# Poll - are you still for nuke power?



## webbie (Sep 4, 2013)

A response would require reading about the situation in Japan now and where it's likely to go from here.


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## bmblank (Sep 4, 2013)

No poll access on tapatalk, but yes.
Just watch a modern Marvels episode on the subject. I mean, they test the pod that they transport fuel (or waste, i forget which) by hitting it with a train at about 70mph... Done right there's no problems with it whatsoever. Look at the plants we already have. I'd say we're already successful at it.


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## webbie (Sep 4, 2013)

bmblank said:


> No poll access on tapatalk, but yes.
> Just watch a modern Marvels episode on the subject. I mean, they test the pod that they transport fuel (or waste, i forget which) by hitting it with a train at about 70mph... Done right there's no problems with it whatsoever. Look at the plants we already have. I'd say we're already successful at it.



No mention that they have nowhere to put that waste? It's all still stored at the plants, even though we (tax and rate payers) are going to have to pay the eventual bill.


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## Highbeam (Sep 4, 2013)

It's already here. Those aircraft carriers over near Syria ready to fight, all nuclear. So are the cruisers and submarines beneath them. If the technology is safe enough to travel through rough seas and be shot at then why not use the power to run our homes? Waste schmaste, this planet is vast.


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## Seasoned Oak (Sep 4, 2013)

webbie said:


> A response would require reading about the situation in Japan now and where it's likely to go from here.


Now if the poll were "do you think nuclear power is a good fit for japan" the results may be different. Too close to the ocean,too many earthquakes and lots of volcanos.


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## begreen (Sep 4, 2013)

Does this include fusion reactors? If so, yes.


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## Circus (Sep 4, 2013)

Where can I buy a geiger counter?


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## fossil (Sep 4, 2013)

Highbeam said:


> ...Those aircraft carriers over near Syria ready to fight, all nuclear. So are the cruisers and submarines...



Carriers & submarines, yes...all nuclear powered.  That's it.  No other surface combatant is nuclear powered.


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## Highbeam (Sep 4, 2013)

fossil said:


> Carriers & submarines, yes...all nuclear powered.  That's it.  No other surface combatant is nuclear powered.


 
False. Fast attack cruisers are powered by two vertical reactors. I've cut them up and sent them to Hanford for "burial". Not a navy guy myself but a naval architect in the civil service for awhile.

When I say vertical, I mean the reactor package that gets taken away is tall and skinny vs. a submarine that is, well, the shape of a submarine and horizontal. Not sure why they need two reactors for a single ship but they do.


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## fossil (Sep 4, 2013)

None of them are left in the active inventory.


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## Highbeam (Sep 4, 2013)

fossil said:


> None of them are left in the active inventory.


 
Perhaps so, there were at least 9 cruisers right?

Then the russians have, oh, half a dozen active betwen cruisers and ice breakers.


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## fossil (Sep 4, 2013)

There were 9.  3 of them were the only ships of their class, then there were 2 California class, then 4 Virginia class.  The last nuclear powered cruiser was decommissioned in 1999.


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## Huntindog1 (Sep 4, 2013)

These days the hand writing is on the wall we need more for generating electricity for the USA. We should be able to build good ones these days. We are going to have all those electric vehicles that need charged. LoL

But after everyone converts to high tech wood burning stoves we may be able to cut a few of them out of the plan.


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## webbie (Sep 4, 2013)

Highbeam said:


> Waste schmaste, this planet is vast.



I suspect most of us will be singing a different tune when the Japanese radiation fills our fish stock and air (milk, crops, etc.)...

The folks in the industry don't seem to think of the waste problem like you do.....luckily, I guess!


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## webbie (Sep 4, 2013)

Huntindog1 said:


> These days the hand writing is on the wall we need more. We should be able to build good ones these days.



Free market will not support them. Without government assistance and lack of liability (they cannot be insured), they cannot match the prices of other methods. So being for them means you want all taxpayers and ratepayers, now and for thousands of years, to pay for them and the waste.

I'm sure we can build better ones today - but being as the promised solutions to the waste are 40+ years behind, it's amazing that we could trust it will be solved. Then there is the little problem of nuclear proliferation, which the technology seems to lead to.


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## Huntindog1 (Sep 4, 2013)

Well nuclear or burning fossil fuels something is going to catch up with us. 

But energy costs is bringing every one down. Most of my money goes into the gas tank. I have a family of 5 and 4 of us drive soon to be 5. Lets see when all  5 of us are driving that will have me at $1000 a month in gasoline costs.

I just figure that if we want to take the load off fossil fuels nuclear is the going to have to do some of it. Worlds not getting any smaller.

In my life time the weather patterns  is about as weird as  I have ever seen it , I am beginning to think its man made, from all the energy production from fossil fuels.

As you point out Webbie the USA might not be building anymore but other countries are the ones that will be building them and I dont really trust them to do a good job.

I hear what your saying  but dont know what the answer for energy needs of the future will be.


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## jharkin (Sep 4, 2013)

They did a lot of things wrong at Fukushima, the bad choice of location being only the start.  

Do I want to see more bad implementations like that? - certainly not. But I also don't see a billion windmills saving the day when fossil fuels run out. We will need nuclear in some form or another, maybe LFTRs if they can be perfected or deally Fusion if we can ever make that 50 year breakthrough.

To point to Fukushima and say all nuclear is bad is a bit like the crowd who want to shut all of us down because of the smoke belching OWB folks.


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## georgepds (Sep 4, 2013)

jharkin said:


> .... But I also don't see a billion windmills saving the day when fossil fuels run out. ....



Why not? Spain sometimes gets a third of their power from windmills. Last time I was there.. I liked the look of all the ridges with windmills on them. They are pretty advanced using market based approach to predicting wind power for load balancing. Predict it right and you get paid get it wrong, and you loose. They have a small sector doing the predictions for the electric companies

Windmills alone won't do it, but distributed energy production just might. Power variability is the issue, perhaps advances in local battery storage might someday complement local wind/sun production. I see better batteries a more likely development than practical fusion



jharkin said:


> ...To point to Fukushima and say all nuclear is bad is a bit like the crowd who want to shut all of us down because of the smoke belching OWB folks.



Well Chernobyl comes to mind, so it's not just Fukushima.. but that is not what bothers me. The problem as I see it is the degree of destruction that happens if something goes wrong. A windmill falls over, and you may  kill a very unlucky  sheep. Fukushima cracks, and you loose a good portion of Japan. Chernobyl blows, and you contaminate eastern Europe 

Scale matters

All that is  a bit to the side, cheap gas is tolling the bell for nukes


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## Jags (Sep 4, 2013)

Yes.  But not in the current form using old tech.  Part of our waste issue is that the rods still contain a fair amount of hot fuel.  Fuel that can ultimately be consumed by the new tech nuke plants.  At least in the short term, we could actually reduce nuke waste by burning up the old rods in the new reactors.


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## woodgeek (Sep 4, 2013)

The nuclear tech of 20th century vintage was not the best, but has already saved countless lives (relative to projected deaths from avoided FF emissions).  A 21st century reboot, with modern material and material understanding and siting would be, yes, as safe as safe can be.  (E.g. compare jet air travel in 2013 versus 1973, both are v complex machines with materials limitations, and the safety is far better now)

The big issue is COST.  Period.  And that is an open question.  If new modern nukes can compete with renewable with a reasonable amortization, round up some private investment.  The lack of said investors suggests that the smart money says it doesn't pay.  Period.

Personally, I think thorium tech is 'immature'. Would require a couple decades to work the kinks out of and prove prototypes.  Can't build a fleet tomorrow, sorry.

And, no offense to PDF, but fusion is a pipedream.  Again, purely on a COST basis it is no-brainer impossible.

And this from a guy that thinks we could build a whole mars colony out of boiler plate, mass of an aircraft carrier, and send it there in one piece Orion-style.  F--k NASA, give Elon Musk a couple hundred compact nukes and half of NASA's current budget.  Permanent Mars colony in 10 years.


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## StihlHead (Sep 4, 2013)

begreen said:


> Does this include fusion reactors? If so, yes.


 
Pipe dream...

Fusion is so complicated and difficult that it will likely never happen. Yes, we can fuse atoms, but garnering any net energy from the process is likely more than 100 year into the future IMO (as an electrical engineer with some experience in developing cogeneration electric plants). I do not think that thorium or breeder reactors will be commercially feasible anytime soon either. I was once a fan of those technologies, but was convinced otherwise by a lot of scientists and engineers about 12 years ago. A lot of new technology will have to be developed/invented to get them working.

We are between a rock and a hard place as humans needing energy though, with a population of over 7 billion. FF is causing problems with GW, and we simply cannot keep burning stored carbon based energy sources w/o suffering massive global consequences. Alternatives are all the rage and sound great, but they account for only a tiny fraction of global energy, and they are expensive to develop and produce. Which leaves nuclear as the only real existing, available and scalable alternative in the near future. It has its faults, for sure. Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima are a testament to that. We also have to move the spent nuclear waste someplace where it is safer. I have been to Yucca Mountain, and I believe that is where it should be moved myself. However, it has been abandoned and the politics involved in doing that may not be possible. Germany is also scrapping nuclear energy long term, and the Japanese population is leery of it after Fukushima. Though I doubt that they will ever be able to scrap nuclear energy in Japan. Here in Oregon they demolished the Trojan plant, which in my opinion was a big mistake. But its a big political thing here that is likely not going to change.

We are staring to build more nuke plants in the US now though. I think 2 are being built and 9 are in the works. Several others have been offline for a while now, like the one in San Onofre just north of San Diego and one in Florida. The existing nuclear power plants are aging and more will go offline in the near future. Meanwhile the PNW is all gearing up for FF energy exports to Asia. 3 coal terminals are in planning on the Columbia River downstream from Portland, and one oil terminal was just approved in Vancouver, WA. They are going to run oil and coal down the RR lines through the Columbia Gorse and offload it to ships destined for Asia. They are also planning large NG pipelines to Pacific port terminals in Oregon and/or Washington for shipping to Asia. We are going to be the next Saudi Arabia of FF exports to the globe. The scale is massive. Can we afford to do this as a species and hope to survive the consequences of burning all this FF? I doubt that we can, but I also doubt that anything will stop this process from happening. Even if we Americans radically reduce the burning of FF as we have in the last several years, they will not likely reduce the demand in Asia any time soon.


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## save$ (Sep 5, 2013)

So many horror stories with nuclear power.  But just as we don't drive model t's, we have the capacity to build them better and safer.   There again, there are other options.  I.e. harnessing the power of the tides for hydro power.  No dams!  More efficient capturing the wind and solar energy so that it is cost effective and competitive.    Problem still persist.  Too many NIMBY's.


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## semipro (Sep 5, 2013)

In a better world without greed and hubris nuclear might be a viable option.
Talk about fusion being a pipe dream...(less greed and hubris -- hah!)

IMO our best options for energy sustainability lie in:

controlled societal growth,
less waste (higher efficiency), and
heavy expansion of renewable energy use.
Efficiency improvements are a no-brainer and yet I'm amazed how untapped this "source of energy" is.
This is especially true when you consider the end results of inefficiencies are (more) heat and pollution.
I'd hazard a guess that humans could do what we need to do with half or less of the energy we presently use.


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## Seasoned Oak (Sep 5, 2013)

Part of the problem is that energy prices are not really going up, for decades they have stayed the same adjusted for inflation. When they do eventually go up people will adjust and more alternatives will become cost effective.


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## jharkin (Sep 5, 2013)

webbie said:


> FThen there is the little problem of nuclear proliferation, which the technology seems to lead to.





Seasoned Oak said:


> Part of the problem is that energy prices are not really going up, for decades they have stayed the same adjusted for inflation. When they do eventually go up people will adjust and more alternatives will become cost effective.



This is true and is also why so few people go after efficiency. Consumers are lazy.  Some may talk about the environment but when it comes to action its just that - talk  - for a lot of folks.  So long as its cheaper and easier to just pay the electric bill / gas bill or gas up the car people wont bother with insulating or buying a smaller car.

Cheap frac gas is probably doing more damage to efficiency efforts than anything else....


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## Huntindog1 (Sep 5, 2013)

I think the Gov. could do more on this subject , but I think the Gov. is broke helping rebuild other countries and giving money to them. One country the other day they said receives like a billion dollars a year from the US Gov.

I think the cost of energy has caused issues. The last big economic down turn was yes the housing bubble but was pushed  over the edge by gas going over $4 a gallon back then.I dont think we have yet recovered and its gonna be some time before we do. The costs of goods and services are out of control and the people who put out those stats are fudging numbers to make them look better than they are. But I wasnt born yesterday and I have been around the barn a few times, inflation is out of control.


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## vinny11950 (Sep 5, 2013)

A good friend of mine lives in a nice building built in the 70s that has all electric heating and cooling.  14 floors.  I think back then they believed nuclear power plants would supply plenty of cheap electricity.  That was then.  

Like everyone here has said already, new nuclear power plants have better designs, especially in emergencies, so we should have a good chunk of our energy come from them.  Then some renewable, and then fossil.

But conservation is it.


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## Treacherous (Sep 5, 2013)

I ordered one earlier in the week and will be here tomorrow.

This is the model.  It is actually made in Russia.













There is also a unit from Japan that acts as a iPhone accessory.












Circus said:


> Where can I buy a geiger counter?


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## StihlHead (Sep 5, 2013)

semipro said:


> In a better world without greed and hubris nuclear might be a viable option.
> Talk about fusion being a pipe dream...(less greed and hubris -- hah!)
> 
> IMO our best options for energy sustainability lie in:
> ...


 
Agreed to all, though I was involved in politics 10 years ago and any (and I mean ANY) discussion of controlled growth was dismissed outright. No one will touch that topic in any way, shape or form. Improving efficiency and insulation are low hanging fruit, and have the fastest ROI by far. We could double the energy output from existing resources rather easy. No pipe dream needed there. Its just a matter of implementation, and not dependent on new exotic technology (though it can certainly gain from it). Renewables are failing in many ways, from failed investments like Solara to quality control issues in products from China, to existing monopolistic corporations like Edison fighting PV expansion using their grid in SoCal. It is also highly dependent on new and unproven exotic technology, and they have their downfalls. Windmills are limited to windy areas and they are noisy and they kill a lot of birds. PV relies on a wide and variable distribution grid. Hydro required damming rivers. Tidal/wave is expensive and limited to coastal areas with high wave activity. Most of these require an alternative power sources for downtime. New storage/battery technology is required, but henceforth not available at the scale needed.

Humans are greedy and inefficient by nature. We are also horny and hungry. It is very hard to go against nature. We need a new religion to overcome these issues and current trends.


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## save$ (Sep 5, 2013)

What would it take to convert our trucking industry to Natural gas vs gasoline or diesel?  It is practical?  If that petrol use was off the table, then what would be our world demand from foreign nations and how would it impact pollution?


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## woodgeek (Sep 5, 2013)

IIRC long haul trucks are a small fraction of gasoline+diesel use in the US


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## StihlHead (Sep 6, 2013)

save$ said:


> What would it take to convert our trucking industry to Natural gas vs gasoline or diesel?  It is practical?  If that petrol use was off the table, then what would be our world demand from foreign nations and how would it impact pollution?


 
good questions...

Natural gas is currently expanding as a fuel for trucking (because its cheap):

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/23/b...cks-expected-to-rise.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

If gasoline was off the table the economy would be stopped cold. If it were replaced with something else, the pollution impact would depend on the energy source used. Coal would be worse, NG would be better. 70% of oil used in the US is for transportation. As for world demand, 57% of oil used in the US is imported. You can read more about it here:

http://www.americanenergyindependence.com/fuels.aspx


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## btuser (Sep 6, 2013)

webbie said:


> Free market will not support them. Without government assistance and lack of liability (they cannot be insured), they cannot match the prices of other methods. So being for them means you want all taxpayers and ratepayers, now and for thousands of years, to pay for them and the waste.


Older nuke plants were never that good. They're all custom jobs, put in bad locations, and the reactor design isn't even that great.  Still, for 40 years they've been an awesome source of reliable and clean power for America.  As far as cost goes, if other forms of generation were regulated like the nuclear industry the margins wouldn't be that far out of whack.  If natural gas had to pay decommissioning fees, and realistic insurance rates in case a well casing contaminates ground water then it wouldn't be so cheap.  All this is paid up front with nuclear power.  No other industry is required to do this. As of right now there are billions of dollars sitting in funds, but there would be more if government hadn't changed the rules so they could get their hands on it to balance their budgets.

Why isn't a wind farm required to pay for every bird that might be killed in the next 30 years?  There are 14,000 abandoned turbines across the USA. Who's gonna clean that up?  (Yeah, I know it's not the same thing.)  You can build a nuke plant with less steel, less concrete and a hell of a lot less land than a comparable wind farm, AND you can put it where you need it vs long-distance power lines.  Wind is free but even a really good wind farm will get only get you 30% capacity from your steel and concrete investment, regardless of when you need it. No storage yet, but even cheap storage will be more expensive than nuclear fuel. Even with older reactors fuel was cheap.  With newer ones we can use the waste as seed material, essentially solving the waste problem and even creating value from it.  


> I'm sure we can build better ones today - but being as the promised solutions to the waste are 40+ years behind, it's amazing that we could trust it will be solved. Then there is the little problem of nuclear proliferation, which the technology seems to lead to.


The nuclear industry has paid over 35 billion dollars into a trust fund for long-term waste disposal.  Yucca Mountain construction costs are at about 15 billion dollars but, thanks to Senator Reed Yucca Mountain is over.  It wasn't the nuclear industry that failed it was NIMBY congress.


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## webbie (Sep 6, 2013)

Equating birds with millions of potential cases of cancer is not exactly equality in my book.

That 35 billion seems short when the cost of decommissioning is taken into account. Once again, if things were OK, then insurance companies would be jumping at the chance to insure them. But it had to be be done by the same MIMBY Congress. In other words, you....

What do you think the honest to goodness cost of the Japan meltdown is going to be - over time? Including cancers caused in 1,000 years?

Sure, every type of energy has it's problems, but when they are shorter term we can accept and understand them. For instance, we understand and accept the carnage in our cars on the highway. But we are not making decisions for people in 10 or 20 centuries. That's a different calculation, IMHO.


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## webbie (Sep 6, 2013)

BTW, I'm seeing 250-500 Billion for the Fukishima plant total cleanup. That was before the current mess happening now and likely does not include future cancers.  I think we all know that such things usually go way over budget. The money will have to be borrowed. Let's take a nice round number of a trillion to include at least one or two generations of cancers, lack of fish being able to be used, etc.

So, if ONE plant can cost 10X to 20X the (USA) cleanup fund created over decades, that doesn't look too good! And, again, the fact that one country can pollute a lot of the globe for hundreds or thousands of years make it different than wind turbines.


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## semipro (Sep 6, 2013)

webbie said:


> Equating birds with millions of potential cases of cancer is not exactly equality in my book..


The wind generator -- bird issue is way way overblown when compared to other risks.




 from this discussion:
https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads...ergy-future-for-new-york.107601/#post-1414114


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## btuser (Sep 6, 2013)

I was kidding about the bird thing.


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## DevilsBrew (Sep 6, 2013)

jharkin said:


> They did a lot of things wrong at Fukushima, the bad choice of location being only the start.



There are many US nuclear power plants that are susceptible to earthquakes and other natural disasters.  The builders saw plentiful water and threw all common sense out the window.


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## btuser (Sep 6, 2013)

DevilsBrew said:


> There are many US nuclear power plants that are susceptible to earthquakes.



It wasn't the earthquakes.  There were nuke plants closer to the epicenter than Fukushima but they did not suffer a meltdown.  It was poor design and execution.

1.) They noted on the original design that the generators would be prone to flooding but chose not to relocate them
2.) They made design changes to the cooling system that defeated safety systems and made them inoperable in an emergency
3.) After installing additional emergency generation on higher ground (per new regulation) they left the switchgear in the flood prone area making it essentially useless.

There's like a dozen things that happened in cascade to cause this.  Same with 3 mile, same with Chernobyl. Nuke power can be extremely safe but these 40yr old plants are not idiot proof.  Broken dams kill many more people than nuclear power.


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## DevilsBrew (Sep 6, 2013)

Maybe it comes down to whether or not you want to take the gamble.  I would rather not.


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## StihlHead (Sep 6, 2013)

webbie said:


> Equating birds with millions of potential cases of cancer is not exactly equality in my book.
> 
> That 35 billion seems short when the cost of decommissioning is taken into account. Once again, if things were OK, then insurance companies would be jumping at the chance to insure them. But it had to be be done by the same MIMBY Congress. In other words, you....
> 
> ...


 
Well, for one we do not make decisions about what Japan uses for energy. They do. NIMBY all you want. The reality is that Japan does not have an affordable feasible alternative to nuclear energy at this time, short of our shipping them billions of tons of subsidized fossil fuel. And then you have to figure out what to do with the non-CO2 pollution generated. Then you have to figure what the consequences are of this species surviving extinction in the next 2,000 years with the continued pumping of billions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere? I would say that nuclear is far better option, even with the risks involved. It comes down to comparing the quality of life of individuals (suffering from cancer), vs. survival of the species (avoiding extinction from the effects of global warming).


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## webbie (Sep 6, 2013)

In a day and age when renewables are "only" double the cost (approx) of nuclear, my thinking is that we'd be better having a "war on inefficiency" worldwide and putting those trillions it would cost to mitigate nukes into gubment subsidies for solar, wind, tidal and other similar technologies.

I don't think we were that far from being correct in the 70's when we said "no need to have a nuclear reactor to hear you home to 70 degrees".

At this point I think all we lack is the will and the vision. This could not be said even 20 years ago, but it can be said today (IMHO).


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## mustash29 (Sep 6, 2013)

Totally for nuke power, when it's implimented properly.....

Lots of interesting ideas here, lots of good info from some smart folks.

Some thoughts from a former reactor operator.  10 yrs 2 months 28 days as an electronics technician in the Navy's nuke power field.  2 years of non-stop school, 5 years building, testing, starting up and operating 2 reactors on an aircraft carrier, 3 years as a radiological controls technician doing sub maintenance.

The Enterprise, the Navy's first nuke carrier, had 8 reactors.  It was Admiral Rickover's wet dream.  They were essentially sub plants all linked together with multiple ways of cross-connecting systems, the ultimate setup for multiple redundancy.

All Nimitz class carriers have 2 plants, which is plenty of redundancy as they can go well over 1/2 speed and still launch plenty of lethal aircraft.  Full bore with both plants running is only about 60% power on each plant.  You are talking about nearly 100,000 tons of steel going > 30 knots and leaving a wake that is > 1.5 miles long.  It's like a trail of bread crumbs for the pilots to follow.  

As said earlier, the nuke guided missle cruisers are long gone.  They are all gas turbine powered now, variable pitch screws (propellers), fast Mo-Fo's for sure.  I about crapped my pants the first time I saw one of them pull away from us after finishing taking on a fuel load at sea.  After an UnRep or underway replenishment at sea, they typlically do "emergency breakaway" drills.  Impressive acceleration would be an understatement.

I grew up with 3 Mile Island 35 miles from my back yard.  I was in 3rd grade when the accident happened.  While the unit was damaged, the off site ramifications of the accident were relatively minor.  There were several issues that led up to the accident.  Operators (ex Navy Nukes) ignored a few indications in regards to the pressure relief valves and lines.  The pressure relief line had a pilot light indicating that the controls were telling it to open.  It should have had a positive feedback position indicator from the valve itself to PROVE that the valve was open.  That requirement has been retrofitted to all plants in the US.  Operators failed to have a proper valve line up on the safety injection and core cooling equipment after a maintenance outage, valves were left shut.  When the accident happened , folks just did not want to believe that it was really happening, they second guessed themselves and drew some wrong conclusions from the indications they had in front of them.

Chernobel was bad.  Poor reactor design with a positive coefficient of reactivity, so when power goes up it causes a further exponential increase in power.  Think of this as turbo charging your acceleration of power.  Very bad design.  They were also "playing" with the plant, running drills about how much of a power spike would happen when the turbine tripped off line.  It simply got away from them and blew up.

Fukushima, IMO was a pure accident, with MANY contributing factors that have and are still rearing their ugly heads.

My navy training probably has me biased, but IMO any training or experience gleaned from military or defense related industry tends to be far superior to what can be accomplished by the private sector when the allmighty dollar is the bottom line.

Look at the U-2, A-12 and SR-71 spy planes.  To know that we built that kind of technology in those days with paper and slide rules vs. the "shoddy" workmanship that the current "throw away" society produces nowadays.....It just makes you want to throw up.  While everyone was running around sporting their polaroid cameras, the military had cameras that could read a liscense plate from 85,000 feet while traveling at > mach 3.


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## dougstove (Sep 6, 2013)

Mustash29..."Some thoughts from a former reactor operator... in the Navy's nuke power field"

In a well run military discipline situation, reactors might work.
But in a civilian profit situation, people get bored.  Even ex-military personnel get bored watching gauges.
I fear that as a species we lack the attention span to safely run nukes.

I wonder about much smaller scale, more distributed reactor systems, rather than the giant central plants.  Standard design would help, and disasters would be smaller scale.


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## Gary_602z (Sep 7, 2013)

dougstove said:


> Mustash29..."Some thoughts from a former reactor operator... in the Navy's nuke power field"
> 
> 
> I fear that as a species we lack the attention span to safely run nukes.



Are you dissing Homer Simpson?

Gary


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## Huntindog1 (Sep 7, 2013)

We have the knowledge and technology to use nuclear power safely. They just have to educate the public to get them over their fears.

But dont put it in my backyard


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## Frozen Canuck (Sep 7, 2013)

I would be against them if we had a viable alternative. We don't, sure lot's "in the works hopeful to become" but nothing ready to roll out on any kind of scale that would make a difference. 

I am pretty sure our hand will be forced if the economy picks up again & China & India start to consume like North Americans. I just don't think that fossil can keep up to 2-3 billion people trying to live like we do. Even if fossil could keep up pretty sure we would wreck the joint burning that much hydrocarbon to generate power, provide transportation etc.


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## Seasoned Oak (Sep 8, 2013)

Might make more sense to put all that nuke money into solar power subsidies, NOT?


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## simple.serf (Sep 8, 2013)

Yes, but...

I think we need to be doing research on molten salt reactors. They can use waste materials from the current generations of reactors. The fuel is reprocessed on site every few days. The burnup rate is much much better than old type reactors. While the GE BWR's are pretty good (Fukishima has been the first catastrophic failure other than those during testing in the 50's), the design is old. The hotter a molten salt reactor gets, the more it self moderates. Combine that with a fusible plug to drain the fuel/coolant into a bulk tank in case of an overhat condition, and you ahve a pretty safe design. 

Now, what really scares me is that there are still several RBMK reactors in operation in Russia and old soviet countries (breeder reactors that are unsafe by design).


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## btuser (Sep 8, 2013)

The rbmk reactors fatal flaw was a positive void coefficient (yes, I'm quoting Wikipedia) of 4.7.  After Chernobyl they were reconfigured for .7 to be a lot safer.    If you read the timeline of what happened it will convince you of the safety of nuclear power.


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## Seasoned Oak (Sep 8, 2013)

We probably achieved the equivalent of all the nations reactors in the past few years just through more efficient appliances.


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## Huntindog1 (Sep 8, 2013)

Frozen Canuck said:


> I would be against them if we had a viable alternative. We don't, sure lot's "in the works hopeful to become" but nothing ready to roll out on any kind of scale that would make a difference.
> 
> I am pretty sure our hand will be forced if the economy picks up again & China & India start to consume like North Americans. I just don't think that fossil can keep up to 2-3 billion people trying to live like we do. Even if fossil could keep up pretty sure we would wreck the joint burning that much hydrocarbon to generate power, provide transportation etc.




Excellent point, lets consider the size of China & India and that part of the world compared to our population in the USA. When they start to consume like we do. The world is gonna a be a whole different place. 1.2 billion for India and 1.3 billion for China with India expected to pass china in 2025. The energy demand for soon to be fully modernized populations like that are mind boggling.

*2.9 billion:* The combined population of four neighboring countries: China, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Together, they account for 41 percent of the world's population.


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## Frozen Canuck (Sep 8, 2013)

Huntindog1 said:


> Excellent point, lets consider the size of China & India and that part of the world compared to our population in the USA. When they start to consume like we do. The world is gonna a be a whole different place. 1.2 billion for India and 1.3 billion for China with India expected to pass china in 2025. The energy demand for soon to be fully modernized populations like that are mind boggling.
> 
> *2.9 billion:* The combined population of four neighboring countries: China, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Together, they account for 41 percent of the world's population.



Yep. If we don't find a way to get by/get along without using the joint as an oversized garbage can, well we are likely to have population control forced on us by old Ma Nature via some very nasty methods indeed. 

I don't think the developed world is willing to have a footprint like we had in the early 50's, likely the last time we could say we were living within the means of the planet. Going to be some very interesting times indeed for grandkids & generations beyond.


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## StihlHead (Sep 8, 2013)

mustash29 said:


> Chernobel was bad.  Poor reactor design with a positive coefficient of reactivity, so when power goes up it causes a further exponential increase in power.  Think of this as turbo charging your acceleration of power.  Very bad design.  They were also "playing" with the plant, running drills about how much of a power spike would happen when the turbine tripped off line.  It simply got away from them and blew up.


 
Agreed on most points. However, they were testing to determine how long the turbines would spin and supply power to the main circulating pumps following a loss of the main electrical supply. In order to do the tests, they had to purposely turn the automated shutdown systems and backup cooling system off and remove far more control rods than were allowed for safety. At that point the reactor had a power spike (not known exactly why, there are several theories), and it went open loop and kablooey. But the operators were purposely bypassing many safety protocols with a reactor that had serious design flaws. They did not understand these points and it rapidly got out of control. A series of human errors on top of a bad reactor design. A lot of people died, and the area is still a hot zone.



mustash29 said:


> Fukushima, IMO was a pure accident, with MANY contributing factors that have and are still rearing their ugly heads.


 
Agreed. No way for them to plan for the events that caused the Fukushima accident. The earthquake caused a severe drop in land level that rendered the sea walls useless, and then the tidal wave washed them out and took out the reactor cooling pumps. That caused a rapid increase in heat and a meltdown, and the subsequent chain of reactions. A lot of people died there as well, but mainly from the earthquake and subsequent flooding. Many things were done after the fact in order to keep the reactor cool, including doing things that they knew would permanently destroy the power plant. The area is also a hot zone, though 'fallout' here on the US Pacific coast was completely overblown. The measured background radiation in the Portland, OR area hardly changed at all. But people bought tons of highly inflated iodine tablets and there as a panic.



mustash29 said:


> My navy training probably has me biased, but IMO any training or experience gleaned from military or defense related industry tends to be far superior to what can be accomplished by the private sector when the allmighty dollar is the bottom line.


 
I am biased in the opposite. I have many years of experience of working at General Dynamics on many military programs and my experience is that defense spending is about as inefficient a way to spend money that there is. Yes, the stuff worked in the first Gulf War when everyone said it would not. But the price was really high and the waste was everywhere. Simply put, private industry cannot afford that kind of cost, and no one can afford a $30,000 military spec toaster oven. Which is why people had cheap Polaroids, when the military has high altitude high resolution cameras.

However, a caveat to that is that after the military defense buildup and build-down, all kinds of companies spun off in the SF Bay Area and San Diego with military technology and available educated and trained defense industry technicians and engineers. One example is Qualcomm in San Diego using CDMA technology for cell phones (that was developed for the SINGARS military radio). Another is WD-40 was that was developed at General Dynamics for military launch vehicles (the Atlas-Centaur rocket).

Also where nuclear energy is concerned, the case is actually the opposite of military spending. People simply cannot afford energy at 2x the rate of nuclear (or FF) to use alternatives. Until alternatives become cheaper, they will not become widely used (at least not enough to make a global impact). We live in the land of 'the have'. In poor countries they simply cannot afford to eat with energy at 2x the price. Which is what started the Arab spring revolts in North Africa and the Middle East; higher food costs (due to higher energy costs and drought). In Brazil they are rioting over the higher cost of transportation, due in part to higher energy costs.


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## StihlHead (Sep 8, 2013)

btuser said:


> The rbmk reactors fatal flaw was a positive void coefficient (yes, I'm quoting Wikipedia) of 4.7.  After Chernobyl they were reconfigured for .7 to be a lot safer.    If you read the timeline of what happened it will convince you of the safety of nuclear power.


 
Wiki is actually not as good for the details of the Chernobyl reactor tests and events. Look at this site for better info:

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/S...-Appendix-1--Sequence-of-Events/#.UizkUVHn_IV


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## btuser (Sep 8, 2013)

StihlHead said:


> Wiki is actually not as good for the details of the Chernobyl reactor tests and events. Look at this site for better info:
> 
> http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/S...-Appendix-1--Sequence-of-Events/#.UizkUVHn_IV


Thanks for the link. I've seen two documenaries and read a dozen articles.  The part I was quoting was the void coefficient.  In my non-expert opinion they f'd up worse than a chimpanzee fire drill.


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## StihlHead (Sep 8, 2013)

btuser said:


> I've seen two documenaries and read a dozen articles.  The part I was quoting was the void coefficient.  Any way you slice it they f'd up worse than a chimpanzee fire drill.


 
Well, yes. I am just pointing out a better and rather complete account of the whole ugly mess.

As for fire drills, many of them paid the ultimate price for their mistakes and left a legacy for eternity regarding nuclear power.


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## btuser (Sep 8, 2013)

StihlHead said:


> Well, yes. I am just pointing out a better and rather complete account of the whole ugly mess.
> 
> As for fire drills, many of them paid the ultimate price for their mistakes and left a legacy for eternity regarding nuclear power.


There's a thriving tourist trade.  I'm trying convince my wife we don't need another trip to Disneyland this year.


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## DBoon (Sep 8, 2013)

I don't love the idea of nuclear power.  At the same time, wind, solar, hydro, and other clean generating technologies cannot meet 100% of our needs, and can't stabilize the electrical grid by providing the baseline need.  Leaving aside the fact that our electric utilities want to run the grid with a 1970's mindset and are very resistant to change, we do need some percentage of baseline generation, likely in the 30-40% range (this is far less than a utility would tell you).

Essentially, we have a massive problem (too much CO2 production) that requires a 30 year or less solution.  The 30 year or less solution can only be met with technologies that can be deployed today, and nuclear is one of them.  If you don't want to deploy nuclear for baseline loads, then you have, by default, chosen a fossil fuel strategy with all the problems that brings (i.e. too much CO2 production), and then there is no solution.  If you don't believe in global warming being caused by fossil fuel burning, then this is a non-issue and nuclear could be "discontinued".   

Today, nuclear accounts for about 20% of US electrical generation.  In 30 years, we will be very lucky if solar+wind can reach this level of generated electricity (not capacity).  To get CO2 down to 20% of today's levels requires something on the order of doubling nuclear generation (40% of today's total generation), shutting every coal-fired plant, limiting natural gas to 20% of electrical generation), continuing massive investments in wind and solar (to reach 20% of today's total generation), and massive conservation to drop demand 20% in-spite of population increases and any shift in transportation or heating from fossil fuel to electricity.  This is the "do everything" strategy. 

You simply can't solve the problem without nuclear energy, hate to say it....


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## woodgeek (Sep 8, 2013)

Don't agree DB.  There are multiple viable low carbon scenarios with nuclear and without.  Wind can provide near 'baseload' power if you overbuild (nearly 100%), average over a large area, and are willing to shed excess.  Put in some demand shedding and the baseload concept is not needed.  The question in whether 2X cost of wind is more expensive than new nukes.  Right now looks like 2X onshore wind is cheaper than new nukes, but 2X offshore is more.  Jury is out.


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## btuser (Sep 8, 2013)

2x wind is a lot more concrete and steel.  It would take a lot longer just to break even on CO2.   It's also a question of 2x as long to build it, although I will concede wind is easier, especially from a social point of view.  

For a country that can coordinate happy meal prizes with this week's hit movie I wouldn't think this level of coordination would be so much trouble.


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## woodgeek (Sep 8, 2013)

energy payback for wind is ~8 mos.  Double that, 16 mos.  If it runs for 32 years, still a 20X excess energy.  Using energy as a proxy for carbon, still consistent with a big reduction.


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## StihlHead (Sep 9, 2013)

woodgeek said:


> Don't agree DB.  There are multiple viable low carbon scenarios with nuclear and without.  Wind can provide near 'baseload' power if you overbuild (nearly 100%), average over a large area, and are willing to shed excess.  Put in some demand shedding and the baseload concept is not needed.  The question in whether 2X cost of wind is more expensive than new nukes.  Right now looks like 2X onshore wind is cheaper than new nukes, but 2X offshore is more.  Jury is out.


 
While wind is now the largest single growing sector for energy production in the US and currently accounts for 43% of all new electric generation plants in the US, even at this current rapid growth rate it is only expected to double by 2020. Currently wind accounts for 4% of total electrical generation in the US (as of 2012). So in 2020 we get to 8%. Also politics are getting in the way and slowing wind down. Look at the large wind farm that is being planned in the Columbia River gorge. It is all tied up in the courts now. Off-shore wind will be even more difficult. And you still need a power supply for non-windy days, or storage, and batteries are just not there in size, scale and cost yet. The larger the grid and father you are from users, the more electricity you lose in line losses (up to 50%).

In contrast, US nuclear generating capacity is expected to only grow by about 10% by 2030 (taking into account new plants expected to come on line and closure of nuke plants that have been in operation for their expected lifespan). That is less than 2% of today's total electric production. The US electric demand is expected to increase by 35% by the year 2030. So the shortfall to fill by alternatives just to account for growth not produced by nukes is a whopping 33% of today's production, and even if wind were to re-double again by 2030 that would leave a 21% void to fill with other far slower growing alternatives. And that would still leave the existing fossil fuel electric production exactly where it is today. In the end, even with nukes *and* wind, we will fall short of demand. If we want to cut down on FF, we have to start building up alternatives, and starting about 35 years ago. If you want to replace nuke plants and account for the expected increase in electric demand, you would need to increase alternative energy 10 fold over today's production, and you still do not replace any electricity made by FF.

So I just do not see it happening w/o nukes, and everything else we can come up with in the meantime. Jury or no jury, as much as the anti-nuke lobby and greenies want think that there will be a wonderful rosy future. And that does not account for a rapidly emerging middle class in Asia that will be demanding a whole lot more energy, likely to come from the US of A in the form of coal, oil and NG. We have this massive debt to pay off, you know...


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## StihlHead (Sep 9, 2013)

btuser said:


> There's a thriving tourist trade.  I'm trying convince my wife we don't need another trip to Disneyland this year.


 
Well, going to Chernobyl, or anywhere in the Ukraine is not on my bucket list.

But in a statement made in April, 2 scientists from Nasa's Goddard institute have calculated that nuclear power has prevented 1.84 million deaths as compared to the use of Fossil Fuel (even accounting for fallout from Fukushima):

Using historical production data, we calculate that global nuclear power has prevented about 1.84 million air pollution-related deaths and 64 gigatonnes (Gt) CO2-equivalent greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that would have resulted from fossil fuel burning. Based on global projection data that take into account the effects of Fukushima, we find that by mid-century, nuclear power could prevent an additional 420,000 to 7.04 million deaths and 80 to 240 GtCO2-eq emissions due to fossil fuels, depending on which fuel it replaces.


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## begreen (Sep 9, 2013)

Thanks to Chernobyl there is now a part of the earth that is inhabitable for 20000 years. We can't afford to have more of these.


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## woodgeek (Sep 9, 2013)

StihlHead said:


> While wind is now the largest single growing sector for energy production in the US and currently accounts for 43% of all new electric generation plants in the US, even at this current rapid growth rate it is only expected to double by 2020. Currently wind accounts for 4% of total electrical generation in the US (as of 2012). So in 2020 we get to 8%. Also politics are getting in the way and slowing wind down. Look at the large wind farm that is being planned in the Columbia River gorge. It is all tied up in the courts now. Off-shore wind will be even more difficult. And you still need a power supply for non-windy days, or storage, and batteries are just not there in size, scale and cost yet. The larger the grid and father you are from users, the more electricity you lose in line losses (up to 50%).



Didn't say that we were on a path to a low carbon electric fleet, just that it there are multiple feasible paths.  Since half of the current wind fleet was built in the last 2 years, this implies we **could** double it in 4 more years, or triple it in 8, just by building at the most recent historical rate. 

Currently, though, the number of wind farms under construction in the US is near zero.

The current wind/solar experience in Germany is fascinating....its a Rorschach test for energy geeks, with one side pointing out that wind is driving down prices by displacing the most expensive generation, while the other side is saying the effect is apocalyptic for utilities (that buried their head in the sand and did not plan for it).  Who is right?  We'll watch and learn.


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## btuser (Sep 9, 2013)

begreen said:


> Thanks to Chernobyl there is now a part of the earth that is inhabitable for 20000 years. We can't afford to have more of these.


Have you been within 100 yards of a 1MW wind turbine?

I'll take the nuke plant.  The poor baby birds and bats!


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## begreen (Sep 9, 2013)

Well, within 1000 yds yes, we saw lots of them in eastern WA. How do you think bats and birds like flying through this?





Or trying to land in this?



FWIW, the major cause of bird deaths are tall buildings and cats, not large wind generators.


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## fossil (Sep 9, 2013)

Cats' score is more than 1 billion per year.  How many do the wind turbines nail?

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/gen...ts_kill_more_than_one_billion_birds_each_year


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## Ashful (Sep 9, 2013)

Highbeam said:


> It's already here. Those aircraft carriers over near Syria ready to fight, all nuclear...


Good point, with one correction.  Only the Nimitz class carriers are Nuclear.  All the rest of the carriers in our fleet are conventional power.  The new Gerald Ford class carriers will be nuclear, but none of them are on the water... yet.


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## Ashful (Sep 9, 2013)

Highbeam said:


> Waste schmaste, this planet is vast.





webbie said:


> I suspect most of us will be singing a different tune when the Japanese radiation fills our fish stock and air (milk, crops, etc.)...
> 
> The folks in the industry don't seem to think of the waste problem like you do.....luckily, I guess!


Don't we have rockets?     Space is vast, and the sun is hot.


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## fossil (Sep 9, 2013)

Joful said:


> Good point, with one correction.  Only the Nimitz class carriers are Nuclear.  All the rest of the carriers in our fleet are conventional power.  The new Gerald Ford class carriers will be nuclear, but none of them are on the water... yet.


 
Nope, not even close.  No conventionally powered aircraft carrier remains in the active inventory.  Kitty Hawk (CV 63) was the last one, decommissioned in May 2009.  Every US carrier commissioned since 1975 (Nimitz) is nuclear powered, 10 of which are currently active in the fleet.  (Trust me, I spent 30+ years in a Navy uniform, and was, in fact, Chief Engineer of Kitty Hawk 1992 - 1995, then I did a tour in the Aircraft Carrier Program Office in the Pentagon.)


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## Ashful (Sep 9, 2013)

fossil said:


> Nope, not even close.  No conventionally powered aircraft carrier remains in the active inventory.  Kitty Hawk (CV 63) was the last one, decommissioned in May 2009.  Every US carrier commissioned since 1975 (Nimitz) is nuclear powered, 10 of which are currently active in the fleet.  (Trust me, I spent 30+ years in a Navy uniform, and was, in fact, Chief Engineer of Kitty Hawk 1992 - 1995, then I did a tour in the Aircraft Carrier Program Office in the Pentagon.)


Wikipedia can't be wrong!   

Their list of "active carriers, in service":





US_Nimitz_ (CVN-68)333 m (1,093 ft)100,020 mt_Nimitz_NuclearCATOBAR3 May 1975



US_Dwight D. Eisenhower_ (CVN-69)333 m (1,093 ft)103,200 mt_Nimitz_NuclearCATOBAR18 October 1977



US_Carl Vinson_ (CVN-70)333 m (1,093 ft)102,900 mt_Nimitz_NuclearCATOBAR13 March 1982



US_Theodore Roosevelt_ (CVN-71)333 m (1,093 ft)106,300 mt_Nimitz_NuclearCATOBAR25 October 1986



US_Abraham Lincoln_ (CVN-72)333 m (1,093 ft)105,783 mt_Nimitz_NuclearCATOBAR11 November 1989



US_George Washington_ (CVN-73)333 m (1,093 ft)105,900 mt_Nimitz_NuclearCATOBAR4 July 1992



US_John C. Stennis_ (CVN-74)333 m (1,093 ft)105,000 mt_Nimitz_NuclearCATOBAR9 December 1995



US_Harry S. Truman_ (CVN-75)333 m (1,093 ft)105,600 mt_Nimitz_NuclearCATOBAR25 July 1998



US_Ronald Reagan_ (CVN-76)333 m (1,093 ft)103,000 mt_Nimitz_NuclearCATOBAR12 July 2003



US_George H.W. Bush_ (CVN-77)333 m (1,093 ft)104,000 mt_Nimitz_NuclearCATOBAR10 January 2009



US_Peleliu_ (LHA-5)250 m (820 ft)39,438 mt_Tarawa_ConventionalSTOVL3 May 1980



US_Wasp_ (LHD-1)257 m (843 ft)40,532 mt_Wasp_ConventionalSTOVL29 July 1989



US_Essex_ (LHD-2)257 m (843 ft)40,650 mt_Wasp_ConventionalSTOVL17 October 1992



US_Kearsarge_ (LHD-3)257 m (843 ft)40,500 mt_Wasp_ConventionalSTOVL16 October 1993



US_Boxer_ (LHD-4)257 m (843 ft)40,722 mt_Wasp_ConventionalSTOVL11 February 1995



US_Bataan_ (LHD-5)257 m (843 ft)40,358 mt_Wasp_ConventionalSTOVL20 September 1997



US_Bonhomme_ Richard (LHD-6)257 m (843 ft)40,500 mt_Wasp_ConventionalSTOVL15 August 1998



US_Iwo Jima_ (LHD-7)257 m (843 ft)40,530 mt_Wasp_ConventionalSTOVL30 June 2001



US_Makin_ Island (LHD-8)258 m (846 ft)41,649 mt_Wasp_ConventionalSTOVL24 October 2009


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## fossil (Sep 9, 2013)

The first ten ships on that list are Aircraft Carriers, and they are all nuclear powered.  All the rest are smaller amphibious warfare support ships that are generally capable of operating helicopters and Harriers (VTOL fixed wing aircraft), as well as small craft in & out of a well deck.  I guess Wikipedia can call them anything it wants to, but the Navy doesn't refer to those amphibs as Aircraft Carriers.  Look up LHD and you'll see what they are.  Look up CVN and you'll see what an Aircraft Carrier is.


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## Jags (Sep 9, 2013)

If you can't toss a fighter jet off the pointy end like a paper airplane - it ain't a Carrier.


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## StihlHead (Sep 9, 2013)

fossil said:


> Nope, not even close.  No conventionally powered aircraft carrier remains in the active inventory.


 
Yah, I was gonna say... Anyone can post to Wiki...

The Kitty Hawk (known as the Sh*tty Kitty) was the last conventional carrier and was decommissioned in 2008.


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## StihlHead (Sep 9, 2013)

begreen said:


> Thanks to Chernobyl there is now a part of the earth that is inhabitable for 20000 years. We can't afford to have more of these.


 
Chernobyl will likely be habitable about 18,000 years before that. I bet people will move there when the human population hits 10 billion around 2100 though. I am sure starving North Africans would happily move there today if they were allowed to. And it is far more habitable than the surface of Mars.


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## Ashful (Sep 9, 2013)

fossil said:


> The first ten ships on that list are Aircraft Carriers, and they are all nuclear powered.  All the rest are smaller amphibious warfare support ships that are generally capable of operating helicopters and Harriers (VTOL fixed wing aircraft), as well as small craft in & out of a well deck.  I guess Wikipedia can call them anything it wants to, but the Navy doesn't refer to those amphibs as Aircraft Carriers.  Look up LHD and you'll see what they are.  Look up CVN and you'll see what an Aircraft Carrier is.



Good to know.  Those "smaller amphibious warfare support ships" you refuse to call carriers have a larger flight deck than almost every Essex carrier built during WW2!  I guess the 825-foot "big E" ain't so big by today's standards.


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## fossil (Sep 9, 2013)

It's not that I "refuse to call them carriers", it's that ships are classified by their primary missions, and the primary missions (and capabilities) of Aircraft Carriers are completely different than those of the Amphibious Warfare support ships.  All of our surface combatants (Frigates, Destroyers, Cruisers) carry helicopters...would you call them Aircraft Carriers too?


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## btuser (Sep 9, 2013)

begreen said:


> Well, within 1000 yds yes, we saw lots of them in eastern WA. How do you think bats and birds like flying through this?
> View attachment 110965
> View attachment 110963
> 
> ...



I'm not anti wind or anti solar, but my opinion has been tempered through some close hand observation.  I was all gun ho and anti-nimby before I got up closer than a drive by.  

They are LOUD, and you can feel it.  I don't buy the reports of sickness from pressure etc (never know) but when they're whippin they make a racket.  I was no closer than 300' and could definitively hear it from much farther.  Something to think about.   I don't think they're ugly, I think they're cool, but people complaining about the noise have a valid point.

Birds make a lot of racket too.  Damn birds.


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## begreen (Sep 9, 2013)

Out where I saw them the main thing hearing their noise was prairie dogs.


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## Ashful (Sep 9, 2013)

I always wondered why no one has ever considered installing nuke plants offshore.  Either on the water, or under the water.  Sure... there's some serious environmental challenges, but there's also infinite cooling capacity, and an ability to contain airborne drift.

I'm sure there are good reasons...


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## save$ (Sep 9, 2013)

btuser said:


> Have you been within 100 yards of a 1MW wind turbine?
> 
> I'll take the nuke plant.  The poor baby birds and bats!


 We have wind farms in Maine,  More on the way :http://www.kjonline.com/business/39...oute-16-in-Somerset-Piscataquis-counties.html  but there is a lot of opposition to them.  Enough wind coming from the "environmentalist" to run a wind farm by itself!  I have been to the big wind farm on Kirby Mountain.  I took lots of pictures and found those windmills not to be a deterrent.  Aim your camera a little left or right and they are out of your view.  I drove right up to the top of the range where the turbines were. They were gently turning, I couldn't hear anything from them.  These guys that don't want wind farms are the same bunch that don't want cell towers.  Some of them will lay in the  way of the construction, or tie themselves to trees etc.  All they really need to do is put some pot on the end of a stick and lure them out of the way.


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## jharkin (Sep 9, 2013)

Interesting discussions... Ive learned a lot about Fukushima that I didnt realize.

Back  agian to the points about wind & solar.  Don't get me wrong, I really like wind and solar.  I'd be all for it if we could do it all with wind and solar, and dump the FF and stop bothering with nukes, but Im still just not convinced. 




georgepds said:


> Why not? Spain sometimes gets a third of their power from windmills. Last time I was there.. I liked the look of all the ridges with windmills on them.



The example of Wind providing 1/4 of Spain's power, and of the occasional mostly solar days in Germany has been mentioned.  Thats all well and great, but can it really scale to the entire world?  Or put another way, would the western world be able to keep that up if we hadn't already outsourced a large amount of our energy consumption to the east via moving manufacturing?



Huntindog1 said:


> Excellent point, lets consider the size of China & India and that part of the world compared to our population in the USA. When they start to consume like we do. The world is gonna a be a whole different place. 1.2 billion for India and 1.3 billion for China with India expected to pass china in 2025. The energy demand for soon to be fully modernized populations like that are mind boggling. 2.9 billion: The combined population of four neighboring countries: China, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Together, they account for 41 percent of the world's population.



This is key, as the growth of  China, India, "Chindia" or the BRIC countries has major energy implications. 
- These countries are huge and growing like crazy, so even with only a fraction of our per capita consumption that are straining the available resource base like never before
- They all have large and growing middle classes that DO want to consume like Americans
- By moving 80% of our manufacturing to these locations we have also artificially reduced the western world energy consumption even lower than it truly is. In other words would Spain be all wind if they had to make their own stuff???

As some folks know my job takes me to both India and China on a yearly basis, so I have a keen interest and view of how these countries are developing.  I'm writing this from a hotel room in Pudong Shanghai as a matter of fact. When I flew in on Sunday I could see a line of wind turbines on the shore from the airplane.  I also see solar water heaters on the roof of many apartment blocks and PV sprouting up all over the city. You might be surprised how much attention is paid to efficiency here as well - everywhere I go in hotels, offices, etc they try to turn off everything that's not in use, have installed high efficiency lighting, etc.

 That's all great but doesn't negate the fact that China's consumption of Coal, oil, gas, nuclear is all growing exponentially. Wind is no magic solution here.









http://mazamascience.com/OilExport/




Its also easy to look around in the US and see people still merrily driving and think the situation with oil is just dandy.  But go to India and ask the locals what they think of prices, or watch the petrol riots and you will have a different view....


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## webbie (Sep 9, 2013)

All true, Jh, but even if China is the #1 user of coal and/or energy, it uses MUCH less per capita, and that's the only fair way to look at things world wide. Borders and nations have nothing to do with global energy problems in the Big Picture...

We are in the infancy of solar, wind, tidal and other renewable systems. Yet, as you mention, there are some pretty amazing numbers being reached already. We have not really attacked the problem in a global or even national level - mostly because of politics. That means Oil Money, Global Warming and Pollution Deniers, etc.

What if we did? 

I say it will happen, but could have happened much quicker if we (the world and the USA) invested more. Like all these other long term problems, it will not happen in 10, 20 or 30 years. But in 50+ years I suspect the total energy picture will look much different and in 100+ they will probably look back and wonder why we didn't fix things quicker.


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## btuser (Sep 9, 2013)

Per capita income is not a fair way to compare.  We are more productive per capita than China.  Its not like all of America is lazy and selfish.

Just the liberals.


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## webbie (Sep 9, 2013)

No, not per capita income - per capita energy use. China's is about 1/4 of ours per person, yet as you say, they are using a lot making stuff for us. Subtract that and they could be using 1/5 or less of the energy per person than we are. 

Point is that we, Canada and even Europe have to stop setting the standards for waste and abuse of energy.


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## btuser (Sep 9, 2013)

webbie said:


> No, not per capita income - per capita energy use. China's is about 1/4 of ours per person, yet as you say, they are using a lot making stuff for us. Subtract that and they could be using 1/5 or less of the energy per person than we are.
> 
> Point is that we, Canada and even Europe have to stop setting the standards for waste and abuse of energy.


I don't buy it.  China workers are nowhere near as productive as American workers.  They just work for less money.  That's not the same as work per energy unit.


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## webbie (Sep 9, 2013)

btuser said:


> I don't buy it.  China workers are nowhere near as productive as American workers.  They just work for less money.  That's not the same as work per energy unit.



Am I being unclear?

I'm not talking about money! I am talking about the piece of energy pie that each person uses, which is the crux of the entire energy picture! People in TX, for instance, use 3X as much energy as people in Rhode Island, etc.

Let me try again. If we are going to be fair and say each person has the right to use as much energy (on average) as another, then China is doing much better at it.  This is what I am referring to...the only thing above I take issue with is saying "China uses more coal than we do", etc. when China is people, and their people (per head) use much less than we do - 1/2 to 1/3 as much in fact, and much of that is used to make stuff for us and others!


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## Ashful (Sep 9, 2013)

webbie said:


>



Where the hell do those Canuck's get off using more oil than us?!?


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## StihlHead (Sep 9, 2013)

Joful said:


> I always wondered why no one has ever considered installing nuke plants offshore.  Either on the water, or under the water.  Sure... there's some serious environmental challenges, but there's also infinite cooling capacity, and an ability to contain airborne drift.
> 
> I'm sure there are good reasons...


 
Are we talking about aircraft carriers again? 

Subs have actually been used to power Hawaii after storms took out the power supply there. They are portable electrical power plants.

Ocean environments are tough to deal with. Also in the US at least we build nukes in reinforced concrete and steel containment buildings. And airborne drift would be less of an issue compared to potential waterborne drift.


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## Huntindog1 (Sep 10, 2013)

Well Guys I would say China isnt yet there as they havent modernized all of the huge Country they are.  But they are modernizing at a speedy rate so look out.

Well till they finish there own little industrial boom that the USA went thru many moons ago. Then we will look at the numbers and it wont be pretty.

Wait till every chinese family and their kids have xboxes , flat screens, an iphone, computers, air conditioning,  a freezer , a hot tub, a swimming pool in the back yard, everyone in the family has a SUV, a Pontoon boat , jet skis, whoop butt riding mower,  leaf vacuum system, surround sound system. 

One reason oil is so expensive I think is the consumption of these other countries have gone up so much the supply and demand has changed thus higher prices.


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## StihlHead (Sep 10, 2013)

webbie said:


> I say it will happen, but could have happened much quicker if we (the world and the USA) invested more. Like all these other long term problems, it will not happen in 10, 20 or 30 years. But in 50+ years I suspect the total energy picture will look much different and in 100+ they will probably look back and wonder why we didn't fix things quicker.


 
That will likely never happen, as it has not happened now and has never happened before. It is never a balanced world when it comes to humans, politics, war, global equality, and fixing things. I am reminded of a lecture in my Poly Sci class taught by a professor at the College of War at the NPGS in Monterey, CA. He was talking about why it is futile to try to solve world hunger, but it applies equally as well to world energy. Basically it comes down to the fact that while we can technologically 'solve' world hunger (and world energy), it is politically impossible. Why? Examples are endless of trying to get food to famine areas of North Africa. Once the food arrives on the scene, everyone there instantly wants a piece of the pie, like in Somalia now, or in Ethiopia then. Locals go on strike for higher wages whenever CARE shows up. Pirates and gangs steal food and trade it for weapons. The price of trucks and equipment goes up, usually double or triple overnight. In the end the people starving do not get the majority of the food, no matter how hard we try. The political layers are endless.

In 100 years I seriously doubt that we will have anything any more resolved than we have now. Likely the population will be 10 billion and we will be even more dependent on energy than we are now. Fossil fuel and other critical resources (like phosphates) will be more depleted and the effects of global warming will have had a lot more time to unfold. None of us will be around then, and I certainly do not want to be. We will peak in global energy production at some point. We cannot expand forever, much as many want to think otherwise. We will also peak in global food production as well as critical resources like fresh water, arable land, fertilizer elements, rare earth elements, ocean fisheries, etc. etc. Historically when resources become limited, it has always led to famine or war.


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## btuser (Sep 10, 2013)

webbie said:


> Am I being unclear?
> 
> I'm not talking about money! I am talking about the piece of energy pie that each person uses, which is the crux of the entire energy picture! People in TX, for instance, use 3X as much energy as people in Rhode Island, etc.


Well Kudos for China and their efficient use of human machines.  $1.50/hr makes sure you don't have a lot of extra cash to spend on energy consumption.  My point is the average American worker is more productive with the same amount of energy:

2010 World Bank  GDP per unit of energy used:  http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.GDP.PUSE.KO.PP.KD

USA -   6
China-  3.8

The United States, in spite of all of our spoiled,whiny,  lazy people consistently ranks as some of the most productive workers in the world.




> Let me try again. If we are going to be fair and say each person has the right to use as much energy (on average) as another, then China is doing much better at it.  This is what I am referring to...the only thing above I take issue with is saying "China uses more coal than we do", etc. when China is people, and their people (per head) use much less than we do - 1/2 to 1/3 as much in fact, and much of that is used to make stuff for us and others!


Fair?  Like we all get an allowance, or buy/trade our daily energy allotment for good/services? Besides, why should my family get less energy because we chose to have less children, therefore decreasing our future energy use? China's got a lot of people, so what?  It's a  cesspool.  But I can see the rationale for a market economy where energy is used for money.  People will waste a lot less, and recycling would pay.  We can all see how far our daily ration can get us.  Vegetarians will make out, and no more bottled water.   But it would slow down/stop the economy so I suggest instead of energy we make it about time.




I think I just solved the health care issue!


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## fossil (Sep 10, 2013)

StihlHead said:


> Are we talking about aircraft carriers again?
> 
> Subs have actually been used to power Hawaii after storms took out the power supply there...



Nope, never happened.  " *Plans to use the nuclear submarine Indianapolis to provide power for Kauai were dropped after three portable generators arrived from California*."
http://www.nytimes.com/1982/11/30/us/power-still-out-in-parts-of-kauai.html


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## StihlHead (Sep 10, 2013)

btuser said:


> Fair?  Like we all get an allowance, or buy/trade our daily energy allotment for good/services? Besides, why should my family get less energy because we chose to have less children, therefore decreasing our future energy use? China's got a lot of people, so what?  It's a  cesspool.  But I can see the rationale for a market economy where energy is used for money.  People will waste a lot less, and recycling would pay.  We can all see how far our daily ration can get us.  Vegetarians will make out, and no more bottled water.   But it would slow down/stop the economy so I suggest instead of energy we make it about time.


 
Loud applause...

_When it rains in China, it rains dirt._


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## StihlHead (Sep 10, 2013)

fossil said:


> Nope, never happened.  " *Plans to use the nuclear submarine Indianapolis to provide power for Kauai were dropped after three portable generators arrived from California*."
> http://www.nytimes.com/1982/11/30/us/power-still-out-in-parts-of-kauai.html


 
I wonder if that is true or not. I was loaned out to Electric Boat for a while when I was at GD's Electronics Div. in the 1980/90s and most there *knew* it had happened. The story was that it was hooked up for 4 days and provided power, as I recall. Several ex-swabbies that were on that sub later said that they actually did hook up to the grid. Military information is/was not always what you read in the paper or online, as I found working at GD and later supporting the NSA when I was at Intergraph. Like, Area 51 actually did and still does exist...


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## StihlHead (Sep 10, 2013)

Something not so good is happening on the way to no nukes and going green in Germany. The cost of electricity is going up sharply:

http://www.spiegel.de/international...-transition-to-renewable-energy-a-920288.html


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## woodgeek (Sep 10, 2013)

StihlHead said:


> Something not so good is happening on the way to no nukes and going green in Germany. The cost of electricity is going up sharply:
> 
> http://www.spiegel.de/international...-transition-to-renewable-energy-a-920288.html



Sounds sensational (and not the good kind).  Energy charges have gone up a 1-2 eurocents/kWh recently, and electric rates are 2x what they were 13 years ago (not clear corrected for inflation or not).  Is this the beginning of the end? Many utilities (that did not plan ahead) want you to think so.


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## billjustbill (Sep 10, 2013)

webbie said:


> A response would require reading about the situation in Japan now and where it's likely to go from here.


 
Take a look at this link.  The info is only weeks old and shows how much danger Japan is in just trying to deal with 1,300 spent fuel rods....  Each rod weighs 2/3's of a ton, must be kept cool, and with every one that has to be removed there is a disaster just waiting to happen....

Can you imagine what 400 tons of additional melted fuel, at and passed the bottom of the most damaged reactors, is doing?  The heat is affecting the ground and some of the damaged reactors are sinking.  The radioactivity from all that melted fuel is progressing toward the 40 million population of Tokyo and its drinking water....  What city can remain a city when there is no drinking water?

The original radioactive debris is projected to begin washing up on our shores of the West Coast in 2014.....

http://rt.com/news/fukushima-apocalypse-fuel-removal-598/

Sleep well,


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## billjustbill (Sep 10, 2013)

bmblank said:


> No poll access on tapatalk, but yes.
> Just watch a modern Marvels episode on the subject. I mean, they test the pod that they transport fuel (or waste, i forget which) by hitting it with a train at about 70mph... Done right there's no problems with it whatsoever. Look at the plants we already have. I'd say we're already successful at it.


 
In the United States, each reactor has to store its own spent fuel rods on their reactor's premises.  Did you know that the NRC *does not require backup power* for the pool of spent fuel rods?  Those rods may not be powerful enough to generate a profitable amount of steam power, but are still producing heat enough that if the cooling tank they are in went dry, they can self ignite?   Take a look at the link in the above comments I listed,  It will et your attention!!


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## stoveguy2esw (Sep 11, 2013)

what should be noted is that there are very few methods of generating power that do not come with any "baggage" hydro-electric dams  affect the rivers in drastic ways, silt buildup in the "lakes" created by these dams arent exactly helpful to the environment (not to mention the loss of said silt downstream). the ecosystem of these rivers are essentially changed. water temps are higher in a lot of (if not all )cases, wind is relatively friendly however, i think its one of the better alternatives. burning anything is going to affect the environment this is obvious, so finding ways to use natural kinetic forces has to be the most desirable route


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## DBoon (Sep 11, 2013)

Hi Woodgeek, I want to believe that there are alternatives to nuclear power, and believe me, I am no big fan of nuclear.  But when the math is crunched on electricity usage, wind and solar just aren't going to be able to fill the demand at their current rates of adoption or even massively accelerated rates of adoption.  I hate nuclear but I hate not being realistic even more. 

It is hard to imagine holding electricity demand constant for the next 20 years, but even if you could imagine that, the numbers don't work if you phase out all nuclear tomorrow.  Best case - keeping nuclear electricity production where it is at and not growing it.  Phasing it out completely is off the table, for all practical purposes, unless you want to replace it all with fossil fuel.  Yep, it sucks we are where we are with nuclear, but it is what it is.  There are no non-fossil fuel alternatives to replace it with, and renewables and demand reduction can't grow fast enough, unless you want to throw in the towel on an 80% reduction in carbon dioxide production by 2050 (if you do throw in the towel on that, then you can get rid of all nuclear in 10 years or less, likely, and just replace it with natural gas generation). 

Regarding wind capacity, you can install all the wind turbines you want, but if the wind doesn't blow, there is no electricity, so there needs to be a backup of some kind - nobody wants to be told on that hot, humid, windless August day that there is no electricity for their AC.  Backups cost money - you have to pay twice for generating capacity.  That adds cost.  A mix of solar and wind is good - when the sun shines, the wind might not be blowing and vice-a-versa.  But wind outproduces solar by 10x or more right now - you would need to add a lot of solar.  I don't see solar being 8% of our electricity generation in 20 years (I wish I could see that) - most people truly can't afford it, think they can't afford it, or would rather spend their money on something else.  And if more wind power spread out over large areas is the right plan, you have to plan on building lots of HVDC transmissions lines at $1 billion/1000MW capacity/200 miles to move it around and tie the grid together for stabilization.  We all pay for that in our bills as well, and most people already complain about their rates!

Conservation is the key.  The "negawatt" (term coined years ago by Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute) is the cheapest way to go, and it doesn't mean any of us have to freeze in the winter or suffer in the summer, or read by candlelight.  My wife and I have our electricity consumption down to ~400 kWh per month and we do everything with electricity except heat our house, and we don't suffer.  I am positive that you probably have a similar story to tell, but we are in the minority.  Granted, we don't have hot summers where we live, we hang our clothes out to dry, and we shop wisely and have made smart "investments" in energy reducing appliances.  Not everyone can afford to do what we've done, but most people do nothing out of ignorance, not choice.  Until you solve the ignorance problem, you have to have the reliable generating capacity, and I don't see the ignorance problem being solved very quickly - that is a long process. 

For what it's worth, my solar install is on-line in about 2 weeks - I'm doing my part, but I have no belief that enough other people will be able to or be willing to do the same.


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## woodgeek (Sep 12, 2013)

DBoon said:


> Hi Woodgeek, I want to believe that there are alternatives to nuclear power, and believe me, I am no big fan of nuclear.  But when the math is crunched on electricity usage, wind and solar just aren't going to be able to fill the demand at their current rates of adoption or even massively accelerated rates of adoption.  I hate nuclear but I hate not being realistic even more.
> 
> .....



Agree with every thing you're saying in terms of challenges and trends, and this political/economic landscape will not change much over the next 10-15 years.  Over a longer term, change accelerates and is harder to predict.  For longer periods, I tend to think about what is technically possible; future people will build the cheapest technically realizable low carbon electrical system (including negawatts), and it might look very different that what is recommended by current constituencies.

On technical grounds, continental-sized supergrids with somewhat overbuilt wind and solar can avoid intermittency issues with current tech (no new mass storage required), Demand shedding and EVs make the required overbuild smaller (resulting in a cheaper system).  Outside the US, there is still a LOT of hydro potential still to be developed (basically, wherever there are big mountain ranges). All that looks expensive to our 2013 eyes, but not nearly so much as it would have 10 or 20 years ago, given how much prices have fallen with the learning curve.  In 20 more years it might look dead stupid financially to do anything else, who knows? 

Does nuclear have a slot in there?  It can be done safely IMO, but can it be done cheap enough at the desired safety level?  Jury is still out, and the competition is getting cheaper all the time.


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## DBoon (Sep 15, 2013)

Hi Woodgeek, I think we are saying a lot of the same things.  Strategy should be for minimal nuclear - no massive buildout to increase capacity, but no massive shutdowns either.  Near-term focus on increasing renewables as much as politically and practically feasible, work the demand reduction hard (SMART metering has massive upsides).  40 year focus on a bigger end-goal.  I worry about getting 20 years in and not being half way to the end-goal.  

Webbie only gave us one way to answer the question - yes or no - but the reality is that I am in the middle.


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## Slow1 (Sep 16, 2013)

I'd really like to see "nuke" power using current technology and understanding to be given a fair evaluation.  I'm suspicious that there is a significant part of our population as well as politics that really doesn't care a bit about what could be done, if it has "nuke" in it, it is bad in their eyes.

I certainly don't want one designed by slide-rules running in my back yard (no offense to those who did this, my grandfather apparently was one of these engineers - I can't imagine actually designing without a CAD program and modeling that comes with it).  However, I am not ready to reject or accept a new design and I could see myself accepting a small portable device in my home if it were invented with good safety margins.  

A part of the problem as I see it is that there is such a strong (almost religious) opposition to the technology in and of itself that many bright minds likely seek other venues to exercise their talents (it does cost quite a bit to even design/prototype etc, why bother if it will never see the light of day?).  Thus not having a viable alternative may well be a self-validating position.

I have seen articles that indicate some very interesting designs have been explored - would be nice to see some of these be taken seriously and evaluated for production use.  Give the right group of engineers the problems and acceptable parameters and I believe a solution can be found. 

However, I don't know if one could come up with any design that is 100% absolutely guaranteed to never have any leakage, fall-out, failure, or waste.  Thus if this is this is the standard then "nuke" power is not being given a chance - you know I bet any power plant can have a dramatic failure (explosions/leaks/etc).  Granted it won't be radioactive, but folks have to realize as bad as radioactive fallout etc is, mankind did survive all the above ground tests of the bombs despite all the fall-out that can still be detected (and likely will be for centuries).  Not trying to diminish the risks of major events, but there could be an acceptable level of risk established - let the best minds work to solve the problem, just don't set them up to fail with impossible parameters.


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## StihlHead (Sep 16, 2013)

I lived with two nuke plants not too far away; one was San Onofre just north of San Diego, CA, and the other was the Trojan plant just north of
Portland, OR. In San Diego I had chronic asthma from all the smog in the air, none of which was from San Onofre. I also toured the Diablo nuke plant near San Louis Obispo in CA. That place is on a fault line and overdesigned and built to death.

The issue seems to be potential un-anticipated limited failures like Chernobyl and Fukushima, or known slow and very widespread disabling medical problems from pollution and snog from FF, as well as potential disasters from GW caused by FF. By the time we debate the issue and actually do something about anything, it will be way too late. Its already too late to do anything in my opinion. GW will run its course, and we are already seeing bizarre weather events constantly on the news. *shrug*


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