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They're about to have a "Nuclear Pride Parade" in Germany. As you may know, Germany instituted its Energiewende (Energy Change) program 10 y/a after the Fukishima nuclear plant was wiped out by the tsunami. This included closing all their nuclear plants and building more solar & wind capacity. They dumped more than $350 Billion into the plan and haven't lowered their carbon footprint in the slightest.
This demonstration is being organized by several enviro-protection groups and led by Michael Shellenberger, once named to Time Magazines list of "Environmental Heroes."
He points out that the $350 B spent on alternative energy sources in Germany could have been spent on nuclear plants completely eliminating all fossil fuel plants. (Wind & solar plants need fossil fuel plants to keep on running on standby due to the unreliability of the alternative plants.)
He uses the wonderful IPCC's own documents to prove his point-- they clam that to hold GW to 1.5degC, nuclear energy capacity has to be doubled by 2030 and increased by 5x by 2050. They point out that France relies heavily on nuclear power and built its 56 plants over the course of only 25 yrs, so it can be done.
Shellenberger suggests that Germany, having already screwed up and invested so much in alternatives that it can't back out now, should at least stop pressuring other countries to follow suit.
Most of our 104 nuclear power plants are supposed to be decommissioned in the next 25 years according to this 2011 article on decommissioning: https://www.reuters.com/article/idUS178883596820110613. It is not an easy process; but, supposedly, we are getting better at it. There is still a tremendous amount of nuclear waste that has to be stored someplace and many of us feel it is safer in your back yard than ours! Even states that we think of as having a lot of uninhabitable land, like Nevada, do not want nuclear waste dumps.
We are not quick to build new nuclear power plants. We did have one in TN that started operation in 2016 and another one in TN started operation in 1996. But it takes forever to get the approval for any new plants today.
Older nuclear plants cannot be life extended indefinitely. There is physics at work as well as technological obsolescence. New nuclear plants are just too expensive to build. While renewable resources require backup, as do nuclear plants, the amount of fossil fuel consumed is very modest and has a very low carbon footprint compared to coal.
There are and will continue to be advocates of nuclear power, but ask yourself why no private company will build one for a fixed price? All other generation can be built on fixed price construction projects. The poor ratepayers in the Carolinas and Georgia will pay for the folly of building Vogtle and Summer.
…. ask yourself why no private company will build one for a fixed price? All other generation can be built on fixed price construction projects. .
Pretty simple answer: ridiculously stringent regulations. They could be relaxed considerably and still achieve an acceptable level of safety.
The waste disposal problem is fueled (pardon the pun) by ignorance. People who work in those skyscraper office buildings and have to wait several minutes a day for an elevator in a lobby walled in granite are exposed to more radiation than getting a chest x-ray everyday. Same for sunning yourself for an hour at noon.....but burying the waste (often in the same general location from which it was originally dug up) miles from population centers is "dangerous."
Do you have any info on efficiency & efficacy of Thorium based energy production? Pro? Cons? Costs?
Edited to add: for yrs & yrs we did trail rides thru the woods just west of Chicago where they dumped (literally just dumped it on the ground) the waste from The Manhattan Project at the U of Chi. They finally put a cyclone fence around it just a few yrs ago. Until then there was just one small sign "Beware Radiation Hazard." Granted, the spot is off the beaten track and the ground water there drains into the Des Plaines River- so polluted with industrial waste they probably thought the radiation would be an improvement
None of your whining addresses the reality of nuclear cost. The NRC has made the process as easy as possible. It's now one stop shopping. Vogtle and Sumner cost overruns were not cause by changing regulation. Post Fukushima we are not going to roll back basic safety measures. Some should actually be strengthened. On site storage of depleted fuel is obviously not as safe as we have always assumed.
Thorium cycle just results in the fission of U233 rather than U235. It has all of the same radioactivity, safety, and construction cost issues as U235 fission.
Pretty simple answer: ridiculously stringent regulations. They could be relaxed considerably and still achieve an acceptable level of safety.
The waste disposal problem is fueled (pardon the pun) by ignorance. People who work in those skyscraper office buildings and have to wait several minutes a day for an elevator in a lobby walled in granite are exposed to more radiation than getting a chest x-ray everyday. Same for sunning yourself for an hour at noon.....but burying the waste (often in the same general location from which it was originally dug up) miles from population centers is "dangerous."
Do you have any info on efficiency & efficacy of Thorium based energy production? Pro? Cons? Costs?
Edited to add: for yrs & yrs we did trail rides thru the woods just west of Chicago where they dumped (literally just dumped it on the ground) the waste from The Manhattan Project at the U of Chi. They finally put a cyclone fence around it just a few yrs ago. Until then there was just one small sign "Beware Radiation Hazard." Granted, the spot is off the beaten track and the ground water there drains into the Des Plaines River- so polluted with industrial waste they probably thought the radiation would be an improvement
It really doesn't make any difference what we did years ago; we are now living in the present and not the past. Heck I had asbestos, mercury, DDT, and other hazardous substances that I was exposed to then; but not now. Times change and what we considered 'safe' we do not consider it safe today. Even the original nuclear power plants we were told only had a 20 year life san; supposedly the reactor wall would be come too brittle to operate safely after that. Now we are told they were designed for 40 to 60 years of operation and you're complaining that these rules are too stringent! Somebody put a lot of pressure on the regulators to change the original rules. Fortunately we have not had a reactor breach so maybe the new rules are right? Sooner or later, if we continue to push the limits, we will make a mistake.
Like I said before; nobody wants radioactive waste in their back yard. While you claim it is so safe; give us a list of the states fighting for the chance to have it buried on them! It is much easier to find a list of states that do not want the waste buried on them.
We have only had two new reactors in the last thirty years. There are reasons why!
Pretty simple answer: ridiculously stringent regulations. They could be relaxed considerably and still achieve an acceptable level of safety.
The waste disposal problem is fueled (pardon the pun) by ignorance. People who work in those skyscraper office buildings and have to wait several minutes a day for an elevator in a lobby walled in granite are exposed to more radiation than getting a chest x-ray everyday. Same for sunning yourself for an hour at noon.....but burying the waste (often in the same general location from which it was originally dug up) miles from population centers is "dangerous."
Do you have any info on efficiency & efficacy of Thorium based energy production? Pro? Cons? Costs?
Edited to add: for yrs & yrs we did trail rides thru the woods just west of Chicago where they dumped (literally just dumped it on the ground) the waste from The Manhattan Project at the U of Chi. They finally put a cyclone fence around it just a few yrs ago. Until then there was just one small sign "Beware Radiation Hazard." Granted, the spot is off the beaten track and the ground water there drains into the Des Plaines River- so polluted with industrial waste they probably thought the radiation would be an improvement
Nuclear energy is a clean alternative until it's not. Then it is catastrophic.
You should also understand that waiting for an elevator and sunning yourself is not gamma (very, very bad) radiation, which is what is emitted by nuclear power plants. In the case of sunbathing, it's ultraviolet and infrared. A space heater emits infrared radiation and will not cause you any harm at all unless you tip it over and start a fire.
Not all forms of radiation are harmful. You really ought to read up on the electromagnetic spectrum.
Last edited by Everdeen; 10-21-2018 at 04:11 PM..
Reason: Grammar.
They're about to have a "Nuclear Pride Parade" in Germany. As you may know, Germany instituted its Energiewende (Energy Change) program 10 y/a after the Fukishima nuclear plant was wiped out by the tsunami. .......
Sorry, but for the sake of correctness I need to mention this. You have your dates all wrong and there is no connection or relationship between Germany's Energiewende (translates to Energy Transition: Nuclear Phase-Out and Climate Protection) program and the consequences of the disaster in Japan.
The Fukushima disaster (March, 2011) happened 7 years ago, 31 years after Germany's Energiewende was instituted in 1980. In the years following 1980 the term Energiewende and the program have expanded in scope and in its present form as it's understood today the Energiewende program dates back to 2002, which is 9 years before the Fukushima disaster.
Totally doing away with nuclear is foolish imo. Nuclear power is not as safe or clean as wind or solar of course, but it’s way better than coal or natural gas. If we want to be totally reliant on renewables, then we have to develop energy storage. Right now the technology isn’t there and it would be incredibly expensive to implement.
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