Look Speaker...
Whatcha got on nuclear is a fear of technology.. Just like my mother-in-law has of computers.. The more you know -- the more it makes imminent sense for our energy starved economy.. Let's start there.
We've NegaWatted (conserved) ourselves into the belief that this will stave off the need to build NEW sources of power.. Not true. ALL generators need to be replaced periodically. Conservation by definition makes energy RARE and EXPENSIVE. It should be CHEAP and PLENTIFUL.. Please ARGUE about that if you don't agree..
You wanted reasons to consider nuclear...
1) The WASTE stream from nuclear is about 0.7 of an OUNCE per household per year. That's LESS toxic waste per household than we now generate in batteries, cleaning products, paint, oil.. CERTAINLY we can handle that magnitude of waste.
2) There is more RADIOACTIVE pollution from coal fired plants than has EVER been spewed from a fatally damaged nuclear plant.. So while you're wringing your hands about Fukishima, the air continues to fill with NUCLEAR particles from coal..
I'll stop there for now and see if you REALLY RESPOND to a reasonable debate -0- or you revert back to hysteria and hope fairies..
You sure are a stupid believer, in shit, rather than science or observable trends, Fatass.
Nuclear power starts with cost-overruns, moves to operational problems, and fiinishes, with a waste containment problem, which lasts 10,000 years.
Of course, only TMI, Chernobyl, and Fukushimi are meltdowns, but other plants had to be decommissioned and written off.
Who is going to pay for this shit? When you add up all the hidden costs, nuclear energy is the stuff of fascists, which idiots seek to manage, and neither fascists nor their ranting idiots can argue with FACTS and TRENDS:
Cost overruns of almost $1 billion — so far — at Ga. nuke reactors | Jay Bookman
Last month, a consortium of utilities including Atlanta-based Southern Company announced cost overruns of almost $1 billion at two new nuclear reactors being built near Waynesboro.
ThatÂ’s an arresting number under any circumstances, but it looms even larger when you realize that major construction on the Vogtle 3 and 4 reactors has basically just begun, with at least five more years of construction to come.
And if costs soar, whoÂ’s going to pay for it? Southern Company and its subsidiary, Georgia Power, own 45.7 percent of the project, so its ratepayersÂ’ share of these recent overruns would come to more than $400 million. But according to Buzz Miller, SouthernÂ’s executive vice president of nuclear development, that cost will be borne by contractors who are building the project.
“Our official position is that there’s no way we’re going to pay that amount,” Miller said Tuesday.
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Nuclear power's real chain reaction: spiralling costs | Damian Carrington | Environment | guardian.co.uk
Time is money, they say, and the new nuclear power plant being built by EDF at Flamanville in France is now at least four years behind time and €2.7bn over budget. EDF blamed the delay on two fatal construction accidents and dealing with safety analyses prompted by the Fukushima disaster.
So what does the news mean for the role for nuclear power in delivering the low-carbon electricity essential to tackling climate change? The three 'Cs' of energy policy are carbon, cost and continuity of supply, and Wednesday's announcement by EDF is relevant to the latter two.
The Flamanville fiasco shows once again that new nuclear power plants are not being built on time or on budget, diminishing the arguments in favour of them.
The only other new nuclear plant being built in Europe is at Olkiluoto in Finland. Areva, like EDF a state-controlled French company, told me this will be connected to the grid no sooner than 2013 and costs are now estimated at €5.6bn. That is four years late and €2.6bn over budget.
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What went wrong?
COSTS OF NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS — WHAT WENT WRONG?
No nuclear power plants in the United States ordered since 1974 will be completed, and many dozens of partially constructed plants have been abandoned. What cut off the growth of nuclear power so suddenly and so completely? The direct cause is not fear of reactor accidents, or of radioactive materials released into the environment, or of radioactive waste. It is rather that costs have escalated wildly, making nuclear plants too expensive to build. State commissions that regulate them require that utilities provide electric power to their customers at the lowest possible price. In the early 1970s this goal was achieved through the use of nuclear power plants. However, at the cost of recently completed plants, analyses indicate that it is cheaper to generate electricity by burning coal. Here we will attempt to understand how this switch occurred. It will serve as background for the next chapter, which presents the solution to these problems.
Several large nuclear power plants were completed in the early 1970s at a typical cost of $170 million, whereas plants of the same size completed in 1983 cost an average of $1.7 billion, a 10-fold increase. Some plants completed in the late 1980s have cost as much as $5 billion, 30 times what they cost 15 years earlier. Inflation, of course, has played a role, but the consumer price index increased only by a factor of 2.2 between 1973 and 1983, and by just 18% from 1983 to 1988. What caused the remaining large increase? Ask the opponents of nuclear power and they will recite a succession of horror stories, many of them true, about mistakes, inefficiency, sloppiness, and ineptitude. They will create the impression that people who build nuclear plants are a bunch of bungling incompetents. The only thing they won't explain is how these same "bungling incompetents" managed to build nuclear power plants so efficiently, so rapidly, and so inexpensively in the early 1970s.
For example, Commonwealth Edison, the utility serving the Chicago area, completed its Dresden nuclear plants in 1970-71 for $146/kW, its Quad Cities plants in 1973 for $164/kW, and its Zion plants in 1973-74 for $280/kW. But its LaSalle nuclear plants completed in 1982-84 cost $1,160/kW, and its Byron and Braidwood plants completed in 1985-87 cost $1880/kW — a 13-fold increase over the 17-year period.
Northeast Utilities completed its Millstone 1,2, and 3 nuclear plants, respectively, for $153/kW in 1971, $487/kW in 1975, and $3,326/kW in 1986, a 22-fold increase in 15 years. Duke Power, widely considered to be one of the most efficient utilities in the nation in handling nuclear technology, finished construction on its Oconee plants in 1973-74 for $181/kW, on its McGuire plants in 1981-84 for $848/kW, and on its Catauba plants in 1985-87 for $1,703/kW, a nearly 10-fold increase in 14 years.
Philadelphia Electric Company completed its two Peach Bottom plants in 1974 at an average cost of $382 million, but the second of its two Limerick plants, completed in 1988, cost $2.9 billion — 7.6 times as much. A long list of such price escalations could be quoted, and there are no exceptions.
The True Cost Of Nuclear Power
In May 1999, the 104 U.S. nuclear power plants produced 56 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity. This represented 21.8% of the utility-generated power for that month. These figures demonstrate what is typical of the U.S. dependence on nuclear power, a form of power generation involving enormous expense, radiation pollution, the threat of a nuclear accident, and nuclear waste. Advocates of nuclear power believe that there are adequate scientific solutions to these problems, but they are not putting up the capital for the nuclear plants. The federal government has made us, the taxpayers, the equivalent of stockholders in nuclear power; nuclear utilities depend on government bailouts, insurance and subsidies. We must put a stop to nuclear power because of the grave financial and environmental risks.
In February 1999, residential consumers paid an average of 7.94 cents per kilowatt-hour for electricity; industrial users paid an average of 4.33 cents per kilowatt-hour. Compare that with 1997, when electricity cost about 5% more; the cost of hydroelectric power on a ratepayer's bill was from two to eight cents; gas, from three to five cents; coal, five to six cents; oil, six to eight cents; and nuclear power, 10 to 12 cents.
The cost of nuclear power would be much higher still if not for federal subsidies. Nuclear power is tied up in what economists call "externalities" and "external costs and benefits." Externalities are when "some people bear costs that they are not paid or compensated for, these costs are said to be external costs," says Dr. Roger A. McCain, Professor of Economics at Drexel University. "The idea is that the decision-maker, who does not pay for the costs nor get paid for the benefits, doesn't take them into consideration in deciding how resources shall be allocated. He has no motive to produce benefits that he doesn't get, nor to cut back on costs that he doesn't pay. In general, if there are 'external' costs or benefits or both, we say that there are 'externalities,' and we can expect markets to be inefficient when there are externalities.
Satanic nukes? Finnish plant's cost overruns to $6.66 billion | ThinkProgress
Economics of new nuclear power plants - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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$12 Billion Nuclear Waste Treatment Plant at Risk of Cost Overruns - Waste Mangagement World
When complete, the Hanford Tank Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant will process and stabilize 53 million gallons (200 million liters) of radioactive and chemical waste currently stored at the Hanford Site.
According to the company, the waste is a byproduct of plutonium-production during World War II and the Cold War era and is in 177 below ground aging tanks.
Bechtel says that vitrification technology will blend the waste with glass-forming materials and heat it to 2100 degrees Fahrenheit (1149 degrees Celsius). The mixture will then be poured into stainless steel canisters to cool and solidify. In this glass form, the waste is stable and impervious to the environment and safe for long-term storage.
Construction began in October 2001 and is currently 60% complete.
However, according to the Tri-City Herald, a briefing document by the Construction Project Review team claims that the $12.2 billion figure is at risk due to uncertainties in congressional funding for the project, increased cost growth outpacing savings and delays in resolving technical waste mixing issues.
The team of industry, academic and DoE members assesses progress and potential problems on the project and advises the DoE approximately every six months.
According to the Tri-City Herald, the document said that if Congress continues to provide the budgets that the DoE has outlined, the review team has identified a potential cost overrun of $800 million to $900 million.
However, the report goes on to add that that overrun may be offset by $350 million if the DoE proceeds with a phased commissioning of the plant, preparing some buildings to operate and then moving on to others, rather than commissioning the entire plant at once..
Oh, wow. By maneuvering, costs can be avoided. We'll see if that works, eh?
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Then there's the waste:
The Bane of Nuclear Energy: Nuclear Waste - Storage
Radioactive waste - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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And the decommissioned plants:
Nuclear decommissioning - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nuclear Energy Institute - Reactors Shut Down or Decommissioned
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Technology for renewable energy hasn't been researched very well, since Henry Ford made hemp-ethanol and hemp-plastic, since the Model-T. But despite intevening corruption, in prison industry, petroleum, war, and nuclear lobbies, renewable tech is alive and promising:
New power capacity from renewable sources tops fossil fuels again in US, Europe
In 2009, for the second year in a row, both the US and Europe added more power capacity from renewable sources such as wind and solar than conventional sources like coal, gas and nuclear, according to twin reports launched today by the United Nations Environment Programme and the Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century (REN21).
Renewables accounted for 60 per cent of newly installed capacity in Europe and more than 50 per cent in the USA in 2009. This year or next, experts predict, the world as a whole will add more capacity to the electricity supply from renewable than non-renewable sources.
The reports detail trends in the global green energy sector, including which sources attracted the greatest attention from investors and governments in different world regions.
They say investment in core clean energy (new renewables, biofuels and energy efficiency) decreased by 7% in 2009, to $162 billion. Many sub-sectors declined significantly in money invested, including large (utility) scale solar power and biofuels. However, there was record investment in wind power. If spending on solar water heaters, as well as total installation costs for rooftop solar PV, were included, total investment in 2009 actually increased in 2009, bucking the economic trend.
New private and public sector investments in core clean energy leapt 53 per cent in China in 2009. China added 37 gigawatts (GW) of renewable power capacity, more than any other country.
Globally, nearly 80 GW of renewable power capacity was added in 2009, including 31 GW of hydro and 48 GW of non-hydro capacity. This combined renewables figure is now closing in on the 83GW of fossil-fuel, thermal capacity installed in the same year. If the trend continues, then 2010 or 2011 could be the first year that new capacity added in low carbon power exceeds that in fossil-fuel stations.
Investment in renewable energy power capacity (excluding large hydro) in 2009 was comparable to that in fossil-fuel generation, at around $100 billion each. If the estimated $39 billion of investment in large hydro is included, then total investment in renewables exceeded that in fossil-fuel generation for the second successive year.
China surpassed the US in 2009 as the country with the greatest investment in clean energy. ChinaÂ’s wind farm development was the strongest investment feature of the year by far, although there were other areas of strength worldwide in 2009, notably North Sea offshore wind investment and the financing of power storage and electric vehicle technology companies
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Nuclear energy pimps lie, and lie, and lie, about costs. Then they can't design a core or a cooling system I'd want, and they can't store the wastes and spent core materials, without shooting up the planet, with depleted uranium ammo, which breaks chromosomes.
So what about only three meltdowns? Stagg Field in Chicago almost melted down, from screwing around, with nuclear energy. Numerous decommissions have to be written off. And then, what will happen, with the nuclear waste we already failed to store, at Yucca Mountain?
It can always come back to bite us, so kids will be born, without money, skulls, arms, or legs.
Don't let stupid people lie and steal, then kill us, while spouting crap about how cheap their instruments of mass destruction look, when they are lying and cheating, looking to steal.
