Wind or Nuclear?

[Big Black Dog]

I worked at a nuclear power plant for over 10 years. Dollar for dollar I believe that nuke power is far superior to wind power. Certainly more reliable.

 

[Care4all]

I worked at a nuclear power plant for over 10 years. Dollar for dollar I believe that nuke power is far superior to wind power. Certainly more reliable.

What to do with the spent fuel is the only issue still an issue with nuke plants...otherwise, from what i am reading, newer technology makes them safer than the times of 3 mile island and Chernobyl....

 

[editec]

There is no reason not to use windpower where it will give us a good return on the investment.

We are not faced with a Hobsan choice here.

Both wind and nuclear power are options we can choose and we should choose both.

Maine plans on being all of New England's Hub for Wind Power....


Wind farm starts up - Bangor Daily News

Periodically those windmills are shipped into Searsport (from Europe) from futher translport to Western Maine, so I get to see them coming down route 1 through town.

The blades (and remember one blade is only half the width of the mill when its set up) is over a block long.

So that means that the span from one blade end to the other must be about two blocks wide!

Hence the spinning blades cover a surface area larger than a football field!

They're way cool!

 

[strollingbones]

I worked at a nuclear power plant for over 10 years. Dollar for dollar I believe that nuke power is far superior to wind power. Certainly more reliable.

posters all over the board...are going.....OOOOOOOOOOOOO thats what happened...why do you hear homer now?

 

[Care4all]

There is no reason not to use windpower where it will give us a good return on the investment.

We are not faced with a Hobsan choice here.

Both wind and nuclear power are options we can choose and we should choose both.

Maine plans on being all of New England's Hub for Wind Power....


Wind farm starts up - Bangor Daily News

Periodically those windmills are shipped into Searsport (from Europe) from futher translport to Western Maine, so I get to see them coming down route 1 through town.

The blades (and remember one blade is only half the width of the mill when its set up) is over a block long.

So that means that the span from one blade end to the other must be about two blocks wide!

Hence the spinning blades cover a surface area larger than a football field!

They're way cool!

you know, it is windy as can be here, near the coast....you'd think it would be worth getting a windmill for the home here....don't know?

Wish we could find some source of energy to heat other than oil...

 

[Skull Pilot]

I worked at a nuclear power plant for over 10 years. Dollar for dollar I believe that nuke power is far superior to wind power. Certainly more reliable.

What to do with the spent fuel is the only issue still an issue with nuke plants...otherwise, from what i am reading, newer technology makes them safer than the times of 3 mile island and Chernobyl....

not really

the problem is the government does not allow the recycling of nuclear waste.

There Is No Such Thing as Nuclear Waste - WSJ.com

Ninety-five percent of a spent fuel rod is plain old U-238, the nonfissionable variety that exists in granite tabletops, stone buildings and the coal burned in coal plants to generate electricity. Uranium-238 is 1% of the earth's crust. It could be put right back in the ground where it came from.

Of the remaining 5% of a rod, one-fifth is fissionable U-235 -- which can be recycled as fuel. Another one-fifth is plutonium, also recyclable as fuel. Much of the remaining three-fifths has important uses as medical and industrial isotopes

France, which completely reprocesses its recyclable material, stores all the unused remains -- from 30 years of generating 75% of its electricity from nuclear energy -- beneath the floor of a single room at La Hague.

So don't be fooled by the idiots who say we'll have millions of tons of nuclear waste hanging around for a millennium.

Once again, what is hindering us here is.........


The fucking government which will not allow us to recycle nuclear waste

 

[Intense]

Skull Pilot,
Navy 1960, Great presentation. Good and informative.
What is your position on Dams and Reservoirs? In relation, to Power generation? Drinking Water? Drought Reserve? Irrigation? Fire Control? Erosion Control? Flood Control? Wild Life Preservation? With advanced Technology today, what are the advantages.

Speaking as a Former Anti Nuke, Activist, Your words are not wasted on me. I support what you say, especially on recycling spent fuel. I support the construction of large facilities, away from densely populated areas. I'm curious about your take on mini plants?

I've seen to major outages related to the automatic shut down procedure relating to Nuke plants, and Grid issues, one in the North East, one in Florida. Is this a hair trigger problem? Is it a bug in the system? Considering the Effective Reboot or Restart time of A Nuke Plant, what is currently the best back up system? Gas? Hydro? Coal? It does seem to me that the Industry is dragging it's feet on Hydro, development. Is that a misconception? Why not build up on hydro too? Drought Control and flood control alone justify it.

 

[Navy1960]

After having the chance to read some of the postings , all of which make very goof points I wanted to address this NIMBY issue when it comes to nuclear power. While yes, a lot of communities have used the NIMBY point to stop nuclear power, one of the largest groups opposed to nuclear power has been and still is the environmental lobby.

Greenpeace, EDF ring a bell? As a matter of fact these and many other environmental groups constantly keep nuclear power in courts on everything from construction regs. to how many fish are impacted by a plants cooling process. What really seems to make no sense is these same groups are in fact big in the promotion of the IPCC theory of Global Warming and the reduction of CO2.

Greenpeace has always fought - and will continue to fight - vigorously against nuclear power because it is an unacceptable risk to the environment and to humanity. The only solution is to halt the expansion of all nuclear power, and for the shutdown of existing plants.
End the nuclear age | Greenpeace International

Serious questions of safety, security, waste and proliferation surround the issue of nuclear power. Until these questions are resolved satisfactorily, Environmental Defense cannot support an expansion of nuclear generating capacity. EDF

New nuclear power plants are unlikely to provide a significant fraction of future U.S. needs for low-carbon energy. NRDC favors more practical, economical and environmentally sustainable approaches to reducing both U.S. and global carbon emissions, focusing on the widest possible implementation of end-use energy-efficiency improvements, and on policies to accelerate commercialization of clean, flexible, renewable energy technologies.


Its time these groups no matter how noble their aims started to walk the walk and understand that the technologies they support have a narrow band of energy capability at the moment. They WILL NOT meet current needs for any time in the forseeable future , while these technologies wind, solar, bio-mass. do have a place in the overall scheme, they should never be considered as the main solution to our energy needs. Let me give you just a small example, If it takes all of the current installed wind generators in the United States encompassing over 160,000 acres of land to produce the same amount of energy that one nuclear power plant can produce and given the fact these nuclear plants can reprocess this fuel to the point where the storage of waste is a non-issue the opposition by environmental groups fails miserably. In fact the biggest accident in US history at TMI that many of these groups are still talking about resulted in the deaths of ZERO people.
Detailed studies of the radiological consequences of the accident have been conducted by the NRC, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (now Health and Human Services), the Department of Energy, and the State of Pa.. Several independent studies have also been conducted. Estimates are that the average dose to about 2 million people in the area was only about 1 millirem. To put this into context, exposure from a chest x‑ray is about 6 millirem. Compared to the natural radioactive background dose of about 100‑125 millirem per year for the area, the collective dose to the community from the accident was very small. The maximum dose to a person at the site boundary would have been less than 100 millirem.

In the months following the accident, although questions were raised about possible adverse effects from radiation on human, animal, and plant life in the TMI area, none could be directly correlated to the accident. Thousands of environmental samples of air, water, milk, vegetation, soil, and foodstuffs were collected by various groups monitoring the area. Very low levels of radionuclides could be attributed to releases from the accident. However, comprehensive investigations and assessments by several well‑respected organizations have concluded that in spite of serious damage to the reactor, most of the radiation was contained and that the actual release had negligible effects on the physical health of individuals or the environment.
NRC: Backgrounder on the Three Mile Island Accident

Many will cite chernobyl as a reason not to build nuclear power plants but they do so with little understanding of the fact that that type of reactor was never built in the United States and as a result of poor design and poor safety measures it resulted in an accident of epic proportions.

There are a number of major and minor differences between the RBMK and U.S. Light Water Reactors. For the purposes of this discussion, only the major differences which are relevant to the accident are highlighted.

The fuel assemblies in the RBMK are contained in individual pressure tubes, whereas one pressure vessel contains all of the assemblies in an LWR. The reason for the RBMK design is so that assemblies can be loaded and unloaded individually without shutting down the reactor. This is an advantage if the reactor is to be used for both plutonium and electricity production. LWR's must be shut down for re-fueling and therefore the fuel is kept in as long as is economical. Water acts as both coolant and moderator in LWR's so that a loss of coolant also stops the fission reaction. In the RBMK, the moderator is solid graphite and the water coolant acts as a poison. That means that the presence of water absorbs neutrons and slows the reaction. If coolant is lost or is converted to steam, reactor power may increase. This is known as a positive void coefficient and it represents a serious design flaw. Under certain operating conditions, the power can increase uncontrollably until the reactor disintegrates. This is what happened at Chernobyl. No power reactor in the U.S. can be licensed for construction or operation if it possesses this feature.

The graphite blocks are also flammable at high temperatures. A number of Soviet citizens died in the process of putting out the fire caused by the explosion.

In addition to the shielding, LWR's have an even thicker wall of steel- reinforced concrete surrounding the reactor structure. This structure, called a containment vessel, prevents radioactive release in the event of an accident. Because of this feature, no member of the public was injured or killed when the reactor core melted at Three Mile Island in 1979. The Soviet RBMK does not possess a containment vessel.

In addition to these fundamental differences in design, U.S. reactors are operated under strict regulations. Unlike Chernobyl, U.S. reactor operators are unable to disable the safety systems which prevent dangerous situations from developing. Although equipment can malfunction and operators can make errors, the design of U.S. light-water reactors prevents these mishaps from leading to dangerous releases of radiation
Chernobyl: RBMK vs LWR

This was several year ago, and with the advent of of even new technologies, nuclear has become even safer. and represents this nations best hope to meet it's energy needs for some time to come.

 

[Intense]

What Type of Reactor was Hanford? In fairness isn't it better to bring out the history, pluses and minuses, what is the opposition gonna bring up that may appear to discredit. What mistakes have we made and what have we learned from them.

The Columbia River at Risk:
Why Hanford Cleanup is Vital to Oregon

The desert of southeastern Washington is home to what may be the most contaminated area in the United States. For more than 40 years the U.S. Government produced plutonium for nuclear weapons at the Hanford Site. Now, with the Cold War behind us, the focus at Hanford is on cleaning up the enormous amounts of radioactive and chemically hazardous wastes produced while making plutonium.

Hanford was home to America´s first plutonium production facilities. Production began in 1944 as part of the Manhattan Project - the World War II effort to build an atomic bomb. Plutonium from Hanford was used in the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan in August of 1945.

For the next 45 years, Hanford´s primary mission was to produce plutonium for use in nuclear weapons. During that time, Hanford went through several major expansions. Eventually, the government built nine nuclear production reactors, five chemical separation plants and dozens of support facilities. Plutonium production ended at Hanford in 1990. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) manages the 586 square mile Hanford Site.

Site workers are now engaged in the world´s largest environmental cleanup project. More than 19-hundred waste sites have been identified at Hanford - ranging from small areas of surface contamination to 177 underground storage tanks that hold about 53 million gallons of highly radioactive and chemically hazardous waste. Some of Hanford´s waste will remain dangerous for thousands of years. It must be kept away from people and the environment during that time.

There is urgency to the cleanup. In many cases, the longer the delay, the more hazardous and expensive the problem becomes. Many storage facilities have exceeded their design life and are deteriorating, making it much more difficult to safely store the waste. Some of the waste poses a significant threat to workers, the public and the environment. An accident, or further spread of the contamination, could put the region´s economy at risk.

Much of the Hanford Site is free of contamination. Large areas of the site were used as safety and security buffers. However, the central plateau area has substantial problems. The plateau contains the underground storage tanks, the chemical processing plants and other plutonium facilities. Burial grounds and contaminated groundwater also pose significant cleanup challenges.

The waste in Hanford´s underground tanks presents the most urgent, complex and costly challenge. 149 of the 177 tanks have just a single wall of steel encased in concrete for containment. These tanks, which range in size from 55,000 to one million gallons, were never intended for long-term storage. The oldest of these tanks date back to the mid-1940s. Nearly 70 have leaked more than a million gallons of high-level radioactive waste to the ground. Some of this waste has reached the groundwater.
Nuclear Safety Columbia River at Risk

Power Plants
3 January 1961
The world's first nuclear-related fatalities occurred following a reactor explosion at the National Reactor Testing Station in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Three technicians, were killed, with radioactivity "largely confined" (words of John A. McCone, Director of the Atomic Energy Commission) to the reactor building. The men were killed as they moved fuel rods in a "routine" preparation for the reactor start-up. One technician was blown to the ceiling of the containment dome and impaled on a control rod. His body remained there until it was taken down six days later. The men were so heavily exposed to radiation that their hands had to be buried separately with other radioactive waste, and their bodies were interred in lead coffins. Another incident three weeks later (on 25 January) resulted in a release of radiation into the atmosphere.
24 July 1964
Robert Peabody, 37, died at the United Nuclear Corp. fuel facility in Charlestown, Rhode Island, when liquid uranium he was pouring went critical, starting a reaction that exposed him to a lethal dose of radiation.

19 November 1971
The water storage space at the Northern States Power Company's reactor in Monticello, Minnesota filled to capacity and spilled over, dumping about 50,000 gallons of radioactive waste water into the Mississippi River. Some was taken into the St. Paul water system.

March 1972
Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska submitted to the Congressional Record facts surrounding a routine check in a nuclear power plant which indicated abnormal radioactivity in the building's water system. Radioactivity was confirmed in the plant drinking fountain. Apparently there was an inappropriate cross-connection between a 3,000 gallon radioactive tank and the water system.

27 July 1972
Two workers at the Surry Unit 2 facility in Virginia were fatally scalded after a routine valve adjustment led to a steam release in a gap in a vent line. [See also 9 December 1986]

28 May 1974
The Atomic Energy Commission reported that 861 "abnormal events" had occurred in 1973 in the nation's 42 operative nuclear power plants. Twelve involved the release of radioactivity "above permissible levels."

22 March 1975
A technician checking for air leaks with a lighted candle caused $100 million in damage when insulation caught fire at the Browns Ferry reactor in Decatur, Alabama. The fire burned out electrical controls, lowering the cooling water to dangerous levels, before the plant could be shut down.

28 March 1979
A major accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant near Middletown, Pennsylvania. At 4:00 a.m. a series of human and mechanical failures nearly triggered a nuclear disaster. By 8:00 a.m., after cooling water was lost and temperatures soared above 5,000 degrees, the top portion of the reactor's 150-ton core melted. Contaminated coolant water escaped into a nearby building, releasing radioactive gasses, leading as many as 200,000 people to flee the region. Despite claims by the nuclear industry that "no one died at Three Mile Island," a study by Dr. Ernest J. Sternglass, professor of radiation physics at the University of Pittsburgh, showed that the accident led to a minimum of 430 infant deaths.

1981
The Critical Mass Energy Project of Public Citizen, Inc. reported that there were 4,060 mishaps and 140 serious events at nuclear power plants in 1981, up from 3,804 mishaps and 104 serious events the previous year.

11 February 1981
An Auxiliary Unit Operator, working his first day on the new job without proper training, inadvertently opened a valve which led to the contamination of eight men by 110,000 gallons of radioactive coolant sprayed into the containment building of the Tennessee Valley Authority's Sequoyah I plant in Tennessee.

July 1981
A flood of low-level radioactive wastewater in the sub-basement at Nine Mile Point's Unit 1 (in New York state) caused approximately 150 55-gallon drums of high-level waste to overturn, some of which released their highly radioactive contents. Some 50,000 gallons of low-level radioactive water were subsequently dumped into Lake Ontario to make room for the cleanup. The discharge was reported to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but the sub-basement contamination was not. A report leaked to the press 8 years later resulted in a study which found that high levels of radiation persisted in the still flooded facility.

1982
The Critical Mass Energy Project of Public Citizen, Inc. reported that 84,322 power plant workers were exposed to radiation in 1982, up from 82,183 the previous year.

25 January 1982
A steam generator pipe broke at the Rochester Gas & Electric Company's Ginna plant near Rochester, New York. Fifteen thousand gallons of radioactive coolant spilled onto the plant floor, and small amounts of radioactive steam escaped into the air.

15-16 January 1983
Nearly 208,000 gallons of water with low-level radioactive contamination was accidentally dumped into the Tennesee River at the Browns Ferry power plant.

25 February 1983
A catastrophe at the Salem 1 reactor in New Jersey was averted by just 90 seconds when the plant was shut down manually, following the failure of automatic shutdown systems to act properly. The same automatic systems had failed to respond in an incident three days before, and other problems plagued this plant as well, such as a 3,000 gallon leak of radioactive water in June 1981 at the Salem 2 reactor, a 23,000 gallon leak of "mildly" radioactive water (which splashed onto 16 workers) in February 1982, and radioactive gas leaks in March 1981 and September 1982 from Salem 1.

9 December 1986
A feedwater pipe ruptured at the Surry Unit 2 facility in Virginia, causing 8 workers to be scalded by a release of hot water and steam. Four of the workers later died from their injuries. In addition, water from the sprinkler systems caused a malfunction of the security system, preventing personnel from entering the facility. This was the second time that an incident at the Surry 2 unit resulted in fatal injuries due to scalding [see also 27 July 1972].

1988
It was reported that there were 2,810 accidents in U.S. commercial nuclear power plants in 1987, down slightly from the 2,836 accidents reported in 1986, according to a report issued by the Critical Mass Energy Project of Public Citizen, Inc.

28 May 1993
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission released a warning to the operators of 34 nuclear reactors around the country that the instruments used to measure levels of water in the reactor could give false readings during routine shutdowns and fail to detect important leaks. The problem was first bought to light by an engineer at Northeast Utilities in Connecticut who had been harassed for raising safety questions. The flawed instruments at boiling-water reactors designed by General Electric utilize pipes which were prone to being blocked by gas bubbles; a failure to detect falling water levels could have resulted, potentially leading to a meltdown.

15 February 2000
New York's Indian Point II power plant vented a small amount of radioactive steam when a an aging steam generator ruptured. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission initially reported that no radioactive material was released, but later changed their report to say that there was a leak, but not of a sufficient amount to threaten public safety.

6 March 2002
Workers discovered a foot-long cavity eaten into the reactor vessel head at the Davis-Besse nuclear plant in Ohio. Borated water had corroded the metal to a 3/16 inch stainless steel liner which held back over 80,000 gallons of highly pressurized radioactive water. In April 2005 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission proposed fining plant owner First Energy 5.4 million dollars for their failure to uncover the problem sooner (similar problems plaguing other plants were already known within the industry), and also proposed banning System Engineer Andrew Siemaszko from working in the industry for five years due to his falsifying reactor vessel logs. As of this writing the fine and suspension were under appeal.

U.S. Nuclear Accidents

 

[Intense]

Again, I recognize and respect the advantages of Nuclear Power, the same way I respect Fire, or High Voltage, or a loaded gun. I'm saying be open, address issue with remedy.

 

[Navy1960]

Skull Pilot,
Navy 1960, Great presentation. Good and informative.
What is your position on Dams and Reservoirs? In relation, to Power generation? Drinking Water? Drought Reserve? Irrigation? Fire Control? Erosion Control? Flood Control? Wild Life Preservation? With advanced Technology today, what are the advantages.

Speaking as a Former Anti Nuke, Activist, Your words are not wasted on me. I support what you say, especially on recycling spent fuel. I support the construction of large facilities, away from densely populated areas. I'm curious about your take on mini plants?

I've seen to major outages related to the automatic shut down procedure relating to Nuke plants, and Grid issues, one in the North East, one in Florida. Is this a hair trigger problem? Is it a bug in the system? Considering the Effective Reboot or Restart time of A Nuke Plant, what is currently the best back up system? Gas? Hydro? Coal? It does seem to me that the Industry is dragging it's feet on Hydro, development. Is that a misconception? Why not build up on hydro too? Drought Control and flood control alone justify it.

You know I have long thought that had the people that supported technologies such as nuclear and those that opposed it sat down and actually came up with a plan to environmentally implement them you would not have much of an issue with them. For example, you asked me about Dams, my answer would depend on where you wanted to put the Dam. I know that sounds a little wishy washy , but while I am in favor of hydro, it needs to be tempered with some deference to the natural flow of rivers and wetlands as we have seen these natural settings actually are set up as engines to help us as is the case with hurricanes on the gulf coast. So while I think hydro has it's place , I do feel that there are many places that Dams can be built where the impact would be beneficial for everyone. We have seen such as in Ak. what happens with farming communties when someone shuts down a dam project to search for a woodpecker that no one has seen for 40 years, this sort of thing seem to me to be a little much especially if it impacts so many people.

I am a firm supporter of large nuclear generating stations for large metro area's in conjunction with a program that places mini-reactors in smaller communties, as well as a distributed grid that employs wind, and solar. I firmly support a smart grid to direct power where it is needed and a national power gird where power is a commodity and can be used from the smallest solar panel to the largest nuclear power plant. I am highly in favor of developing these nuclear facilities in less populated areas and in conjunction with a central reprocessing program that has regional reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. I think these mini-reactors have great promise and in fact several companies have them in operation in Japan. Rather than have a facility that will occcupy several thousand acres with cooling towers and a thirst for vast amounts of cooling water. You will have a very small facility about the size of the local wal-mart and with reprocessing that in 10 years produces no more waste than what you can put in a school lunch box.

I have long thought that our nation should explore the possibilty of slat water De-Stalinization for this nations drinking water needs. Now I'm sure someone someplace will have an issue with this, but IMHO it makes a lot of sense to explore doing this for our drinking water needs and try and offset the current demand from lakes, and underground sources.

In my opnion the best back-up to nuclear is actaully 3 three things, one is natural-gas as this nation has an abundant supply of natural gas, two wind and solar in combination, and a method by which we can use the vast amonts of coal this nation has. What strikes me most about coal is this nations reserves are vast and to not use it seems to be a shame. It's my belief that every effort should be made to find a way to fire coal as an energy source in a clean and safe way. I think no matter what your postiion on Global Warming the end result can only be positive for our nation in terms of pollution, jobs, and our furture.

The bottom line here though is that people need to pay deference to others opinions on matters such as these and by working together we can all come up with solutions that work. It's only when we decided that it's our way or the highway is when we all lose. I believe that both sides the environmental side and the commerce side both suffer from this and they both seem to be knocking their heads against a wall. When it would seem if they developed soloutions in conjunction with one another we all win. I can envision sitting in one of those meetings and basically the first thing we all agree on is we disagree on the following *laughs* okay now let's move on.

 

[Navy1960]

Again, I recognize and respect the advantages of Nuclear Power, the same way I respect Fire, or High Voltage, or a loaded gun. I'm saying be open, address issue with remedy.

Let's address these issues head on, first I recognize the fact that nuclear is not a power source that is 100% safe by any means. Then again, I do think you would be hard pressed to find many power sources coal, natural gas, wind, and even solar that did not suffer from accidents. I also recognize that a lot of these facilites are old such as the case with Handford, which you know and I know was not a commercial facility and was used by the Federal Govt. to produce weapons grade material for bombs including the one dropped on Japan. I am not by any stretch of the imagination approving of the way the Hanford site was managed. However the site also hosts a commercial reactor called the Columbia Generating station

In the year 2000, WPPSS changed its name to Energy Northwest, and later the plant's name was changed from WNP-2 (Washington Nuclear Power unit number 2) to Columbia Generating Station. Of the five commercial reactors originally planned by WPPSS for the State of Washington, this reactor was the only one completed (WNP-1 may yet be completed but WNP-4 and WNP-3 and WNP-5 were abandoned).

The reactor has performed well and provides Washington with 9% of the state's electrical generation capacity.[1] With the 1992 retirement of Oregon's Trojan Nuclear Power Plant, it is the only commercial nuclear power reactor remaining in the Pacific Northwest. The nearest operating reactor is the Diablo Canyon Power Plant in central California. The plant's sole reactor is a General Electric Type 5. The plant had a new Westinghouse Electric turbine-generator installed in 1999, which brought its output rating to 1,250 MWe.

The Columbia Generating Station features six low-profile fan-driven cooling towers. Each tower cascades warmed water, a byproduct of water heat exchanging with steam after leaving a turbine, down itself and subsequently cools the warmed water via a combination of evaporation and heat exchange with the surrounding air. Some water droplets fall back to earth in the process, thereby creating a hoar frost in the winter. At times, the vapor cloud from the cooling towers can reach 10,000 feet (3 km) in height and can be seen at a great distance. Replacement water for the evaporated water is drawn from the nearby Columbia River.


While I won't go into a tit for tat record on industrial accidents as it relates to technologies I will point you to one just to show you that nuclear power is not the only industry that suffers from these accidents.

Sherman County authorities have identified the victim of Saturday's wind turbine accident as Chadd B. Mitchell, a 34-year-old Goldendale, Wash., man.

Sheriff Brad Lohrey said Mitchell worked for the turbine's German manufacturer, Siemens. Winds at the time of the accident were about 25 mph, Lohrey said.

Mitchell died when a wind turbine on the not-yet-opened Klondike III wind farm east of the town of Wasco snapped in half. A second worker, Bill Trossen, of Minnesota, was inside the 242-foot-tall shaft. He was taken to an area hospital and was later released. Trossen's age and hometown were not available Monday morning.
Authorities identify victim of wind turbine accident as 34-year-old Goldendale, Wash., man - OregonLive.com: Breaking News Updates

All of these illustrate a few things to me, one is the need to be focused on safety issues on whatever energy production method it is. The other is to put a focus on the closure of these old nuclear facilites as new ones are brought online and additional cleanups of the sites that they were one. I am of the opinion that as these sites age, it's important for this nation to replace them and when I say replace I am talking about add capacity where needed and close the ones you replace. A simple yet effective method of accident reduction.

 

[Intense]

Skull Pilot,
Navy 1960, Great presentation. Good and informative.
What is your position on Dams and Reservoirs? In relation, to Power generation? Drinking Water? Drought Reserve? Irrigation? Fire Control? Erosion Control? Flood Control? Wild Life Preservation? With advanced Technology today, what are the advantages.

Speaking as a Former Anti Nuke, Activist, Your words are not wasted on me. I support what you say, especially on recycling spent fuel. I support the construction of large facilities, away from densely populated areas. I'm curious about your take on mini plants?

I've seen to major outages related to the automatic shut down procedure relating to Nuke plants, and Grid issues, one in the North East, one in Florida. Is this a hair trigger problem? Is it a bug in the system? Considering the Effective Reboot or Restart time of A Nuke Plant, what is currently the best back up system? Gas? Hydro? Coal? It does seem to me that the Industry is dragging it's feet on Hydro, development. Is that a misconception? Why not build up on hydro too? Drought Control and flood control alone justify it.

You know I have long thought that had the people that supported technologies such as nuclear and those that opposed it sat down and actually came up with a plan to environmentally implement them you would not have much of an issue with them. For example, you asked me about Dams, my answer would depend on where you wanted to put the Dam. I know that sounds a little wishy washy , but while I am in favor of hydro, it needs to be tempered with some deference to the natural flow of rivers and wetlands as we have seen these natural settings actually are set up as engines to help us as is the case with hurricanes on the gulf coast. So while I think hydro has it's place , I do feel that there are many places that Dams can be built where the impact would be beneficial for everyone. We have seen such as in Ak. what happens with farming communties when someone shuts down a dam project to search for a woodpecker that no one has seen for 40 years, this sort of thing seem to me to be a little much especially if it impacts so many people.

I am a firm supporter of large nuclear generating stations for large metro area's in conjunction with a program that places mini-reactors in smaller communties, as well as a distributed grid that employs wind, and solar. I firmly support a smart grid to direct power where it is needed and a national power gird where power is a commodity and can be used from the smallest solar panel to the largest nuclear power plant. I am highly in favor of developing these nuclear facilities in less populated areas and in conjunction with a central reprocessing program that has regional reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. I think these mini-reactors have great promise and in fact several companies have them in operation in Japan. Rather than have a facility that will occcupy several thousand acres with cooling towers and a thirst for vast amounts of cooling water. You will have a very small facility about the size of the local wal-mart and with reprocessing that in 10 years produces no more waste than what you can put in a school lunch box.

I have long thought that our nation should explore the possibilty of slat water De-Stalinization for this nations drinking water needs. Now I'm sure someone someplace will have an issue with this, but IMHO it makes a lot of sense to explore doing this for our drinking water needs and try and offset the current demand from lakes, and underground sources.

In my opnion the best back-up to nuclear is actaully 3 three things, one is natural-gas as this nation has an abundant supply of natural gas, two wind and solar in combination, and a method by which we can use the vast amonts of coal this nation has. What strikes me most about coal is this nations reserves are vast and to not use it seems to be a shame. It's my belief that every effort should be made to find a way to fire coal as an energy source in a clean and safe way. I think no matter what your postiion on Global Warming the end result can only be positive for our nation in terms of pollution, jobs, and our furture.

The bottom line here though is that people need to pay deference to others opinions on matters such as these and by working together we can all come up with solutions that work. It's only when we decided that it's our way or the highway is when we all lose. I believe that both sides the environmental side and the commerce side both suffer from this and they both seem to be knocking their heads against a wall. When it would seem if they developed soloutions in conjunction with one another we all win. I can envision sitting in one of those meetings and basically the first thing we all agree on is we disagree on the following *laughs* okay now let's move on.

Well Spoken, Not only do we need to consider concerns, we need to validate and weigh them honestly and in a timely way. Seems much of the tome by doing nothing we create crisis. Too much infrastructure is stressed. Little room for necessary maintenance.

 

[Intense]

Again, I recognize and respect the advantages of Nuclear Power, the same way I respect Fire, or High Voltage, or a loaded gun. I'm saying be open, address issue with remedy.

Let's address these issues head on, first I recognize the fact that nuclear is not a power source that is 100% safe by any means. Then again, I do think you would be hard pressed to find many power sources coal, natural gas, wind, and even solar that did not suffer from accidents. I also recognize that a lot of these facilites are old such as the case with Handford, which you know and I know was not a commercial facility and was used by the Federal Govt. to produce weapons grade material for bombs including the one dropped on Japan. I am not by any stretch of the imagination approving of the way the Hanford site was managed. However the site also hosts a commercial reactor called the Columbia Generating station

In the year 2000, WPPSS changed its name to Energy Northwest, and later the plant's name was changed from WNP-2 (Washington Nuclear Power unit number 2) to Columbia Generating Station. Of the five commercial reactors originally planned by WPPSS for the State of Washington, this reactor was the only one completed (WNP-1 may yet be completed but WNP-4 and WNP-3 and WNP-5 were abandoned).

The reactor has performed well and provides Washington with 9% of the state's electrical generation capacity.[1] With the 1992 retirement of Oregon's Trojan Nuclear Power Plant, it is the only commercial nuclear power reactor remaining in the Pacific Northwest. The nearest operating reactor is the Diablo Canyon Power Plant in central California. The plant's sole reactor is a General Electric Type 5. The plant had a new Westinghouse Electric turbine-generator installed in 1999, which brought its output rating to 1,250 MWe.

The Columbia Generating Station features six low-profile fan-driven cooling towers. Each tower cascades warmed water, a byproduct of water heat exchanging with steam after leaving a turbine, down itself and subsequently cools the warmed water via a combination of evaporation and heat exchange with the surrounding air. Some water droplets fall back to earth in the process, thereby creating a hoar frost in the winter. At times, the vapor cloud from the cooling towers can reach 10,000 feet (3 km) in height and can be seen at a great distance. Replacement water for the evaporated water is drawn from the nearby Columbia River.


While I won't go into a tit for tat record on industrial accidents as it relates to technologies I will point you to one just to show you that nuclear power is not the only industry that suffers from these accidents.

Sherman County authorities have identified the victim of Saturday's wind turbine accident as Chadd B. Mitchell, a 34-year-old Goldendale, Wash., man.

Sheriff Brad Lohrey said Mitchell worked for the turbine's German manufacturer, Siemens. Winds at the time of the accident were about 25 mph, Lohrey said.

Mitchell died when a wind turbine on the not-yet-opened Klondike III wind farm east of the town of Wasco snapped in half. A second worker, Bill Trossen, of Minnesota, was inside the 242-foot-tall shaft. He was taken to an area hospital and was later released. Trossen's age and hometown were not available Monday morning.
Authorities identify victim of wind turbine accident as 34-year-old Goldendale, Wash., man - OregonLive.com: Breaking News Updates

All of these illustrate a few things to me, one is the need to be focused on safety issues on whatever energy production method it is. The other is to put a focus on the closure of these old nuclear facilites as new ones are brought online and additional cleanups of the sites that they were one. I am of the opinion that as these sites age, it's important for this nation to replace them and when I say replace I am talking about add capacity where needed and close the ones you replace. A simple yet effective method of accident reduction.

I visited a few towns near The Trojan plant in Oregon and Washington in Sept. 1981, and a few times after that. It had a close call, with being flooded out by the Columbia River after one of the Mt. St. Helens Eruptions.

I knew Diablo Canyon real well, including the back country in 81 & 84. I visited the containment pool once, for a short visit on my way to the St Lois Obispo Mens colony. Ever been to Montana De Oro State Park, south of Morro Bay? Beautiful country.

In relation to Safety First I Totally Agree. Need to be vigilant about even Bureaucracy and execution corrupting that. At times We can be Our Own Best Friend, and at times We Can Be Our Own Worst Enemy.

Are You familiar with the plan Con Ed had back in the Sixties To pump Water from the Hudson into a Artificial Reservoir during the night, and drain the water powering turbines during the high peak times? Is there merit behind the concept?

Marist Environmental History Project The Storm King Project.

Or

http://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/publications/pdfs/HFpubs/paper19.pdf Black Rock

Whats your take on this?

Spinning wheels, or real expectation?

 

[Tech_Esq]

wind energy has its own set of problems and is not the solution for all areas....the northeast demands so much electricity that it buys it from canada...as does california....nuclear energy will meet the needs of more people than wind or solar...as far as enviroment...wind kills birds and bats...so you are back to solar or hydro generated electricity....since water is going to become the new oil....hydro is out..for much of the country...so you are back to solar or nuclear....solar could be the solutuion if they can come up with batteries that can store more electricity at a time..

Solar has more problems than that. The PE cells are not all that efficient yet. They are a lot better than they used to be, but still far from what they should be to produce power at the level we need them to.

We are close to solving the problem you mentioned though. Eestor is ready to change the world starting in the 4th quarter of this year. Read my thread on "A Game Changer in Sight." The Eestor, EESUs would be able to store all the energy captured by a solar plant and make a solar plant generate with the evenness of a coal plant.

The only issue is the photo electric cell inefficiency.

 

[KittenKoder]

Compared to all the people who die from our current forms, all the drawbacks of the options idiots are pushing like drugs on people, and fact that radiation is unavoidable ... nuclear is the only solution to reduce ... everything.

 

[Intense]

Compared to all the people who die from our current forms, all the drawbacks of the options idiots are pushing like drugs on people, and fact that radiation is unavoidable ... nuclear is the only solution to reduce ... everything.

We still need back ups capable of maintaining the grid in the event of an unscheduled shut down. Nukes are very slow in coming back on line. Two Weeks?

 

[KittenKoder]

Compared to all the people who die from our current forms, all the drawbacks of the options idiots are pushing like drugs on people, and fact that radiation is unavoidable ... nuclear is the only solution to reduce ... everything.

We still need back ups capable of maintaining the grid in the event of an unscheduled shut down. Nukes are very slow in coming back on line. Two Weeks?

So ... thousands of lives a year is a better price than having to actually update some of the technology? Or if we switch to one of the "green" solutions we have sky rocketing electric bills and have to destroy a lot of wildlife ... all just to avoid a 1% chance of something serious happening?

 

[rdean]

Very few suggestions. Some things that are actually being worked on:

Hyperion Reactor - about the size of a small shed. One charge can last 5 to 7 years. A single reactor can power 20 to 30 THOUSAND homes at a cost of about 200 dollars per year. The reactors are typically buried. They can never overheat because overheating causes them to shut down.
They have been used by university students for more than 40 years and are used on many nuclear powered ships. They have a long history of safety. I believe a company in Colorado has submitted a request to the US government to mass produce them. Customers are already lining up.

One expected use for the reactors:

In the Mountains in the western part of the United States lie the largest oil deposits in the world. Possibly 3 to 5 times the entire amount of oil in the Middle East. The difference is the oil in the Middle East is lying in discrete pools that are easily accessed. In the US, the oil is tied up in shale. Some mountains are actually so soaked in shale oil; lighting strikes will cause the mountain to smoke. To released the oil, water heated to a high temperature is required, ergo, the Hyperion Reactor.

Another are the oil sands of Canada. Those don't stop at the US/Canadian border, but, once into the US, the sands lie far underground beneath solid rock. They use an angled type of drilling (the name escapes me), but there are oil wells being drilled every other week in the Northern United States.

NASA has mapped winds all over the world. Wind turbines are noisy and large and if they fail, the blades, the size of a house, can fly three quarters of a mile. This is why location is very important. Also, putting several in a row can disrupt winds enough to probably disrupt weather. However, if put in the right location, they are a viable option. There are 6 thousand heavily machined parts in a single turbine. There are idle machinist and machines in Detroit.

Hybrid cars are coming out that, during normal city driving can get close to 300mpg. For highway driving, it drops down to 100, but still great.

Bullet trains are being built in Europe that run faster than 100kph and consume 30% less energy.

To do these things takes education. Only 6% of scientists, according to recent polls, are Republican. I am afraid that anything we try to do, they will try to block. That has me worried. Too many of them think “God will take care of us”, if only we could get rid of those pesky gays and feminists.

 

[KittenKoder]

RDean ... you are lucky you have leftwing slogans, because you don't seem to think about what you hear enough to make any real decisions.