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Obama Said to Seek $54 Billion in Nuclear-Power Loans

EnigmaO01 said:
So we're going to use another depletable energy source that we mostly import, but this time the by product is extremely toxic? Great. :roll:
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Uhh the by-product of OIL is extremely toxic for our air. The by-product of nuclear reactions are harmless as long as they are stored properly...which is more than you can say for oil.

EnigmaO01 said:
Mining for uranium is quite pretty too btw considering it's very volume intensive.

Did anyone know the U.S. imports 92 percent of our uranium? Kind of reminds me of oil.
:doh

one of the biggest misconceptions about nuclear power at the moment is this: It will end our energy dependence foreigners. The truth is it will not. That's the dirty little secret most people don't know about nuclear power in the United States these days.

Trends I'm Watching: U.S. Imports 92% of Uranium for Nuclear Power
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We import most of our uranium, but it takes relatively little uranium to power a nuclear plant. The biggest expense of a nuclear power plant is just building it, not the cost of uranium.

If we switched from oil to nuclear power, we would spend a lot less money importing uranium than we spend importing oil.
 
Kandahar said:
Uhh the by-product of OIL is extremely toxic for our air. The by-product of nuclear reactions are harmless as long as they are stored properly...which is more than you can say for oil.
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That's a terrible argument. You can't store anything on this earth safely at 100 percent certainty no matter where you store it. Oil is biodegradable in a lot shorter time than nuclear waste. I'd rather take my chances with oil over something that has a half life of thousands of years.

Kandahar said:
We import most of our uranium, but it takes relatively little uranium to power a nuclear plant. The biggest expense of a nuclear power plant is just building it, not the cost of uranium.
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What happens if world events cut off that supply? Aren't we back to square one?

Kandahar said:
If we switched from oil to nuclear power, we would spend a lot less money importing uranium than we spend importing oil.
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So you honestly don't think the price will go up with demand? :rofl
 
EnigmaO01 said:
That's a terrible argument. You can't store anything on this earth safely at 100 percent certainty no matter where you store it. Oil is biodegradable in a lot shorter time than nuclear waste. I'd rather take my chances with oil over something that has a half life of thousands of years.
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What's wrong with nuclear waste?

It's small, easy to find, valuable, and when we really want to get rid of it, there'll always be Mecca.


EnigmaO01 said:
What happens if world events cut off that supply? Aren't we back to square one?
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Nah. Use the nuclear reactors to breed u238 into Pu239, and use that to fuel both nuclear weapons and power reactors. Certainly the only reason the US imports uranium is the desire to leave the dirty processing to some other place, we have in-ground reserves of the stuff.
 
EnigmaO01 said:
That's a terrible argument. You can't store anything on this earth safely at 100 percent certainty no matter where you store it.
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Why must it be 100% certainty in order for it to be safer than oil?

EnigmaO01 said:
Oil is biodegradable in a lot shorter time than nuclear waste. I'd rather take my chances with oil over something that has a half life of thousands of years.
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Take your chances? Oil kills thousands of people every year. Nuclear power kills almost none. Even the worst nuclear disaster in history, Chernobyl, killed at most 4,000 people by most estimates...and systems have improved a lot since then.

EnigmaO01 said:
What happens if world events cut off that supply? Aren't we back to square one?
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The same could be said of oil. And it's a lot easier to just get the nuclear fuel up front.

EnigmaO01 said:
So you honestly don't think the price will go up with demand?
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Sure, but nowhere near enough that we'd have to shell out as much money on uranium as we spend on oil.
 
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hazlnut said:
Google LENR -- low energy nuclear reaction.

There was a story on 60 minutes a while back.
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Hmmm....google Rankine Cycle and "Carnot Efficiency", contemplate the laws of thermodynamics, and start thinking about how BIG and inefficient any "low energy" nuclear reaction is going to be.

Is there some reason we should abandon a proven and clean technology, nuclear fission, for some pie-in-the-sky laboratory experiment that has yet to power Christmas tree light bulb?
 
Kandahar said:
Carbon dioxide is not the only byproduct. Breathe from the exhaust pipe of your car sometime. ;)
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Oh, you mean the products of inefficient burning of hydrocarbons is temporarily and slightly toxic, harmful when taken in high quantities, but not actually harmful to the overall life of the planet it.

I thought maybe you meant there was something harmful about burning gasoline.

Glad to see you didn't mean that.

What did you mean?
 
Scarecrow Akhbar said:
Oh, you mean the products of inefficient burning of hydrocarbons is temporarily and slightly toxic, harmful when taken in high quantities, but not actually harmful to the overall life of the planet it.

I thought maybe you meant there was something harmful about burning gasoline.

Glad to see you didn't mean that.

What did you mean?
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I meant what I said: It's extremely toxic for our air. Go live in Shanghai for a while, then live in Vermont for a while. See if you notice the difference in air quality.
 
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Kandahar said:
I meant what I said: It's extremely toxic for our air. Go live in Dalian for a while, then live in Vermont for a while. See if you notice the difference in air quality.
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.....you don't even have to do that. Just go back as far as 2008 Beijing olympics. They had to basically ban cars from running on the roads so that the smog would not bother the athletes.
 
Kandahar said:
I meant what I said: It's extremely toxic for our air. Go live in Shanghai for a while, then live in Vermont for a while. See if you notice the difference in air quality.
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I don't speak Chinese.

Is Shanghai the whole planet, or just another socialist wonderhole?
 
Scarecrow Akhbar said:
I don't speak Chinese.

Is Shanghai the whole planet, or just another socialist wonderhole?
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:roll:
Pick any oil-reliant city; you'll largely find the same thing. Are you seriously disputing that oil causes air pollution? Really?

Perhaps instead of changing the subject to socialism every time you're losing an argument, you should either A) stay on the subject, or B) stop nitpicking at statements just to troll and then running away.
 
Scarecrow Akhbar said:
What's wrong with nuclear waste?

It's small, easy to find, valuable, and when we really want to get rid of it, there'll always be Mecca.
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When you want to discuss this seriously I'll be waiting...



Scarecrow Akhbar said:
Nah. Use the nuclear reactors to breed u238 into Pu239, and use that to fuel both nuclear weapons and power reactors. Certainly the only reason the US imports uranium is the desire to leave the dirty processing to some other place, we have in-ground reserves of the stuff.
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And please do you homework before making ignorant statements like the above.
 
Kandahar said:
Why must it be 100% certainty in order for it to be safer than oil?
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You're kidding right? :shock:


Kandahar said:
Take your chances? Oil kills thousands of people every year. Nuclear power kills almost none. Even the worst nuclear disaster in history, Chernobyl, killed at most 4,000 people by most estimates...and systems have improved a lot since then.
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Oil kills thousands of people every year? Care to site some examples? And btw the death toll is only a small part of the price paid at Chernobyl although I consider 4000 not something to write off as inconsequential. I don't consider the resettlement of 330,000 people and 600,000 severely exposed people not a big deal either. And don't forget the exclusion zone which I believe exists to this day.



Kandahar said:
The same could be said of oil. And it's a lot easier to just get the nuclear fuel up front.
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The same cannot be said of oil. Don't be absurd. But I'm not proposing oil is are best choice in the long run. I would rather see wind and solar pushed more.


Kandahar said:
Sure, but nowhere near enough that we'd have to shell out as much money on uranium as we spend on oil.
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You don't know much about how the market and speculation effects the price of a commodity do you? You forget oil was really cheap once too.
 
EnigmaO01 said:
You're kidding right? :shock:
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Umm no. Just because something isn't 100% certain doesn't mean it is completely worthless. 99.9% certainty is acceptable.

EnigmaO01 said:
Oil kills thousands of people every year? Care to site some examples?
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Sure. You have the direct deaths from oil fires, oil spills, oil rig accidents, and refinery explosions. Then you have the indirect deaths from air pollution and wars caused or funded by oil.

EnigmaO01 said:
And btw the death toll is only a small part of the price paid at Chernobyl although I consider 4000 not something to write off as inconsequential. I don't consider the resettlement of 330,000 people and 600,000 severely exposed people not a big deal either. And don't forget the exclusion zone which I believe exists to this day.
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And those things are not to be ignored, but it was a single accident in a relatively backward facility in a relatively backward country. In the United States in 2010 (or even more likely in 2020, when these things could actually go online) this is a much smaller risk.

The biggest accident in THIS country was Three Mile Island...in which there were no direct fatalities, and according to most estimates fewer than 5 indirect fatalities from radiation.

EnigmaO01 said:
same cannot be said of oil. Don't be absurd.
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Huh? Why could "world events" cut off our uranium supply but not our oil supply? It's much easier to stockpile several years' worth of uranium than several years' worth of oil.

EnigmaO01 said:
But I'm not proposing oil is are best choice in the long run. I would rather see wind and solar pushed more.
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There's no reason we can't have nuclear power AND wind power AND solar power.

EnigmaO01 said:
You don't know much about how the market and speculation effects the price of a commodity do you? You forget oil was really cheap once too.
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Irrelevant to the fact that the amount of uranium we would need is tiny compared to the amount of oil we need. There is simply no feasible way that the price would skyrocket to the point where we were paying as much to import uranium as we currently pay to import oil.
 
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Crunch said:
I hear there is a hell of a world market for that element. :mrgreen:

The US Navy has been operating nuclear reactors safely for 50 years. lots of them. The only real draw back is the waste, and you hit it right on the head.... old salt mines. They are geologically inactive for million year time periods, the perfect place to put the stuff.

Didn't we start a facility like that at Yucca Mountain?.... and Barry shut it down?



Nuclear Waste: Yucca Mountain’s Scrapped, So What Now? - Environmental Capital - WSJ

Yup, he sure did.
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You blame Obama for shutting down a facility that was never open?
 
hazlnut said:
It's the dawn of a new era of bipartisan -- Americans working together to make things better in America.

Green cars aren't that bad, Rev. Save money on gas, spend it on your kids.
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The cars cost so much that there is no overall savings, so you won't be saving money to spend on your kids...
 
Kandahar said:
Uhh the by-product of OIL is extremely toxic for our air. The by-product of nuclear reactions are harmless as long as they are stored properly...which is more than you can say for oil.



We import most of our uranium, but it takes relatively little uranium to power a nuclear plant. The biggest expense of a nuclear power plant is just building it, not the cost of uranium.

If we switched from oil to nuclear power, we would spend a lot less money importing uranium than we spend importing oil.
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Primary use for oil is to fuel cars and trucks, not to make electricity. Less than 3% of electricity is produced by burning oil, and that is an old number. The percentage keeps going down.
Nuclear is a replacement for coal, not oil.
Electricity is no replacement for oil, not until we put about a hundred million battery powered cars on the road.
 
Reverend_Hellh0und said:
I 100% support this. Good Job Obama
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I do as well, Obama absolutely correct here. If we'd like to copy any Euro policies, I'd like it to be nuclear powered France where 80% of their needs are nuclear supplied.
 
Charles Martel said:
I do as well, Obama absolutely correct here. If we'd like to copy any Euro policies, I'd like it to be nuclear powered France where 80% of their needs are nuclear supplied.
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That's where the leftwing environazis lose me. They love France but won't support nuclear energy like them and the kooky British.
 
UtahBill said:
Primary use for oil is to fuel cars and trucks, not to make electricity. Less than 3% of electricity is produced by burning oil, and that is an old number. The percentage keeps going down.
Nuclear is a replacement for coal, not oil.
Electricity is no replacement for oil, not until we put about a hundred million battery powered cars on the road.
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By the time these new nuclear power plants can go online (or shortly thereafter) we very likely WILL have a hundred million battery-powered cars on the road. The time from conception to the plant actually going online is about 10 years.
 
Kandahar said:
By the time these new nuclear power plants can go online (or shortly thereafter) we very likely WILL have a hundred million battery-powered cars on the road. The time from conception to the plant actually going online is about 10 years.
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then we will be importing a lot of the materials to make the batteries, and creating a new industry to recycle those batteries, and at best you will have a 50 mile range before needing to recharge the batteries.

My guess is, things will get worse before they get better, and the issue will still be oil. AT least Jimmy Carter was smart enough to reduce speed limits back in his day.

I worked as an operator and I&C tech at nuke plants, and I am a true believer in them, as replacement for coal.

Coal's new best use might be to replace oil, if we can figure out a cheap way to convert coal to liquid or gaseous fuel to run our cars.
 
UtahBill said:
then we will be importing a lot of the materials to make the batteries, and creating a new industry to recycle those batteries, and at best you will have a 50 mile range before needing to recharge the batteries.
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The Tesla Roadster, which is already in use across the US, gets 244 miles per charge. Its next generation car, the Model S, will cost half as much and get 300 miles per charge once it makes its way into the market place in approx 2 years.
 
RightinNYC said:
The Tesla Roadster, which is already in use across the US, gets 244 miles per charge. Its next generation car, the Model S, will cost half as much and get 300 miles per charge once it makes its way into the market place in approx 2 years.
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Will not work for a work truck or a big truck.
 
ptif219 said:
Will not work for a work truck or a big truck.
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Why not? There are already electric buses out there, so why couldn't we develop a truck?

Actually, it looks like [ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_electric_bus[/ame] some places already have:

The Port of Los Angeles and South Coast Air Quality Management District have demonstrated a short-range heavy-duty all electric truck capable of hauling a fully loaded 40-foot (12 m) cargo container. The current design is capable of pulling a 60,000 lb (27 t) cargo container at speeds up to 40 mph (64 km/h) and has a range of between 30 and 60 miles (48 and 97 km).
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That sounds more substantial than your average truck user's needs.

The fact that it doesn't yet work perfectly for one thing doesn't mean it's useless for all things. I'd guess that at minimum, 60% of the vehicles in this country could already be replaced with electric vehicles without requiring a significant change in day to day activity. As the technology gets better over time and they continue to expand the range, there's no reason why it couldn't replace combustion in nearly all vehicles.
 
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