So I expect their leading lights to be as ecological as is consistent with being on the take. Moore is a former leading light. Has he therefore suddenly become trustworthy?

"We can tax carbon", you say. Indeed we can, and we do, with a vengeance. All that fossil money to our decision-making class means they see the fossil fuel industry's continued security and privilege as inextricably tied to their own.

That is to say, the "public teat" is fed by fossil fuel consumers about ten times what the producers take; and they could never take what they do if everyone in government weren't aware that the dollar they give to the oil patch enables them to take ten from you and me. If you continue on the track of ignoring that tenfold return, every station you come to is going to be the wrong station.

Nuclear is clean, and the seventh generation of our descendants will be using much more of it than we are today.

--- Graham Cowan, former hydrogen fan
B: internal combustion, nuclear cachet

Speaking as someone in California, getting electric power from everything (nuclear and coal, out through natural gas, geothermal, wind, solar biomass, ....), I see efficiency as orthogonal to all that.

Efficiency takes the pressure off while all these other battles are being fought.

Now if someone could get Feingold to start talking this way?  Who knows?  We might win even against hopeless odds.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Let's ask the market. Investment money is streaming into small-scale, distributed power, but the nuclear industry is utterly moribund.

According to this article in the NYT, there are 19 new nuclear power plants being applied for, and at a cost of around $5 billion each, that represents a potential investment of close to $100 billion.  Not exactly "utterly moribund".

As for these "small-scale, distributed power" operations that are mentioned, I'm curious as to how much money is actually being invested in them.  For that matter, I'm curious as to what they actually are.  What fuel do they use?  Currently, most distributed generation plants are fueled by gas or diesel.  And they don't exist because they're more efficent or cost-effective (they're not) but mostly to provide emergency back-up.  

Let's add up the costs.  6 billion for the plant, 2 billion in "free" insurance from US taxpayers, 6 billion in subsidies, how about the habit of niclear contractors of cost over runs due to faulty construction, another 2 billion?

So 16 billion.  That is without any thing for waste storage and disposal and litigation fees.

2,000 mw of generation capacity for 16 billion.  8 bucks per watt.  

And none of threm will even be through the licensing for 3 to 5 years, and the lobbyists claom they will be online bt 2015?  How much will construction costs, cement, steel,hi-tech have increased in cost by 2010?  With fossil fuel prices soaring?  Say a conservative 20%?

Add 2 billion for inflation and cost over runs?  So that means what?  Another buck per watt, up to 9 bucks per watt?

And how exactly will 19 plants by even 2015 have even a miniscule effect on global climate problems?  Considering the greenhouse gases released in nuclear fuel processing that are 100s of times worse than CO 2.  And the CO 2 released producing  the cement and steel.  And the CO2 mining the fuel. That won't be paid back in terms of greenhouse gases for years after they come online.

And 100s of plants this size are needed to have any positive climate effect, 19 is a drop in the ocean.

What a fine plan eyyh Steve?  Hehehey.

   

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

I have to take serious issue with your characterization of nuclear energy as the least worst option that requires holding one's nose as if it really stinks.

The oil, coal, and gas interests love the fact that people like you feel that way about the only alternative energy source that can actually replace their products rather than simply slow the growth in their use.

I will grant you that it might take 10 years before new nuclear power plants begin making more dents into the market share of those fossil fuels, but consider what history has shown can happen.

It took about ten years to move from the prototype reactor built for the USS Nautilus to the point where the commercial nuclear power plant industry in the US began in earnest. Ten years after that, enough projects had been started to eventually result in the power plants that are now operating and supplying more than 780 Gigawatt-hours of emission free electricity every year.

If there had not been some serious and well funded opposition, plus some fears of "overcapacity" the industry would have simply continued building and learning hard lessons, pushing the coal industry into the margins by now. Three Mile Island did not stop the orders - it is not possible for an event that occurred in 1979 to cause orders to stop in 1976 - which is when the last nuclear plant order occurred in the First Atomic Age in the United States.

People can also point to experiences in France, Sweden, and South Korea to see just how quickly fossil fuel can be pushed out of the electricity supply market if there is a consistent effort. You can also look at the US submarine force and aircraft carrier fleet for other examples of nuclear power completely eliminating a large market for fossil fuels.

Sure nuclear plants require investments, but they also provide power that replaces the need to burn fossil fuel. They are the only power source that I know of that is a way to eliminate, rather than manage a fossil fuel addiction.

Of course, there are many individual addictions to fossil fuel that cannot be eliminated all at once, but it is never too early to start the process.

Rod Adams
Editor, Atomic Insights
www.atomicinsights.com
www.atomicinsights.blogspot.com
Co-Host of The Atomic Show Podcast
http://atomic.thepodcastnetwork.com

Efficiency, however, is the best way to solve most of our fossil fuel problems.

Let's add up the costs.  6 billion for the plant, 2 billion in "free" insurance from US taxpayers, 6 billion in subsidies, how about the habit of niclear contractors of cost over runs due to faulty construction, another 2 billion?

If we make up numbers out of thin air, with no basis in reality, then anything can be made to look bad.  However, the people who make energy investments for a living, and are not exactly known for throwing away their capital, have decided that nuclear power is a worthwhile investment.  When it comes to estimating costs and profitability, I'll take their numbers over yours.

So if we're going to "look to the market" to see whether or not nuclear is economically viable, the answer is, it's viable.  Complaining about the economics of nuclear as a means of promoting even more expensive alternatives doesn't make a lot of sense.    

Double or triple the cost is the usual.  Consider Yucca Mountain, unsafe at any speed (Years behind schedule), current estimates over 50 billion?  Whistleblower scientists had to quit their jobs there to warn the public about the catastrophic problems since the nuke contractors had them sign secrecy agreements.

Wind is maybe 5 bucks per watt now for the initial installation?  With no fuel, no waste, a fraction of the manufacturing CO 2 load, a fraction of the NIMBY resistance (many times the needed  unoccupied high wind area to supply all power needs exist, WITHOUT Cape Wind, arrggh), no uninsurable risk, no groundwater pollution (you can't get tritium out of our groundwater once it leaks, and it's leaking from many nukes).

Wind and solar provide distributed power generation unfriendly to monopoly control, nukes are the ultimate monopoly energy source.  The nuclear "priesthood" keeps nuclear contamination  and corruption all secret under the excuse of national security (but refuses to spend the money to secure nuclear plants and waste from terror attack).

Nuclear power poses a huge threat by faculutating  nuclear weapons proliferation (Iran ring any bells? Check the New york times front page today).

Need I go on and on Steve?  Why not just wake up and smell the clean renewable solution to global climate disaster before it's too late?  

You certainly do not want to smell the radioactive metal vapor going into your lungs like the victims in the Chernobyl plant did.

Yeah odo let the navy do it!  Hehehehehey.  You're a funny guy.  

The same guys that wanted to dump old nuclear submarines at sea?

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

This is the government that started the Iraq War, the Vietnam War, and now is ready to start the Iran War.  All based on lies. The first salvo on Iran?  Nuclear bunker busters!!

Trust 'em with nuclear power, weapons, and waste?  We tried that, now we have nuclear contamination from sea to glowing sea.  And they want to have a nuclear crusade for oil in the ME.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

The figures are mentioned in it.

They are, but you're misusing them.  The $6 billion cost to the treasury is not a construction cost, it is the cost of a $0.018 per kWh subsidy spread over 25 years.  That is not a large subsidy.  Wind power currently receives a larger subsidy (which is a good thing) at about $0.02 per kWh.  All forms of power generation recieve subsidies of various kinds, and nuclear is no different.  

Double or triple the cost is the usual.

If that were really the case, I doubt utilities would be chomping at the bit to build them.  There's no real need to lecture people about the economics of the situation, because if nuclear isn't commercially viable, then companies won't invest.  The subsidies being offered do make nuclear more attractive, but these are not enough in and of themselves to make it commercially viable; the base cost of generation has to be low enough to be able to sell the electricity for a profit.    

Consider Yucca Mountain, unsafe at any speed (Years behind schedule), current estimates over 50 billion?

Yucca Mountain will need to exist regardless of whether any new nuclear facilities open, because the Navy and EOC have lots of their own spent fuel that needs permanent storage.

Wind is maybe 5 bucks per watt now for the initial installation?

Wind is economically competitive (but extremely capital intensive), so we should advocate installing wind to the greatest extent possible.  But that will maybe make up 20% of our total capacity.  Beyond that, intermittancy creates too many problems (the wind advocates themselves will tell you this).  That leaves 80% that needs to come from reliable, 24/7 power generation.  That means either nuclear, coal, hydroelectric (mostly tapped-out already), natural gas, and a handful of others that aren't cost competitive.  For the forseeable future, it's really a choice between nuclear and coal.  If we don't build more nuclear plants, we will have more coal plants, and lots of them.

Wind and solar provide distributed power generation unfriendly to monopoly control, nukes are the ultimate monopoly energy source.

Since I don't have an ideological objection to large scale industry, then I don't find this argument persuasive.  People aren't putting up tiny windmills on top of their houses afterall, they're building large-scale wind farms with giant turbines.  It's just more cost-effective that way.

The nuclear "priesthood" keeps nuclear contamination  and corruption all secret under the excuse of national security...

Right, it's all kept secret, which explains why we can't find any evidence.  But somehow you know all about it.  ;)

Nuclear power poses a huge threat by faculutating  nuclear weapons proliferation (Iran ring any bells? Check the New york times front page today)

Then we should oppose nuclear power generation in Iran.  It has nothing to do with the United States, which last I checked, already had nuclear weapons and would still have them even if all commercial nuclear plants were to shut down.

You certainly do not want to smell the radioactive metal vapor going into your lungs like the victims in the Chernobyl plant did.

If I thought this were a reasonable possibility, then I wouldn't favor nuclear power.  As it is, we already have nasty stuff going into our lungs courtesy of the coal industry, which is estimated to kill about 15,000 people a year.  That's several Chernobyls each and every year.  Nuclear is far safer than coal.

That's old information.  Distributed storage in the form of 100s of millions of electric cars and solar and wind powered homes with battery backup change that whole lame objection.  Not to mention utility scale superconducting energy storage rings, a technology that could really take off given some funding.

So you think capital allocation for energy systems is a free and fair market?  And that anything the boardroom honchos at GM and Citibank (the same crowd) and their ilk decide to fund must be the best possible projects?  Hehehey.

Good discussion anyway!  I shall return later, must recharge the eco-fighting batteries with some biking in the woods.  

Thanks for the tough debate, the founding fathers were so right.  Free speech is the shiznit.  

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Distributed storage in the form of 100s of millions of electric cars and solar and wind powered homes with battery backup change that whole lame objection.

Possibly, but the battery technology isn't here yet.  Li-ion batteries will need to come down in price by several times, and if demand spikes, the pressure on lithium supplies could keep prices high indefinitely.  Best case scenario, we could maybe implement this technology in 30 years.  That's about the lifetime of your average power plant, so it's no reason to defer building them now.

Anyway, thanks for the spirited debate.

This is not to be taken as an endorsement of more coal-fired generating plants. We absolutely must do whatever it takes to not only stop building new coal plants as soon as possible but start reducing the many destructive eco-impacts of the existing ones and begin planning to phase them out completely over time.

"You can never get enough of what you do not really want." - Huston Smith

That's old information.  Distributed storage in the form of 100s of millions of electric cars and solar and wind powered homes with battery backup change that whole lame objection.  Not to mention utility scale superconducting energy storage rings, a technology that could really take off given some funding.

However, I am in my mid 40s, have spent 25 years working in a number of different cities all over the US and commute more than 40 miles each way to work every day. I have NEVER seen an electric car on the highway and can count on one hand the number of electric vehicles that I have seen outside of the fence of a few electric utilities that have them as promotions.

Amazingdrx likes to pull his number out of thin air - he takes conservative estimates of nuclear plant costs and adds billions to them and then takes the most optimistic estimates of large scale (90 meter blade) wind turbines and writes as if the same numbers on a per MW basis apply to home scale turbines.

BTW - Amazingdrx, do you know the name of the company that receives the most benefit from wind turbine subsidies in the US? You might be amazed to find out that it happens to be GE, which is also a potential recipient of nuclear power plant subsidies.

I would also not have any problem living very near to a used fuel storage area that used currently standard methods of storage - letting the used fuel cool in a carefully monitored pool and then moving it to well engineered containers that are designed to last for a hundred years or more.

There are no plans to bury the waste near anyone's well. If I have my way, we would not bury it at all, since used fuel still contains more than 95% of the initial potential energy. I would follow my father's dictum of reduce, reuse, and recycle and work to improve fuel economy, find ways to use the rare and unique materials created by the act of fission and then recycle all potential fuel back into the fuel inventory.

I also live in this world and like it very much. I have two grown daughters and am looking forward to gifting their children a cleaner and more prosperous world than the one that I came into more than 40 years ago.

I resent your implication that nuclear trained people are somehow not of this world.

That would save trees and energy!  But those figures were in the newspaper article I linked to.  

I admitted adding a few billion for the usual lack of efficient performance of typical nuclear contractors and inflation due to the time involved in the whole process of lisencing, litigation, lobbying, and actual construction.  

And how many more billions to add for waste disposal and storage for 1000s of years and plant decommisioning?  Maybe 20 more billion for the plant in question?  

Maybe the nuclear construction and operation industry will perform differently from their history of decades of shenanigans now?  Who knows?  

The legacy of Hanford, Rocky Flats, Oak Ridge, Yucca Mountain, Savanah River, Three Mile Island and on and on have to be overcome before credibility is restored though.

The recent revelations of years of leaking radioactive water containing tritium and strontium 90 from many plants in many locations do not bode well for that outcome.

But really Rod, a guy who proposes nuclear powered trucks,buses, and aircraft accusing others of fantastic invention?  

"The potential propulsion market is large; in 2003 there were 46.8 billion gallons of oil burned in the United States alone in sea going vessels, trains, trucks and buses.(Energy Information Administration/ Fuel oil and Kerosene Sales 2003) This total does not include military vehicles or aircraft which are also potential markets for Adams Engines."

http://www.atomicengines.com/engines.html

BTW, are those manufacturing contracts for these atomic engines written on "thin air"?   How about these nuclear powered buses?  Are they more realistic than 100s of millions of electric cars?

Electric cars with the new quick charge lithium ion nano tech batteries are under construction and testing right now, with real contracts on real paper!

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

   Are there alternatives to nuclear power?  Of course there are, and good ones.  But we'll still end up with more nuclear power.  Why?  One plant in a small area can produce a whole buncha power for a long time.  Waste?  A future problem.  

    Why not decentralized friendly small power sources?  The people with money like nukes, and build them they will.  They prefer things that are big and visible, which they believe (rightly or wrongly) makes them less likely to go wrong. Chernobyl is not considered relevant (WE won't make those mistakes.)

    The only way to get the alternatives considered would be to nationalize the energy industry, mandate conservation, and remove the rich folks who love nukes from power.

     Good or bad idea, it won't happen.  

    Developing countries like nukes, because though they are terribly expensive, the expenses seem (I say seem!) to be clear and visible.  Oil is an unknown (in terms of price and availability), and even if there is plenty, there are enough people saying it is an unknown that reasonable folks have doublts.  Alternative sources seem chancy to them.  (As long as the developed countries say nukes are great, the developing countries will go along, they play follow the leader in terms of technological decisions.)

    Central power sources appeal to governments everywhere (pretty much) because they are big and central.  

    There may have been a time to derail the re-birth of the nuclear industry, but I suspect that time has passed.

    The more we talk about the imminent threat of global warming, the more the nuclear industry will grow.  They will use global warming to advance their cause.  They have the advertising money and bribes(err donations) to make it happen, so happen it will.

    Like it or not....

    IMHO.

patrick

    "Like it or not...."

Admitting that we are fighting a hopeless cause is the begginning, not the end of the real fight.

Here in Wisconsin we stopped no less an evil entity than the infamous exxon mob from mining sulfide ore and dumping the tailings in our rivers, lakes, and groundwater.  

This battle went on for decades with various dastardly mega multinational mining companies as the mineral rights were shuffled from one shell shill corporate entity to the next.

The money used to bribe local and state government was enormous.  But in the end relatively disorganized environmental groups beat them all.  

Finally the tribe that would have had the river basin that forms their watershed destroyed by the acid and heavy metals bought the mining rights with gaming money.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

  But I certainly don't want to discourage anyone from fighting!  Heck, I have spent most of my life fighting for lost causes (grin), and don't regret it a bit.

patrick

Onward!  Hehehey.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

And I bet you're going to need an immense backyard if you ever get your way because I bet there are a very small number of people who'd be willing to join you in living right next to a nuclear reactor and storing (if not burying) the waste in their own yard, next to their wells. No, you don't get to remove that from my scenario, because the point is to demonstrate that there's no way to make nuclear plants and waste truly safe for living beings. Others may think it's acceptable to site the plants and ship the waste away from the living beings they actually care about, and thereby poison those they do not, but I won't go along with that plan.

I'll leave the other arguments against nuclear power to those who've studied the subject much more than me now that you've cleared my initial hurdle, at least rhetorically.

"You can never get enough of what you do not really want." - Huston Smith

We do have a conceptual design that is aimed for commercial ships, remote power systems and island nations. If all goes as planned, the first prototypes will be completed within 6 years. (It could be much faster, but we have to work through the slow and very expensive NRC processes.)

The much smaller machines for vehicles like buses, airplanes, and trains are admittedly much farther into the future.

The thought of having an immense backyard is actually kind of cool. I hope it comes to pass.

Actually, I know of at least one area where there are hundreds of people who have paid a healthy premium to locate their home on a lake that is literally the backyard of a nuclear power plant. That plant is currently storing all of the used fuel that it has ever used so I guess it also meets that criteria.

The lake is Lake Anna, about an hour and half outside of DC. The lake was formed by damning a small river to provide the cooling water for the Lake Anna Nuclear Power Station. The shores of the lake are now populated with expensive waterfront homes. http://www.lakeanna.org/Area.htm

Even if there are some people that are not aware of their surroundings, ever single owner made the a decision to buy a home in the backyard of a nuclear power plant since the lake did not exist before the plant construction started and since the power company did not begin selling off lots until well after the plant began operating.

The local population has been discussing announced plans to expand the station capacity. OF COURSE there are detractors, as would be expected from any large construction project. The general feeling, however, is that the existing plants have been good, quiet, clean and responsible neighbors that provide well paying jobs and help support a healthy tax base.