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Toyman - It is not so much keeping us dependant on foreign energy as keeping us buying from the same oligarchs as always. It just happens that these people own most of the foreign, as well as, domestic energy supplies. They do not yet own the nuclear power industry.
As GTOLover mentioned there are alternate Nuclear Energy technologies than the current pressurized light water and boiling water reactors. The Canadian CACDU heavy water moderated system is one. There are also gas cooled systems that generate very high temperature gas that allow very efficient steam turbine generators to be used. These can also be economically built in much smaller size thus allowing the development of a widely distributed electrical supply grid that is less susceptible to single point failure. The fuels used in these reactors can be relatively easily recycled into reusable fuel as well as actually create more fissionable fuel than they use. This is the ideal perpetual energy system.
I do not expect this to be developed because of the strong monetary and political opposition by conventional fuel suppliers. Until they can figure out how to retain their effective oligopoly on our energy supply into a nuclear age we will we stuck with using their increasingly expensive and profitable fossil fuels. This is the primary way a self serving private economic sector colludes with a corruptible and opinion centered government to loot the entire economy for the benefit of a pampered few. This is a failure of market based Capitalism at the behest of the capitalists.
Most of the coal fueled power plants being shut down because they have reached the end of their useful lives and are too expensive to either replace or repair. The hold on Nuclear License extensions was not done by the NRC but by some clever lawyers in the separate Federal courts. This was a LEGAL and NOT a TECHNICAL decision and thus irrational.
I was under the imression that the gas cooled reactors (at least some) actually used the heated gas to power gas turbines, as opposed to heating water to drive steam turbines. Am I wrong? I need to look that up again.
I am not aware of any proposals for using a pebble bed gas cooled reactor to heat the working fluid of a gas turbine engine. It would be possible thermodynamically but very difficult to make it work. The likeliest use is to generate high pressure (1000 psi+) and temperature (1200 deg F) steam to drive an appropriate turbine. This turbine would then drive the alternator to make electricity. As the size of the machinery required is smaller as the temperature/pressure is higher that high temperature reactors allow for smaller plants.
The specific nuclear cycle used allows for reusing old reprocessed fuel, nuclear bomb cores and the generation of new fuel by irradiating non fissile material. These reactors could also use the thousands of tons of uranium currently residing in the fly ash storage piles at many coal fired power plants. The amount of fissile material in the ash depends on the specific concentration in the original fuel. For complicated geochemical reason Uranium is frequently found in or near coal deposits.
Toyman - It is not so much keeping us dependant on foreign energy as keeping us buying from the same oligarchs as always. It just happens that these people own most of the foreign, as well as, domestic energy supplies. They do not yet own the nuclear power industry.
As GTOLover mentioned there are alternate Nuclear Energy technologies than the current pressurized light water and boiling water reactors. The Canadian CACDU heavy water moderated system is one. There are also gas cooled systems that generate very high temperature gas that allow very efficient steam turbine generators to be used. These can also be economically built in much smaller size thus allowing the development of a widely distributed electrical supply grid that is less susceptible to single point failure. The fuels used in these reactors can be relatively easily recycled into reusable fuel as well as actually create more fissionable fuel than they use. This is the ideal perpetual energy system.
I do not expect this to be developed because of the strong monetary and political opposition by conventional fuel suppliers. Until they can figure out how to retain their effective oligopoly on our energy supply into a nuclear age we will we stuck with using their increasingly expensive and profitable fossil fuels. This is the primary way a self serving private economic sector colludes with a corruptible and opinion centered government to loot the entire economy for the benefit of a pampered few. This is a failure of market based Capitalism at the behest of the capitalists.
Most of the coal fueled power plants being shut down because they have reached the end of their useful lives and are too expensive to either replace or repair. The hold on Nuclear License extensions was not done by the NRC but by some clever lawyers in the separate Federal courts. This was a LEGAL and NOT a TECHNICAL decision and thus irrational.
They are being shut down due to new EPA green house gas restrictions for which there are no quick fixes. They goal is to drive the cost of energy so high that people are forced to conserve. We'll lose 12 gig of generation in MISO in the next 2 yrs alone. with nothing scheduled to replace it.......
They are being shut down due to new EPA green house gas restrictions for which there are no quick fixes. They goal is to drive the cost of energy so high that people are forced to conserve. We'll lose 12 gig of generation in MISO in the next 2 yrs alone. with nothing scheduled to replace it.......
And with higher energy prices it makes solar etc. more "affordable" when you run the numbers in terms of upfront costs.
They are being shut down due to new EPA green house gas restrictions for which there are no quick fixes. They goal is to drive the cost of energy so high that people are forced to conserve. We'll lose 12 gig of generation in MISO in the next 2 yrs alone. with nothing scheduled to replace it.......
The EPA has gotten out of control, they will end up destroying our electrical power generation industry, essentially shutting down coal power without a thought about ensuring we replace that lost power with new power plants. And for you green Utopian types, solar and wind can not, and will not ever replace coal, or gas, or nuclear.
And with higher energy prices it makes solar etc. more "affordable" when you run the numbers in terms of upfront costs.
Making cheaper energy cost more does not make solar "more affordable". If we write federal regs to raise all US car prices by $80,000, that does not make a Mercedes-Benz "more affordable".
FORWARD!!! Better get in line to get ya a whaling permit soon as we'll be back to whale oil in lamps when these idiots get done.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The U.S. government said it will stop issuing permits for new nuclear power plants and license extensions for existing facilities until it resolves issues around storing radioactive waste.
The government's main watchdog, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, believes that current storage plans are safe and achievable. But a federal court said that the NRC didn't detail what the environmental consequences would be if the agency is wrong.
"We are now considering all available options for resolving the waste issue," the five-member NRC said in a ruling earlier this week. "But, in recognition of our duties under the law, we will not issue [reactor] licenses until the court's remand is appropriately addressed."
There are 14 reactors awaiting license renewals at the NRC, and an additional 16 reactors awaiting permits for new construction.
Give the Kenyan idiot credit. It's exactly what he said he would do. And people in coal country voted for him, anyway. If there were ever a standard by which to judge the intelligence of a democrat, this would be that standard. Stupid beyond belief.
And they whine and outright lie about Romney taking jobs. He can't hold a candle to the jobs OBoy has destroyed.
Idiocy must be repeated often, perhaps the best bet?
I,m sure the Obama EPA is looking for ways to prevent the ARC-1000 from being built in the US. We will all just have to live on wind and solar power.
Well, since most of the new plants have no desire to use the ARC-1000 and plan on using the Westing House AP-1000 really it wouldn't matter if they prevented the ARC-1000.
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