Nuclear Power

[NYDrew]

Thought this could be an interesting and intelligent conversation.

We got 4 Gen-1 reactors boiling off to a meltdown in Japan.
The NRC is up to re-approving the 20 year contracts on the first wave of the US Gen-1 reactors.
An oil crisis.
War everywhere there is oil
....and of course we got Vermont Yankee.

Lets go at it (and while politics are unavoidable, lets try to keep it to an absolute minimum)

Me, I am a huge proponent of nuclear power. As a scientist I see the safety, cleanliness and value of this form of power as well as its hopefully soon to be replacement, fusion. The Japanese incident is terribly unfortunate and unforeseeable. They built it to withstand an 8.0 earthquake, and it held up against a 9! What we didn't foresee was an tsunami wiping out its redundancy system leaving it unable to restart (to cool itself) or the fossil fuels to keep it cold and restart. Its a gen-1 reactor, the worlds first attempt to build such a technology, and while it failed, I am quite impressed at the fact that so far the situation is under control.

With regard to Vermont Yankee, our local hot topic. I am thrilled the NRC renewed the license, Vermont and the surrounding states would be devastated without it. I would like to see Vermont Gov't get its head out of it's you know what and also approve it with conditions. Entergy (the operator) would have to immediately begin to secure the cooling pond so it is not open to the air. They would also have to immediately begin construction of a new, modern plant and as soon as she is operational shut down the old Gen-1.

A little known topic many may not know about is our President's move (I think its moronic) to shut down construction and close the disposal facility being constructed in the south-west. The thing cost billions, if not trillions in construction and research. It was super safe and just as they were about to finish it off and put the door on when he shut it down. This storage facility would have eliminated the need for long term storage ponds and also consolidated our nuclear waste into one, government secured facility.


And the conversation begins.....

 

[Puck it]

I can tell this is going to get out of hand fast.

I am with you. We have shutdown the Gulf and now people are calling for a shutdown on the nukes.

Let's just go back to the middle ages.

You left out that 70-75% of VT's electricity comes from that one nuke. Great idea to shut it down. Indian Point provides 30% of the NYC electricity. Let's shut it. People need to get it in to their heads, that there is no alternative to fossil fuels and nukes that are currently viable. Solar and Wind can not compete without the gov't funding it. Let's take some of that money being printed and dump a very very large chunk into new energy programs. Why not make it a mission like we had for landing on the moon.

 

[Glenn]

This could get heated! But I'll chime in.

I'm all for it. I think it's a good alternative to other sources of power. In a perfect world, we'd have a mix of all type of power generation. I'm for keeping VT Yankee open. That's my take. If someone here doesn't agree with me, I don't hate you...won't hate you or yell at you. We'll agree to disagree. I think the VT Yankee issue has been very one sided given a vocal minority and the way the media leans. IMHO.

What does worry me currently... IIRC, nuke plants have a defined life span. Many in this country are of a certain age...and no new plants are slated to being built. What will fill the void? Everyone talks about wind and solar...but we'd probably have to clearcut half of our country's land to make enough space to meet demand.

And speaking of filling the void...I can't beleive what a nation of NIMBY's and whiners we've become. For every person talking about wind power, you've got another trying to save birds. We're setting ourselves up for an epic failure when it comes to building ANYTHING that generates power. We can't "CFL" or "Hybrid vehicle" our way out of this one.

 

[from_the_NEK]

My thought is renew the VT Yankee license for 10 years and immediately build a newer/moderrn plant to replace it.
So much time and money has gone into bickering about the 20 year renewal that could have been better spent on getting us toward a more advanced facility.
Its kind of like the circ in Chittenden County... :argue: :flame: <money>

 

[from_the_NEK]

And speaking of filling the void...I can't beleive what a nation of NIMBY's and whiners we've become. For every person talking about wind power, you've got another trying to save birds. We're setting ourselves up for an epic failure when it comes to building ANYTHING that generates power. We can't "CFL" or "Hybrid vehicle" our way out of this one.

Quoted for truths

 

[Puck it]

Quoted for truths

I am buying all the incadescent 100W bulbs that I can. I need to supply all the easy bake ovens in the country.

 

[drjeff]

The bottomline is we're a country that to function like we've all become used too on a daily basis needs alot of power. The reality is that based on the current production capabilities of "alternative" energy sources, there's no way that we could be able to generate the amount of power that we currently use, without creating so many energy generating plants that it wouldn't even get close to flying by the NIMBY crowd.

So that puts us at the crossroads where either a) cut WAY back on our daily power consumption (don't see that happening anytime soon) b) we need to say FU to the NIMBY crowd and build the massive number, with the associated massive cost, of alternative energy generating plants(and then end up paying a bunch more for our power) or c) accept that fact that oil/coal/nuclear power generation, for realistically atleast the next decade (and likely longer) is going to be our backbone energy generation source and in a smaller scale say FU to the NIMBY crowd and build some new plants with more modern technology to meet our power generation needs until large scale alternative energy sources can be developed cost effectively.

I'm putting hydro-electric in its own category here since the building of new dams for power generation certainly has proven potential, but the potential effects on the river downstream of the dam, let alone the potential effect on commerce if that river is a significant body of water for boat traffic is a big issue

 

[WWF-VT]

I’m still opposed to nuclear power.

Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima. What are we going to do with the 70,000 tons of nuclear waste that we’ve been accumulating for the last 60 years ?

If that’s not enough – I have no faith in Homer Simpson’s skills as an operator at the plant in Springfield.

 

[dmc]

I can tell this is going to get out of hand fast.

I am with you. We have shutdown the Gulf and now people are calling for a shutdown on the nukes.

Let's just go back to the middle ages..

We haven't shutdown drilling in the gulf.. We lifted the moratorium last fall...
Exxon just got a permit...
Are you reading papers from the middle ages?

As far as nukes go... We need to understand what happened... what failed... what worked.. and be careful going forward.. Anything happens on our soil - I'm going to be pissed.. IF Indian Point had the same issues as Japan... All hell would break lose...

 

[NYDrew]

My thought is renew the VT Yankee license for 10 years and immediately build a newer/moderrn plant to replace it.
So much time and money has gone into bickering about the 20 year renewal that could have been better spent on getting us toward a more advanced facility.
Its kind of like the circ in Chittenden County... :argue: :flame: <money>

Didn't even think of comparing it to the Circ. Considering I live 1 mile from 2 of the 4 exits on the Circ (and therefore less then 3 from the other two) I have a lot to gain from completion of the Circ, like I don't know....easy access to I-89, Burlington and Work.

Even more practical use for the money, how about research into fusion. My favorite part of this whole thing is the majority of the flak is coming out of Burlington....go ahead and shut down VTY....Massena, NY just got approved for a plant and that's even closer, out of state, and out of non-federal control.

Nuclear Waste - Ask the president, we had a great idea almost done.

 

[Glenn]

My favorite part of this whole thing is the majority of the flak is coming out of Burlington....go ahead and shut down VTY....Massena, NY just got approved for a plant and that's even closer, out of state, and out of non-federal control.

Wow! No kidding? How's that for irony.

 

[NYDrew]

3 Mile Island - The system worked. All technology is bound to failure, your only protection is safeguards and redundancy.

Chernobyl - It was a non-sealed reactor core, they shut down the safeguards and withdrew the control rods to "see what happens", now we know.

Fukishima - No conclusions drawn, but that ancient relic survived a 9.0 earthquake. A little more foresight would have had more cooling redundancy to protect from the tsunami. In this case the system failed as a result of the system working (the reactor shut down, putting reliance on diesel generators for cooling, then the diesel generators got knocked out by the wave). Hopefully, all reactors will be upgraded to include a more secure back up, or perhaps a second back up located far from the first. Let us learn from this.

 

[ctenidae]

We had rolling blackouts last summer. Shutting down power plants is a great idea.

Considering my employer, having the office blacked out is kind of ironic, and yet proves our point pretty well.

 

[mondeo]

There have been under 5000 deaths associated with nuclear power plants worldwide. There were 38,000 deaths in car crashes in 2008 in the US alone. According to environmentalist conspiracy theorists, coal fired plants are responsible for 24,000 deaths per year in the US.

Nuclear is safe, the incidents are just extremely public.

 

[ctenidae]

There have been under 5000 deaths associated with nuclear power plants worldwide. There were 38,000 deaths in car crashes in 2008 in the US alone. According to environmentalist conspiracy theorists, coal fired plants are responsible for 24,000 deaths per year in the US.

Nuclear is safe, the incidents are just extremely public.

And nuclear and coal combined are still safer than cars.
We should clearly eliminate all cars.
And garage doors. Have you seen the stats on injuries from garage doors? Mind boggling.

How much do stubbed toes cost the health care system every year? If we don't have power, there will be a meteoric rise in incidences of stubbed toes.

Using less power is good. Getting more power from cleaner sources is good.
Thinking we can do it overnight is bad.
Thinking we can get all of our power from one source is bad at best, dangerous at worst.

 

[riverc0il]

What NYDrew just wrote RE: 3MI, Chernobyl, and Fukishima. Bad examples to use as cons to the Nuclear argument. There are good cons to take in such an argument, these three examples are not good arguments against, IMO. 3MI may have been cause for concern but there was no known or verified negative health effects. Japan would have been fine if not for the Tsunami. And now they will work a fail safe in against that as well.

If you are going to be against nuclear power, you also have to propose a viable alternative that could work and be as cost efficient if not better. If you turn off every Nuke plant tomorrow, where will the missing power come from? Until that argument can be satisfied, I am pro-Nuclear Power because I like having electricity. Anything less would be hypocritical.

The fact is that Nuclear power has amongst the best safety record of almost any power generation system. The only problem with Nuclear power is you can't have a catastrophic failure or else there will be massive loss of live and habitat. But then you have Exxon Valdez and the recent Gulf issues, what of the loss of marine life and habitat effects there? Chernobyl could be cited but I think that is a horrible argument to take against modern day Nuclear power.

Its safe, its clean, and there is nothing else to take the place of all of the plants currently in operation (at least not all at once right now). Is it dangerous? Worst case scenario is but all energy production sources have associated dangers.

My opinion is scientists need to learn from the current events and put in place better fail safe redundancies.

 

[Puck it]

We haven't shutdown drilling in the gulf.. We lifted the moratorium last fall...
Exxon just got a permit...
Are you reading papers from the middle ages?

As far as nukes go... We need to understand what happened... what failed... what worked.. and be careful going forward.. Anything happens on our soil - I'm going to be pissed.. IF Indian Point had the same issues as Japan... All hell would break lose...

Okay, Mr. Literal. We did shut it down and lifted but it effectively is still shutdown. Most of the deep water rigs moved when the ban started from reports that I read. They are in other parts of the world now, drilling.

 

[mondeo]

What NYDrew just wrote RE: 3MI, Chernobyl, and Fukishima. Bad examples to use as cons to the Nuclear argument. There are good cons to take in such an argument, these three examples are not good arguments against, IMO. 3MI may have been cause for concern but there was no known or verified negative health effects. Japan would have been fine if not for the Tsunami. And now they will work a fail safe in against that as well.

...

My opinion is scientists need to learn from the current events and put in place better fail safe redundancies.

I think that was his point on those three incidents.

And scientists don't do anything other than sit around in labs and play with atoms. Doing real work is the realm of engineers.

 

[drjeff]

Okay, Mr. Literal. We did shut it down and lifted but it effectively is still shutdown. Most of the deep water rigs moved when the ban started from reports that I read. They are in other parts of the world now, drilling.

Yup, and that's why we're currently thinking of sending subsidies to BRAZIL for deepwater oil drilling, since that's where some of those rigs went

 

[bigbog]

Yeah, ...not an Obama hater, but he likes speeches and seems to jump to quick conclusions sometimes. Some are good, some are a little premature...
Would like to see Feds giving private industry with the skills the go ahead to step up with some top level nuclear physicists doing independent inspection of plants. What I've often seen/heard, maybe wrong..y/n?..is that the system(NRC), which conducts the inspecting/policing of operations....is sometimes...partially in bed with the plant owners.... You wash my back = you'll get all our work....etc.

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