cause is thumping its chest like an 800 lb gorilla right on their faces.
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The reason why the plant was cancelled was because the price tag is $25 billion. The price tag is $25 billion because of government regulation overcomplicating and slowing down construction, causing interest on capital costs to balloon to the point of unprofitability.
$25 billion a pittance?! (Score:2)
Duke's market capitalization is $50 billion and their annual earnings are $2.2 billion. How is $25 billion a pittance?
To that end, there are several companies trying to come out with pre-approved smaller reactor designs (50MW instead of 1100MW) which they would build for $1 billion apiece and then build them one after another on the same site until they had however many they wanted (could be 24, could be 6). That way, at any one time the financial risk is actually manageable.
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To be fair, with zero regulation, oversight, and no delays as well as only minimal safety procedures, nuclear would be the cheapest (but most dangerous) of all our energy options.
No. Even in the Soviet Union, with extreme lack luster safety standards, the number of people whom died due to nuclear power in the entire history of nuclear power is fewer than the number of coal miners whom die every month.
Obama clearly stated he wants more $$$$ energy (Score:4, Informative)
So, why is anyone surprised his executive agencies are putting up more roadblocks to building power plants? I mean, he said it in plain english.
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So a couple questions:
- how much more expensive are we talking about? Twice? Five times? Ten times? Hundred times?
- once energy prices skyrocket to match the price of "clean" energy, how will energy prices come down again? Or is that not part of the plan?
- the only thing cheaper than nuclear energy is hydr
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The market hasn't failed - clean energy just isn't cheap enough yet. Economies don't switch energy sources to more expensive sources unless the government steps in. Petroleum finally took over from whale oil when it got cheaper/whale oil got more expensive - before that, who wanted to use dirty old petroleum that had to be expensively processed before becoming useful when you get just harpoon a whale and melt down its fat for immediately usable energy.
Natural gas is still projected to be less than half the
I'm shocked, SHOCKED, to learn there's gambling (Score:3)
I don't suppose we'll ever see that money back, will we?
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Is this one of those cases where the state allowed them to put a surcharge [orlandosentinel.com] on customers' bills for years before they even built the plant?
I don't suppose we'll ever see that money back, will we?
No, in fact the reason why they cancelled the plant was precisely because the state's government told them they could not raise their rates to pay for the construction of the plant, and they didn't have $25 billion just sitting around to pay for the whole thing in advance. I'm sure in 10 years when Floridians are paying three times as much for electricity that they wish they took the 5% increase when they had the chance. That's short-term thinking politicians for you though, they couldn't care less what hap
Building a nuke plant doesn't make economic sense (Score:3, Insightful)
Assuming an industry standard 92.1% uptime for the plant, an industry standard 0.85 CENTS per KWH operating & refueling cost and a 60 year lifespan, this plant with its two AP1000 reactors would generate 19.6 Billion KWH per year for 60 years. That works out to an installed cost of $6.91 per KWH of capacity.
Meanwhile, I just installed a 6.2 KWH solar array for $24,000, (before any tax rebates and including all engineering, labor and other parts like inverters). Factoring in its 30 year life span (meaning factoring in that I'd need to buy TWO systems to equal the 60 year lifespan of the reactor) and factoring in average solar availability here in Florida, my cost per installed KWH is $4.00.
Those are real numbers, not speculative. And they DON'T INCLUDE any transmission losses, which average 7% nationwide.
So it is cheaper for us as a nation to put solar panels on every roof than it is to build nuke plants.
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Factoring in its 30 year life span
Are you really expecting to go 30 years with absolutely no maintenance or breakdowns on your shiny new system?
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Abso-fucking-lutely. Other than hosing off the panels a few times a year, there is no maintenance at all. It is an entirely solid state system with no moving parts.
What if something fails? The inverters and panels all have non pro-rated 30 year warranties. Real-time monitoring software lets me know if a panel or inverter fails. When, or if it does, it is replaced, for free as covered by the warranty---all of those costs are already included in the price.
Also you seem to think I am the first person in the
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Also the 42% lower price for solar vs nuke would indicate there's a little wiggle room for a higher failure rate than expected--and remember my numbers already include paying for the entire system TWICE. If I had to buy THREE systems in 60 years instead of TWO, my cost per KWH would still be $6 vs $6.90 for nuke (really $7.39 for nuke when you factor in transmission losses).
ALSO--the price of solar PV cells has steadily been dropping due to research and develpment. My replacement cost in 30 (or even 20) y
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Re:Building a nuke plant doesn't make economic sen (Score:4, Insightful)
First of all, there is no such thing as kWh of installed capacity. kWh is a unit of energy. kW is a unit of power. Installed capacities for a power plant are given in terms of power. (Unless you're talking about batteries, in which case the installed capacity is given as the maximum amount of energy it can store.)
2 * 1000 MW * 0.921 * 8766 hours/year * 60 years = 968.8 billion kWh generated over the 60 years.
$24.7 billion for the cost of the plant (ignoring interest since you ignored it in the solar case) works out to $24.7 / 968.8 = $0.0255 per kWh. Add the $0.0085 per kWh operating and refueling costs and you get $0.034 per kWh. Or 3.4 cents per kWh.
It makes no sense to state this in terms of kWh per year, because that would be the cost for constructing a $24.7 billion nuclear facility, using it one year, and replacing it each following year with a new $24.7 billion facility.
Your solar panels don't put out 6.2 kW (6.2 kWh for an array makes no sense, unless you mean 6.2 kWh per month or year, which is a pittance). Assuming it's a 6.2 kW array (about 45 m^2 - reasonable for a large home installation), PV solar has a capacity factor of about 0.145 for the U.S (about 0.11 in the northern U.S., 0.18 in the desert southwest, 0.10 for northern Europe). That is, if you have 1 kW of nameplate capacity installed, over the year it will on average generate 145 Watts. So a 6.2 kW array will over the year only generate an average of 899 Watts.
6.2 kW * 0.145 * 8766 hours/yr * 30 yrs = 236.4 thousand kWh generated over 30 years.
At a cost of $24,000, that's $24 / 236.4 = $0.1015 per kWh, or 10.2 cents per kWh. Exactly 3x more expensive than the nuclear plant.
So your production costs are in-line with everything government and power company sources [wikipedia.org] have been saying. PV solar costs about 2 to 5 times more than fossil fuels and nuclear.
2005 Energy Act (Score:5, Informative)
The breakdown of U.S energy research and development subsidies reported by the US DOE is roughly 60% for nuclear, 25% to fossil fuels and 15% to sustainable energy sources.
Half a billion dollars worth of subsidies are available for procuring companies (i.e oil companies) proposing "pre-approved" reactor designs, even if they don't build it, and a 1.8 cent per kilowatt hour tax credit if they do.
In addition the 2005 U.S energy bill provided another $13 billion dollars worth of subsidies and revocation of the Public Utilities Holding Company Act (PUHCA, by George.W.Bush), put into law in 1935 to stop a re-occurrence of the 1929 stock market crash. It is this economic mechanism which allows the owners of nuclear power stations to syphon money from ratepayers in the same way utilities companies did in the 1920s.
For anyone whos says this is a problem of the "NIMBYs" (or the ratepayer) protesting the construction, it's not. Constructs in the law governing the location and construction of Nuclear Reactors specifically exclude ratepayer concerns in the consideration for approval. Utilities companies withdraw for their own reasons, usually insurance and liability as, even with the provisions of thePrice Anderson Act [wikipedia.org] Nuclear power plants are too risky to operate.
The reality is if the Nuclear power industry was forced to cover it's own liability and fund itself it would cease to exist.
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Keep in mind California has a $3 billion solar subsidy, and there is the $18 billion in incentives for clean and renewable energy technologies and energy efficiency improvements from the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act.
You may want to look at a historical perspective [cornerstonemag.net] on US energy subsidies.
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The reality is if the Nuclear power industry was forced to cover it's own liability and fund itself it would cease to exist.
Unless they were permitted to reprocess fuel as well as building breeder reactors, at which point there's be near zero waste to be subsidizing the storage on, and you'd practically eliminate the need to mine and refine pitchblende in order to obtain Uranium from the yellowcake. Win-win.
Also Hitachi tried to *give* a U.S. town in Alaska a pebble bed reactor in order to prove the technology, and they wouldn't take the thing.
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Why would you ever let private companies run your critical infrastructure?
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For anyone whos says this is a problem of the "NIMBYs" (or the ratepayer) protesting the construction, it's not. Constructs in the law governing the location and construction of Nuclear Reactors specifically exclude ratepayer concerns in the consideration for approval. Utilities companies withdraw for their own reasons, usually insurance and liability as, even with the provisions of thePrice Anderson Act [wikipedia.org] Nuclear power plants are too risky to operate.
The reality is if the Nuclear power industry was forced to cover it's own liability and fund itself it would cease to exist.
The article specifically states that they pulled out because of delays from regulators. To believe that government regulators don't respond to pressure from elected officials, which in turn are being pressured by their constituents, would be pretty disingenuous.
Duke [Nukem] Energy Corp. (Score:5, Funny)
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I know! Thanks to red tape, Duke's Nuke will take forever to get built in North Carolina!
This should be a violation of due process (Score:4, Insightful)
The government is effectively denying nuke plants it doesn't have a right to deny by delaying hearings indefinitely.
In criminal trials, if the prosecution fails to make their case in a speedy manner the case is dismissed by default.
Likewise, these planning commissions should function like trials before an impartial judge concerned only with the law. The planning commission should have the ability to approve plans without a trial or if they wish to reject a plan they should bring it before a judge in a timely manner. If they fail to do so then they should wave their ability to stop the project.
A major problem with the US government at this point is that the checks and balances between executive, legislative, and judicial have broken down to some extent. Especially in these regulatory agencies, various departments are given the authority to be judge, jury, and executioner. In some cases literally. This is all a violation of due process.
These regulatory bodies are effectively members of the executive. They're cops. They have every right to respond to a situation but they do not have the right to pass judgement, set policy, or carry out a sentence without judicial review on a case by case basis.
Obviously people that are against the nuclear plant will say this is good and the executive should just do whatever it wants indifferent to judicial review because the executive is doing what they want at that time. That's fine. However, what happens when the executive does something you disagree with...? You have no recourse if the regulators are absolute.
It is in everyone's interest that this stop and that the system be held to some account. If the feds want to stall permits that's fine... they forfeit a right to contest projects in that event. If they want a say they can approve or deny permits AND offer reasons for doing so before an impartial judge.
Short of that... its a violation of our rights. End of story.
In other words, no-one really cares about CO2 (Score:2)
If human CO2 emissions were really any kind of issue, we'd green-light new reactors as fast as possible.
The fact that the current administration tries to block construction of them shows all too clearly how the talk about CO2 reduction is all political posturing with motives that have nothing to do with CO2 reduction.
Obviously building nuclear plants is not helping Democratic donors enough financially.
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The smartest thing we could do now is upgrade the electrical grid! Regardless of where the power comes from the distribution system needs upgrading and would benefit everyone now.
And maybe this is another reason... (Score:4, Insightful)
The two reactors were 1,100 MW each, a total of 2.2 GW.
The price tag was $24.7 billion.
So that's 24.7 / 2.2 = $11.23 per watt!
Natural gas turbines are about $1 a watt. PV's going in under $2. Wind is about $6.
http://matter2energy.wordpress.com/2013/08/03/the-nuclear-reontinues-apace/
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That was, of course...
http://matter2energy.wordpress.com/2013/08/03/the-nuclear-renaissance-continues-apace/
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He probably did do the research. Below are the examples I could find of the highest capacity power plants of each type. The power density may vary for specific installations, but I expect that these are fairly representative. There's a pretty stark difference between the power generation densities.
The world's largest wind farm, the Alta Wind Energy Center [wikipedia.org] generates 1.32 GW and occupies 13 km^2 (for 101.5 MW/km^2).
The world's largest solar installation, the Solar Energy Generating Systems [wikipedia.org], generates 354 MW a
Let's clarify that one (Score:3)
See how worthless the above post is when it's distilled down to it's true meaning?
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How about this version...all THREE major nuclear accidents have been accidents. In order of ability to prevent and damage caused: one by a complete and total incompetence, one by faulty equipment and poor training, and one by design standards that were inadequate to an incredible natural disaster.
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More like two. For all the hand wringing and people claiming their pet earthworm went bald, I see no actual evidence of harm from TMI or the Sodium Reactor Experiment. Study after study, they keep coming up with nothing.
Re:Shame (Score:4, Insightful)
Like it or not, poor oversight can't be removed from a discussion of the technology. If you are building a nuclear plant, you need to be confident that you will be able to maintain responsible oversight/operations/maintenance of the facility for 60 plus years, with oversight/maintenance/storage of the waste for longer. You can have every confidence in the design, in the current owners and the operators when it begins operation, but they will likely be retired if not dead by the time the plant closes. All it takes is one few year period where bad management / operations / regulation comes in and a disaster can happen.
For the record, cheap natural gas and a general lack of growing electricity demand is making developing a nuclear plant pretty questionable at the moment. You have to spend (i.e. borrow) a ton of money up front, on the expectation you will need the energy in 5-10 or more years and that the price of power will have increased sufficiently. Alternatively you can wait it out, see what happens to demand and if needed throw up a gas-fired plant quickly for much less capital and a pretty reasonable operations costs.
Oversight can't be separated out (Score:5, Insightful)
All of the nuclear accidents in history have happened because of poor oversight, not to the fault of the technology itself.
The oversight IS a part of the technology. If the technology were flawless and relatively safe then extensive regulation and oversight would not be needed. I'm not opposed to nuclear power but pretending that the oversight can be separated from the equipment is naive.
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Re:Shame (Score:4, Insightful)
All of the nuclear accidents in history have happened because of poor oversight, not to the fault of the technology itself.
So what you are saying is that we need to solve the oversight problem. What progress has been made towards doing that? I don't see any really... In my own country the nuclear industry seems to be just as cock-up prone as ever. Still no plan to deal with waste either.
The only solution on offer seems to be to make nuclear power cheaper for companies to operate and then they will... Actually I'm not sure what the rest of the plan is, I just keep hearing people moaning about the cost due to regulation.
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As opposed to the current methods we use to produce our power.
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Waste disposal could be fixed with political will. Also there is no need for river water to cool a reactor. Man made cooling ponds have been used and have the advantage of no one caring how hot you make the water.
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The need for water for cooling will be true with any other high efficiency thermal generation method. Every noticed coal power plants have much the same type of condensation towers?
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Unless you live in Hawaii very little oil is burned for power. It would be far too expensive. Natural gas and coal are far bigger. Even wind and solar are bigger than oil for electric generation in most states.
Many coal plants are now mostly natural gas anyway with the low prices on the stuff and they have preheaters that burn it anyway.
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While that is true in a sense it is a gross oversimplification.
Oil is expensive compared to coal and natural gas. So oil based fuels are mostly used where the advantages of an easilly portable liquid fuel outweighs the higher cost, e.g. transportation and some industrial uses. Afaict most electricity in the US comes from coal, nuclear and natural gas. So new nuclear power plants would be mostly displacing coal and gas not oil.
Does this mater? it depends on what you consider important. If your aim is to redu
They are strict because the consequences are bad (Score:2)
You could cut nuclear regulation in half and it would still be the safest way to generate power.
The relationship between quantity of regulation and safety is not a linear one. There are three things to consider when evaluating risk: likelihood of occurrence, chance of detection, and severity of the problem. What makes nuclear power scary is that the severity of many problems can be extremely high so one has to be very careful to keep the other two factors (likelihood and detection) as low as possible. That is the purpose of the regulations. You cannot simply say that cutting the regulations in hal
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I wonder if we could put them inside of mountains. I know there needs to be some method for cooling but the majority of the structure could be contained. Think the base in Stargate: SG-1.