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Would You Tolerate Nuclear Power For Energy Independence?

Are You Interested In More Nuclear Power?

  • Total voters
    101
Pinkie said:
O, *duh*. Of course.

Still, if you want off the grid, there are technologies around that might could get you there -- one thing we all need is the right to sell excess power to the electric company, so none of needs a huge battery to store it. Parts of California have this -- maybe the whole state.
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Actually you want the batteries they do two things for you A) they store power and allow you to still have and generate power when the grid is down. Grid only systems go down when the grid goes down. B) The batteries act as a accumulater/buffer/dampener for your personal power grid. This helps in making your equipment IE inverters, chargers ect. last MUCH longer. Solar panels and windmills are just part of the actual process of generating electricity.
 
Quag said:
Not really in disagreement with you except I still think nuclear has a place in providing power. I do not expect it to take over the majority of power production, any more than I expect Solar or Wind to provide a large percentage of the power generation.
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While I do support nuclear, I don't think it should be the "only" solution. A variety of sources makes the entire grid more robust, and resistant to issues that target a particular energy source. While doing some reading I found a passage that discusses how different sources can be mutually supportive. See below:

While the output from a single turbine can vary greatly and rapidly as local wind speeds vary, as more turbines are connected over larger and larger areas the average power output becomes less variable.[80] Studies by Graham Sinden (2009) suggest that, in practice, the variations in thousands of wind turbines, spread out over several different sites and wind regimes, are smoothed. As the distance between sites increases, the correlation between wind speeds measured at those sites, decreases.[81]

The combination of diversifying variable renewables by type and location, forecasting their variation, and integrating them with despatchable renewables, flexible fueled generators, and demand response can create a power system that has the potential to meet our needs reliably. Integrating ever-higher levels of renewables is being successfully demonstrated in the real world:[82]

In 2009, eight American and three European authorities, writing in the leading electrical engineers' professional journal, didn't find "a credible and firm technical limit to the amount of wind energy that can be accommodated by electricity grids". In Fact, not one of more than 200 international studies, nor official studies for the eastern and western U.S. regions, nor the International Energy Agency, has found major costs or technical barriers to reliably integrating up to 30% variable renewable supplies into the grid, and in some studies much more. – Reinventing Fire[82]

Solar power tends to be complementary to wind.[83][84] On daily to weekly timescales, high pressure areas tend to bring clear skies and low surface winds, whereas low pressure areas tend to be windier and cloudier. On seasonal timescales, solar energy typically peaks in summer, whereas in many areas wind energy is lower in summer and higher in winter.[85] Thus the intermittencies of wind and solar power tend to cancel each other somewhat. In 2007 the Institute for Solar Energy Supply Technology of the University of Kassel pilot-tested a combined power plant linking solar, wind, biogas and hydrostorage to provide load-following power around the clock and throughout the year, entirely from renewable sources.[86]
Wind power - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
Someone commented on dry cask storage for the fuel rods. I couldn't find the post to reply directly. Those casks cost $1 million dollars each. There are approximately one thousand fuel rods stored at each reactor site. One thousand casks at each site solves the problem at a cost of 1000 x 1000000 or One billion dollars each site. Since it is just money and this is a significant health threat, why do the Reactor owners not do this. It is our safety and not theirs. It's just money. Why don't 1,000 dry casks dot the landscapes of all our Nuclear Plants? It's just a billion dollar problem, another cost of doing business and mitigating future contamination. I'm suggesting that profits outweigh safety and that is the problem inherent in our Nuclear Industry. At 104 Nuclear plants the problem is only $104 billion. Does this post create and acknowledge relativity.
 
DaveFagan said:
Someone commented on dry cask storage for the fuel rods. I couldn't find the post to reply directly. Those casks cost $1 million dollars each. There are approximately one thousand fuel rods stored at each reactor site. One thousand casks at each site solves the problem at a cost of 1000 x 1000000 or One billion dollars each site. Since it is just money and this is a significant health threat, why do the Reactor owners not do this. It is our safety and not theirs. It's just money. Why don't 1,000 dry casks dot the landscapes of all our Nuclear Plants? It's just a billion dollar problem, another cost of doing business and mitigating future contamination. I'm suggesting that profits outweigh safety and that is the problem inherent in our Nuclear Industry. At 104 Nuclear plants the problem is only $104 billion. Does this post create and acknowledge relativity.
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I think your estimate is a bit high:

"Robert Alvarez, a former senior official in Bill Clinton's Energy Department, recently made the same argument. Writing in the Huffington Post, Alvarez said that the United States “should promptly take steps to reduce these risks [associated with cooling ponds] by placing all spent nuclear fuel older than five years in dry, hardened storage casks [as] Germany did 25 years ago. It would take about 10 years at a cost between $3.5 and $7 billion. If the cost were transferred to energy consumers, the expenditure would result in a marginal increase of less than 0.4 cents per kilowatt hour for consumers of nuclear-gneerated electricity."
Case for Accelerating Dry Cask Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel - IEEE Spectrum


The Nuclear Waste Policy Act established a user fee to pay 0.1 cent per kilowatt-hour to cover the search for and establishment of a high-level radioactive waste repository, but the law did not allow these funds to be used to enhance the safety of onsite spent fuel storage.

"As of fiscal year 2010, only $7.3 billion had been spent of the $25.4 billion collected through user fees, leaving $18.1 billion unspent. This sum could more than pay for the dry, hardened storage of spent reactor fuel older than five years at all reactors. Safely securing the spent fuel that is currently in crowded pools at reactors should be a public safety priority of the highest degree. The cost of fixing the nation’s nuclear vulnerabilities may be high, but the price of doing too little is far higher."
Issues in Science and Technology, Winter 2012, Improving Spent-Fuel Storage at Nuclear Reactors
 
EagleAye said:
I think your estimate is a bit high:

"Robert Alvarez, a former senior official in Bill Clinton's Energy Department, recently made the same argument. Writing in the Huffington Post, Alvarez said that the United States “should promptly take steps to reduce these risks [associated with cooling ponds] by placing all spent nuclear fuel older than five years in dry, hardened storage casks [as] Germany did 25 years ago. It would take about 10 years at a cost between $3.5 and $7 billion. If the cost were transferred to energy consumers, the expenditure would result in a marginal increase of less than 0.4 cents per kilowatt hour for consumers of nuclear-gneerated electricity."
Case for Accelerating Dry Cask Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel - IEEE Spectrum


The Nuclear Waste Policy Act established a user fee to pay 0.1 cent per kilowatt-hour to cover the search for and establishment of a high-level radioactive waste repository, but the law did not allow these funds to be used to enhance the safety of onsite spent fuel storage.

"As of fiscal year 2010, only $7.3 billion had been spent of the $25.4 billion collected through user fees, leaving $18.1 billion unspent. This sum could more than pay for the dry, hardened storage of spent reactor fuel older than five years at all reactors. Safely securing the spent fuel that is currently in crowded pools at reactors should be a public safety priority of the highest degree. The cost of fixing the nation’s nuclear vulnerabilities may be high, but the price of doing too little is far higher."
Issues in Science and Technology, Winter 2012, Improving Spent-Fuel Storage at Nuclear Reactors
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I don't think my cost estimates are high. I think they are nearly exactly correct. Be that as it may, we agree that this solution is being avoided because of cost to the operators. I think that is unconscionable. Their first obligation in this matter is to Public Safety and they are ignoring that to save a dollar, or as I suspect to wait until bankruptcy and fiest the costs upon the public. This dry cask storage has been an option available to all operators for a long time and has not been implemented because of costs/expense. Doesn't that sufficiently display the mentality of the Corporations ( who can file bankruptcy ) behind the Nuclear plants? Do you think we should trust Big Money? Get real, we're talking about a viable storage method being ignored because of cost. Dollars and cents. Profit. Capitalism. This by entities that do not live and breathe, but have powers in excess of those that live and breathe. That'd be you and me and Grandma.
 
Energy independence is a myth. It simply doesn't happen. Unless you want an autarkic economy like DPRK, the US exists in a world market, and that includes the market for energy. Being a net importer of crude is a very lucrative business for the United States, and anyone that argues in support of "energy independence" is arguing against this.
 
samsmart said:
i'm fine with it only as long as it's run by a government agency rather than by a private sector business.
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hahahahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahahaha
 
DaveFagan said:
I don't think my cost estimates are high. I think they are nearly exactly correct. Be that as it may, we agree that this solution is being avoided because of cost to the operators. I think that is unconscionable. Their first obligation in this matter is to Public Safety and they are ignoring that to save a dollar, or as I suspect to wait until bankruptcy and fiest the costs upon the public. This dry cask storage has been an option available to all operators for a long time and has not been implemented because of costs/expense. Doesn't that sufficiently display the mentality of the Corporations ( who can file bankruptcy ) behind the Nuclear plants? Do you think we should trust Big Money? Get real, we're talking about a viable storage method being ignored because of cost. Dollars and cents. Profit. Capitalism. This by entities that do not live and breathe, but have powers in excess of those that live and breathe. That'd be you and me and Grandma.
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Well, I would oppose big government, and that means the government needs to keep it's sticky fingers out of private business as much as possible. On the other hand, public safety is one of the primary mandates of government. So if Big Money has been skimping on public safety, the government does need to step in and twist their arm, so to speak. And no, I don't trust Big Money and I don't trust Big Government either. But the fact is that Big Things will never get done without entities Big Enough to achieve them. Installing a power plant of any kind is a Big Thing that requires the clout of one or more Big Entities. This is done for the general good of populace and if handled properly it works rather well. It is the responsibility of the general populace which supply the members of Big Money to monitor the activities of Big Money and if it steps out of line, the populace must overwhelm it in the manner of army ants attacking scorpions until Big Money capitulates and does what is right. Make sense?
 
Khayembii Communique said:
Energy independence is a myth. It simply doesn't happen. Unless you want an autarkic economy like DPRK, the US exists in a world market, and that includes the market for energy. Being a net importer of crude is a very lucrative business for the United States, and anyone that argues in support of "energy independence" is arguing against this.
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Importing means you are spending money on someone else's product, not making money from our own product. I don't see how "importing" is a lucrative business for the US as a whole. Perhaps it is for a tiny group of individuals, but not generally for the American worker.
 
EagleAye said:
Importing means you are spending money on someone else's product, not making money from our own product. I don't see how "importing" is a lucrative business for the US as a whole. Perhaps it is for a tiny group of individuals, but not generally for the American worker.
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Crude is imported and then refined. It is sold domestically and internationally at a lucrative profit. This is how the global economy operates. The US has a refinery capacity of 20% of global consumption.
 
Khayembii Communique said:
Crude is imported and then refined. It is sold domestically and internationally at a lucrative profit. This is how the global economy operates. The US has a refinery capacity of 20% of global consumption.
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Yes, that's a good point. Oil barons make a lot of money on that, yet the average American still pays high prices for gas. Rich oil barons does not make for energy independence for the US as a whole. We still require a great deal of foreign oil priced by an international market (as opposed to a domestic market) that Americans must still pay high prices for. I'm happy for the rich oil barons, but I would like for the rest of of us to be happy too. Make sense?
 
EagleAye said:
Yes, that's a good point. Oil barons make a lot of money on that, yet the average American still pays high prices for gas. Rich oil barons does not make for energy independence for the US as a whole. We still require a great deal of foreign oil priced by an international market (as opposed to a domestic market) that Americans must still pay high prices for. I'm happy for the rich oil barons, but I would like for the rest of of us to be happy too. Make sense?
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International market prices are not "opposed to a domestic market". Market prices are market prices. The price you pay at the pump is the market price plus the gas tax minus subsidies.
 
Khayembii Communique said:
International market prices are not "opposed to a domestic market". Market prices are market prices. The price you pay at the pump is the market price plus the gas tax minus subsidies.
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Right. If Ahmabeenajerk in Iran decides to sink of few oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, obviously the price of oil would skyrocket, and thereby so would the price of gas. And this cost increase would occur even if I drilled the oil domestically in Odessa Texas, right? Because all oil is traded on the international market. But, if I had an electric vehicle and I relied upon electricity generated solely in the US, my electrical prices would not be defined by OPEC which includes nations hostile to the US, right? And if Iran blocked the Straight of Hormuz for even a couple days (before the US obliterates Iran's entire military) my electricity prices would not change, would they? And that's because my electricity prices are defined by what happens in the US, not in some god-forsaken dust bowl ruled over by a megalomaniac, right? That's the advantage of "energy independence."
 
EagleAye said:
Right. If Ahmabeenajerk in Iran decides to sink of few oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, obviously the price of oil would skyrocket, and thereby so would the price of gas. And this cost increase would occur even if I drilled the oil domestically in Odessa Texas, right? Because all oil is traded on the international market. But, if I had an electric vehicle and I relied upon electricity generated solely in the US, my electrical prices would not be defined by OPEC which includes nations hostile to the US, right? And if Iran blocked the Straight of Hormuz for even a couple days (before the US obliterates Iran's entire military) my electricity prices would not change, would they? And that's because my electricity prices are defined by what happens in the US, not in some god-forsaken dust bowl ruled over by a megalomaniac, right? That's the advantage of "energy independence."
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Several things. Oil is traded on International markets. Iraq was independent. Sold to anybody and sold oil in Euros. An influential group (gov'ts want wars, not people, Eisenhower) initiates a war against this rogue oil owner. War over, nobody steals the oil but it is now in the Centralized Distribution Network and those players will now make perhaps $.05 per gallon on the oil coming from Iraq in perpetuity. That Centralized Distribution Network is exactly like the Electricity grid that is Centralized Distribution Network. Ergo, if you can plug a new energy source into your distribution network (think grid) you can realize a small profit on each kilowatt that moves through that grid. Now you know what makes Nukes desirable. It is the continuous flow of kilowatts/money into an existing monopolistic distribution network. The Network collects taxes on each kilowatt and pays its' partners known as governments. Genuine renewable energy does not produce into this network or pay taxes to gov'ts, so it is fighting an uphill battle to get gov'ts to sponsor genuine renewable energy programs. The gov'ts love to sponsor projects that plug in to the existing monopolistic distribution network like nuclear power plants, huge wind generators and acres and acres of solar arrays because they return tax monies to these entities. I am attaching a link as relates to current Nuclear Power shenanighans by the regulators. The regulators are supposed to be working for Public Safety.

Whistleblower: Nuclear Disaster in America Is More Likely Than the Public Is Aware of | Alternet

"The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has known at least since 1996 that flooding danger from upstream dam failure was a more serious threat than the agency would publicly admit. The NRC failed from 1996 until 2011 to assess the threat even internally. In July 2011, the NRC staff completed a report finding “that external flooding due to upstream dam failure poses a larger than expected risk to plants and public safety ” [emphasis added] but the NRC did not make the 41-page report public. "
 
Khayembii Communique said:
International market prices are not "opposed to a domestic market". Market prices are market prices. The price you pay at the pump is the market price plus the gas tax minus subsidies.
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And even that only exist because we refuse and the government has blocked the adoption of technologies that exist today, that would almost totally eliminate, if not actually eliminate the need for Crude Oil.
 
DaveFagan said:
Several things. Oil is traded on International markets. Iraq was independent. Sold to anybody and sold oil in Euros. An influential group (gov'ts want wars, not people, Eisenhower) initiates a war against this rogue oil owner. War over, nobody steals the oil but it is now in the Centralized Distribution Network and those players will now make perhaps $.05 per gallon on the oil coming from Iraq in perpetuity. That Centralized Distribution Network is exactly like the Electricity grid that is Centralized Distribution Network. Ergo, if you can plug a new energy source into your distribution network (think grid) you can realize a small profit on each kilowatt that moves through that grid. Now you know what makes Nukes desirable. It is the continuous flow of kilowatts/money into an existing monopolistic distribution network. The Network collects taxes on each kilowatt and pays its' partners known as governments. Genuine renewable energy does not produce into this network or pay taxes to gov'ts, so it is fighting an uphill battle to get gov'ts to sponsor genuine renewable energy programs. The gov'ts love to sponsor projects that plug in to the existing monopolistic distribution network like nuclear power plants, huge wind generators and acres and acres of solar arrays because they return tax monies to these entities. I am attaching a link as relates to current Nuclear Power shenanighans by the regulators. The regulators are supposed to be working for Public Safety.

Whistleblower: Nuclear Disaster in America Is More Likely Than the Public Is Aware of | Alternet

"The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has known at least since 1996 that flooding danger from upstream dam failure was a more serious threat than the agency would publicly admit. The NRC failed from 1996 until 2011 to assess the threat even internally. In July 2011, the NRC staff completed a report finding “that external flooding due to upstream dam failure poses a larger than expected risk to plants and public safety ” [emphasis added] but the NRC did not make the 41-page report public. "
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Well, you're going off in a different direction than what I intended. You're discussing the "administration" of energy. For me, I'm just interested in making our energy problems "domestic problems," rather than the constant international conflagrations that we're constantly pulled into. I would be good for people to have their own power generation, like solar panels on every home. I don't see how this could be 100% reliable, but it could at least reduce the needed size of a public grid. If you haven't already, have a look at what's happening in Germany. The "big four" energy companies over there are dragging their feet in adding renewable energy, and the citizens of many districts are rebelling. They insist on 100% renewables and a lot of them are putting up their own power generation. Kind of interesting to read about.
 
DVSentinel said:
And even that only exist because we refuse and the government has blocked the adoption of technologies that exist today, that would almost totally eliminate, if not actually eliminate the need for Crude Oil.
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True, but any talk of "energy independence" in the next 10-20 years necessarily includes oil independence which could not exist and even if it would would be devastating to the US economy.
 
Khayembii Communique said:
True, but any talk of "energy independence" in the next 10-20 years necessarily includes oil independence which could not exist and even if it would would be devastating to the US economy.
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How so? We replace transportation with other forms of transportation. And to do a large part of it, we would have to increase our power grid, which means jobs in that sector. The segment that would lose would be the oil industry. Adding transmission lines needed to run electric rail would also create jobs needed to maintain the system. Creating actual efficient and usable mass transit based upon electric motors would also add jobs.

No, the only segment of our economy that would suffer would be the oil industry, and most, if not all, of that would be replaced with the need for workers to carry out and maintain the new systems.

The sad part is that we could start the transformation today, without any new technology that doesn't exist today. The only real thing that needs changing is government regulation stopping the advancements and a change in public attitude towards some technologies. How fast it happens of course depends on how much investment can be raised to do it.
 
Transitioning from gas-powered cars to electric cars would take decades alone. That doesn't even take into account everywhere else that oil is used. Oil is going to be a significant part of the US and global economy for quite a long time.
 
Khayembii Communique said:
True, but any talk of "energy independence" in the next 10-20 years necessarily includes oil independence which could not exist and even if it would would be devastating to the US economy.
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US energy independence could not exist within 20 years. It would probably require 30 years. That doesn't mean it's an impossibility, just a long term goal.
 
Khayembii Communique said:
Transitioning from gas-powered cars to electric cars would take decades alone. That doesn't even take into account everywhere else that oil is used. Oil is going to be a significant part of the US and global economy for quite a long time.
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Why electric cars? Why not hydrogen cars? Sure, the fuel cell technology is not matured or available, but then it is only need to create hydrogen on demand. Do we create gas on demand in our vehicles? No, we store it. We could do the same with Hydrogen. The material technology is available today to make safe hydrogen tanks for vehicles. During transfer, it is not any more dangerous than propane/natural gas. We have natural gas and propane vehicles, any collision that would cause the explosion of hydrogen would also cause the explosion of NG and propane. Safe filling is also in practice today, the rest of us might have to follow Oregon's example and bring back station attendants, but, hey, more jobs.

NG faces the challenge of getting a distribution network up and running for automobiles. Since Hydrogen is not a carbon based fuel, like NG, there should be a lot more investment to get it up and running. And the really cool thing is, it would take very little modification of existing motors to run it.
 
EagleAye said:
US energy independence could not exist within 20 years. It would probably require 30 years. That doesn't mean it's an impossibility, just a long term goal.
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With the proper investments, it could be done in less than 10 and in as little as four to five years. And that is using existing technologies.
 
DVSentinel said:
With the proper investments, it could be done in less than 10 and in as little as four to five years. And that is using existing technologies.
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The largest area where EVs would help us is in personal vehicles. But you can't "force" anyone into buying them (at least, I wouldn't want that). So my guess is that it would take roughly 30 years to win over enough hearts and minds and get most of the cars on the road electric. Yes, we technically could do it in 10 years, if we pushed people into EVs at gunpoint, but I don't think that's the right way to do it.
 
I'll tolerate any form of energy as long as it's efficient and easy on my wallet.
 
EagleAye said:
The largest area where EVs would help us is in personal vehicles. But you can't "force" anyone into buying them (at least, I wouldn't want that). So my guess is that it would take roughly 30 years to win over enough hearts and minds and get most of the cars on the road electric. Yes, we technically could do it in 10 years, if we pushed people into EVs at gunpoint, but I don't think that's the right way to do it.
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You are only taking in EVs as a replacement for gasoline. You are leaving out hydrogen and bio-fuels. EVs are dependent upon battery technologies which have yet to reach a practical usage level.

EVs are a future technology, not truly an existing one. I do not know the current state of nuclear batteries, if it is developed enough, then we might be able to produce practical use EVs now.
 
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