'I Oversaw America's Nuclear Power Industry. Now I Think It Should Be Banned.' (commondreams.org) 583
Friday the Washington Post published an essay by Gregory Jaczko, who served on America's Nuclear Regulatory Commission from 2005 to 2009 and was its chairman from 2009 to 2012. He says he'd believed nuclear power was worth the reduction they produced in greenhouse emissions -- until Japan's 2011 nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima power plant.
"Despite working in the industry for more than a decade, I now believe that nuclear power's benefits are no longer enough to risk the welfare of people living near these plants..." [Non-paywalled version here] The current and potential costs -- personal and economic -- are just too high.... The technology and the safety needs are just too complex and demanding to translate into a facility that is simple to design and build. No matter your views on nuclear power in principle, no one can afford to pay this much for two electricity plants. New nuclear is simply off the table in the United States....
Fewer than 10 of Japan's 50 reactors have resumed operations, yet the country's carbon emissions have dropped below their levels before the accident. How? Japan has made significant gains in energy efficiency and solar power.... What about the United States? Nuclear accounts for about 19 percent of U.S. electricity production and most of our carbon-free electricity. Could reactors be phased out here without increasing carbon emissions? If it were completely up to the free market, the answer would be yes, because nuclear is more expensive than almost any other source of electricity today. Renewables such as solar, wind and hydroelectric power generate electricity for less than the nuclear plants under construction in Georgia, and in most places, they produce cheaper electricity than existing nuclear plants that have paid off all their construction costs...
This tech is no longer a viable strategy for dealing with climate change, nor is it a competitive source of power. It is hazardous, expensive and unreliable, and abandoning it wouldn't bring on climate doom. The real choice now is between saving the planet or saving the dying nuclear industry. I vote for the planet.
"Despite working in the industry for more than a decade, I now believe that nuclear power's benefits are no longer enough to risk the welfare of people living near these plants..." [Non-paywalled version here] The current and potential costs -- personal and economic -- are just too high.... The technology and the safety needs are just too complex and demanding to translate into a facility that is simple to design and build. No matter your views on nuclear power in principle, no one can afford to pay this much for two electricity plants. New nuclear is simply off the table in the United States....
Fewer than 10 of Japan's 50 reactors have resumed operations, yet the country's carbon emissions have dropped below their levels before the accident. How? Japan has made significant gains in energy efficiency and solar power.... What about the United States? Nuclear accounts for about 19 percent of U.S. electricity production and most of our carbon-free electricity. Could reactors be phased out here without increasing carbon emissions? If it were completely up to the free market, the answer would be yes, because nuclear is more expensive than almost any other source of electricity today. Renewables such as solar, wind and hydroelectric power generate electricity for less than the nuclear plants under construction in Georgia, and in most places, they produce cheaper electricity than existing nuclear plants that have paid off all their construction costs...
This tech is no longer a viable strategy for dealing with climate change, nor is it a competitive source of power. It is hazardous, expensive and unreliable, and abandoning it wouldn't bring on climate doom. The real choice now is between saving the planet or saving the dying nuclear industry. I vote for the planet.
So there are 3 choices (Score:2, Insightful)
1. Clean power, little pollution.
2. Clean power, potential pollution
3. Dirty power, definite pollution.
Get rid of coal/oil first then we'll talk.
Re: (Score:2)
You missed a column:
1. Clean power, scaling badly, little pollution.
2. Clean power, scaling well, potential pollution
3. Dirty power, scaling very well, definite pollution.
But yeah, I agree with you. IMO we need modern nuclear reactors as a stop-gap measure to reduce emissions NOW. Then, when we have some breathing room, we can deal with scalability of the little pollution option.
Re:So there are 3 choices (Score:5, Insightful)
You still missed a couple columns
1. Clean power, scaling badly, little pollution, immediate but limited pollution impact.
2. Clean power, scaling well, potential pollution, uncertain but potentially catastrophic pollution impact.
3. Dirty power, scaling very well, definite pollution, slow (thus far) manageable pollution impacts.
The big problem with nuclear is not that it destroys land/property/kills people its that when it does it happens on a potentially large scale all at once. On the flip side society has decades to absorb the cost of treating worker for conditions acquired developing coal/oil/gas and similar treating people for respiratory conditions and cancers resulting from flue gas at power plants. Neither is desirable but on is a manageable cash flow problem the other is a catastrophe. This is not discount issues like fly ash spills etc; but even those types of accidents are not on the scale of a Fukushima or Chernobyl .
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So there are 3 choices (Score:5, Insightful)
immediately and unavoidable waste disposal issue
The waste disposal issue wouldn't be as big a problem as people make it out to be. Most waste still has 98% fissionable material. It can be recycled on site and put back in to use in the reactor.
The real recycle problem is the left over reactor parts after the reactor has been taken apart and decommissioned.
Of course the problem was the hippies. Thanks to them we don't have the infrastructure or all research needed to accomplish this. It is illegal to reprocess it on site and impossible to transport it to a location to recycle it. Thanks to hippie inspired regulations and shit.
Re:So there are 3 choices (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, my mistake, it looks like its not 98%, but only 96%. My bad. You are correct, it depends on the type of reactor and the fuel type. But you know, its only a few lines in a post. I wasn't writing a documentary on how to reprocess nuclear waste.
Now its time for you to stop being part of the problem. I've noticed that you seem to have a habit of being hateful and insulting to just about everyone. You do this even if your wrong, which is most of the time. So here is the plan. When ever you insult any one in a hateful manner, I'm going to mod you down.
Let's see if you can stop being a hateful jackass and be a productive member of the community.
Re: (Score:3)
You pretty much hit the nail on the head, politically. Most of nuclear's problem is political. The protests of the '60s and '70s, fear mongering, locked nuclear research and development in so much red tape that its next to impossible to get anything done. We are literally dealing with 50 year old technology now.
But the thaw is starting. We are starting to see new nuclear research being done. New reactors that are all but melt down proof. Micro reactors that come together like battery packs.
I beli
Re: (Score:3)
global heating
Jesus. It's only been three days and you're already spouting the Guardian and AP's new word salad.
the catastrophic failure scenario, and the more immediately and unavoidable waste disposal issue, being the two most important.
Gen 3 and 4 along with various revisions have no catastrophic failure scenario. Even without a moderator of any kind they can't engage in a reaction. Waste isn't an issue outside of the reactor itself, the "hot" material including all of the nuclear waste we have sitting around can be reprocessed and even in some cases be directly mixed without reprocessing into existing fuel mixtures in Gen 3 and 4 designs.
Re: (Score:3)
Not really. Yes, Chernobyl was bad, but it is notable in that it was an extremely early reactor design that had no containment vessel. What happened there almost certainly cannot happen in a modern nuclear power plant, even if the operators made all the same mistakes.
Using Chernobyl as an example of modern nuclear safety is like using a 1972 Ford Pinto as an example of modern automobile safety.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Even if (Score:2, Insightful)
Even if wind and solar power technology were to have advanced enough NOW that nuclear is no longer necessary, that doesn't undo the past decades of irrational fear of nuclear energy which has empowered the fossil fuel industry up until this point, and has led to the death of millions worldwide. Good job, idiots.
You are dangerous for the planet (Score:4, Informative)
I so despise short sighted people give a platform to voice their discontent. Weinburg warned of using large light water reactors, no one listened. Now people like your self are stating the obvious, that they are dangerous when scaled up. Yet Molten Salt reactors are safe, and have been proven safe. You want to abandon a power source because an asshole politician (Chester Holifield) pushed the wrong reactor technology for political gain. People like you and such politicians are condemning humanity to extinction.
Better question, who is paying you off to the detriment of the planet?
Jerk.
Re:You are dangerous for the planet (Score:5, Insightful)
Can you name just one commercial molten salt reactor actually ever running?
Fusion is the future of nuclear (Score:2)
But because it's not a weapons tech, the rabid pro-nuclear nutters aren't interested.
Re:Fusion is the future of nuclear (Score:4, Funny)
I agree. There is no good reason to create new fission reactor designs that will only become viable at about the same time as fusion power.
Re:Fusion is the future of nuclear (Score:4, Interesting)
Fission is largely unaffordable due to regulation, and there is no reason to think that fusion won't be subject to the same regulations. In fact, ITER is built to fission codes and standards, one of the reasons for the *20 billion dollar* price tag that keeps climbing. A reactor that incorporates lithium and power generation will likely be more expensive, not cheaper. And sure, there should be enough lithium on this planet but the key is how accessible and economic it is -- I've heard of proposals to extract it from sea water after the "300 years" of lithium salts are depleted, but I doubt this will be highly economical.
Both fission and fusion have their respective problems. To be clear, I believe both should be relentlessly pursued -- even ITER just for fundamental research. However, I tend to agree with Lidsky in his 1983 article "The Trouble with Fusion" (PDF first hit in google search); the present path to fusion will lead to reactors that will "work" yet be maintenance nightmares that are too large and expensive to fund commercially. If we took a step back and pursued other non-tokamak designs, worked on improving fusion technologies like superconducting coils with the latest materials, and possibly look for physics solutions to aneutronic reactions as Lidsky suggests, we may be far better off in the future.
Re: (Score:3)
No, not really. I worked on ITER for a while. The radiation concerns are short lived, ideally a few hundred years instead of many thousands, but if ITER exploded the contamination would be horrendous. That being said it's impossible for fusion reactors to explode (unless molten lithium somehow comes in contact with water etc., but let's assume that's not the case). The biggest problem would be ensuring there is no water activation, and no tritium escapes containment. If tritium were to escape it wouldn't be
Re:You are dangerous for the planet (Score:4, Insightful)
The power plant with the lowest impact is the hydroelectric plant, but you can not put a hydroelectric plant anywhere, you need a river with certain conditions to work. While a nuclear power plant in theory can be placed anywhere you need (even in a desert using closed circuit cooling). Solar plants are an interesting idea but take up too much space when you need to produce more than 1000MW, and you can not count on them at night.
(Ideally I would have the three types of power plants I quoted available and then distribute the load between them, but humans have serious problems thinking about solutions that do not involve extremes)
Re: (Score:3)
The power plant with the lowest impact is the hydroelectric plant
I beg to differ [wikipedia.org]. About 2000 times more deads than the whole of the nuclear energy industry in its entire history. And that's just one dam...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Someone who worked in large power plants here. Every now and then an idiot pops up wanting to ban nuclear power plants without being able to understand why they exist.
Oh good, let's see what a self-professed expert thinks!
The power plant with the lowest impact is the hydroelectric plant,
Uh, it completely inundates the land chosen for the reservoir. That's not low impact. Wind is lowest impact, not hydro. Looks like some idiot popped up wanting to defend nuclear power plants without understanding his argument.
Re: (Score:3)
Wind isn't cheap. It requires FiT programs to be profitable. In the cases of off-shore uses, it means laying undersea cable. Unless you're in a region where the wind blows all the time, at a fairly steady rate, and there aren't gusts that exceed 80km/h then it's going to work just fine. Outside of specific locations like wind-passes, the cost isn't generally recouped in the lifetime before failure. But let's be realistic, if the UK has 20x more wind energy then it uses today, you wouldn't be publishing w
Re: (Score:3)
In the UK wind is profitable without any subsidy. Has been for a few years now.
Strange, why do your own power generation, federal and council websites state otherwise? According to their data, FiT's are still being paid. They're about 20% less than in 2016, but the generation is still offset by every person connected to the grid. In other words, they're not profitable unless everyone is covering the costs.
Re:You are dangerous for the planet (Score:4, Informative)
And in any case, even at their peak the subsidies were a fraction of what nuclear is getting.
So they are getting FiT despite your claim. And could you explain to everyone how when a windfarm is getting paid 0.34kWh to cover installation, maintenance, and 'attraction fees' and the nuke plants are running profitable at 0.089kWh, and that's factored into the 30-year+ operating and refurbishment costs.
Re: (Score:3)
Do you understand that "FiT" stands for "Feed in Tariff", i.e. the amount they get paid for generating electricity. If they didn't get it they would be making electricity for free.
Also what does "getting paid 0.34kWh" mean? They get paid in energy?
New nuclear is currently getting £94/MWh, plus the other subsidies like free insurance, low cost loans, decommissioning assistance etc. Onshore wind is about £60/MWh and falling. Offshore wind will be cheaper than nuclear too by the end of
Re: (Score:3)
UK houses mostly use gas for heating and a lot of houses are poorly insulated.
Except we're talking about two groups of people: The elderly and the poor. And the UK much like Canada have very similar policies and people in general fall into the same groupings. For the elderly it's usually regional, or entire small communities. Near-to or close-to health and critical care centres. In cases of the poor and elderly poor, it's government housing of some type which may or may not have utilities covered depending. In the case of government owned low-income housing it's almost always ele
Re: (Score:3)
I believe you were thinking of the Chinese dams when you commented... And I should say that the error tolerance of the Chinese government in this area is not as restrict as it sho
Ug (Score:5, Insightful)
>"Despite working in the industry for more than a decade, I now believe that nuclear power's benefits are no longer enough to risk the welfare of people living near these plants..."
Even though all our designs are old. But to declare that all nuclear power has no place while ignoring all the newer designs that are much safer seems really odd. Perhaps he just meant our CURRENT reactor infrastructure. If so, that would be a better argument.
>"Fewer than 10 of Japan's 50 reactors have resumed operations, yet the country's carbon emissions have dropped below their levels before the accident. How? Japan has made significant gains in energy efficiency and solar power.... What about the United States?"
Oh, let's see... the USA is physically what, a ZILLION times larger than Japan? Transmission of electricity is a major part of the equation.
>"Could reactors be phased out here without increasing carbon emissions?"
No, not really. Unless everyone is willing to take serious economic hits. Had we incrementally replaced aging reactions with new designs that are far safer and more reliable, we would have already cut our emissions tremendously and achieved energy independence much sooner.
Re: (Score:3)
But that'd mean no longer giving multi-$billion cost-plus contracts to buddies in sweetheart deals in order to create jobs programs! Please, think of the underemployed constituents!
Re:Ug (Score:5, Insightful)
Even though all our designs are old.
Agreed, every thing I have read suggests that replacing old designs with newer designs that are fail-safe and more more fully react the fuel would be better than the current trend of pretending we don't need new ones and in our denial running old designs because we can't shut them down.
Transmission of electricity is a major part of the equation.
Well for energy efficiency, it isn't a factor. Now where it comes to solar, then transmission losses are a good case for solar, which can be safely deployed at the edge. My solar power travels no more than 10 meters when it comes to my house.
Of course, if I used electricity for my heat and my car, then my solar panels couldn't keep up even ignoring the solar power storage issue to get though night and clouds. Even if they were 30% efficient, they still wouldn't be able to quite keep up. I also don't know that panel manufacturing can scale to the entire world's population. So solar has some significant challenges, but it has great value and particularly so for areas of large transmission losses (rural areas that also have more land area that can be used for solar).
Re:Ug (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's see...Fukushima...one death to date as a result. That guy lived seven years after the accident.
So, we consider nuclear power unsafe because the second worst accident in history (triggered by one of the worst tsunamis in history) killed ONE GUY!
Based on past history, we can count on more people dying on the way to work this morning in New York City. Or Los Angeles. Or any of the major cities in the world.
And that's not even counting the deaths from people slipping in the shower while getting ready for work
Yet we consider nuclear power to be unsafe??? The second-worst nuclear disaster in history produced fewer casualties than we see DAILY in routine activities, and nuclear power is unsafe....
We deserve to melt the planet, if our ideas about risk-analysis are that bad....
P.S. and if we add in Chernobyl, we still have fewer nuclear power deaths in all of history than we reasonably expect in driving deaths today....
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Cost of the above two cleanups divided by the amount of energy generated by nuclear power: $432 billion / 86000 billion kWh = $0.005 per kWh = 0.5 cents per kWh
I can live with paying an extra half c
influenced by (Score:2)
Wow, he's been watching "Chernobyl". It is kinda scary; I don't blame him.
Hyperbole much? (Score:3, Insightful)
The planet is not in any danger. At worst, some of the current species are.
Ted Talk Reality Check (Score:3)
There's a pretty good TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/davi... [ted.com]
Basically he illustrates how much land area would be required for e.g. wind turbines or solar panels, or growing biofuel, etc.
False dichotomy (Score:2)
A pity about that last line:
"The real choice now is between saving the planet or saving the dying nuclear industry. I vote for the planet."
All the problems with Reactors are one thing. (Score:5, Interesting)
What do you do with the heat when you turn it off?
All our current designs flow water across the core to remove the residual heat.
If there's no water flow, it melts.
All reactors currently in operation have this exact problem.
Chernobyl was a particularly bad design; it was a scaled up copy of the reactors we built at Hanford and Oak Ridge, to make plutonium.
Safety was not a particularly important factor in the design.
Adding a really bad control rod design made it blow the fuck up when they tried to stuff the control rods back in, after pulling them all out in a serious fuckup.
"Positive Void Coefficient" is not a sane design for a nuclear reactor.
There are much safer designs for reactors; we haven't built any of those.
Molten salt reactors have the issue of you can't see to refuel them; It's like fishing around in the dark, for something you really don't want to break.
Liquid sodium/potassium is a design that gets mentioned a lot; fires are very common around NaK, for some reason. :)
The process of burning uranium or plutonium leaves all the highly radioactive debris from the fission process; at least two pieces of debris for each fission, and those have a neutron excess, so will continue to give of radiation (heat) for the next 48 hours or so, at a high rate.
This energy is what causes meltdowns; stuffing the control rods in turns off the active fission, but the residual heat is only going to go away over time, on a very well known curve at this point.
That's why Fukushima's reactors melted; no cooling water, the rods head for the basement.
Same exact problem that happened at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and the next one that melts down.
Chernobyl was a special case; it was melting when the scrammed it, and the additional reactivity sent it "prompt critical"; Search "Pub913e_web.pdf" for the full report on it.
Prompt critical is what you want in nuclear weapons, not a reactor. Allowing this in a reactor design was criminal, but there are still some of those reactors running.
An industry gets judged by the public on the actions of the Worst actors, not the best.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
When operated within its design specifications, pebble-bed reactors are virtually meltdown proof, but there are compromises to be made with this design, and chief among them is the matter of efficiency.
And to this end, the primary problem with pebble bed reactors is that the design is not particularly economical to scale. Over a certain threshold of power generation (about 600MW or so, if I remember correctly), they are actually even more dangerous than conventional reactor designs, so they are simply n
Re: (Score:3)
There are much safer designs for reactors; we haven't built any of those.
Correction: The US hasn't built any of those. Other countries have. Thank anti-nuke nuts for making sure that safer designs couldn't be put into use, thank them again for protesting any type of "upgrades" to the plants(like backup pumps, water storage, thank them again for blocking replacements of aging reactor designs. And when you're finished? Thank them for making sure that things like Fukishima could happen. And thank them twice as much for tying things up in courts for 20+ years.
Hell you know what?
Spotlighting fallacy. (Score:4, Insightful)
Different situations (Score:2)
Number of Tsunami's to hit the USA ... 0
Japna's plants - were all old, near or beyond end of life
The earthquake and Tsunami wiped out many conventional plants
Japan is just taking the opportunity to build new plants that do not require fuel they would have to import
He may be on to a bigger problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Mr Jaczko is no fan of nuclear power, which made his tenure at the head of the NRC turbulent. His most notable public appearance was during the Fukushima disaster, where he asserted that the spent fuel pool of Reactor 3 was emptying. That led the Japanese to mount a kamikaze effort to refill it by helicopter until it was determined that Mr Jaczko was mistaken.
His anti nuclear bias notwithstanding, he makes a valid point, nuclear is currently too slow and too costly to build to be economically viable in any western country.
Some of the delays and costs are regulatory, but the regulations generally reflect efforts to ensure basic quality and safety.
The poor performance imho reflect both deteriorating education and capability norms in the labor force as well as declining management skills and integrity. When the emphasis is on shareholder value as the prime metric, it becomes career limiting to do an honest job. Yet an honest job is a prerequisite for building a safe nuclear industry.
He is a fearmonger (Score:5, Informative)
How did this make Slashdot? (Score:4, Funny)
Slashdot has long been a science oriented web site. People come here for a mix of tech and science and the culture that goes with it. So how the hell did this bit of unscientific claptrap make Slashdot? What's getting promoted next, anti-vaxxers or flat-earthers?
Between things like this and the political agenda crap Slashdot has lost its way. Believe it or not, Slashdot used to have some standards. Can the editors please restore the standards that Slashdot used to have?
Re: (Score:3)
Believe it or not, Slashdot used to have some standards.
I don't believe it.
Can the editors please restore the standards that Slashdot used to have?
You mean where whole stories would be dominated by GNAA trolls? Make Slashdot great again!!!!!11!!!!
Banned, no. Changed, perhaps. (Score:5, Interesting)
Nuclear remains an important medium-term solution: renewables are good for the long term, but we need to start the switch sooner.
Even when that switch happens, nuclear retains one important advantage over renewables that preserves a niche for it: portability. Imagine a standardized power connector in harbors, where an aircraft carrier or submarine could go after a disaster, jack in, and provide emergency power to assist with running relief facilities and getting the main grid back online. Something similar could be achieved inland through container-sized components, carried in by truck or train. You could save a lot of lives with this, then take the reactors away and shut them down when they are not needed.
This is niche, no question. But it's an important niche, and one that should not be abandoned lightly. You might be able to pack enough solar panels on a ship to power the ship, but it is unlikely that you could pack on enough to power a city.
Energiewende (Score:5, Insightful)
But we keep hearing how renewables are "just around the corner" to being a fantastic and net cheaper way to generate electricity, yet the ongoing German experiment with switching their grid over to renewables show that it's not at all cheap and since they've scaled back nuclear, led to net increases in fossil fuel use and CO2 emissions.
https://www.dw.com/en/german-i... [dw.com]
People love to point out that "the wind in (choose your favorite windy location) contains enough power to run the (choose your favorite country)." That might be true in a theoretical perspective, but in reality that potential (kinetic actually, just unused) energy is incredibly diffuse and extremely difficult to harvest. Same with solar power. Yes there's been progress on solar power capture, but there's just not that much there to capture, at least in comparison to other more dense sources.
And remember, the siting of Fukushima was pretty poor, there was no containment dome and company culture was too dependent on top-down management. And for largely political reasons the acceptable cleanup standards are much higher than necessary. We'll never really know what an acceptable response should be, but for certain the larger problems in Fukushima prefecture were more about destruction from a tsunami than the release of radioactive isotopes.
Oh, and despite the disasters of Fukushima and Chernobyl nuclear power is still the safest way to generate electricity. More people are killed or injured by falling off roofs than are exposed to radiation (including uranium miners).
No comparisons and no mention of modern tech (Score:3)
Compare to existing non-nuclear plants and the risks are smaller for nuclear plants than for coal plants. Coal plants put more radioactivity into the environment, in addition to mercury and C02.
But the real mistake is he is comparing current nuclear plants that are designed not to make power but instead to make fuel for nuclear weapons.
Thorium power plants, not only do not make byproducts that can easily create nuclear weapons. They also can be designed to NEVER 'meltdown' - the issue with Japan's reactors. They produce much less radioactive waste as well.
The main issue is that no such active production plant has yet been built, so there may be technological issues we do not know about.
A Markey Mole from the start (Score:3)
Look at his bio:he began his career interning with Sen. Ed Markey (D-Middle Ages), who has a long history of opposing all technologies this side of tallow candles. At the NRC, he was the one antinuclear member from the beginning, which belies his story of undergoing a conversion while in office.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]
He left NRC under a cloud of staff abuse allegations
Recently, he even clashed with the Union of Concerned Scientists over the organization’s newfound endorsement of fourth-generation nuclear, which is not subject to the design problems of Fukushima.
Clown's CV... (Score:3)
Wikipedia edit... (Score:3)
The Wikipedia article on this gentleman has been tidied up to remove the allegations of management misconduct and his sandbagging the Yucca mountain waste disposal project.
I think Obi Wan summed this up perfectly (Score:4, Funny)
It's like...a million nuclear fanbois cried out, and were suddenly silenced.
Go on mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can ever imagine.
Data Points and Opinion (Score:3)
Data Points:
1. Coal power generation kills many more people per year than every nuclear power accident to date combined. The difference isn't small. It's several orders of magnitude.
2. Regulatory cost comprises a full third of the cost to build a nuclear power plant today.
3. The newest reactor to come online in the US was Watts Bar #2 (2016) in Tennessee. It started construction in 1976 and was paused by regulators for over 30 years.
Opinions:
Reinforcing point 3, today's state of the art commercial reactors in the US were designed before Intel released the 8086 processor.
In the US this is an industry that needs a radical reform in how it is regulated. Innovation to improve safety, reliability, and cost cannot occur in today's environment. It is, today, incredibly safe. it could be better, but that isn't going to happen without major structural changes to the NRC. We're going to let someone else (China and India) innovate instead.
Bias: I am a strong proponent of orbital solar power.
Re:Please (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not a new policy position for Gregory Jaczko. He has long been against new nukes [wikipedia.org]. He was the lone NRC vote against the expansion of the Vogtle Nuke [wikipedia.org] in Georgia.
So there is no news here.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. For everybody that actually wants to find out how things look, it seems this conclusion is unavoidable. Of course, as usual, there are countless morons that just want to stick to their old misconceptions, no matter what.
Re: (Score:2)
There are no "better" alternatives. Wind and solar are a bust, as it has been seen when tested against real world scenarios (and the impact to wildlife is nothing to sneeze at, which surprises me about the greenies.) Hydro-electric works well in limited areas where it impacts the ecosystem least.
Fukishima was an example of how NOT to do it. Chernobyl was a weapons-grade nuclear material plant. Until we get our heads out of our asses and realize that great things don't just fall into our laps (cold fusion),
Re: (Score:3)
Interesting that someone intimately familiar with the industry and the technology has come to basically the same conclusion as most rational people who evaluated the technology: It's too expensive, and there are now better alternatives so it's just not worth the money or the risk.
I don't know if the guy is a shill for the fossil fuel industry, or someone else, but he is either ignorant or otherwise fails to bring up the issues with the technologies he want to replace nuclear with.
Take wind, for example. According to the Bulletin of Atomic Sciences, a 2 megawatt (MW) wind turbine contains about 800 pounds of neodymium and 130 pounds of dysprosium. Consider that mining one ton of rare earth minerals produces about one ton of radioactive waste. That means that between 4.9 million and 6
Re:Please (Score:5, Informative)
Okay.
Total deaths from nuclear power to date: about 65.
Total deaths from auto accidents, worldwide, last year (estimated): ~1,200,000.
Deaths from drowning, worldwide, annually (estimated): 360,000
Bicycling deaths, worldwide, annually (estimated): 25,000+
Deaths while taking selfies, annually (estimated): 250 or so. Yes, you're more likely to die while taking a selfie than as a result of a nuclear power disaster.
So, why is nuclear power considered a horrendous risk? SO far, it's produced a minute fraction of the deaths that "normal" activities do routinely....
Re: (Score:3)
There is only one confirmed death from dimethylmercury. Must be really safe stuff then.
Re:Please - Chernobyl? (Score:5, Insightful)
Per the infallible Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], official death count from Chernobyl is in the low dozens (31 - 59) as reported by the Soviets and UN follow-up. However, long term deaths are estimated well into the thousands, although methodology makes that number hard to pin down; and sources are all over the place from what one would expect to be fairly objective (IAEA) to probably not-so-much (Greenpeace). But by the time you take into account pre-mature deaths, cancer rates, etc. the real number seems like it's going to be more than a few dozen.
It is far more likely I will be struck by lightning than being harmed by a nuclear disaster. Nonetheless, I don't play golf or go swimming during thunderstorms>
Re: (Score:3)
Per the infallible Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], official death count from Chernobyl is in the low dozens (31 - 59) as reported by the Soviets and UN follow-up.
That's the total to date. Let's be clear.
However, long term deaths are estimated well into the thousands, although methodology makes that number hard to pin down;
That's the wild assumption that will be thousands of excess cancer deaths in the future. As of 2005, statistically, there were just 9 excess deaths for thyroid cancer [who.int]. There are good reasons to believe that those 4000 excess deaths are just a delusion: while there was an excess of thyroid cancer diagnoses (zero dot something), there was also an exceptional survival rate. That means only one thing: a lot of early diagnoses. The population was systematically screened a
Re: (Score:3)
Nuclear power maybe dangerous as are many other things. People choose to put themselves in dangerous situations think about all those extreme sports. However they take precautions to make it as safe as possible. As do the people who operate Nuclear power plants.
Lets not look at Soviet nuclear (Score:3)
So, why is nuclear power considered a horrendous risk?
Because you are cherry picking. Deaths is one metric, you ignore the number of people affected by nuclear accidents, and the financial costs (i.e. economic risk).
You can buy insurance for a car accident, but not for nuclear accidents. The government has to provide unlimited free insurance.
Lets be a little bit ethical and ignore the Soviet designs and Soviet-style management. No one is proposing using such designs.
And to be truly ethical lets compare things to the emerging designs of the nuclear side, molten salt for example. Far safer than anything to date **AND** it has the added bonus of being able to eliminate our stockpiles of nuclear waste which are also an ongoing safety hazard. 2 birds with 1 stone so to speak. With respect to renewables proponents are always referring to the emerg
Re:Please (Score:4, Insightful)
https://blogs.scientificameric... [scientificamerican.com]
The economic benefits of nuclear are clear as well, where nations who have embraced nuclear have led the world in economic growth and quality of life.
Furthermore, towns and counties where nuclear plants exist in the US have seen much benefits from more educted well paid workers to more spending and tremendous tax revenue. When you count the entire economic benefit to local, state, and nation they have proven to be tremendously beneficial resources. Its just that some smaller plants cannot compete with natural gas, and some states have shown no interest in placing value on that carbon free generation.
Jaczko was an unqualified pawn placed in the NRC by Harry Reid to kill Yucca Mtn. He proved his incompetence and was forced out. Now he calls himself a 'rogue' in hopes to make some bucks with a book. Not only was he incompetent, but he was also abusive to workers at the NRC. The guy is scum.
Re:Please (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, yes, obviously, but I am still open to hearing counter arguments if they have some rational basis.
Feel free to post some.
If you look into the economics of why they're so expensive:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
The main cost is Capital costs, ie. If you're looking to invest today's money in something that has a 30 year payback then it has to be a BIG payback or you won't bother. You'll be looking for thousands of percent gains.
This problem only exists if nukes are privately funded. If they're built with taxpayer money on a non-profit basis then that cost simply disappears.
Of course that will never happen these days. Nuclear power is something no politician wants to associate themselves with, especially if there's no profit to be made.
Re:Please (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't forget "produces reliable power" as a criteria. Because of that one, a certain amount of nuclear power is here to stay.
Re: (Score:3)
This is the dumbest thing I have read in at least a week.
No, costs don't "disappear" when they are dumped on the taxpayer.
You're going to pay the taxes anyway so you might as well get something in return.
If you want to cut something, start with "defense", not things that will create a better future for the country/world and everybody in it.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Interesting that someone intimately familiar with the industry and the technology has come to basically the same conclusion as most rational people who evaluated the technology: It's too expensive, and there are now better alternatives so it's just not worth the money or the risk.
Of course if someone do not agree with your view is automatically not rational. Because you are right by definition.
It's all about inspections. Nuclear power plants are very complicated and credentialed inspectors should have access. As well as their credentials should be open to inspection. When do inspections happen? How far in advance? How long do they take? What areas of the plant are safe to inspect at a given time? Inspections of plants and credentials/documentation are the foundation of nuclear power efficacy and safety. Just because its nuclear doesn't make them all the same. Not all standards are supported by all corporations or governments. Less is more in a way
No, in the end it's about costs. By any reasonable measure both coal and nuclear got the tar beaten out of them on costs by renewables and natural gas. If you factor in costs these industries are currently able to offload on the taxpayer free of charge Coal in particular is basically toast, Nuclear has it somewhat better on that score. Nuclear is not only massively unpopular with the public, it is hopelessly noncompetitive in a business sense. No rational business person would build a nuclear plant when the
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If the choice is between a molten salt solar array farm and a traditional nuclear power plant...I vote for the solar molten salt. If you really wanted to get froggy about it, you can have both solar molten salt and an LFTR side-by-side keeping the molten salt at operating temperature. Just by nature, the LFTR is magnitudes or order safer and less likely to generate weapons-grade fissionables, and could even burn off the leavings of the current nuclear power plants that have to be stored for many thousands o
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: Please (Score:4, Insightful)
Other graphs, other conclusions. [institutef...search.org] And of course a major factor conveniently ignored by wind/solar advocates is the need for backup generation capacity [institutef...search.org]. Of course we can always double the cost of wind/solar generation by installing enough batteries and ignore that cost too.
Yeah right, another link to a think tank funded by the coal lobby:
Institute for Energy Research: The IER is the successor organization to the Institute for Humane Studies of Texas, an advocacy group established in 1984 by billionaire businessman and political donor Charles Koch.
... and of course we should believe these bozos whey they say that everything except coal sucks ass, especially if you ignore the taxpayer subsidies it needs to even be competitive and the environmental costs of burning coal.
Like renewables is devoid of spin (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah right, another link to a think tank funded by the coal lobby
Yeah, like the pro-renewables side is devoid of politically inspired spin masters that present the notion that renewables are different and don't need the long timeframes necessary for efficiency and scale that every other technology required. This time is different, because, you know, renewables.
Spin masters that speak of the technological innovations to come with respect to renewable, but only talk of 1970s technology with respect to nuclear.
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah right, another link to a think tank funded by the coal lobby
Yeah, like the pro-renewables side is devoid of politically inspired spin masters that present the notion that renewables are different and don't need the long timeframes necessary for efficiency and scale that every other technology required. This time is different, because, you know, renewables. Spin masters that speak of the technological innovations to come with respect to renewable, but only talk of 1970s technology with respect to nuclear.
I don't need to spin renewables. Try going to Wall Street and tell them that Coal and Nuclear are the future and they should invest in them. Those guys will laugh in your face. When we have Wall Street bozos lining up to invest in renewable energy the writing is on the wall, these people do not invest in anything unless they are confident it will pay off. Coal is dead and so is nuclear for the simple reason that they are bad investments.
Renewables timeframe understated (Score:3)
I just find it questionable on the practicality of non-nuclear to provide base load on windless nights
We are a lot closer to solving renewables' storage problem than we are to solving nuclear's safety and cost problems.
Not at scale. Not as demand increases as more join the middle class around the world. The timeframes necessary for 100% renewables are greatly understated. The coal, oil and gas industry thanks you as you build addition fossil fuel plants to back up today's renewables.
And you are mistaken regarding nuclear, molten salt is both safe and it cleans up waste from previous generations of nuclear reactors. No backup coal/natgas plants required either.
Re: Please (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean the Vogtle expansion that still isn't in operation and has cost twice what was initially projected?
The initial forecast was $14B. But traditionally nukes cost 3 times the initial forecast. So the "expected" cost was $42B.
But so far the new reactors have only cost $25B, so that is $17B UNDER expectations. That is a remarkable achievement, and bonuses for management seem justified.
Seems his vote was justified.
His objection was about safety, not economics.
Re: (Score:3)
You mean the Vogtle expansion that still isn't in operation and has cost twice what was initially projected?
The initial forecast was $14B. But traditionally nukes cost 3 times the initial forecast. So the "expected" cost was $42B. But so far the new reactors have only cost $25B, so that is $17B UNDER expectations.
Unfortunately this leads to an exponential spiral.
The forcasted price was $14B. But traditionally costs are 3 times the forecast. So the "real" forcast is $42 billion, so that's really the forecast. But actual costs are 3 times the forecast. So the real real cost is $126 billion. But...
That is a remarkable achievement, and bonuses for management seem justified.
Bullshit. You don't give bonuses to management for not doing what they said they'd do, just because other managers elsewhere fail worse.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
And don't forget that even suggesting a reduction in the birth rate in the 3rd world brings cries of racism/sexism/some-other-ism from all the virtue signalling western PC halfwits.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Reducing the birth rate in Africa is the primary reason for all the free condoms/sex ed/mosquito netting/malaria research being thrown at the continent by the western world.
People in poverty shotgunning out children leads to most of their children having impoverished childhoods, so it's arguably in their best interest in the short term too.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
virtue signalling western PC halfwits.
You are virtue signalling about hating virtue signalling.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Renewables are limited. What then? (Score:4, Informative)
I wouldn't want to let facts get between you and your bigotry, when it so clearly is a source of comforting angry-wanks as you think of your superiority compared to people in "third-world" countries. However, other readers may be interested to know that family sizes have been falling dramatically across the world for many years, primarily as a result of more education, particularly for girls.
https://www.gapminder.org/vide... [gapminder.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Which brought along with it half of the modern inventions. The rest of the world should be more like us, not the other way around.
Come, join the club.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Nuclear and geothermal energy don't.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Nuclear is limited as well and at a much lower level than renewables. Your argument is faulty.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Because renewable energy sources such as solar and wind are pretty limited in how much power then can supply.
Academically speaking, you are right.
Practically speaking, you are not.
"If all the sunlight energy striking the Earth's surface in Texas alone could be converted to electricity, it would be up to 300 times the total power output of all the power plants in the world!"
Source: https://ag.tennessee.edu/solar... [tennessee.edu]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
By the way solar panels are only about 35% efficient, so triple the 895 sq miles to almost 2,700 square miles..
There are over 3000 sq miles of rooftops in America.
There are over 2000 sq miles of parking lots in America.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
That's ludicrous.
The US alone in 2017 consumed ~100 quadrillion BTU's in power which you would need ~314,161 sq km of solar panels for (1700 BTU/2 sq m/day solar panel).
That is an area the size of California that you need to strip from all its nature, roads, houses etc. The US constitutes ~5% of the world's population.
Re: (Score:2)
What's ludicrous is all the underlying assumptions you're making.
- Assumed ALL energy use, in all forms and for all purposes, is met using solar PV and only solar PV.
- Assumes all that solar PV is necessarily going to be installed on land that's not in use, or unusable for anything else ("strip of all its nature, roads, houses etc") as if solar can't coexist with existing developments.
- Assumes that there will be no gains in efficiency, and subsequent reduction of energy use*, after going from carbon-based
Re: (Score:3)
BTU is usually a unit used for heat, not for electricity. E.g. if you want to calculate how much coal you need to produce that electricity ... or heat a house.
Putting solar power up in California would not mean stripping the buildings and roads ... why would it?
The fact that you only need about the tenth of the size of Arizona to power the whole US with electricity is wide spread since decades.
So why do you try to do napkin calculations with/about stuff you have no clue about?
The US constitutes ~5% of the w
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
And that includes nuclear fission. We can find the power for 200 billion people by using 700km x 700km of solar panels alone.
The only place you could put a solar array that size would be in orbit, and built of lunar or asteroidal materials, and with a series of large microwave antenna farms Earthside to receive the power. No Nukers vs No Spacers death match. Popcorn!
Re: (Score:3)
Technically, the Fukushima station's reactors all shut down prior to the tsunami as per procedure. But even SCRAMing a reactor isn't going to eliminate heat immediately, so cooling pumps needed to be run for days after shutdown. When the diesel generators were submerged and unable to operate that's when the problem started. In any other situation TEPCO would have delivered more generators, but because of the larger catastrophe it wasn't possible to get them from the unaffected area to the disaster zone.
You'
Re:Opportunity knocks (Score:4, Informative)
Going full-renewables will cost the country between 24 and 72 TRILLION dollars.
The current US GDP is 19 trillion.
And then you're on a constant equipment replacement treadmill.
It currently costs about 9 billion to build a nuclear plant.
Even if we go nuts and double-plus it to 20, that we could build over 1200 reactors for the same price.
And we only need about 300 total reactors.
Re: It's either/or (Score:3)
Mass produced solar and wind have seen decades of investment. Nuclear power hasn't seen real investment since the 70s. That's the problem. Green Peace came along and put up a huge roadblock in the way of actually addressing the issue of c