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First US Nuclear Power Plant License since Early '90s

poweRob said:
Suffer through that article looking for the study. One would think that a headline boasting about what a study said, might have that study right up front... But it didn't. Then when I finally found the link, it was a broken link.

Nevertheless, claiming to be the safest electricity source is flat out bunk. I didn't read anything in that article about all the windmills, solar farms, geothermal plants or hydro stations killing people.
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Here's a Ted talk for you.

https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_shellenberger_how_fear_of_nuclear_power_is_hurting_the_environment
 
Winchester said:
This one is hard to top.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam

171,000 deaths and 11 million displaced

Edit and oh, I hope the World Health Organization, CDC and National Academy of Science study is good enough.

Why the Safest Form of Power Is Also the Most Feared -- The Motley Fool
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Well I guess it stands to reason about a damn bursting. Still not a fan of something that produces waist that humans won't be able to be around for the rest of the time humanity exists.
 
Gimmesometruth said:
Uh-huh...and I imagine you have no prob with the spent fuel being deposited in yer front yard either.
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Dump it into the Ocean. Preferably a subduction trench. If you have to put it in the mountains behind my house I also don't care.
 
WillyPete said:
What is the UCS/Media_Truth solution to provide abundant and safe grid power?
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First of all, nothing happens overnight. Coal will be around for a long time. Natural gas will be around for a long time. Renewables are making a larger contribution, in the last few years. Pumped water storage, combined with hydroelectric power, is very future-promising, in that it eliminates the sporadic nature of renewables (sun not shining, wind not blowing). From an Engineering standpoint, we could be much more creative in our pursuit of safe grid power.

Keep in mind, that someday, the only power available will be renewable power. Fossil fuels will be spent, as will Uranium.
 
Media_Truth said:
What "numbers" are you wanting? Half-lives of some of the isotopes mentioned are over 100,000 years. I agree with your risk factors mentioned above, but we aren't imposing those on future generations. All this for our 50-year time slice of human history?
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Well, since you mention it, how would you discount the utility of say the third generation after our time? What factor i.e. rate would you want to use?
 
Winchester said:
How about we keep developing new generation of plants that can keep recycling the "waste" and continue to produce electricity from it?
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Recycling and reprocessing of nuclear wastes is a popular argument put forth by countries that generate a large percentage of their power from nuclear (France, Great Britain, Japan, etc.). It is mainly used to recover some more plutonium and uranium, which can then be reintroduced to the reactor, as fuel. However, the net result is more tonnage of radioactive waste than the original amount, by a factor of 20 or more.

Nuclear Reprocessing: Dangerous, Dirty, and Expensive | Union of Concerned Scientists
 
Chernobyl is occupied despite the lies of eternal radiation. More nukes-less liberals
 
Phys251 said:
We'd be much better off researching and building energy storage, LFTRs, and renewables than we would uranium power plants. Still, uranium power is less bad than coal, which is pretty much the bottom of the barrel.
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Nuclear uranium reactors however are the existing technology that is ready to go today.

we need more of them. and they are environmentally the least impactful and most cost effective form of electricity generation. wind produces almost no power, solar is not a commercially viable form, we have obviously the emissions from coal and oil fired plants, and even Hydropower, which delivers emissions free electricty here in the Pacific Northwest is ecologically impactful to river ecosystems. perhaps the most important river on the west coast is the Columbia which is dammed in 52 locations, however building ten commercial reactors up here would allow us to remove some of those dams and restore the fish habitats.

the point is, the lowest impact form of power is nuclear, and the utility providers like TVA cannot be expected to bear the brunt of researching theoretical technology while their ratepayers need power, you use what you have, and in doing so we can deliver power at the lowest possible impact already.
 
Gimmesometruth said:
That is the bottom line. Thanks for removing yerself from the conversation.
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I've actually contributed to efforts to have new waste facilities opened and can proudly say we were successful. So, sort of the opposite of being removed from the conversation. Under Trump we're hopefully this will accelerate with the use of FERC style federal eminent domain powers.
 
Sherman123 said:
Dump it into the Ocean. Preferably a subduction trench. If you have to put it in the mountains behind my house I also don't care.
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It may already be close by your house. Currently, high level waste is stored at the sites of nuclear power plants. One thing I like about Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) is that they are very matter-of-fact. They acknowledge that the waste is here to stay, and should be stored in the safest manner. They do not advocate the current methods of storing this waste in over 200 locations in the US, mostly in high-population areas. They advocate deep underground storage in dry, stable repositories. They were actually in-line with the Bush Administration's thinking when they chose Yucca Mountain in Nevada as a study site. They dug the tunnels, but then they discovered that water had entered the area. The way they knew that was somewhat of an ironic surprise. They found a man-made radioactive isotope deep in the tunnel. It was from the atomic bomb tests of the 1940s, and had probably made it's way underground during a heavy rain.
 
joG said:
Well, since you mention it, how would you discount the utility of say the third generation after our time? What factor i.e. rate would you want to use?
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I don't understand the question???
 
Sherman123 said:
I've actually contributed to efforts to have new waste facilities opened and can proudly say we were successful. So, sort of the opposite of being removed from the conversation. Under Trump we're hopefully this will accelerate with the use of FERC style federal eminent domain powers.
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I'm not the one making these multiple personality-like comments of "I don't care/I do care" about where the waste goes...you are. With this sort of inconsistent statements being blurted out, I don't believe a damn thing you say.
 
rhinefire said:
Chernobyl is occupied despite the lies of eternal radiation. More nukes-less liberals
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There is much that is unknown about the effects of radiation, especially low level radiation. High level radiation causes one to burn up from the inside out, similar to a microwave. It's effects are well-documented. Low level radiation has definite links to leukemia and thyroid cancer.

Keep in mind that radioactive particles can be ingested or inhaled. According to a friend of mine who is retired from Los Alamos - "If you're lucky, it will pass right through you".
 
Media_Truth said:
There is much that is unknown about the effects of radiation, especially low level radiation. High level radiation causes one to burn up from the inside out, similar to a microwave. It's effects are well-documented. Low level radiation has definite links to leukemia and thyroid cancer.

Keep in mind that radioactive particles can be ingested or inhaled. According to a friend of mine who is retired from Los Alamos - "If you're lucky, it will pass right through you".
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Lol ! Uhm NO. Radiation sickness is not in anyway comparable to being " microwaved."

Ionizing radiation causes cellular degradation or damage to DNA and other cellular molecules.

This damage affects a cells abillility to divide and reproduces which in turn causes the symptoms associate with radiation exposure. Your'e not being cooked from the inside, your being disasembled on a cellular scale.

Microwaves cause food molecules to vibrate and thus heat up.
 
Media_Truth said:
Radionuclides associated with the fission process. None of these occur naturally on earth, without nuclear fission:

technetium-99, carbon-14, iodine-129, tritium, cesium-137, strontium-90, nickel-59,
plutonium-241, nickel-63, niobium-94, cobalt-60, curium-242, americium-241,
uranium-238, and neptunium-237.

All are dangerous, and can even be lethal, both in large and small doses. Long-term containment cannot be guaranteed. Proliferation of nuclear wastes is a bad idea, unless you hate your children, grandchildren, great grand-children, great-great...
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u238 is the isotope of Uranium that occurs most in nature....that is one error, might be some more in your list.
 
Fenton said:
Lol ! Uhm NO. Radiation sickness is not in anyway comparable to being " microwaved."

Ionizing radiation causes cellular degradation or damage to DNA and other cellular molecules.

This damage affects a cells abillility to divide and reproduces which in turn causes the symptoms associate with radiation exposure. Your'e not being cooked from the inside, your being disasembled on a cellular scale.

Microwaves cause food molecules to vibrate and thus heat up.
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I believe it depends on the levels of exposure. During a Los Alamos accident, Cecil Kelly, a high-dose exposure victim, talked about "Burning Up". Tests showed his bone marrow was destroyed, and he died after 35 hours. I am currently reading the Pulitzer Prize winning "Voices from Chernobyl", and they talk about "pieces of the lung and liver coming out of a victims mouth". I don't doubt your "DNA damage" statement either though, as I have heard this also. I think the bone marrow destruction is related to DNA damage.
 
UtahBill said:
u238 is the isotope of Uranium that occurs most in nature....that is one error, might be some more in your list.
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Yes, thanks Bill. The list comes from a document from the Idaho National Energy Laboratories to the US Department of Energy, entitled "Selected Radionuclides Important to Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management". Very astute of you to catch this. I checked the reference to u238 in the document, and indeed, it does say that some is produced during the fission process, but that it is also naturally occurring. This element is a science in-and-of itself. It's an Alpha-Ray emitter, which means it cannot penetrate skin. However, evidently plants uptake it relatively easily, and if ingested, can cause problems with accumulation in bone cells. As such, the waste, at high "unnatural" levels, must be managed. The same document mentions that the US has 3 storage facilities where this waste is managed.
 
EMNofSeattle said:
Nuclear uranium reactors however are the existing technology that is ready to go today.

we need more of them. and they are environmentally the least impactful and most cost effective form of electricity generation. wind produces almost no power, solar is not a commercially viable form, we have obviously the emissions from coal and oil fired plants, and even Hydropower, which delivers emissions free electricty here in the Pacific Northwest is ecologically impactful to river ecosystems. perhaps the most important river on the west coast is the Columbia which is dammed in 52 locations, however building ten commercial reactors up here would allow us to remove some of those dams and restore the fish habitats.

the point is, the lowest impact form of power is nuclear, and the utility providers like TVA cannot be expected to bear the brunt of researching theoretical technology while their ratepayers need power, you use what you have, and in doing so we can deliver power at the lowest possible impact already.
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1. Nuclear is not the sole power-producing technology that is "ready to go today."
2. Your comments about wind and solar are factually inaccurate. But you are correct about coal, oil, and hydro.
3. Here in Georgia, we taxpayers are going to bear the brunt of the serious cost overruns for the expansion at Plant Vogtle. It is the first nuclear power expansion commenced in the US since Three Mile Island.
4. That's why we need more funding for electrical engineering research, and other forms of research, at public universities. Unless of course we want China and eventually India to pass us up here.
 
cpwill said:
Excellent news. Let's hope we can get more of those up and running.

Considering that it means reduced carbon emissions, you'd think the Left would be all about it.

Sent from my XT1526 using Tapatalk
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1. Nuclear power is a pretty reliable for baseload power but not so much for peak load. Gas-fired plants tend to be better at that.
2. It's been pretty safe since Three-Mile Island, but, it only takes one exception one time to break that rule.
3. As several have mentioned, the waste product.
 
cpwill said:
Excellent news. Let's hope we can get more of those up and running.

Considering that it means reduced carbon emissions, you'd think the Left would be all about it.

Sent from my XT1526 using Tapatalk
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Perhaps the Left isn't quite so easily influenced as the Right.
 
Over 200 nuclear power plants in the US.

US_nuclear_power_plants.jpg
 
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