From the AP wire: McCain calls for building 45 new nuclear reactors. One of the more pertinent passages:
McCain said the 104 nuclear reactors currently operating around the country produce about 20 percent of the nation's annual electricity needs.
"Every year, these reactors alone spare the atmosphere from the equivalent of nearly all auto emissions in America. Yet for all these benefits, we have not broken ground on a single nuclear plant in over thirty years," he said. "And our manufacturing base to even construct these plants is almost gone."
I've long thought that nuclear power offers the best chance to generate energy for the US while minimizing the enviromental costs. I'm not a head-in-the-sand idiot; I know the costs, dangers, and problems with storing used (spent?) nuclear fuel. I just think nuclear power, versus coal ("clean" or otherwise), oil, or natural gas, offers the most upside with the least downside.
The remainder of the article goes on to McCain's idea for "clean" coal, an idea I'm much less in favor of.
As IP says, discuss...
The Europeans have done pretty well with nuclear power in the past few decades (although Germany's now decommissioning all of them). Plus, reactor design has improved tremendously in the last 30 years, so modern plants will be far safer.
As far as storing spent fuel rods, the current options might not be long-term solutions, but I bet someone will solve the problem in the next century. At least there's a possibility of finding a long-term solution to the problems with nuclear power (unlike the more readily depleted resources).
France, in particular, has benefited from nuclear power over the last 30 or so years. The most recent information I could find had nuclear power generating roughly 87% of France's power needs (an older source listed it at 79%). Amazing what a committment to energy indepence can achieve; if France can do it, why can't the US?
(FYI: the "87%" link is a BabelFish translation of this page, so read accordingly)
HG
In one of the old 1930's vintage John Wayne movies, he and his sidekick inadvertently wander in on the wrong side of a gunfight and because of their location in the battle, are forced to defend themselves and their position, even though that causes them to be on the wrong side, fighting for the cattle rustlers.
The fear of nuclear energy in the US is partially founded in truth and partially founded in myth and political chicanery. The fact is that not only France, but China, and some other countries have successfully developed nuclear power energy and thus far there have been no incidents, and no Chinese movies with Joan Chen or Ge You about the "America Syndrome" with nuclear reactors burning their way all the way through the earth's core into NYC or Iowa. In China, these are relatively small and simple nuclear plants.
It absolutely is time to promote nuclear energy and quit burning up food for fuel no matter how profitable government subsidies are to builders of ethanol plants. It isn't a really bad thing that the tools for building the old klunky cumbersome outdated American nuclear plants are not there anymore. Those kinds of grand monumental projects didnt seem to help us much. Let's get back to engineering and science and develop practical nuclear plants, and lets do it sensibly without hysteria, posturing, or excessive regulation for a change.
"Amazing what a committment to energy indepence can achieve; if France can do it, why can't the US?"
I agree. I often wondered why environmentalists, in general, are opposed to expanded nuclear power. Of all our choices for energy generation, nuclear seems like the best combination between clean, cheap, and safe, and is capable of meeting our energy needs now, unlike some of the other newer "green" energy technologies.
Spent fuel disposal remains an issue, of course, but it is a more serious problem than the dire warnings we've been hearing about climate change?
there was this movie, IP, I think Jane Fonda was in it...
The French have got a lot of well-deserved criticism for their self-centered arrogance, their sissiness, their utterly impoverished morality, and their cruelty. If you have visited the Hanoi Hilton or seen "Papillon" the depravity of mankind as exemplified by the French at their worst is clear. For all their faults, the French have been resilient and survived Julius Caesar, Marx, Hitler and even Sartre, none of whom ruined them or displaced them from Gaul. The French have produced excellent scientists, engineers, and mathematicians, and they participated significantly in the foundation of the USA.
And they were certainly wise enough not to get involved in this Iraq debacle. We could learn something.
Environmentalists such as myself are opposed to nuclear power for a few reasons. Spent fuel disposal is more than just an "issue", it's a grave concern and I'm surp. The spent fuel doesn't bio-degrade, so once it's spent, it's gonna be around for a *long* time. Eventually we will run out of places to store the waste, and then what? Those who have little concern for this show how they're willing to sell the future to pay the power bill of today, and I just can't get behind that.
The logistics of transporting the waste are a huge risk. You'd think the right-wing fearmongers would be adamantly against nuclear power for this reason. All it takes is one transportation "incident" and you now have unusable land for the unforseeable future. If I was a terrorist, that's where I'd hit a country. Towers can be rebuilt, finiancial infrastructure de-centralized, but dump a trainload of nuclear waste across a large populated area or across the farmland...that leaves a "wound" that doesn't go away anytime soon.
It may be safer than it was 30 years ago, but you can't guarantee 100% safety. I do know that no power plant is 100% safe, of course, but when a coal plant goes up, it just isn't as messy. The risk of failure may be small, but when the consequence is so large, it's just not worth it.
-----
At some point we have to trust the government. - redstatewannabe on 2008-06-12 at 1:14pm
"And they were certainly wise enough not to get involved in this Iraq debacle. We could learn something."
Every thread doesn't need to be about Iraq.
Please stay on topic.
Thanks.
Just pointing out that although there are things we dont like about France and the French, they aren't exactly stupid. Not every post that mentions Iraq is about Iraq.
*
It looks like that in the 70's someone caved in, under pressure (not from the environmentalists), on the nuclear issue and was killed with so much regulatory kindness so that no further thought was placed on it.
If the spent fuel is really so dangerous, it means that the spent fuel has a lot of untapped potential in it awaiting development of appropriate technology.
Absolute safety is, fortunately, absolutely unattainable, since it is absolutely undesirable.
There are many democrats in congress already that pay lip service to Nuclear Power but always with the caveat that they must find a way to properly find a way to dispose of the Fuel. Environmentalists are a big part of the base of the Democratic Party they will never find anything clean about energy production, which will crush our economy as the rest of the world find more efficient ways to improve their economies.The democrats have a strangle hold on our energy policy including discussing wanting to take over refineries. http://www.foxnews.com/urgent_queue/index.html#a54ef44,2008-06-18
Eventually we will run out of places to store the waste, and then what?
what is the size of the waste produced by a nuke plant in 1 year? are we talking a 55 gallon drum per day, per month, per year?
I don't see why it's obstructionist to want to know what is going to be done with the waste. Remind me to never plan a party in a forest preserve with you :P
I think solar is obviously the end-all energy source, but I am open to nuclear. I do find it amusing that the group who has ignored my calls for education, health care, and legal reformed based on successful foreign models suddenly want to look aboard on this issue because it aligns with their agenda.
But hey, it's still a start to acknowledge that other societies exist at all...
Spent fuel disposal is more than just an "issue", it's a grave concern and I'm surp. The spent fuel doesn't bio-degrade, so once it's spent, it's gonna be around for a *long* time. Eventually we will run out of places to store the waste, and then what? Those who have little concern for this show how they're willing to sell the future to pay the power bill of today, and I just can't get behind that.
Or, like I said, the technology could improve. Fuel reprocessing will become more economical. Breeder reactors will become more economical.
What's your solution to the energy problem?
It's probably not a fair comparison, but Hanford (who's job it was to produce plutonium during the Cold War, not power) currently contains 53 million gallons of high-level radioactive waste. Enough has leaked to contaminate the groundwater 200 feet underground. The contaminated groundwater is expected to reach the Columbia River sometime in the next 12 to 50 years.
The average life span of the nine reactors there was 22 years. That's an average of 13 55-gallon drums a day per reactor. From what I've been told of Hanford (take that as you will), there is enough radioactive decay going on in some of the tanks the waste is nearly boiling.
That's from technology from the 1940s through the 1960s. I assume things have improved dramatically since then.
Through some digging on the internets, I was able to find some info for RSW and Narc. I obtained the info from the World Nuclear Association, which seems to me to be an industry group representing groups involved in nuclear power generation. That caveat stated, I found their site to be very helpful and detailed; here's their section on French nuclear power (and here's a write up of a PBS Frontline article on nuclear power in France). To RSW and Narc's question, the best I could find is this:
I did some quick and dirty calculations, and found that all the listed nuclear power plants in France generate roughly 6496m3 per year of low- and intermediate-level waste, and 464m3 of used fuel (meaning, high-level waste) per year. Given that some of the low and intermidate level waste can be "cleaned up" and stored in locations not approximating an underground stone vault; and given that some of the high level waste can be reprocessed, the figures I gave above are an ok approximation of how much waste would need to be containted under a "we're not going to do any recycling" mentality (which no one is adovacting...).
Narc, to your assumption that "[technology] have improved dramatically since then": from what I was able to find, modern, up-to-date nuclear plants are markedly less polluting, through their life-cycle, than older plants.
(If anyone actually cares, i'll save my rough calculations for someone else to peruse, if so inclined)
HG