An interesting thing about nuke plant decommissioning is that you can often decommssion one plant by uilding the next on top of its remains. Thus turnin the old reactor into one titanic foundation slab for the next reactor. The only reason you cant keep a reactor forever is radiation weakens concrete and sateel over time.

Rancho Seco near Sacramento California was put out of service, because it never had the reliability record that they said it would. I have no idea what they did with the insides of it. San Onofre has been in service for about 30 years and may be decommissioned soon. Diablo Canyon is relatively new, but the twin reactors were built backwards initially and had to be rebuilt. You have to wonder how accurately they built the rest of it.

Energy conservation can do wonders for the US because the US still uses a lot of energy per unit of GDP. It can help Europe to a lesser degree because Europe is already relatively energy efficient. Conservation can do very little for the rest of the world; one cannot conserve one's way to a Western standard of living from the inside of a mud hut. Economic justice for nine billion people will require increasing today's energy production by roughly a factor of five. Unless we can trust CO2 sequestration, and barring some fundamental breakthrough (fusion, etc.), wind, Solar, and safe clean nuclear power are absolute necessities. It would be better to start doing this now and not waste another 20 years overcoming antinuke hysteria.

(Concluding the previos point) We need to start using advanced nuclear technologies now, to show the world that waste management and prevention of weaponization are not insoluble problems.

Oh I know exactly why various bad snafus happened building the nuke plants. But trust me the fact wont ever get out because everyone who does know is smart enough to not talk about it to the asshats of today.

Suffice it to say it wasnt the utilties fault it was oddly enough the publics fault. And since then ... steps ave been taken to handle it.

http://digg.com/design/Black_Google_Would_Save_3_000_Megawatts_a_Year


Sometimes while looking at the big picture we forget the picure in front of our face.

richard - "We need to start using advanced nuclear technologies now, to show the world that waste management and prevention of weaponization are not insoluble problems."

No we need to use taxes and subsidies to enforce companies and people to make large cuts in energy use. As this study shows using less energy can save money and pay for the efficiency gains as long paying for the capital cost of the more efficient equipment is made easier with subsidies derived from taxes on greenhouse emitters like big coal.

We then need to implement electric transport with V2G along with extra storage so renewable power can be a truly 24 X 7 power source. The term baseload is a misnomer as it refers to a type of generating technology that cannot vary it's output quickly in response to changes so it is run flat out all the time - hence the term baseload. Both thermal coal and nuclear are in this category. Coal gasifiers, which can be made to accept biomass, can supply intermediate and peaking generators which can interact with renewables. Most of the problems with renewables not saving as much greenhouse gases as they could is that the baseload powerplants wind/solar are supplementing cannot change their output quickly enough. They are still going flat out when the renewable power is peaking however the generators are taken in and out of synch to vary the electrical output. Peaking and intermediate power generators like co-gen gas turbines can vary withing minutes and deliver large greenhouse savings in combination with renewable power.

Taking the money that is currently given in massive subsidies to nuclear would be a good start. Then require that nuclear power generators cost in to the capital cost of the plant insurance and end to end waste management including keeping it isolated from the environment for 500 years and see how economic it is. How much do you think paying a guard for 500 years will be? Do we start employing the descendants of the guards or do we start the atomic priesthood.
http://dir.salon.com/story/people/feature/2002/05/10/yucca_mountain/index.html

The fundamental problem is that there is no guarantee that in 500 or 1000 years that some of the dangerous radionucleides will leach out despite our best efforts and harm people. The problem of waste management is neither small or solved. An average LWR produces 30 tons of spent fuel per year. They ONLY reason nuclear is comparable in cost with renewables is that the problem of waste management is ignored by storing this waste in above ground dry casks. These are cheap however they are acknowledged to be only temporary however NOBODY want to pay for proper storage and even the 'proper storage' is fraught with problems. Clinton did not kill Yucca Mountain because of a whim - the problem was radionucleides leaked in a totally unexpected way into the groundwater. For some of the problems:
http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.earth.32.092203.122444?cookieSet=1&journalCode=earth

Nuclear is neither clean problem free. Why not put the money going into nuclear and 'clean' coal and start a massive efficiency drive first then replace our transport with V2G cars.

Ender,

The nuclear power utilities fully pay for waste disposal. A fee is paid with each kilowatt-hour generated to the US government. These fees are being held up by the government for political reasons (and will continue to be with Harry Reid as majority leader). If released, they would fully fund the completion of Yucca mountain phase 1.

The utilities are storing waste on site. Some utilities have sued the government (sucessfully) for failure to accept the used fuel on schedule. The water storage facilities are filling up. The utilities are doing dry storage because they have no choice, not because it is cheap.

Clinton did not kill Yucca mountain. Yucca mountain got kicked off track when a court ruled that waste must be protected for 100,000 years rather than 10,000 years. All the original calculations and studies were based on the shorter time.

You are correct in that the land at Yucca mountain is more permiable than had been anticipated. This has caused some redesign, particularly when combined with the court ruling.

It would be best if Yucca mountain were just used for fission fragments after recycling the fuel. Used fuel is too valuable a resouce to stick in a mountain but storing the entire fuel assembly is current government policy.

Nuclear power can be used for load following. Because so much of the power in France is nuclear, they must do it. It would be difficult to try and balance wind power with a nuclear reactor because it is so unpredictable. You would have no problem balancing solar with nuclear because solar is predictable. It is, however, not economic to load follow with nuclear because the cost of operating a nuclear reactor, unlike fossil fuel, does not depend on the power level. A nuclear power plant costs the same whether it is on and generating power or siting idle.

No active discussion of waste/landfill gas, heretofore.

"The U.S. has 3,091 active landfills and over 10,000 old municipal landfills, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. However, in the "good old days," every town (and many businesses and factories) had its own dump. According to the 1997 U.S. Census, there are 39,044 general purpose local governments in the United States - 3,043 county governments and 36,001 subcounty general purpose governments (towns & townships). One suspects that there are many more old and abandoned commercial, private, and municipal dumps than the 10,000 estimated by the EPA."

"Americans generated nearly 390 million tons of trash in 2001--and more than half was carted off for landfill burial. Almost 100 landfills across the U.S. closed last year because they were crammed to the brim. And within 50 years, the approximately 2,216 landfills that exist today will reach full capacity."

"Landfills produce significant amounts of methane gas, which must be vented or collected. Most captured methane is burned off--but 123 landfills use the gas to generate power.... When some old landfills have been excavated, 40-year-old newspapers have been found with readable print!... Americans use over 65 billion aluminum soda cans each year--that's 1,500 cans for each person!"

Perhaps the extraordinary capabilities of global science, economy, and political institutions could harness the energy potential of landfill refuge. This hazardous buried matter is a health risk, but with far less dire risks to widespread death vis-a-vis a breach of certain minute elements of nuclear energy by products with a half life exceeding 200 years.

Bill Young - "The nuclear power utilities fully pay for waste disposal."

Well they pay a fee however that is not nearly the full cost of building and maintaining the facility for the requisite number of years. Yucca mountain is only the first and will not be open until 2017.

"As long as nuclear power continues to be generated, the amounts stored at plant sites will continue to grow until an interim storage facility or a permanent repository
can be opened — or until alternative treatment and disposal technology is developed. DOE estimates that the amount of commercial spent fuel and other highly radioactive waste may grow to 105,000 metric tons by 2035.7"

That is without the massive expansion of nuclear power that would be needed to offset more than a token amount of greenhouse gases. If the waste problem is solved and small amounts are involved what is going on here?

"These fees are being held up by the government for political reasons (and will continue to be with Harry Reid as majority leader). If released, they would fully fund the completion of Yucca mountain phase 1."

I am not sure that this is even close to being true - read this for the latest:
http://ncseonline.org/NLE/CRSreports/06Sep/RL33461.pdf
It is the document I got the previous quote from.

"The utilities are doing dry storage because they have no choice, not because it is cheap."

Well no they have a lot of choice. Why are they not building their own facility? Why is France, that has the most nuclear power, not building a geological facility - all its waste is above ground that cannot be reprocessed. Sweden is the only country that I know of that seems to be doing it properly however it is a state run power organisation that does not make profits.

"France is nuclear, they must do it. It would be difficult to try and balance wind power with a nuclear reactor because it is so unpredictable."

Yes and they use a lot of Swedish pumped hydro as do the wind operators in Denmark. The fact that nuclear cannot be interfaced easily with renewables is one more nail in it's coffin as far as I am concerned as if it needed another one.

Richard:

I would be the first to oppose massive build-up of current nuclear reactors all around the world. But pouring couple of dozen of billions yearly to develop IV generation nuclear reactors – and beyond, is absolute necessity. I hope this mistake will never happen again:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/interviews/till.html

Every watt of power nuke doesnt generate coal will. That is the fact cowards hide from.We will push wind and wave and solar bt again every watt of nuke we dont build we build a watt of coal power.

As for electric transportation. If the roads had had the proper amout of money and work done on them we could have already afforded to directly electrify important stretches of out road system and adapt cars and trucks to tap into that power.

With supercaps and a short charging lane every few dozen miles you could maintain a small battery for as long a trip as needed. But that costs money and we dont even think of it because our roads have been starved of money for decades in favor of other less useful forms of travel.

Dont forget folks even back in the 50s we were thinking and planning the eltrification or roadways because even then we wanted a cleaner car.

For those interested in how new political developments are affecting the world of green automobiles, check out the Green Machines Road Trip (http://www.greenmachinestour.org/). It follows the story of a team of green bloggers that travel from Minnesota to Michigan writing about how fuel-efficient vehicles have been and will continue to transform America’s heartland. Also, provides links to commentary on the politics of green machines (http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/12/24/17371/067)

If we would spend all the money people are planning to spend trying to develop practical and safe nuclear and fossil fuel-based technologies and spend it just bringing down the price on wind and solar, we could build that cheaper. Develop advanced biofuels as well, convert existing fossil powerplants and vehicles, reform efficiency incentives and we could meet the Vattenfall study's objectives at a net savings. It's upsetting everybody's applecart that's the problem. That and fair burden-sharing for the huge long-term R&D investments needed.

Andrey,

Global warming will not wait for the Gen IV reactors. They will not be ready for commercial deployment for at least 15 years.

LWRs are the only technology currently liscensed in the US. They are safe, economic and emission free, despite all the nattering about Chernobyl, waste and subsidies. It is true they only burn 3-4% of the fuel as compared to close to 100% with some of the Gen IV concepts.

The US is the premier CO2 polluter.This needs to be addressed more aggressively than currently planned. Renewables and conservation are good but we need to actively reduce our CO2 emissions. Were we to initiate a fleet of 200 new 1GW LWRs it would go a long way towards replacing our coal fired baseload.

Bill:

If your do some research on GW, beginning with link I provided before and with, for example:

http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv15n2/reg15n2g.html

you will learn that it is exactly same folks who killed nuke progress 30 years ago and who are pushing GW agenda right now. It is no way these crooks will allow nuclear power, the only technology which could dent our CO2 emissions, to go forward and ruin the case they are parasite on.

So far, US energy generation is doing just fine without nukes. It will definitely change in near future. Not so with many other countries, lacking US vast supply of cheap coal, which are persuing nuclear power generation right now. In any case, gen IV reactors are destined to come and flourish, with or without US lead or participation. I prefer it to be WITH.

The important thing is that everyone everywhere does NOT do the same thing. Because at least if we all chose different ideas SOME of us will pick the right combos.

If we all chose the same methods.. its sure we all will pick the wrong one.. Murfy is a son of a bleep.

Wintermane:

You are certainly right. It is not wise to put all eggs in one basket, being it “all nuclear” or “no nuclear at all”.

I fail to see how .6% of the Wotld's GDP reduces GHGs, if none of the methods like nuclear power, hydropower, or clean coal are employed.

Exhortations to conserve by all but the Nomenklatura, are just as effective as the need for collectivized farmers to produce to overcome "seventy consecutive years of draughts and floods" and other problems that never ended, in the East Bloc and Cuba. It just seems this is a money and power grab by the same phonies who brough ecological paradise to the East Bloc.

In short Prime First Class: B-A-L-O-N-E-Y!