Nuclear power plants in ME?! (mobile home, buy, safety)

[MainerWannabe]

Originally Posted by namder1

I was there for the 1989 quake. It WAS bad and it was around a 6.5 but please remember most of the devastation was old buildings and they were built on fill on top of the bay. Since then, all the bridges and buildings have to withstand around a 9.0.
We do need to go nuclear and start drilling too, to free ourselves from foreign powers that hate us.

Are you sure there are ANY structure built in SF or elsewhere capable of withstand a 9.0?!?!
The pyramids perhaps?

[dmyankee]

Originally Posted by mainebrokerman

wiscasset, and i think the rods are still there in storage

All because that moron Harry Ried from Nevada somehow put the screws to the Yucca Flats repository the citizens of the USA spent $billions to build!

[Maineah]

We do the best we can. Nuclear plants are built to standards far beyond what we would anticipate for a seismic event wherever they are built. Nothing is perfect, we saw that last year with the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. We need the power, we need the fuel. We have to take reasonable chances or we will be rendering beef fat to make candles and riding in buckboards. There are some people in this world that think that scenario is a good one. I invite them to come to Maine for a year, live in a cabin, heat with wood and eat what they can shoot or grow....then tell us these power sources are not in our best intrest.

[Submariner]

There has often been a few operating nucs in Kittery.

I have no idea if Bath have has the honor, I only know about Kittery.

[Zarathu]

ACCORDING TO WIKI there are no operating nuc power plants, research reactors or military or any other kind in Maine. Maine Yankee started the decommissioning process in 1996 and was completed in 2004. Decomissioning means there is no radiation of any kind left on site.

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by Zarathu

ACCORDING TO WIKI there are no operating nuc power plants, research reactors or military or any other kind in Maine. Maine Yankee started the decommissioning process in 1996 and was completed in 2004. Decomissioning means there is no radiation of any kind left on site.

Want to drive by Kittery and count them?

[RMoore007]

When I grew up in the Kittery area, my dad was best friends with the head of all civilians in the Portsmouth/Kittery Naval Ship Yard. We knew many families of the USS Thresher accident in 1963.

The USS Thresher, which gave its name to a new class of submarines, was launched at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, N.H., on July 9, 1960, and commissioned on August 3, 1961. A new class of nuclear submarines designed for optimum performance, the Thresher was capable of diving deeper and running quieter than non-nuclear powered submarines, since nuclear engines do not require air to generate large amounts of electricity thus allowing the submarines to remain submerged over longer periods of time and to move considerably faster. The absence of combustion engines eliminated the noise of pistons and made the submarines quieter.

I have always been fascinated with nuclear power. I live near the now decommissioned Ranch Seco Nuclear Power Plant and ride around there regularly and take pictures. My ex wife worked for GE for 5 years once and did auditing for all the engineers when they were considering opening the Clinch River Breeder Reactor in Tennessee many years ago before it was shot down in the Regan administration. Probably needed the money for Star Wars.

[kellysmith]

Originally Posted by Zarathu

ACCORDING TO WIKI there are no operating nuc power plants, research reactors or military or any other kind in Maine. Maine Yankee started the decommissioning process in 1996 and was completed in 2004. Decomissioning means there is no radiation of any kind left on site.

I wouldn't believe everything I saw in Wiki...here's the latest I found on spent fuel stored at Maine Yankee...took about thirty seconds to find the 2009 report. So it doesn't appear "decomissioned" has the meaning you suggest.
Sometimes boots on the ground are as good as Wiki.

http://pbadupws.nrc.gov/docs/ML0921/ML092160433.pdf

[mollysmiles]

The Times Record > Archives > Opinion > Editorials > Maine Yankee?s radioactive waste must go (http://www.timesrecord.com/articles/2010/08/06/opinion/editorials/doc4c5c4bd72d172949134426.txt - broken link)


I will never understand why some people consider this to be a SAFE and CLEAN energy source. How many metric tons of nuclear waste do you have to ignore to come to that conclusion?!?

[BrokenTap]

Originally Posted by Revi

We don't get the power, just store the fuel rods and sit downwind of the power plant at Seabrook. Don't worry...

What is worse, really? They are pulverizing mountains and putting nasty stuff in the air that ends up in Maine anyway.

Coal power must be just as bad as nuclear, and there's a big coal fired plant in NH spewing stuff into the air that floats over Maine.

We have a lot of coal fired power plants running in Maine. They are at every paper mill since papermills make more money making electricity then they do on paper. They use a variety of fuels to make that power but coal is one of the biggest fuels used.

They were planning on building a coal fired power plant in Stockton Springs a few years ago, a plant that would produce 200 jobs, but it was struck down. Instead the Bucksport Mill got permits to burn coal, hired no extra workers and now fills our skies with more soot since they are less efficient boilers then what a new power plant would have been designed for. Good plan huh?

Electricity in Maine is a very sad topic really. We make so much of it, have so many sourses, from biomass to hydro, and yet Mainer's have to pay the highest electic rates in the country. Why, because the Southern New Englander's are NIMBY's and yet consume gobs of killowatts, thus making our power worth more. So being tied to the New England Electrical Grid means our Kw's have some value. We pay about 17 cents per KW while North Dakota pays 7 cents per KW, it's that outrageous! We could have opted out of the New England Electrical Grid last year, but the Maine PUC struck down that idea, even though we would have got cheap pwer from the New Brunswick power grid at 8 cents per KW.

The Maine PUC has not made many good decisions on the part of customers in the last few years! :-(