Ah, nuclear power. A wet dream for engineer types. A nightmare for everyone else.

drivin98:

Yep, what do engineers know about, well, engineering power systems?

Far better to find an 'advocate' with the correct views, who does not worry about all that tedious number business, unless it is for polemical purposes.

@ Nick

Diablo Canyon? You mean the nuclear power plant they had the great idea of building on top of or near several seismic fault lines? Even if it is now "safe" just think of the extra costs they had to incur to make it so.

Convening Second Workshop on Advanced Non-Light Water Reactors:

YES!

@al_vin:

Diablo Canyon is built near some seismic faults, as are most places in coastal California. Diablo Canyon is well-equipped to handle any earthquake that might occur. Yes, money has been spent to upgrade the seismic safety of the plant as well as of the workers who spend their days there. Lots of money has been spent on redundant and expensive surveys of all safety aspects of the plant. Nevertheless, DCNPP continues to provide cheap, carbon-free, dependable electricity to California.

I live in the area and have toured the plant--I can tell you they run a tight ship over there, and I do not lose any sleep over our proximity to the place.

Nuclear power, even the early generation, pressure-cooker style plants we live with today, are statistically far safer than almost any other power source.

As for waste, I have seen the array of dry casks lined up on a pad behind the plant. They currently take up about as much space as a couple of tennis courts. They are not a danger to anyone. If we ever decide to dispose of them permanently (as opposed to recycling the fuel within), we can easily tuck them into a stable salt formation (such as WIPP in New Mexico) or drop them down a borehole far below any water table or bury them on the abyssal plan out in the Pacific, where they would sit for eternity, covered by the accumulating sediment. Waste is a political problem only.

I see the nuclear decision as part of the President's policy of supporting all forms of clean energy. He even tried to support 'clean coal' until he discovered he was being bamboozled.

No question renewables are at the top of the list; however, it's been slow going to build them out, especially with the oil companies and their bought Republicans fighting every decision.

Nuclear should help speed up the transition off fossil fuels. However, I worry that the worse case analysis engineering won't be done properly as was the case in Japan, Russia, and California. If the design work is done correctly and the reactor managed well, the only worry remaining is how to handle the radioactive residue.

sd, that is an interesting link to wind machine accidents and injuries. The absolute numbers seem small compared to electrocutions in the UK if I recall clearly. And certainly very small compared to highway accidents. But once a wind machine accident is over, it is pretty much over. Compare to Fukushima, which is (according to some accounts) nowhere close to being "over". The big problem for nuclear power generation is that private enterprise will not finance it, nor insure it. It has always been a creation of governments, perhaps trying to obtain economy of scale for their investments in nuclear military projects. And for the most part, nuclear power generation does not follow load, which is becoming a bigger part of the price of electricity. If you cannot throttle back when there is no demand, you are not competitive anymore. "Base Load" provision is like carbohydrates, the market is oversupplied with both. Witness negative electricity prices becoming more common.

Jmartin, there are 5 large nuclear units currently under construction in the US with the first scheduled to come online next year and 2 more in 2017. Currently the NRC has 7 applications for 12 total large reactors under review with more applications expected. See http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/col/new-reactor-map.html

"Renewables" require huge tax credits, continent-spanning transmission networks to even out the spotty distribution, and other massive interventions... and people have the gall to characterize this as "power to the people"?!

A million people could literally get together and for a fraction of the price of a new car apiece they could hire management and build themselves a nuclear plant to provide themselves 1 kW/capita of power totally independent of anyone else, save a semi-load of new fuel every 18 months.  But somehow this is NOT "power to the people".

Ignorance is strength.  Freedom is slavery.  War is peace.  "Green energy" is your friend.

A million people acting independently could put solar panels on their individual roofs.

Which only a few hobbyists would do if it weren't for mandates, huge tax credits and rebates.

The vast majority of those people are still on the "horrible un-democratic" grid.  Without the grid, to provide 900 watts continuously (roughly what 1 kW of nuclear provides, given refueling outages) with PV at 22% capacity factor requires about 4.1 kW of PV ($4100/kW at $1/watt) plus storage.  Lead-acid batteries are about $60/kWh but they can't be deep-cycled without wearing them out very rapidly.  900 watts for 2 days is 43 kWh more or less; 86 kWh of batteries is another $5000 or so.  That's already more than $9000 ($10k/average kW) and I haven't even considered losses, charge controllers and inverters yet.

There's a reason this makes nuclear look cheap by comparison:  IT IS.

Which is more likely?

People actually going off-grid on their own dime, you mean?  Not going to happen.

Double standard much?

E-P you talk of the "huge tax credits" solar gets, but not of the subsidies nuclear has received for the last 50+ years.

You talk of people with solar panels still needing to be on the "horrible un-democratic grid" but fail to mention those who go nuclear will also be on on the "horrible un-democratic" grid.

The point is that people who generate their own energy, even if it's only for part of their needs, are taking political power out of the hands of other people who may not have their best interests at heart.

The less money I give to the utilities the less money they have to line the pockets of politicians whom I might not agree with.

E-P you talk of the "huge tax credits" solar gets, but not of the subsidies nuclear has received for the last 50+ years.

Define "nuclear", and exclude anything that is (a) military or (b) fusion-related, since neither has anything to do with commercial nuclear electric plants.  What you will find is that commercial nuclear power is a big net taxpayer, and has been forced to pay service fees for services blocked by Congress (spent fuel disposal).  Almost all the so-called "subsidies" are weapons-related parts of the Department of Energy budget or related to treaty obligations (e.g. the MOX plant currently under fire).

I thought you were smart enough not to fall for this stuff.

Now compare the pittance that remains with the 30% immediate tax credit and 5-year writeoff now given to "renewables" projects.  Even the loan guarantees provided to nuclear come with "subsidy fees"!

those who go nuclear will also be on on the "horrible un-democratic" grid.

I'm not the one calling the grid a bad thing, thus the scare quotes.  I am calling radical expansions in LD transmission to support "renewables" a bad thing, because the tax cheats getting the benefits aren't paying for them; the general ratepayer is.

The point is that people who generate their own energy, even if it's only for part of their needs, are taking political power out of the hands of other people

You wish.  They are backing out their contributions to the upkeep of the grid, while maintaining their connections and ability to make sudden demands on it at any time—demands that they are no longer supporting.  Under most rate regimes, those burdens fall on others.  When the self-generators pay a separate demand fee and/or have their demand forcibly limited to what they're paying to support, THEN things will be fair.  If they are not paying for what they get, someone else is.  Usually that someone is less well-off and has less political pull than rich homeowners with the excess income and tax burden to merit a roof-full of tax credits.

The less money I give to the utilities the less money they have to line the pockets of politicians whom I might not agree with.

As opposed to lining the pockets of the people backing "Green" initiatives, not because they'll accomplish the vision, but because they won't?  Who do you think is collecting on all those tax write-offs?

The interests you should be worrying about are those pulling carbon out of the ground and shipping it (pipelines, railroads, barges).  They have a massive amount of political patronage going; nuclear does not, and utilities in general don't have much.