Interesting articles on EV, utilities, renewables and their impacts

[russ]

We all talk about the superior fail-safe Nuke designs available (I've talked my share too over the years), but almost nobody seems to do anything about it when it comes to actually building something that can fail safe. I guess that's why I got off the nuclear bandwagon after the Fukishima disaster hit. People will start coming around to Nukes again, then another PWR somewhere in the world will melt down and the investment time/money will be wasted.

The object is that plants are being built despite all the whining that they can't be due to popular opinion.

I haven't bothered to see the design - it is far away where any radiation has to travel around the world to get here.

Plants can be built if people get off the defeatist attitudes that have been brought about by green peace and similar.

Same with protecting the environment (so called climate change) - the attitudes various of the warmer bunches have managed to make popular and harp on 24 * 7 tend to make real progress more difficult than need be. Such as trying to insist on RE as a major part of the solution rather than as a minor one.

[kwilcox]

Plants are being built, yes, but even more are being decommissioned due to public fear based on spectacular failure events every 20 years or so. So, the net nuclear energy contribution is going down worldwide. For the net to go up, PWR/containment tech has to be banned in favor of better designs that we all know are out there.

[SunEagle]

I am very interested to see how this plays out in Germany...

Germany is already seeing issues where the cost is going up for electricity due to them having to import it from other countries. Depending on when it becomes election time over there I wouldn't be surprised if the "non nuke" decision is changed.

[kwilcox]

I'd like to see them go back to Nukes with fail-safe, adjustable output designs that can pick up the slack when their renewable generation is low. That's a valid way forward IMHO.

[russ]

Germany is already seeing issues where the cost is going up for electricity due to them having to import it from other countries. Depending on when it becomes election time over there I wouldn't be surprised if the "non nuke" decision is changed.

As soon as the government can handle the greens throwing a tizzy fit they will go back to nuclear.

[russ]

I'd like to see them go back to Nukes with fail-safe, adjustable output designs that can pick up the slack when their renewable generation is low. That's a valid way forward IMHO.

Nukes are baseline - you are stating it backwards.

[Sunking]

I'd like to see them go back to Nukes with fail-safe, adjustable output designs that can pick up the slack when their renewable generation is low. That's a valid way forward IMHO.

Why pay twice? A nuke can generate 24 hours a day every day for 50 years and more fuel than man will ever use. . Why pay to add expensive solar or wind with unreliable output only a few hours in a day. You are not saving money and a strong argument for wasting resources.

[bcroe]

Why pay twice? A nuke can generate 24 hours a day every day for 50 years and more fuel than man will ever use. . Why pay to add expensive solar or wind with unreliable output only a few hours in a day. You are not saving money and a strong argument for wasting resources.

I am for Nukes, but have issues with the safety of present methods. It seems
like US technologies are directly driven by what it took to produce "the bomb"
in 1945, and subsequent cold war weapons. We have plants sitting on fault
lines, subject to the ocean and here, tornadoes. Everyone else seems to
have found ways to deal with spent fuel. We just keep it in a pool, waiting for
a big tornado to pick up fuel rods and scatter them over this end of the state.

"They are safe", if nobody makes a mistake, nothing breaks, and nature
doesn't do anything radicle. The money should be spent to develop another
generation where you can just pull the plug, and it will default to a safe,
stable state, without help from anybody. No more dangerous spent fuel just
collecting forever. Some already claim this is possible, and what about
THORIUM fuel? Bruce Roe

[kwilcox]

Nukes are baseline - you are stating it backwards.

You're stuck in that paradigm Russ.

[kwilcox]

Why pay twice? A nuke can generate 24 hours a day every day for 50 years and more fuel than man will ever use. . Why pay to add expensive solar or wind with unreliable output only a few hours in a day. You are not saving money and a strong argument for wasting resources.

Based on empirical data, PWR = disaster every 20 years followed by a worldwide Nuke scare that crushes the technology.

[russ]

pwr = disaster every 20 years.

bs !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[kwilcox]

huh? BS? Since 1979 there have been three major PWR disasters:

3 Mile Island 1979
Chernobyl 1986
Fukishama 2011

In total, since 1979, there have been 8 PWR accidents in the US alone. One, (the Yankee plant in VT) resulted in radioactive tritium being released into the groundwater supply.

If anything, I'm being conservative. On average, they are occurring more frequently than every 20 years. Taken by themselves, the longest duration between major disasters has been 25 years and the shortest 7 years.

Each of those three major disasters also caused a major meltdown in public acceptance while reversing the proliferation of nuclear power.

I believe it takes about 30 years to build a nuke today in the US. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about the state of investment here:

Wikipedia - Nuclear Power in the United States

It pretty much sums up what 3 mile island and fukishama did and reflects is my primary point on Nukes.

Again, let me re-iterate that I'm not against them; they pollute far less than their coal fired counterparts and can be a solution to global warming. But, they scare the peejeebes out of the public and because of that will never become the primary source of baseline electricity. We need to spend the considerable investment on something else. I'm in with renewables. If we had a large enough footprint, there would always be a solar module getting sunlight and a wind-turbine turning. We just need more agile traditional generation capabilities to fill in the gaps.

That's what I see Germany doing.

[Sunking]

3 Mile Island 1979
Chernobyl 1986
Fukishama 2011

Chernobyl was no accident, not from Mother Nature, but caused by man deliberately from ignorance and stupidity. They shut off the dang cooling water to see what would happen. It went BOOM!

[SunEagle]

huh? BS? Since 1979 there have been three major PWR disasters:

3 Mile Island 1979
Chernobyl 1986
Fukishama 2011

In total, since 1979, there have been 8 PWR accidents in the US alone. One, (the Yankee plant in VT) resulted in radioactive tritium being released into the groundwater supply.

If anything, I'm being conservative. On average, they are occurring more frequently than every 20 years. Taken by themselves, the longest duration between major disasters has been 25 years and the shortest 7 years.

Each of those three major disasters also caused a major meltdown in public acceptance while reversing the proliferation of nuclear power.

I believe it takes about 30 years to build a nuke today in the US. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about the state of investment here:

Wikipedia - Nuclear Power in the United States

It pretty much sums up what 3 mile island and fukishama did and reflects is my primary point on Nukes.

Again, let me re-iterate that I'm not against them; they pollute far less than their coal fired counterparts and can be a solution to global warming. But, they scare the peejeebes out of the public and because of that will never become the primary source of baseline electricity. We need to spend the considerable investment on something else. I'm in with renewables. If we had a large enough footprint, there would always be a solar module getting sunlight and a wind-turbine turning. We just need more agile traditional generation capabilities to fill in the gaps.

That's what I see Germany doing.

Except that Germany is not getting all their power from renewables. What they do not generate from RE comes from fossil fuel, the few nukes still in service and power purchased from other countries. Sure they have a lot of solar but they can't store it or can use it 24/7. And they use a lot less power then what is consumed in the US.

People who believe that RE is the answer are sticking their heads in the sand. I don't care how big a footprint is built there will never be enough power generated from renewables in the US to cover what we use 24/7. Sure some people will have power but not all or even half. You will always need some type of base generation which will continue to be from fossil fuels until people stop being scared of nuclear.

I am all for renewables. We need them as part of the power generation portfolio. We also need fast response base generation to cover the times when RE isn't working. I vote for nuclear because I am not afraid of it.

[bcroe]

The usual argument, everyone talks about if we should have Nuke, but nobody talks
about cleaning it up its design. Bruce Roe