Nuclear Power Myths and Misconceptions

Yes the news likes to sensationalize, and there's nothing sensational about an accident free nuke plant. Still there are plenty of antinuke organizations touting half truths and misinformation. Isn't it time someone tried to counter that kind of propaganda.

Most people can't even tell you what radiation is, how to measure it, why it has biological effects, or what they are. I'd bet not one out of one thousand people know the basic unit of measurement for ionizing radiation dose. These are all very simple things that eventually lead to understanding and with that understanding an end to the irrational fear. Or am I being too optimistic?

No that sounds about right.

rem rad or somthing

Having spent time in the US Nuclear Navy and Civilian Nuclear Power Industry, I found an easy way to explain contamination and radiation. Imagine you are walking through a park on a nice day and you step in a pile of dog doo. The stuff on your foot is contamination and the smell is the radiation. Now I know that its not a perfect analogy but people that are totally ignorant of nuclear technology this makes sense and I usually elaborate a little more on the differences between dog doo and nuclear material.

I do not think you are being too optimistic. Everytime some on brings up the topic of nuclear power, I try to dispell the myths and misconceptions. In one case I have converted a devout anti-nuclear activist to a proponent of nuclear power. As long as some of us continue to dispell the myths, eventually acceptance of nuclear power will occur because people will realize that the solution to our energy problems needs to be multifaceted, not just one source.

Thanks

That's a good explanation of radiation and contamination. I like it!

I usually stat out explaining that radiation is energy emitted from a source. I use the light bulb and heating element on a stove for analogies (although I like dog poop for the humor factor). Then I explain that nuclear radiation is energy released from the nucleus of an atom. If people are still interested; I try to talk about ionization and the different types of nuclear radiation (i.e. alpha, beta, gamma, and neutron). About 50 percent of people's eyes start glazing over at this point, and I know I've lost them.

I can usually get across that there can't just be a cloud of radiation, that it has to have a source, and I take that as a small victory.

"Most people are more afraid of flying than driving because whenever something does happen, it gets lots of media hype."

Let's be real. Airplanes that crash and kill 250 people don't get media "hype", they get media attention appropriate to the magnitude of the disaster. Just as the Hudson River ditch did, when 250 people came out alive and well.

I live less than 75 miles from the largest nuclear power plant in the US. I never think about it. I think they are safe. I hope they are safe.

I agree that Joe six pack doesn't have a clue about how radioactivity is turned into electricity. Nor about half life of the leftovers.

The media isn't the problem. Greed, lawyers, politics politicians, lawyers, bureaucrats, lawyers and special interests and lawyers are the problems.

Cheers.

Utilities and industry groups do a lot to educate people about nuclear power. Additionally, every utility and industry group will send an engineer to talk about the subject whenver asked -- and that includes elementary schools.

In the end, education is the responsibility of every citizen.

Opposition to nuclear power is a litmus test for entry into the fraternaty of little leftist weenies, progressives, liberals, fellow-travelers or whatever they call themselves these days. It is not the job of utilities to spend large amounts of ratepayer money attempting to stamp our ignorance. Unfortunately, the morons will be with us forever no matter what utilities and industry organizations do.

The current situation with the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant owned by Entergy, one of the premier utilities world-wide, is a case in point. The legislature of Vermont voted to shut it down when its current license expires in 2012 regardless of the scientific fact that it has a minimum of 20 and probably many more years of life left. Instead, the morons in Vermont want to generate the power by burning fossel fuels. (Note: They say they want to replace it with various alternative power schemes, but all mentioned are expensive and lack baseload reliability and require substantial fossil fuel backup. Even though people in Vermont are morons, they are people, and they need the fossil fuel backup to keep them alive. It is cold, very cold up there.)

Of course, shutting down the plant and eliminating 600 jobs is not going to make a logical dent in the minds of those people. They will still complain about unemployment and lack of opportunities.

Then there is our President. What is he doing to keep Vermont Yankee open? Here is his big chance to save a REAL job, and 600 of them in total. He must be too busy "saving" imaginary jobs and increasing the size of the Federal payroll to give a damn about the sorry state of affairs in Vermont.

I don't thing there are enough scientists and engineers and enough money in the entire universe to educate the folks in Vermont. If every there was proof that money alone is not enough to deliver sound educational results, it is Vermont.

My favorite myth is that the waste problem has been solved. Not one nation in the world has opened a long term repository - not one.

My second favorite myth is that the nuclear power industry is self supporting. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act has put the cost of waste disposal in the hands of the tax payers.

As an informed tax payer you must know that for the price of one tenth of one cent per kilowatt hour of produced energy the nuclear plant operators made the American Taxpayer the De-facto owner of all high level waste produced in the past and the future. Under the definitions given in the "Nuclear Waste Policy Act" and its amendments it appears that high level waste would include the plant infrastructure itself.

I still believe that to level the playing field with other alternative energy sources that the nuclear power industry should be responsible for its own waste to include plant dismantlement. Passing this cost on to the taxpayer; many of whom are not even customers of the nuclear power plant operators, does not let capitalist economics work the way it was intended.

Right now I am not convinced that the end user is paying for the true end cost of the energy produced.

Let capitalism work.

Gavilan

I agree with letting capitalism work. However, the game of political football that has prevented establishing waste repositories is largely the result of just such misconceptions as this thread is about. Such facilities should not be all that hard to site and manage safely.

Tornado, if we had waste reprocessing we would not NEED truly long term repositories. Most of the waste would be reused for either new fuel assemblies or industrial/medical isotopes. Very little would need to be stored, and then for much shorter periods. and the waste from a nuclear power reactor per year could fit in the bed of your pick-up truck (although it would collapse the springs and pop the tires, it IS heavy stuff after all.). the volumes involved are actually quite small, people make it sound huge when they use the mass instead of the volume because it is so heavy, it is denser than lead after all.

First post and a GA right out of the chute!

Older plants were generally licensed to 40 years and many have gotten 20 year plant extensions. New plants are licensed to 60 years. I don't think that anyone expects to get 100 years out of a nuclear power plant.

Since I started this thread I'm happy to see that it is still active in my absence of late.

As far as the steam generator operating pressures of PWR's: the differential pressure across the tubes is about equal to that of the operating pressure of your BWR. Not really arguing the the merits of either, because they both have their advantages and disadvantages. I think the really weak link in BWR's is the Recirc piping, extremely susceptible to IGSCC, and has been the cause of early decommissioning of at least one plant I know of (Milestone 1).

I personally like both designs, and am especially fond of the Mark XI BWR with both drywell and containment i.e. Grand Gulf. But, I also like the small design of the PWR at R.E. Ginna. At less than 500 mW, it was one of the first plants in the country to complete a refueling outage in under thirty days. Ginna was built in the late '60s for $100 mil. by the utility, and has now been operating for 51 years.

The pressure that counts is the pressure between what is inside the vessel and atmosphere. Even in the case of steam generator tubes, the steam generator can become depressurized and the differential pressure across the tubes is full primary pressure. All of the PWR recirculation piping, the vessel, the pressurizer, emergency systems, etc., are subject to full 2200+ psig.

Recirculation piping is no more of a problem in BWRs than it is in PWRs. BWRs suffered from Intergranular Stress Corrosion cracking of Type 304 stainless steels in the weld heat affected zones. All of this piping has either been replaced or properly repaired to prevent additional problems. Chemistry is a huge factor. Today BWRs use a combination of hydrogen injection and noble metal injection to drive the electrochemical potential stongly in the direction to prevent cracking of vessel internals and recirculation piping.

Grand Gulf is a BWR/6 plant with a Mark III containment. You may be the only person who likes the "PWR style" Mark III containment. The ABWR (4 operating in Japan and 2 in construction in Taiwan) went back to the Mark II style containment (with some of the minor features of a Mark III added and the structure simplified) for many good reasons.

The Ginna 610 MWe PWR went into commercial operation in 1970 and has been running for 40 years. The oldest operating plants in the USA are BWRs, they are the Nine Mile Point 1 plant producing 609 MWe and the Oyster Creek plant producing 619 MWe, both of which went into commercial operation in 1969.

Dresden Unit 1, an 867 MWe BWR went into commercial operation in 1970 almost on the same day as Ginna went commercial.

You have your facts right. Thank you for bringing them to this discussion. I only disagree on a matter of opinion that the industry is over regulated.

Yes it is the most stringently regulated industry by far in this country. I wish other industries, petro-chemical in particular, were as closely scrutinized. However with the amount of public attention and potential for disaster, I believe it is warranted. The greatest threat to safety at a commercial nuclear power plant is greed. At most utilities that operate nuclear generating stations the corporate structure is such that it is completely isolated from everything else, with a Vice President Nuclear at the top of the organization. At the plant the Plant Manager runs the show.

There are times when the prudent thing to do is shut a plant down to fix a problem that cannot be corrected when the plant is operating. That's when the greed factor come into play. With revenues of 1 to 2 million dollars a day a stake, the plant manager gets the order to keep that unit online no matter what, if he wants to keep his job.

Here is an actual scenario:

An increase in containment leakage was observed. Allowable leakage is five gallon per day per the plants technical specifications. Historically normal leakage at this plant was less than one gallon per day. When operators found that leakage was over four gallons a containment entry was made to find the source. A check valve bonnet to body leak was found to be the source. Repair would have required going to cold shut down and drain down of the reactor vessel as the valve could not be isolated. This would have taken many days and another two days for start up not including repair time. Corporate not wanting to lose 10 - 20 million in revenue directed the Plant manager to find a way to keep the plant on line.

A maintenance team entered containment to weld the bonnet to the valve body which could not be accomplished due to the amount of leakage. They were then instructed to pean the body to bonnet connection to stop or slow the leakage. This was a Class 1, Safety Related valve and workers were beating on it with hammers to fix it.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Resident Inspector discovered what was happening, and ordered the operation halted. The plant was later ordered shut down and did not restart for nearly three years.

This prompted a serious investigation by the NRC which found numerous tech spec violations at this plant and three others owned by this utility. Their entire nuclear operation was shut down for years with two of the plants never restarted and slated for decommissioning.

This has happened at other utilities as well. Sometimes it's greed sometimes it's complacency. Sometimes things happen right under the nose of the NRC and it takes an obvious blunder to expose that an organization has lost the culture of strict adherence to codes, specifications, and procedures. Everyone in the organization must have a questioning attitude and not be intimidated by the threat of losing a job by voicing concerns. If that culture could be maintained, then there would be no need for regulation. Unfortunately we are human and whether it's greed, complacency, or incompetence a watchful eye is necessary.

PMoon, agreed that some level of regulation is required for sure, but on the flip side, Petrochemical plants which are arguably at least as, if not even more dangerous than a nuclear reactor, operate safely (for the most part) with much less supervision and regulation.

Regulation has an economic cost, if you regulate too much, you end up making the endeavor so costly that it is not economically feasible anymore. I would argue that the nuclear power industry is regulated far too much, a cost/benefit analysis of the regulations needs to be made (and they have not been) and some happy medium must be found.

Dear Texas Ed:

Your comments are contrary to the law of the land. I neither know nor do I care to understand your motives for promoting misinformation. I would hope it would be the result of exuberance for the technology rather than profit motivated propaganda from an industry insider.

However; we do have some common ground. I too believe the taxpayer should pay the operators back the funds, with accrued interest, give them back the responsibility for waste and high level plant infrastructure and let them compete with the other forms of energy production.

Repeal the laws and if it is as an economically efficient technology as you seem to believe then there should be no opposition from the nuclear lobby that promoted these laws in the first place. I have no problem with the safety issues – these guys have got that science down – it's the economics on which I focus. If the industry can compete in the market place using reprocessing or whatever other technology available to them then let them have at it. But let us taxpayers off the hook. We didn't knowingly buy into this thing in the first place and handing this bag of crap back to the industry for 30 billion dollars sounds like one hell of a good deal to me.

I have no further comment on the subject. The law speaks for itself.

Here is a link to the "Nuclear Waste Policy Acts –

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/nuregs/staff/sr0980/v2/sr0980v2.pdf#pagemode=bookmarks&page=141

Here is the text and link to the Nuclear Waste Fund law.

TITLE 42 > CHAPTER 108 > SUBCHAPTER III > § 10222

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/42/usc_sec_42_00010222----000-.html

10222. Nuclear Waste Fund

(a) Contracts

(1) In the performance of his functions under this chapter, the Secretary is authorized to enter into contracts with any person who generates or holds title to high-level radioactive waste, or spent nuclear fuel, of domestic origin for the acceptance of title, subsequent transportation, and disposal of such waste or spent fuel. Such contracts shall provide for payment to the Secretary of fees pursuant to paragraphs (2) and (3) sufficient to offset expenditures described in subsection (d) of this section.

(2) For electricity generated by a civilian nuclear power reactor and sold on or after the date 90 days after January 7, 1983, the fee under paragraph (1) shall be equal to 1.0 mil per kilowatt-hour.

(3) For spent nuclear fuel, or solidified high-level radioactive waste derived from spent nuclear fuel, which fuel was used to generate electricity in a civilian nuclear power reactor prior to the application of the fee under paragraph (2) to such reactor, the Secretary shall, not later than 90 days after January 7, 1983, establish a 1 time fee per kilogram of heavy metal in spent nuclear fuel, or in solidified high-level radioactive waste. Such fee shall be in an amount equivalent to an average charge of 1.0 mil per kilowatt-hour for electricity generated by such spent nuclear fuel, or such solidified high-level waste derived therefrom, to be collected from any person delivering such spent nuclear fuel or high-level waste, pursuant to section 10143 of this title, to the Federal Government. Such fee shall be paid to the Treasury of the United States and shall be deposited in the separate fund established by subsection (c) of this section.^[1] In paying such a fee, the person delivering spent fuel, or solidified high-level radioactive wastes derived therefrom, to the Federal Government shall have no further financial obligation to the Federal Government for the long-term storage and permanent disposal of such spent fuel, or the solidified high-level radioactive waste derived therefrom.

(4) Not later than 180 days after January 7, 1983, the Secretary shall establish procedures for the collection and payment of the fees established by paragraph (2) and paragraph (3). The Secretary shall annually review the amount of the fees established by paragraphs (2) and (3) above to evaluate whether collection of the fee will provide sufficient revenues to offset the costs as defined in subsection (d) of this section. In the event the Secretary determines that either insufficient or excess revenues are being collected, in order to recover the costs incurred by the Federal Government that are specified in subsection (d) of this section, the Secretary shall propose an adjustment to the fee to insure full cost recovery. The Secretary shall immediately transmit this proposal for such an adjustment to Congress. The adjusted fee proposed by the Secretary shall be effective after a period of 90 days of continuous session have elapsed following the receipt of such transmittal unless during such 90-day period either House of Congress adopts a resolution disapproving the Secretary's proposed adjustment in accordance with the procedures set forth for congressional review of an energy action under section 6421 of this title.

(5) Contracts entered into under this section shall provide that—

(A) following commencement of operation of a repository, the Secretary shall take title to the high-level radioactive waste or spent nuclear fuel involved as expeditiously as practicable upon the request of the generator or owner of such waste or spent fuel; and

(B) in return for the payment of fees established by this section, the Secretary, beginning not later than January 31, 1998, will dispose of the high-level radioactive waste or spent nuclear fuel involved as provided in this subchapter.^[1]

(6) The Secretary shall establish in writing criteria setting forth the terms and conditions under which such disposal services shall be made available.

(b) Advance contracting requirement

(1)

(A) The Commission shall not issue or renew a license to any person to use a utilization or production facility under the authority of section 2133 or 2134 of this title unless—

(i) such person has entered into a contract with the Secretary under this section; or

(ii) the Secretary affirms in writing that such person is actively and in good faith negotiating with the Secretary for a contract under this section.

(B) The Commission, as it deems necessary or appropriate, may require as a precondition to the issuance or renewal of a license under section 2133 or 2134 of this title that the applicant for such license shall have entered into an agreement with the Secretary for the disposal of high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel that may result from the use of such license.

(2) Except as provided in paragraph (1), no spent nuclear fuel or high-level radioactive waste generated or owned by any person (other than a department of the United States referred to in section 101 or 102 of title 5) may be disposed of by the Secretary in any repository constructed under this chapter unless the generator or owner of such spent fuel or waste has entered into a contract with the Secretary under this section by not later than—

(A) June 30, 1983; or

(B) the date on which such generator or owner commences generation of, or takes title to, such spent fuel or waste;

whichever occurs later.

(3) The rights and duties of a party to a contract entered into under this section may be assignable with transfer of title to the spent nuclear fuel or high-level radioactive waste involved.

(4) No high-level radioactive waste or spent nuclear fuel generated or owned by any department of the United States referred to in section 101 or 102 of title 5 may be disposed of by the Secretary in any repository constructed under this chapter unless such department transfers to the Secretary, for deposit in the Nuclear Waste Fund, amounts equivalent to the fees that would be paid to the Secretary under the contracts referred to in this section if such waste or spent fuel were generated by any other person.

(c) Establishment of Nuclear Waste Fund

There hereby is established in the Treasury of the United States a separate fund, to be known as the Nuclear Waste Fund. The Waste Fund shall consist of—

(1) all receipts, proceeds, and recoveries realized by the Secretary under subsections (a), (b), and (e) of this section, which shall be deposited in the Waste Fund immediately upon their realization;

(2) any appropriations made by the Congress to the Waste Fund; and

(3) any unexpended balances available on January 7, 1983, for functions or activities necessary or incident to the disposal of civilian high-level radioactive waste or civilian spent nuclear fuel, which shall automatically be transferred to the Waste Fund on such date.

(d) Use of Waste Fund

The Secretary may make expenditures from the Waste Fund, subject to subsection (e) of this section, only for purposes of radioactive waste disposal activities under subchapters I and II of this chapter, including—

(1) the identification, development, licensing, construction, operation, decommissioning, and post-decommissioning maintenance and monitoring of any repository, monitored,^[2] retrievable storage facility ^[3] or test and evaluation facility constructed under this chapter;

(2) the conducting of nongeneric research, development, and demonstration activities under this chapter;

(3) the administrative cost of the radioactive waste disposal program;

(4) any costs that may be incurred by the Secretary in connection with the transportation, treating, or packaging of spent nuclear fuel or high-level radioactive waste to be disposed of in a repository, to be stored in a monitored,^[2] retrievable storage site ^[3] or to be used in a test and evaluation facility;

(5) the costs associated with acquisition, design, modification, replacement, operation, and construction of facilities at a repository site, a monitored,^[2] retrievable storage site ^[3] or a test and evaluation facility site and necessary or incident to such repository, monitored,^[2] retrievable storage facility ^[3] or test and evaluation facility; and

(6) the provision of assistance to States, units of general local government, and Indian tribes under sections 10136, 10138, and 10199 of this title.

No amount may be expended by the Secretary under this subchapter ^[4] for the construction or expansion of any facility unless such construction or expansion is expressly authorized by this or subsequent legislation. The Secretary hereby is authorized to construct one repository and one test and evaluation facility.

(e) Administration of Waste Fund

(1) The Secretary of the Treasury shall hold the Waste Fund and, after consultation with the Secretary, annually report to the Congress on the financial condition and operations of the Waste Fund during the preceding fiscal year.

(2) The Secretary shall submit the budget of the Waste Fund to the Office of Management and Budget triennially along with the budget of the Department of Energy submitted at such time in accordance with chapter 11 of title 31. The budget of the Waste Fund shall consist of the estimates made by the Secretary of expenditures from the Waste Fund and other relevant financial matters for the succeeding 3 fiscal years, and shall be included in the Budget of the United States Government. The Secretary may make expenditures from the Waste Fund, subject to appropriations which shall remain available until expended. Appropriations shall be subject to triennial authorization.

(3) If the Secretary determines that the Waste Fund contains at any time amounts in excess of current needs, the Secretary may request the Secretary of the Treasury to invest such amounts, or any portion of such amounts as the Secretary determines to be appropriate, in obligations of the United States—

(A) having maturities determined by the Secretary of the Treasury to be appropriate to the needs of the Waste Fund; and

(B) bearing interest at rates determined to be appropriate by the Secretary of the Treasury, taking into consideration the current average market yield on outstanding marketable obligations of the United States with remaining periods to maturity comparable to the maturities of such investments, except that the interest rate on such investments shall not exceed the average interest rate applicable to existing borrowings.

(4) Receipts, proceeds, and recoveries realized by the Secretary under this section, and expenditures of amounts from the Waste Fund, shall be exempt from annual apportionment under the provisions of subchapter II of chapter 15 of title 31.

(5) If at any time the moneys available in the Waste Fund are insufficient to enable the Secretary to discharge his responsibilities under this subchapter,^[5] the Secretary shall issue to the Secretary of the Treasury obligations in such forms and denominations, bearing such maturities, and subject to such terms and conditions as may be agreed to by the Secretary and the Secretary of the Treasury. The total of such obligations shall not exceed amounts provided in appropriation Acts. Redemption of such obligations shall be made by the Secretary from moneys available in the Waste Fund. Such obligations shall bear interest at a rate determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, which shall be not less than a rate determined by taking into consideration the average market yield on outstanding marketable obligations of the United States of comparable maturities during the month preceding the issuance of the obligations under this paragraph. The Secretary of the Treasury shall purchase any issued obligations, and for such purpose the Secretary of the Treasury is authorized to use as a public debt transaction the proceeds from the sale of any securities issued under chapter 31 of title 31, and the purposes for which securities may be issued under such Act ^[5] are extended to include any purchase of such obligations. The Secretary of the Treasury may at any time sell any of the obligations acquired by him under this paragraph. All redemptions, purchases, and sales by the Secretary of the Treasury of obligations under this paragraph shall be treated as public debt transactions of the United States.

(6) Any appropriations made available to the Waste Fund for any purpose described in subsection (d) of this section shall be repaid into the general fund of the Treasury, together with interest from the date of availability of the appropriations until the date of repayment. Such interest shall be paid on the cumulative amount of appropriations available to the Waste Fund, less the average undisbursed cash balance in the Waste Fund account during the fiscal year involved. The rate of such interest shall be determined by the Secretary of the Treasury taking into consideration the average market yield during the month preceding each fiscal year on outstanding marketable obligations of the United States of comparable maturity. Interest payments may be deferred with the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, but any interest payments so deferred shall themselves bear interest.

[1] See References in Text note below.

[2] So in original. The comma probably should not appear.

[3] So in original. Probably should be followed by a comma.

[4] See References in Text note below.

[5] See References in Text note below.

Gavilan

Gavilan:

First off, I said the same thing you just said. If I am misinforming people, then so are you! The difference is that you are "misinforming" with greater detail.

Concerning taxpayers, you are 100% correct. Taxpayers should not be on the hook for even one cent of commercial nuclear power, no loan guarantees, no nothing. There are hundreds of other things that taxpayers should not be on the hook for.

And in return we should expect good, efficient and timely regulation from our regulatory authorities.

Good, efficient and timely regulation is worth hundreds of billions of dollars and tens of thousands of jobs. I'm kind of greedy. I would rather have the money and jobs and do without worthless over regulation.

Ronald Reagan had a good line that I remember about the damaging effects of Washington, D.C.: "They have one solution for everything. If it moves tax it. If it continues to move regulate it. If it stops moving subsidize it."

Let's you and me work with everyone else to break the vicious cycle.

Tax payer revolt time on this and every other government topic. "Hope that we can Change for. YES WE CAN!"

You are a perfect example for why there jokes about dumbstick lawyers. Your spam post will likely be removed before long.

What is the problem with my post? Was it relevant to the topic?
Was the stated law "mythical"? How does the quoted law, verbatim from the CFR, constitute "spam?"

The post in question (by some lawyer) apparently was removed, moving your post up to make it appear I was criticizing you. I was not. Your post was fine, as usual, and I have marked it GA.

A couple of articles on fuel reprocessing and fast reactors for you to peruse.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=is-reprocessing-the-answer-to-eliminating-fissile-materials

http://www.nationalcenter.org/NuclearFastReactorsSA1205.pdf

http://www.yuccamountain.org/pdf-news/scientific_am09.pdf

By the way, the Gulf Coast is chock-a-block full of salt domes, The AEC even set off two nukes in one in Mississippi not long before I was born (and not FAR from where I was born too.) And I never even knew it until I was in my 40's. a salt dome is the perfect place to put reprocessing waste, the permeability of water and hydrocarbons is virtually nil (why they are so attractive to oil well drillers!) and those salt deposits have been down there since the Permian Era.

This article gives some interesting comments to "myths" put forward by many.

I agree with this article. Others may be prejudiced against it because it from the Heritage Institute, which is sort of a "conservative think tank." They have some good ideas (like these), but also some others with which I might take issue. Whatever the other issues might be does not matter, so long as they have this one about right.

'This Article' appears to be quite rational and correct!

The one bone I would pick with this article is that Plutonium powered pacemakers have not been made in at least 30 years, if not longer. Virtually nobody who ever had one of these devices implanted is alive today or even when this article was published (in 2007). The data they cite is not technically incorrect, just a bit dated.

Yes that is a good one. Whenever the news has anything about nukes they always show a picture of a cooling tower on the bluescreen behind the talking head, or in a sidebar in the paper. GA form me.

And a lot of coal fired plants use cooling towers that are identical to nuclear power plants and people don't realize it isn't a nuke plant. (after all, the physics of cooling water is the same regardless of how it is heated.)

Anyone think we will ever build a new nuclear generating facility in the U.S.

In 1985 I made a prediction that no new reactors would be ordered until 2010. It looks like that prediction has a good chance of being correct. Although there are about 18 license applications at last count, only a few are being genuinely pursued with only two qualifying for loan guarantees so far. However; not one has ordered any major components as yet.

That's because the Obama Administration has made it painfully clear that they won't be approved so why waste the time an effort?

The Obama Administration has only been in office a short time. How can you possibly blame them?

Bush had lifted the moratorium and had encouraged new nuclear power development which is why so many license applications were pending but that moratorium slammed back down when Obama was elected, so I can blame him quite easily. Then Obama goes and picks that nutball of a DOE secretary which promptly shuts down Yucca mountain. Again.

Correct me if I'm wrong but, hasn't Obama stated the he believes nuclear should be part of our energy portfolio. Isn't he pushing for 30 to 50 billion more in loan guarantees, and did make a big speech when the first loan guarantee was awarded showing his support for nuclear power in spite of opposition in his own party.

Maybe I'm operating on a misconception. Maybe not a zealot, but I thought he was a pretty staunch advocate. Other than Yucca Mountain, which is purely political, could someone point me to some quotes or actions to support the claim that he is anti-nuke. I hate being misinformed.

Nah, Obama is saying one thing and doing something completely opposite. Standard operating procedure with him. Just like this lifting of the drilling ban on the atlantic coast which was no such thing. all he did was allow people to perform seismic surveys of the area, but under no circumstances has he agreed to actually allow any drilling, nor has he agreed to share any of the royalties with the states, which means they are going to nut up and refuse to allow it themselves. meanwhile nobody will do the surveys because nobody wants to waste the money if they aren't going to be able to do anything with the data. Meanwhile the blocks offshore of Alaska which had already been on the auction block were pulled off the block and locked back up, so if anything it has restricted drilling while making noises about increasing it.

Face it, the man can't open his freaking mouth without lying.

There are something like 18 license applications pending but he has only really made noises about two of them, and then only in democrat areas. Again, it is all smoke and mirrors with him. Those two licenses will never get approved, mark my words. He's just talking it up for the mid-term elections, after November you won't hear another word out of the DOE about them.

Oh yes, there will be lots of new nuclear power plants built in the USA. Forever is a long time from now.

CHINA => The Chinese are currently rapidly building nuclear power plants. Current projections are that China will have about 2,000 operating nuclear plants by the year 2100. The worst case scenario shows about 600 Chinese nuclear plants. Remember that the USA has just over 100 right now.

Why are the Chinese building so many nuclear power plants when the American Ivy League pinhead brigade is working over time to shut them down? Right now, the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vermont is unlikely to operate beyond 40 years when its license is up in 2012 because of pinhead opposition. An industrial facility that could be used for 80 years and supplies 33% of Vermont's power is going to be shutdown by the State and the power imported from Canada. In one shot, the pinheads will eliminate 640 American jobs, move the jobs to Canada AND screw over our balance of payments.

The Chinese are building nuclear power plants because they want to make sure that their people have good and secure jobs. Good and secure jobs require reliable and cost effective power 24 hours a day and 365 days a year. The Chinese are also building solar and wind power plants, but they know that these units have highly varialbe outputs and average capacity factors of only 30%.

More than 100,000 high paying nuclear jobs would exist in this country right now except for the incompetence of the federal government and our own citizens. Currently, the USA has to import nuclear technology from abroad because the infrastructure was eliminated by a scorched earth anti-nuclear offensive by little leftist weenies. By the way, the AVERAGE wage in the nuclear industry is very high, and nuclear workers have the BEST health statistics of any labor category tracked by the Department of Labor. There are also plenty of good paying union and non-union jobs for yound people who are unable to attend college.

All of the nuclear technology was developed by the USA and through the 1970s we dominated and generated a lot of positive balance of payments for our country. And then the morons and pinheads took over in a relentless drive to rid the USA of its competive advantages in the nuclear and other industries. These same people now run our government and are in the forefront bitching about where all the good jobs went.

Ultimately, the USA is not going to build nuclear power plants because it wants to do it. The new plants will go up because we have to build them to stay up with the rest of the world. Of course, we could continue to burn coal and natural gas until they are gone and mess up the entire world with our effluents. The USA does have massive amounts of fossil fuels. However, one day we are going to wish that we did not waste them because they can be turned into plastics, chemicals and other engineered products instead of burned.

The delightful thing about uranium and thorium is that there is little else they are good for except splitting their atoms in nuclear power plants. Nuke plants also rid the environment of them. Over time, nuke plants eliminate radiation from the environment. There are 4.5 billion tons of uranium in seawater alone.

Hi all, I work in nukes as a supplemental worker, building scaffold during pre-outages and outages. I have a few observations and questions: It seems that a lot of effort in nuclear plant design is spent in re-inventing the wheel, so many different designs and variations.---------------------------------------------Question(1) Wouldn't it be more efficient or productive to settle on one design and build that one? I mean, economy of scale or increased proficiency & pace during construction? The utility's two plants that I have worked at are referred to as " sister" plants, but there are a lot of significant differences between them. About as similar as a mid-'60's Dodge Power wagon is to a '90 Honda Civic.-------------------------------------------------- Question (2) Is there a list of acronyms used in the nuclear power industry. There is a bewildering amount of them?.----------------------------------------------------------------Question(3) I have read that one reason that certain plants only burn up a small percentage of fuel before the nuclear poisons build up and they have to be refueled, is due to the basic designs being optimized for plutonium production during the cold war. Is this true?

https://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/powerplants/capitalcost/xls/table1.xlsx

https://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/powerplants/capitalcost/xls/table2.xlsx