NRG says planned nuclear reactors are in doubt...

[Moliere]

...it seemed like these planned reactors were progressing pretty well but due to the incident in Japan there are several things that are stalling the project that could ultimately lead to the projects being cancelled.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...72D74D20110314

I have mixed feelings on this, especially given where I reside. Nuclear is a great "clean" option for energy but given the major issues in Japan after the earthquake and tsunami I would worry about safety in case of a huge hurricane and storm surge.

[FN Phat]

I think this is a knee jerk reaction. The reactors that are being built currently are 40+ years ahead, considering the engineering and safety that is being factored in with the designs.

[RobinFinderson]

I wonder if the increase in insurance price due to Japan will make these plants prohibitively expensive. You have to figure that the cost of going nuclear just went up significantly.

[landpoke]

We, as a nation, are retards.

[Uncle Ted]

We, as a nation, are retards.

Yes, let's surround ourselves with coal fire power plants instead. I just love the smell of radioactive coal ash in the morning.

[NorthwestUteFan]

Yes, let's surround ourselves with coal fire power plants instead. I just love the smell of radioactive coal ash in the morning.

Here are some even more startling numbers:

coal power plant: 1 railroad car sustains the fire at a coal plant for 45 minutes. Energy is created by stripping electrons of from long carbon molecule chains. Each railroad car of coal burned creates 22 railroad cars worth of sludge, plus the fly ash that goes out the stack (or is recaptured and becomes HAZ waste). Continue the cycle every 45 minutes, ad infinitum. Coal mining kills many, many people in the US annually, and tens of thousands around the world. This doesn't even take into account the pollutants in the atmosphere.

nuclear plant: every 18 months a few trucks pull up to the plant with a load of new, very lightly radioactive fuel rods (which can be handled with gloves - contrary to logic, the spent rods are many orders of magnitude more radioactive than the new ones). They swap out roughly 1/3 of the fuel rods. These spent fuel rods cool down for a few years, then can be recycled into new fuel rods. The energy is created by stripping neutrons out of the nucleus of the fuel atoms, an action which releases over 2,000,000 times as much energy as oxidizing an electron from an atom. E=MC^2, which transposes to M=E/(C^2), where M is mass, E is energy, and C^2 is speed of light (a very large number squared), or rather an exceedingly small mass can generate an enormous amount of energy.
Under proper conditions the only emissions are steam and about a 3-10 degree temperature delta on the cooling water depending on runing conditions. In precise terms, this is the same reaction ocurring inside the earth, so effectively nuclear power is merely a fully contained and manmade geothermal system.

windmill plant: to generate the same quantity of energy a group of windmills would cover hundreds to thousands of acres, cost ungodly sums of money (completely imracticable without significant government subsidies), and only produce power when the the wind speed is relatively constant and blowing between a specific high speed and low speed. It is neither efficient enough nor reliable enough to fully replace any portion over 10%-15% of the grids' power, unless we can tolerate rolling blackouts. Wind power requires 100% backup from an additional source, and natural gas turbines are likely the best backups. An argument can be made that a windmill will not significantly produce power exceeding the total amount of energy required to make it, i.e. simply burning the oil directly rather than making the epoxy, or redirecting the power used to make the composite fibers and machining the mechanicals directly into the grid, could produce as much energy as the windmill over its life.

solar plants: there may be some future in these, especially for peak loads. For now you would need nearly two football fields worth of square footage of solar panels to run your house.

Two of the real problems with nukyoular power are: 1) outdated and one-sided nuclear non-proliferation laws dating from the Carter administration mandate that we must indefinitely store the spent fuel rods instead of recycling >95% of their contents into new rods as the French and several other countries do, and 2) significant political and regulatory pressures exist which create huge hurdles to bringing new technologies on line.

Several new designs allow the reactor to fully burn some of the nastier portions of spent fuel rods directly, and if you insert the control rods to shut down the plant, it solidifies into an fully shielded solid. Over time using plants like this would allow us to burn our existing stockpiles of old weapons and spent fuel rods, effectively giving us an inexhaustible supply or energy for the next few millenia.

We invented much of this stuff. Then we turned our backs on it for political reasons. We ARE short-sighted and stupid.

[Jeff Lebowski]

And the last casualty of the earthquake is common sense. Argh....

[NorthwestUteFan]

One more thing, these plants are so unbelievably cheap to operate in relation to the value of the energy they produce that companies would love to run more of them.

One thing I would like to see would be to convert our fleets of diesel-electric locomotives to strictly electric, stringing wires over the railroad tracks, building small nuclear plants nearby to run our railroad transportation systems. This will cut costs on shipping and cut our nation's oil requirements by nearly 20%.

[Pheidippides]

One more thing, these plants are so unbelievably cheap to operate in relation to the value of the energy they produce that companies would love to run more of them.

One thing I would like to see would be to convert our fleets of diesel-electric locomotives to strictly electric, stringing wires over the railroad tracks, building small nuclear plants nearby to run our railroad transportation systems. This will cut costs on shipping and cut our nation's oil requirements by nearly 20%.

I dearly wish that everybody else in the nation could view and understand a power production marginal cost curve. The marginal cost of nuclear is so ridiculously low that I have a hard time seeing why we dont do it almost exclusively. The initial investment is high (and let's ignore the positively draconian permitting) but it should be a no-brainer.

[NorthwestUteFan]

I wish we were more French in our thinking over this issue. It takes YEARS to get a permit in the US. Then before the plant can be brought online it must be updated with all of the most current systems(!). They spend 3-6 years building the thing, only to chase a moving technological target! If they would merely lock the technology requirement at a fixed point at the start of construction, and expedite the permitting process, we would see a dramatic stabilizing effect on the power market.

I heard this morning that Angela Merkel is now expediting Germany's exit from nuclear power, and the plan now is to shut down all plants by late 2013 instead of extending them to 2035 as initially planned.

To his credit, Pres. Obama remains strongly in favor of nuclear power and appears to be pushing to streamline the permitting process.

The French company who does all the recycling is currently building a recycling plant around Idaho Falls. This is a huge step in the right direction. I am not sure how they will alter the existing legislation to allow it to operate, however, but I have my fingers crossed. IIRC a similar plant in South Carolina was nearing completion when the 1979(?) legislation made its operation illegal. It lies dormant, and may be able to be activated. We inventd the rod recycling technology, I wish we would employ it.

FWIW, using the mixed recycled fuel is "Plutonium Neutral" and thus "Green". The mixed oxide (MOX) fuel rod contains a small amount of Plutonium from a previous fuel cycle, which gets entirely consumed. A small amount of the uranium also gets converted directly to plutonium. The amount of plutonium generated in the rods roughly approximates the amount of plutonium burned durning the reaction, which effectively eliminates proliferation concerns! (plutonium of course being used to manufacture nuclear power's wicked stepsister)

This is something that I get all geeked up about.

[PaloAltoCougar]

I read this morning that Angela Merkel, a leader I respect for the most part, described the Japan reactor problems as "a catastrophe of apocalyptic proportions." Sheesh. It's bad, yes, but this kind of hyperbole does a huge disservice (one of apocalyptic proportions) to our energy future.

[Moliere]

Price in cents to produce 1 kWh of electricity:

Coal - 5.4
Natural gas - 5.6
Wind - 6.0
Biomass - 8.5
Natural gas with carbon capture - 8.5
Advanced Nuclear - 8.8
Coal with carbon capture - 9.2
Solar - 19.3

We are capitalists and will continue to build the cheapest option.

I'll post more when I'm not having to do it on my phone.

[RobinFinderson]

Price in cents to produce 1 kWh of electricity:

Coal - 5.4
Natural gas - 5.6
Wind - 6.0
Biomass - 8.5
Natural gas with carbon capture - 8.5
Advanced Nuclear - 8.8
Coal with carbon capture - 9.2
Solar - 19.3

We are capitalists and will continue to build the cheapest option.

I'll post more when I'm not having to do it on my phone.

Get rid of coal and natural gas subsidies, and wind looks like a pretty hot option.

[RobinFinderson]

I have long been a pro-nuclear-hippie, for the simple reason that it is cleaner than fossil fuels, and really has the capacity to meet our current energy needs. But one thing I take away from the the Japanese disaster is this: If we continue to go nuclear, I think that the responsibility for the plants needs to be shouldered by We the People, and not some private interest. Public nuclear power.

The main reason for this is simple. If we are going to rely on something that has the potential to create a disaster far bigger than a private power company can fix, then WE should shoulder that risk, and WE should profit from shouldering that risk.

[Moliere]

Get rid of coal and natural gas subsidies, and wind looks like a pretty hot option.

Are you implying that wind receives no subsidies?

Wind is also a very poor option. It's peak generation time is late evening and night, and very early morning which is quite opposite of current power needs. It's also very unreliable and therefore can't be used as base or peak power. It also generates very little power per acre.

Wind looks good to tree huggers and politicians and that's about it.