Nation's Biggest Nuclear Firm Makes a Play For Carbon Credit Cash 227
tomhath writes with this story that may shake up the nuclear industry. "The biggest player in the beleaguered nuclear power industry wants a place alongside solar, wind and hydroelectric power collecting extra money for producing carbon-free electricity. Exelon Corp., operator of the largest fleet of U.S. nuclear plants, says it could have to close three of them if Illinois rejects the company's pitch to let it recoup more from consumers since the plants do not produce greenhouse gases. Exelon and other around-the-clock plants sometimes take losses when wind turbines produce too much electricity for the system. Under the system, electric suppliers would have to buy credits from carbon-free energy producers. Exelon says the plan would benefit nuclear plants, hydroelectric dams, and other solar and wind projects."
And why not? (Score:4, Insightful)
Considering that nuclear power is the safest form of power the world has ever known [forbes.com], I'd say it's worthy of recognition for offsetting carbon more than anything else. To borrow a phrase, "It's the energy density, stupid."
There's a reason why China has 30 nuclear plants under construction, while the US just approved its first new plant in 30 years.
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I wonder how quickly NIMBY becomes IMBY if electricity were actually provided free for the people and properties and businesses near the plant.
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> I wonder how quickly NIMBY becomes IMBY if electricity were actually provided free
> for the people and properties and businesses near the plant.
Works wonders for the wind industry.
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There's a reason why China has 30 nuclear plants under construction, while the US just approved its first new plant in 30 years.
China's corporate masters are production-oriented, while in the US wealth extraction has already taken over?
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The carbon footprint according to a NASA study including all mining is a small fraction of natural gas and more than an order of magnitude less than coal. Oil does not count since almost no oil is used for electric production in the US.
BTW maintenance is not carbon free of wind turbines.
Re:And why not? (Score:4, Insightful)
Safe except for the byproducts, which are most definitely not safe. I'm not an opponent of nuclear, but it's ludicrous to claim that it is safer than, say, geothermal or solar.
That is very wrong (Score:2)
Safe except for the byproducts, which are most definitely not safe
Why not? The byproducts are very small in volume, and quite well protected/contained.
It's better than coal which spreads low does of radiation, not to mention other pollution, all over the place. Both in burning and in transport.
It's better than solar or wind, byproducts of manufacture of those systems end up in the environment.
Nuclear has the safest byproducts. because you will never come in contact with them.
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Nuclear has the safest byproducts. because you will never come in contact with them.
I'd like to see you explain that to Iraq war veteran and the children of Iraq exposed to depleted Uranium munitions. Very nasty stuff indeed.
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Geothermal is location limted.
Solar is not useful for baseload because of the state of storage technology. And yes I have read up on molten salt thermal storage and I work with battery technology everyday. Pumped water storage and solar are a poor match because it is very rare to have a lot of water and elevation change in areas with good solar potential.
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Actually nuclear has around a 1.3% catastrophic failure rate. Of around 450 commercial reactors built, 6 have gone into meltdown. If you include other serious failures that number is even higher.
When the cost of a catastrophic failure is so high a 1.3% failure rate is unacceptable. The only reason people are still willing to even consider investing in it is that when things do go wrong the government always picks up the tab.
Re:And why not? (Score:4, Informative)
> There's a reason why China has 30 nuclear plants under construction
They don't. They have 22 under construction, where "under construction" is something from "we have the signed paperwork" to "we're putting in the switchyard".
And the reason is widely recorded - they wanted to put their coal plants out of business because they're poisoning everyone. Of course a nuclear plant doesn't really compete with coal economically (few things do) so to do this the plan was giving the plants free money and cheap fuel. If this were true here, the same would be happening.
However, as the cost of wind and solar plummeted, these plans are rapidly changing. The plans used to be based on a 400+GWe nuclear buildout by 2050, but these have been scaled back to 60GW with another 30 at the outside. Meanwhile, wind power has already reached 115GW at the end of 2014, more than the nuclear plants. Current install rates for wind are far greater than the peak installation rate for nuclear would have been even at the highest end of the original projections. Since 2012, much of the planned nuclear capacity of the earlier plans has been moved to wind. Gansu alone is expected to grow to a staggering 20 GW.
Read all about it:
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Country-Profiles/Countries-A-F/China--Nuclear-Power/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_China
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-25623400
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Which reactor melt down has killed millions?
I mean, the parent post fails to take into account that when it goes wrong it renders a large area of land uninhabitable, but that's easily dealt with in modern reactor designs.
He's just trolling (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's actually worse than that. The nuclear industry basically owns the regulator. Barack Obama, when running for president in 2007, said that the NRC had become "captive of the industries that it regulates". Entergy lied under oath about the existence of pipes leaking contaminated material under the Vermont Yankee station, which the NRC claims they didn't even know were there.
Most damning of all the NRC has been used to help sell US technology to other countries. Since their job is to find flaws in that tec
Re:And why not? (Score:4, Insightful)
when it goes wrong it renders a large area of land uninhabitable,
When a hydroelectric scheme goes right, it renders a large area of land uninhabitable. ... [wikipedia.org]
China's Three Gorges covers 1000 km2 and displaced over a million people. And if anything goes horribly wrong,
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When a hydroelectric scheme goes right, it renders a large area of land uninhabitable.
When it goes wrong, it renders a different large area of land uninhabitable.
Still, when done right, better than a lot of other options.
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When a hydroelectric scheme goes right, it renders a large area of land uninhabitable.
When it goes wrong, it renders a different large area of land uninhabitable.
Still, when done right, better than a lot of other options.
Nuclear is better than a lot of other options (possibly all options), when done right. Unfortunately due to regulations, we aren't making reactors with less nasty waste. Unfortunately due to a small number of old reactor failures we aren't replacing them with new, safer ones.
Nuclear has the deck shuffled completely against it on all sides. I don't think it will survive - at least in the US and any other country that the US opposes.
Re:And why not? (Score:4, Informative)
The Three Gorges Dam isn't primarily a hydroelectric scheme. It's primary purpose is to protect the lower parts of the Jangtze river from flooding, which has regularly affected some 10-20 mio people.
But you could say the same about lignite or other coal strip-mines. Lignite mining in Germany has stripped some 1500km^2 so far and is still ongoing.
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1500! Wow. It is tragic and idiotic that Germany is replacing perfectly good nuclear plants with lignite.
But while the CO2 pollution is irreversible, surely the topsoil is being saved for later rehabilitation?
The loss of land is much more temporary than for hydro. And the land is less important than river valleys. The number of people and villages displaced, as well as wildlife effects, is much lower.
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It is tragic and idiotic that Germany is replacing perfectly good nuclear plants with lignite.
Except: that Germany is not doing that. How do you come to that retarded idea?
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Why do you hate handicapped and retarded people?
If the nuclear plants had not been prematurely closed, old coal plants would run at lower levels, or even be closed down. Lignite would stay in the ground, instead of the atmosphere.
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Most nuclear plants are still running, get a damn clue.
Two or three are offline.
There is no replacement of nuclear by coal or brown coal going on.
Your idea is wrong.
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Lignite mining in Germany has stripped some 1500km^2 so far and is still ongoing.
Yes, but the areas are re-forrested and artificial lakes are crafted. Former strip mines are now the most beautiful areas of Germany with low population, mixed deciduous woodland and a thriving wildlife.
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The land is not "uninhabitable", it is only covered by water, hence birds and fish really like it.
A significant difference imho.
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The land is not "uninhabitable", it is only covered by water, hence birds and fish really like it.
Well gee, I suppose Chernobyl is a good thing, since the animals are doing a lot better, now that the humans have mostly gone. It has become a wildlife refuge. Certainly far less affected than if the landscape had been drowned. Except for the fish.
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The animals are not doing 'a lot better'. The first 20 years they had all the expected low lofe expectations, like cancer, birth deformations etc.
The wild life 'looks better' because there are no humans hunting it, and healthy wildlife is immigrating into the zone and replacing the ones who died young.
Also comparing a deer that only lives 5 - 6 years and has now plenty of offsprings with humans who live 10 - 15 times as long is quite difficult.
No one carss or even notices if a deer dies at 3 or 4 now, due t
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Some are and some are not... Most of the Chernobyl exclusion zone now has less radiation than natural radiation occurring in the Black Forest. Many species thrive; with comparable life spans and no significant anomalies, these are especially larger multi-celled organisms. Some organisms that have few anti-oxidants; especially some annual flowers and Bactria don't fare quite so well.
You must take into account tow issues, first the high radiation environment killed many organisms; especially single celled org
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Difference is, the flood wont be around in a few thousand years.
Wrong. The Fukushima exclusion zone will be gone long before the dam, let alone a thousand years. Thats pure propaganda. The most active isotopes are long gone now, leaving caesium-137 with a 30-year half life.
That will affect the area for centuries, but not so much as you think.
Chernobyl even, is only "uninhabitable" by law. Hundreds live there illegally, and no-one has developed a 3rd eye or superpowers yet. Background levels are getting low (less than on a commercial flight), though hot-spots remain.
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The most active isotopes are long gone now, leaving caesium-137 with a 30-year half life.
... regardless how active they are.
Do you like to play games with the word "active" or what is your problem?
Most isotopes are poisonous
Hundreds live there illegally, and no-one has developed a 3rd eye or superpowers yet. ...
Obviously it is close to impossible as an adult to develop an extra eye
Nevertheless: would you risk to have a handicapped child because of easy to avoid radiation? Easy to avoid by simply not livin
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Well, the problem is not in the current reactor designs. Those are as good as it gets.
The problem is in the reactor designers who consistently fail to recognize that the humans who implement the designs are completely faulty material. Humans screw up. Every reactor failure that has ever occurred is because humans screwed up. There is no possible way any of today's nuclear reactor designs can be made safe, because the ingenuity with which humans can screw up is astronomical while the designs of safety mecha
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I'm not sure how you can make a statement like this. Are you saying there's no room for improvement?
I see no evidence this is true. The reason we don't get newer designs in the US is purely regulatory - it would cost billions to certify a new reactor technology, so companies find it cheape
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The reason we don't get newer designs in the US is purely regulatory - it would cost billions to certify a new reactor technology, so companies find it cheaper to just build another copy
You do realize that your point supports my position. One major way that humans are faulty with regard to today's nuclear fission is the amount of administratium that interferes with every aspect of that industry. Engineers do not study administratium and are not trained in its management. And yet over the long term it is one of the most dangerous elements in water cooled nuclear plant operations.
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Actually many (maybe even most) modern designs feature passive safety mechanisms for exactly this reason. Its not like the designers haven't learned their lesson.
The problem is that a new reactor is on the order of a billion dollars to build, while the old reactors are already there. So we just try to keep those old designs running well past their life expectancy and somehow consider it surprising when they fuck up once in a while.
Honestly, the surprising part is that more of them haven't melted down yet.
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it still took an almost unprecedented natural disaster to break it.
No it did not.
1) the earth quake was 450 miles away, and did only very low damage, mainly simply breaking the power lines
2) tsunamis like this are common! and not 'unprecedented'
3) the main problem was human incompetence in not being able to place emergency power generators in time, no idea what the problem behind that was. But the natural german reaction to sent military with truck based emergency power, or fly stuff in with helicopters, o
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So bottom line except for the occurrence of the quake itself, everything leading to or involved in the accident was human failure or miss judgement or taking no action.
Which is exactly what the official report concluded, it was a man made disaster.
Re:And why not? (Score:4, Interesting)
In case you're serious, nuclear plants are not capable of exploding into atomic bombs. And they're not really a partisan issue, lots of liberals like them, myself included.
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Greenpeace has made too much money off of an anti-nuclear stance. I suspect that they get more money from the koch bros, coal mines and big oil than most gop candidates
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Re:And why not? (Score:5, Insightful)
Suspicion just requires that I see things that make me suspicious
Greenpeace claims to advocate for the environment
CO2 presents a huge threat to the environment
Nuclear power offers a way to maintain a baseline power supply without creating CO2
Greenpeace constantly works against the building of nuclear power plants
When one of the founders of Greenpeace spoke out about the advantages of nuclear power not creating CO2, they removed him from the organization
Nuclear power represents a threat to the fossil fuel industry's position as the primary baseline power supplier
By fighting nuclear power through lawsuits, Greenpeace makes it more likely that we will continue to use fossil fuels, even though they are causing damage to the environment by releasing CO2
There is nothing slanderous about stating the facts that present themselves
If I want to say that it makes me suspicious, then that is my right
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Bzzzzz.....
Wrong answer.
It is not and Studies by NASA and the UN both support a large increase in nuclear power to reduce pollution in general as well as carbon emissions as does one of the founders of Greenpeace.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P... [wikipedia.org]
Of course Greenpeace says he is a paid toady of the nuclear industry.... Vilification of those that disagree with you is the first rule of propaganda.
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http://blogs.scientificamerica... [scientificamerican.com]
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/... [bloomberg.com]
I don't know if that is GP's objections but they are pretty good reasons to think radio isotopes are a threat to the environment and ultimately, humanity.
Not if dealt with correctly.
The spent fuel can be recycled. The short lived radio isotopes do not need to be stored very long. The medium waste goes back to fuel. The low level is close to background.
"Newer" reactor designs like the LFTR and I use new only in the sense that the proto
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They don't think that far ahead in the logic.
It's purely "Nuclear = bad. Coal = bad. Hydro = bad." and that's the end of it.
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That Greenpeace makes a lot of money off anti nuclear? That should be pretty obvious.
Anti-nuclear is the same as Anti-Vax.
All the science says it saves a more lives that it takes.
And not doing it will end up taking a large number of lives and will impact the poor, old, and very young the most.
The only difference is that not using more nuclear power will do a lot more harm than not vaxing.
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Their is nothing wrong with nuclear power however there is something wrong with major corporations, they are all broken. Myopic focus on short term profits with a total disregard for consequences. Repeated failure by governments to prosecute corporate executives not some times but by far most of the time to the extent of having failed to prosecute culpable individuals thousands upon thousands of times. Nuclear power but government owned and controlled and publicly audited, definitely not in the hands of de
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When a corporate executives decisions kill then they should be facing extended imprisonment and confiscation of assets to pay for damages.
Hell, I would settle for them not being immediately hired as CEO elsewhere. Where did all the competent leaders go? Were they just a myth?
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Nuclear power but government owned and controlled and publicly audited
Yeah, because government institutions are always so much more competent and trustworthy than large corporations. Lemme see - post office, DMV, CIA/NSA... Shining examples of what can be done by government, but in wholly different ways. I'll also say corporations are no better. The US federal government is little more than an extremely large corporation with a guaranteed revenue stream and all the evils that go with that.
The correct answer - no matter who is in charge - is first and foremost proper, safe
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The correct answer - no matter who is in charge - is first and foremost proper, safety conscious engineering, and then followed up with a culture of accountability and transparency *to everyone*. That means that there aren't reports that are "secret" because of some security theater. Everybody sees it, everybody knows what's going on.
Add to that that a nuclear plant should probably have a fixed lifespan. After 50 years, they shut it down, dismantle it, and haul it all away.
It's too easy for an aging infrustructure to be neglected and shortcuts to be taken. It would be better to create a new one than to let an
aging one hobble along until something breaks.
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Now exactly how fucking long would the list of failed corporations be. How long would the list of corporate prosecutions be. Government fails sometimes, corporations always inevitably fail. I rather take maybe over the certainty. PS governments tend only to fail when they are corruptly controlled by, you guessed it, private interests and cease to represent the majority.
CORPORATIONS ALWAYS FAIL.
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"Safe until it kills millions when a plant blows up. "
Oooh, a major hyperbole leak. We need a retaining wall around Harvard.
If there is going to be a carbon market, then all energy producers get to trade in it. All carbon-free power producers can sell their credits to producers who are still emitting carbon in excess of this year's limit.
Re:And why not? (Score:5, Interesting)
Unlike, say, coal, which kills millions under normal operations, right?
Or didn't you know that routine coal-mining fatalities are a couple of orders of magnitude more numerous than all fatalities associated with nuclear power? Hell, coal mining fatalities in the 20th century in the USA ALONE were comparable to the death-toll from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.
And then there's the rest of the world's coal mining casualties, plus secondary effects from the pollution.
And never mind that nuclear plants don't "blow up". Unless you fill them up with TNT and set it off, of course.
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And never mind that nuclear plants don't "blow up". Unless you fill them up with TNT and set it off, of course.
Well, that's not entirely true... Hydrogen buildup and ignition can result an explosion, which did happen at Fukushima. I don't think this is what the GP had in mind, though. Nuclear piles are designed such that criticality cannot result in a nuclear detonation (actually, it takes careful design to achieve nuclear detonation even with weapons-grade fissile material). Worst case, in older designs, is that the nuclear fuel melts through its containment vessel, resulting in a radioactive leak.
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So yes, they like to pretend that nuclear plants don't "blow up" and that the steam explosion that scattered stuff at Chenobyl and the explosion at Fukushima didn't really happen but were just fires or something.
So there's no point discussing these things with such
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Thanks for the example of a clueless rabid fanboy instead of an informed advocate.
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Since the figures quoted are normally ones that have been out for a while (and there's nothing wrong with that) they don't include Fukushima - and a citation is definitely needed with your forecast claim with more recent things because there doesn't seem to be anything around that matches what you describe.
Did you make it up or can you point to something real?
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You couldn't kill millions of people with a nuclear reactor if that were the goal.
That's why Republicans support it. They're not ignorant.
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The amazing thing is this is only at a -1....
1. No.
2. No.
3. No.
I do not think it is possible to have a post on slashdot that is less true and more inflammatory.
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Humanity's power generation is currently negligible compared to the amount of energy injected into Earth's ecosystem by the Sun. However, at current growth rates that will not hold true for long. [ucsd.edu] If the current growth rate of about 2.3% is maintained (which it cannot be), then in about 400 years we will produce as much energy as falls on the Earth from the Sun. By that point in time, the surface temperatures on Earth would have raised by about 50 Celsius, making human habitation close to impossible.
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Worse, your link points to energy PRODUCTION reaching that level in 400 years. TWICE the energy amount produced by nuclear power is lost as heat, so we would reach that point much earlier than 400 years (not to forget that only a portion of solar energy falling on Earth is absorbed).
There has got to be a better answer out the
Not capable of feedback loop (Score:2)
Greenhouse gases and temperature appear to be capable of a feedback loop
No, they really don't. At least not in Earth's atmosphere.
CO2 emissions have gone up and up over the last two decades with almost no increase in heat over that period of time.
Apparently CO2 does not actually lead to a feedback loop. Which only makes sense when you realize the whole Earth is a system designed to process CO2 in vast quantities.
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Unfortunately all wrong SuperKendal.
Which only makes sense when you realize the whole Earth is a system designed to process CO2 in vast quantities.
No it is not. How do you come to that 'stupid' idea? The earth j
is running since billion of years in an equilibrium of 'production' and 'consumption' of CO2 with only very slowly shifting of the balance into one direction or the other.
There is no mechanism eating 'excess' CO2.
Regarding the 'feedback loop', wrong again.
CO2 leads to higher temperature, leads to mel
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CO2 emissions have gone up and up over the last two decades with almost no increase in heat over that period of time.
As you can see from this graph, temperatures before 1995 and temperatures after 1995 are both in agreement with the same long term trend line:
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/g... [woodfortrees.org]
On a decadal scale, there's plenty of noise, sure. Maybe you got confused by that.
Better Idea (Score:2)
Eliminate the carbon credits.
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The problem with your argument is that the alternative to generating electricity with fossil fuel isn't growing trees. We still need to generate electricity.
What carbon credits do is tax the polluter and reward the non-polluter. The non-polluting alternative becomes a more cost effective way to generate the electricity we need.
Well, well, well, taking about safety... (Score:2, Interesting)
...what is very little recognized worldwide, is that nuclear energy gets a free lunch at the expense of the taxpayers, as regards risk insurance.
It is the most damned uninsured thing in developed countries and when one of these plants goes bust, you know what happens, ref. Fukusima.
If nuclear industry wishes to operate on-par terms with other forms of green technologies, please, bring the actuarial scientists in, to do all the math!
For the record, I am not against nuclear energy as a source of energy per se
Re:Well, well, well, taking about safety... (Score:4, Informative)
...what is very little recognized worldwide, is that nuclear energy gets a free lunch at the expense of the taxpayers, as regards risk insurance.
How many other industries have more than $12B [naic.org] in insurance before the government will step in?
I mean, there's no other industry [bbc.com] that could cause that much damage in a single incident, is there?
It is the most damned uninsured thing in developed countries and when one of these plants goes bust, you know what happens, ref. Fukusima.
Yeah, we're up to 2 busted nuclear plants in the whole world. All of them were old as hell plants, newer plants survived just fine, and realistically speaking we're being paranoid about the radiation.
If nuclear industry wishes to operate on-par terms with other forms of green technologies, please, bring the actuarial scientists in, to do all the math!
They have. [nextbigfuture.com] It has even fewer deaths per TWh, including Chernobyl and Fukushima, than solar & wind
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Chernobyl, Fukishima, Windscale, Three Mile Island, Fermi... that's 5sites just off the top of my head. We've only had two major accidents - but enough serious incidents and close misses that only a fool would talk about how having only two "busted"plants is proof of anything.
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only a fool would talk about how having only two "busted"plants is proof of anything.
And only somebody who hasn't taken statistics can say this. The accident rate for nuclear plants is extremely low, and we can do better. For example, did you know that the Fukushima plant predates both the TMI and Chernobyl plants? Modern plants would be much safer.
TMI - no significant radiation release.
Windscale - google shows that it wasn't a power plant, but a nuclear weapon generation facility.
Fermi - No significant radiation release.
I'll take nuclear power, even with it's risks, over coal, oil, and
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Again - no significant radiation release, it was a prototype reactor from 1962, no injuries amongst the workers, and cleaned up a few years later.
You guys are using accident characteristics for a Stanley Steamer to try to assess the accident danger of a Tesla Model S.
How about this:
Hans Petersen [ca.gov], or this unnamed gentleman [ca.gov]. Then there's 3 [scienceray.com].
Hey, what do you know. Solar electrical power has had more fatalities in California alone than Nuclear electrical in the last decade...
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12billion?
You are kidding? But your stance on radiation panic clearly shows you are an idiot, and not kidding.
Read this: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/... [bloomberg.com]
Or this: http://www.psr.org/environment... [psr.org]
And try some of the links provided in the article ...
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How many other industries have more than $12B in insurance before the government will step in?
I mean, there's no other industry that could cause that much damage in a single incident, is there?
You are just defeating your own argument there. Why should nuclear be so heavily subsidised and not be liable for the massive costs that oil is? If BP can be on the hook for $43bn why can't nuclear? It's because the maximum cost is actually an order of magnitude or two more than $43bn, and the government set the rate a long time ago and never changed it.
If all the subsidies were cut I'd be happy, because no-one would build any more nuclear plants anyway.
All energy competes with other energy. (Score:2)
Carbon Neutral? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's ludicrous for the Nuclear Industry to call itself carbon neutral when tens of thousands of tons of ore has to be crushed and refined with carbon based energy sources. The enrichment of the fuel at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant uses two brown coal power plants to run it. Then there is the massive cabon sink from the concrete to build the thing in the first place.
Even after that you have the CFC114 from the enrichment process which the EPA reports as the single largest contributor of greenhouse gasses. In all they are bogus claims suggesting the Nuclear industry is "carbon-free" because clearly it is not.
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They have to play stupid political games because only governments will put up the money to build the things.
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Actually they do, but then an anti-nuke troll like yourself would never admit to that would you.
Name one with a link so I can read it. Name *one*.
I especially like the anti-nuke types who say that mining is mining and therefore a uranium mine kills just as many people as a coal mine, completely ignoring
I like the way you completely ignore the point of how much carbon based energy is required to extract uranium and how you try to change the subject to coal mine deaths.
the inconvenient fact that
blah blah babble babble blah blah
Re:Carbon Neutral? (Score:4, Informative)
Solar and wind use far more natural resources. Steel, concrete, and even rare metals like neodymium and silver [usatoday.com] are used in huge quantities. Furthermore, coal is required for the production of concrete and steel.
Way to cherry pick the most energy inefficient and obsolete uranium separation process. "The gaseous diffusion process consumes about 2500 kWh (9000 MJ) per SWU, while modern gas centrifuge plants require only about 50 kWh (180 MJ) per SWU." [world-nuclear.org] So, a factor of 50 more energy intensive, to say nothing of upcoming laser enrichment.
Next generation reactors like the LFTR [wikipedia.org] won't even require enrichment, nor any extra mining at all. Thorium is a free by-product of rare-earth mining.
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Way to cherry pick the most energy inefficient and obsolete uranium separation process.
It's not *my* choice to operate it, so when more efficient technology is operating at the commercially required volumes to supply existing plants feel free to point them out.
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I wonder if it's feasible to capture the uranium from the fly and fall ash from coal plants, because those things put out a lot.
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Certain coal ash indeed contains uranium concentrations similar to ores mined.
However not all coal is contaminated with uranium ... at least not in such high amounts.
Fukushima and Chernobyl not worse case failures (Score:3, Insightful)
In Japan, they found at one point that there was a possibility of it *seriously* going to hell in a hand basket.
If the wind had been really wrong, it would have put serious fallout over Tokyo; which would have been really, really, really bad. While few people would have died, the economic disruption would have been (without any hyperbole) unbelievably stupendous.
http://world.time.com/2012/02/... [time.com]
You can tell me all you want that this kind of accident can never happen, but I just don't believe it. We have no reason to think that Chernobyl or Fukushima were the worse cases, nor that these kinds of failures cannot happen again worse.
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How about coal plants that have been spewing more radioactive particles per unit energy than nuclear plants IN ADDITION to mercury, arsenic and a host of other heavy and neurotoxic metals, into the atmosphere? Because of the bloody coal plants you can't safely give salmon and other large fish to babies, while it used to be one of the healthiest foods and most recommended for babies and toddlers, some 30-40 years ago.
Re: (Score:2)
Your idea about coal plants is unfortunately rather wrong ... I suggest to google and read wikipedia.
The proclaimed problems where a hoax spread in the 60s and are debunked since 50 years or longer.
Also modern coal plants don't emit stuff in significant amounts, everything gets filtered out.
Re: (Score:3)
Of course they are a very real risk. We have built up an industry now which has abandoned all investment for the past 40 years. You can never eliminate all risk but risk itself is a combination of hazard and consequence, and the hazard takes into account likelihood. The consequence has remained the same, the hazard is greatly reduced, and if you want to talk about worst case you must live in a very special city if there isn't something in the area which could kill you right now.
For instance I live in a city
Re: (Score:2)
I can't speak to the chemical plants near you but with nuclear power, you always have incredibly dirty radioactive materials inside a container, with lots of complex plumbing leading into it, and under worst case conditions that stuff can potentially always get into the air and water and get spread far and wide.
Although in principle we could make it never fail over the lifetime of human beings, in practice, we as a species, don't know how to do that, and the proliferative effects of nuclear power and their
Re: (Score:2)
For instance I live in a city which is completely set in its NIMBY ways, but is perfectly happy to entertain the existence of refineries and chemical plants processing large amounts of ammonia and hydroelectric acid where the "worst case" modelling could kill 50000 people, and that from an industry that most cities have within their border in reasonably close proximity to either their business centre or their trade centres.
Because, like most nuclear power, they were build long ago and would never be allowed in such close proximity today. If they are allowed, it is simply because there is no way people can force them not to be, not because they are "happy" to have them there.
But by effectively scaring ourselves away from investment in nuclear we have an entire industry that is the equivalent of a 1960s Impala driving down the highway at 70mph with no seatbelts, airbags, or crumple zones, just waiting to brutally kill all occupants whenever something goes slightly wrong.
If that were true it would be the fault of the plant operators for not upgrading their systems to be more safe. If they really are that dangerous today then it's a failure of the regulator to shut them down or demand they are replaced. They won't be replac
Nuclear is dead. (Score:2)
Nuclear can not compete going forwards. The writing is on the wall.
Re:Full benefits & Full responsibility (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay so then we will also do the same for all the radioactive impurities in coal power too. I mean burning it and letting spread across the land is just fine. How about the coal ask ponds that are already busting and polluting water and land.
You don't want to pay the full cost of the power you use. You are just happy to ignore the costs while pointing at nuclear and saying look at all that toxic waste. Except the amount is miniscule compared to traditional power sources. The problem is all the FUD related to nuclear power prevents and one from even considering to build a safe disposal location. Doesn't matter if it is 100 miles from anyone people still don't want THAT waste there. They are happy to have fraking fluids in their water and coal ash in their rivers, but forget putting that radioactive waste inside a mountain a 100 miles from me.
Re:Full benefits & Full responsibility (Score:4, Insightful)
Rather the point. If they want to claim the special benefit credits they need to take full responsibility along with it.
Re: (Score:3)
You've already answered that the ash is not spread around the land with the mention of those ash ponds (dams really, since they are not small).
Alex Gabbard's stupid "but coal ash is nuclear waste too so why restrict nuclear waste" propaganda is still doing damage to minds. I suggest finding the numbers for the most radioactive coal on the planet and calculating how many hundreds of thousands of tons you need of
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You've already answered that the ash is not spread around the land with the mention of those ash ponds (dams really, since they are not small).
It doesn't spread across the land by floating through the air, but it sure sucks when a fly ash dam breaks [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:2)
Sure, just as soon as the federal government pays them back for the fees it charged while promising to take care of the waste...
Oh, and enjoy how things end up priced as we force this standard on other companies... Many of the pollutants that other companies are releasing don't break down, period.
10M years is a bit long as well - allow reprocessing and such, and you can get rid of 90% of the 'waste' by reusing it, and of the 10% remaining, you only need to keep it 'safe' for about 1-10k years, not the over
Re: (Score:2)
Sure, just as soon as the federal government pays them back for the fees it charged while promising to take care of the waste...
Do you mean in terms of nuclear waste or some other toxic externality? Would you please clarify what you mean here?
Oh, and enjoy how things end up priced as we force this standard on other companies... Many of the pollutants that other companies are releasing don't break down, period.
We should be handling them as well. It's the by-product of our era's technology so it is our responsibility to handle it. It doesn't matter if the next generations are super-human or cave men, it's still the responsibility of human's of this era to deal with its mess.
10M years is a bit long as well -
Not for pu-239, about 50 times more time is right. Remember it is still highly toxic even when you exclude its radioactive emmiss
Re:Full benefits & Full responsibility (Score:5, Insightful)
Payment in advance please.
Already paid, at least in the US. The US has been [wikipedia.org] accumulating funds via taxes to do exactly as you demand since early days of Nuclear power. The nuclear industry, it's rate payers and their governments have already set the precedent you demand and paid the taxes you demand.
Nuclear waste is not a finance problem or a physics problem. It's a political problem, and the political problem comes from hysterical, low-information anti-nooks coupled with anti-energy, anti-prosperity libtards.
Re: (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv-mFSoZOkE> Anything that is radioactive enough to be of a concern can be re-used as fuel.
This whole "but the nuclear waste!" propaganda is nothing but a farce. Let us reprocess the fuel, and we will get every joule of energy out of it we can, and the "waste" becomes rare and expensive elements we current dig up whole swathes of country to find.
Re: (Score:3)
Oversimplifying the situation into "it can all be used as fuel" is counterproductive if you want to see any of it used as fuel.
Re: (Score:2)
> But don't let the scientific facts get in the way of your new religion
Take your own advice.
You're quoting someone who is a professional writer and has no experience in the sciences.
His book on the topic was widely panned for taking comments out of context. It took a good 300 years for that to happen to Jesus.
So spare us your chosen savior and the holier-than-thou BS.