Is everyone on board, with Republicans, for building 100 new nukes?

**oladub** · January-31-10, 11:24 AM

â€œSenate Republicans support building 100 new plants as quickly as possible -- we hope Democrats will join us in that effort... " -Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell 1/28/10

Senator Obama campaigned for green change, right? He also promised Nevada voters to stop the Yucca Flats nuclear waste storage project. However, in the State of the Union address, he said,

"You can see the results of last year's investments in clean energy -- in the North Carolina company that will create 1,200 jobs nationwide helping to make advanced batteries; or in the California business that will put a thousand people to work making solar panels.
But to create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. And that means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country. ...And, yes, it means passing a comprehensive energy and climate bill with incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America. [[Applause.)
I am grateful to the House for passing such a bill last year. [[Applause.) And this year I'm eager to help advance the bipartisan effort in the Senate. [[Applause.) "

It turns out that President Obama defines nuclear power as being clean energy and is with Republicans on this one. After all, as the President explained, putting people to work building solar panels means building more nukes. I'm surprised the greens are taking this with such grace. They really are a passive solar crowd.

Is everyone here on board with the President's definition of clean energy and his initiative to go along with Republicans now we know what a lot of the middle class cap and trade tax will get spent on?

**East Detroit** · January-31-10, 12:40 PM

Are you? Can't tell, even though there is evidently some bias built in there.

**gazhekwe** · January-31-10, 01:00 PM

Yes, that part of the State of the Union message got my goat. I do realize nuclear power will be a reality, but please, NOTHING about disposal/recycling the waste? We sure don't learn.

**Bobl** · January-31-10, 01:40 PM

No.
And, like most who want more plants, I also do not want the waste in my neighborhood.

**oladub** · January-31-10, 02:19 PM

Originally Posted by East Detroit

Are you? Can't tell, even though there is evidently some bias built in there.

I would support building breeder reactors out in Yucca Flats or wherever they want to bury all the radioactive material. Breeder reactors use up much of the remaining radioactivity and reduce its half life. This would be a courtesy for lifeforms, such as they exist, 100,000 years from now. Otherwise, in the meanwhile, changing borders, wars, scavengers, guided missiles, etc. could cause more mischief with the waste. Waste could either be reused upon its arrival or could be brought up from storage caverns. Breeder reactors are, at this point, touchy so we wouldn't want them scattered around the country.

Otherwise, I oppose nukes because we don't have a way to get rid of the waste, the Republicans exempted nuclear power plant operators from liability, they would make an excellent target for terrorist piloted 747's and other nation's missiles, Three Mile Island's happen, the federal government has no business subsidizing any form of energy, and there are cleaner and cheaper forms of energy that would otherwise be more competitive.

**Ray1936** · January-31-10, 02:46 PM

Oladub said: "Yucca Flats or wherever they want to bury all the radioactive material"

Hey, bury that shit in your salt mines under Monroe. Don't be shipping it out here. If there's one topic that unifies Nevadans, it's NIMBY.

**Mikeg** · January-31-10, 04:58 PM

Don't be shipping it out here. If there's one topic that unifies Nevadans, it's NIMBY.

Gee, I always though of Nevada as being the United State's back yard.

Almost 85% [[60 million acres) of the total acreage in Nevada is owned by the Federal Government - the highest percentage of any state in the union. Put another way, Nevada contains almost 10% of the total acreage owned by the Federal Government. [source]

Seriously, we do need to develop more nuclear power plants, but only after we solve the long-term storage problem. Congress can't keep kicking that can down the road.

**Ray1936** · January-31-10, 06:27 PM

The concern is the fear of leakage from the storage drums into the water table of the area. The stuff has a 10,000 year half-life, so it'll be there well beyond the next ice age [[unless Gore has his way).

To play the devil's advocate briefly, though, Yucca Mountain is a good place to store the stuff if absolutely nothing wrong happens.

**ghettopalmetto** · January-31-10, 06:46 PM

France obtains something like 60% of their electricity from nuclear power. Would it be such a crime to investigate what they do with the waste?

**Mikeg** · January-31-10, 06:47 PM

There are really no ideal places to store radioactive materials with a 10k yr half-life, only some places that have higher risks than others.

**gazhekwe** · January-31-10, 06:53 PM

France ships its nuclear waste for storage and reprocessing at La Hague and Marcoule. After storing it there three years... Hmmmm, something happens to it. What?

France also reprocesses its own nuclear waste. The final waste product is sent to La Hague for storage for several decades, awaiting final geologic disposal.

The French have been studying disposal since 1991 and have progressed no further than identifying two potential sites for study.

http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/factsheets/doeymp0411.shtml

It sounds as if they are no further along than we are. I wonder if La Hague wants our nuclear waste.

**Mikeg** · January-31-10, 06:58 PM

Just like the US, France still has not established a long term geological storage/disposal solution.

Reprocessing spent nuclear fuel

France reprocesses its own spent nuclear fuel. Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Japan also send, or have sent in the past, spent nuclear fuel to France for reprocessing. High-level reprocessed waste is vitrified [[solidified) and stored at La Hague for several decades, where it awaits final geologic disposal.

Deep geologic disposal plans

A research program to study high-level radioactive waste disposal began with legislation enacted in 1991. The French Waste Management Research Act of December 1991 authorized 15-year studies of three management options for high-level or long half-life radioactive waste. They included separation and/or transmutation, long-term storage, and geologic disposal. One site under consideration for deep geologic disposal in clay is currently being studied. The French are also searching for a granite site to research. [source]

According to this source, some of France's nuclear waste goes to Russia. From that same source:

A 1990 law established that in 2006 at the latest, France has to identify a geological site appropriate for building a radioactive waste deposit. Despite hundreds of tests on numerous sites throughout the country, the National Assembly is expected in January to extend the search deadline to 2016.

Meanwhile, according to the national radioactive waste agency, there are more than a thousand sites in France being used for temporary nuclear waste storage, and some lack any type of protection. The volume of all types of radioactive waste in France grows by 1,200 tonnes a year.

**gazhekwe** · January-31-10, 07:05 PM

Here is a neat article on reprocessing from IEEE, which says it is the world's leading professional association for the advancement of technology.

http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/nucl...lear-wasteland

It's a good long article which I have just started reading, and already they are kicking sand over the idea of breeder reactors. We shall see....

**oladub** · January-31-10, 07:19 PM

President Obama used his green rhetoric to provide cover for his support of nuclear power and his past campaign support from Illinois based Entergy. He is asking for $54B to build new nuclear facilities. He has to get this money by either taxing Americans, borrowing from China, or printing it. This legislation will distort the energy market. We have a current surplus of natural gas, hundreds of years worth of coal, and some of the best wind power potential in the world. Yet, President Obama ignores our relatively clean domestic natural gas supplies, his policies sell our coal to China at relatively cheaper price, and he has done comparatively little to harness wind. Natural gas, in particular, could be rushed to market because gas plants are much cheaper and faster to build than coal and especially nuclear power plants.

**Mikeg** · January-31-10, 08:41 PM

....and he has done comparatively little to harness wind

Minnesota is learning the hard way that they can't reliably "harness the wind" during the coldest days of winter. Wind [[and solar) power is too unreliable to be considered anything other than a secondary source of power to fill in during peak load times of the day. Dependable coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear powered generating stations must be used to satisfy the base load.

**East Detroit** · January-31-10, 08:43 PM

Is our power grid up to the task of sending that electricity from the new Nevada nuke plants to Detroit?

**Ray1936** · January-31-10, 09:08 PM

Originally Posted by East Detroit

Is our power grid up to the task of sending that electricity from the new Nevada nuke plants to Detroit?

Hey! You won't send us your water, so up yours for getting our power.

We'll show you people.

**gazhekwe** · January-31-10, 10:53 PM

OK, I finally got through that reprocessing article and the short take is, reprocessing does reduce waste by a factor of 10, but, the fuel produced was initially designed for breeder reactors, which have not yet been perfected. So, the fuel was redesigned for conventional reactors, but the waste from the reprocessed fuel is much hotter and hard to process. It has to cool for 123 years in its raw state before it can be reprocessed, so now we have more high volume waste building up.

**Papasito** · January-31-10, 11:57 PM

If the left wants to be more like Europe, as they always claim to,
then why would they oppose nuclear power,
which the Europeans embrace?

http://www.euronuclear.org/info/maps.htm

**rb336** · February-01-10, 04:36 PM

Nuclear is no panacea. we use more uranium than we mine as it is, and mining for uranium is hazardous work [[for which, I'm sure, you would not want to pay a decent wage). Secure storage and transportation are problems as well. By Lehman Bros. estimates from a few years ago, demand for uranium will excede supply sometime this decade. by some estimates, if we replace 1/3 of our coal plants with nuclear, and China does likewise, the world would not be able to process enough uranium to run them. yeah, it has to be part of the picture, but it is the part with which we must take the most care as we move forward

**ejames01** · February-01-10, 05:09 PM

Who is going to pay for 100 new nuclear power plants? They cost several billion to build.

**oladub** · February-01-10, 06:25 PM

Originally Posted by ejames01

Who is going to pay for 100 new nuclear power plants? They cost several billion to build.

The cost overruns are often several billion on each plant. Congress already passed $18B and President Obama is asking for another $36B. This is for cheap loans guarantees to reduce the cost of nuclear power plant construction. Money for Yucca would be eliminated but an extra $8B/year would be spent maintaining the existing waste.
- Obama 2011 budget request: Energy Department [[Wash. Post)

**mauser** · February-01-10, 07:15 PM

Calculate how much fresh water ONE reactor requires, then multiply that by 100.

Then hold on to your Great Lakes, cause there aint no other source of that magnitude.

**Sstashmoo** · February-01-10, 07:25 PM

Then what are those darn "chem trails" I keep seeing?

**ndavies** · February-02-10, 12:40 PM

Originally Posted by mauser

Calculate how much fresh water ONE reactor requires, then multiply that by 100.

Then hold on to your Great Lakes, cause there aint no other source of that magnitude.

You need to compare that against the water usage of a traditional fossil fuel powered plant. Nuclear plants only use 25% to 50% more water than a traditional fossil fuel plant. They ingest more water than a traditional plant, but more of the water is recoverable and can be reused.

If boiling water is a part of the electricity generation, you are going to lose water in the form of steam. Even solar powered steam generation electric plants use water at this rate.

If your energy needs require 100 plants you need to build 100 plants. We'll need far more than 100 new plants, If we expect to run our cars on this electricty.