US to build two new nuclear power stations

reply to post by Ozzy Mandias


Well my friend the answer you seek is obvious. The nuclear power plant he is supporting will hypothetically provide jobs for the unions (big Obama campaign supporters) and provide political cover so he can say he is trying to work with the republicans to get a climate bill passed. The really funny thing is that he doesn’t have any intention of letting the plant ever come on line , so he wont have to worry about the spent fuel storage problem.

Originally posted by tooo many pills

Originally posted by soultorent
Why don't we just load up all the nuclear waste into a container and blast it off into space.

Set it on a crash course with Jupiter. Not our problem right?

Send it to the Sun instead. I wonder how heavy nuclear waste is?

Just imagine that this rockets payload is nuclear waste instead of a satellite .



Even with a failure rate of 1% ....... the possible ecological disaster would be unimaginable.




edit to fix embedded video
[edit on 17-2-2010 by UmbraSumus]

[edit on 17-2-2010 by UmbraSumus]

Originally posted by Silver Shadow
impose immediate trade sanctions against the US.

Please, oh please! Our unbalanced trade practices are a huge contributor to our current economic troubles. If we can't buy 'stuff' from other countries, we will have to make it ourselves. Which would mean J-O-B-S. Bring on the sanctions!

reply to post by UmbraSumus


Lol true that, but I doubt it would be much worse than dumping it in the ocean, not that our country does that anymore. Maybe, we can find a way on the quantum level to stablize nuclear particles and waste.

I Googled how we dispose of nuclear waste

www.history.rochester.edu...

Nuclear waste can be generally classified a either "low level" radioactive waste or "high level" radioactive waste. Low level nuclear waste usually includes material used to handle the highly radioactive parts of nuclear reactors (i.e. cooling water pipes and radiation suits) and waste from medical procedures involving radioactive treatments or x-rays. Low level waste is comparatively easy to dispose of. The level of radioactivity and the half life of the radioactive isotopes in low level waste is relatively small. Storing the waste for a period of 10 to 50 years will allow most of the radioactive isotopes in low level waste to decay, at which point the waste can be disposed of as normal refuse.

High level radioactive waste is generally material from the core of the nuclear reactor or nuclear weapon. This waste includes uranium, plutonium, and other highly radioactive elements made during fission. Most of the radioactive isotopes in high level waste emit large amounts of radiation and have extremely long half-lives (some longer than 100,000 years) creating long time periods before the waste will settle to safe levels of radioactivity. This area will describe some of the methods being under consideration, for dealing with this, high level, waste. These include short term storage , long term storage, and transmutation.

Long-term storage

While there are methods of significantly reducing the amount of high level radioactive waste, some (or all) high level radioactive waste must end its journey in long term storage. Because "long term" refers to a period of thousands of years, security of the radioactive waste must be assured over geologic time periods. The waste must not be allowed to escape to the outside environment by any foreseeable accident, malevolent action, or geological activity. This includes (but is certainly not limited to) accidental uncovering, removal by groups intending to use the radioactive material in a harmful manner, leeching of the waste into the water supply, and exposure from earthquake activity or other geological activity. In addition this security must be maintained over a period of time during which, not only will the designers of the storage area die, but the country, and the "modern world", will likely fall and be replaced many times over. It has only been 3000 years since the Egypian Empire, yet some high level radioactive waste will take over 20,000 years to decay.
Causing further difficulty is the fact that some of this waste is plutonium, and other actinide elements, produced as byproducts (often purposefully) of uranium fission. These elements are not only highly radioactive, but highly poisonous as well. The toxicity of plutonium is among the highest of any element known.

Areas currently being evaluated for storage of nuclear waste are space, under the sea bed, and large stable geologic formations on land. Long term storage on land seems to be the favorite of most countries, including the United States.

We haven't come very far yet. Most of our Nuclear Powerplants will go offline this century and we will need to create more than just two new ones to replace those. Nuclear Energy doesn't sound so good now, unless we can make a technological breakthrough to dispose of the waste.

reply to post by tooo many pills


This section of the text you linked, should make everybody think twice before leaving this gift to those that follow.

In addition this security must be maintained over a period of time during which, not only will the designers of the storage area die, but the country, and the "modern world", will likely fall and be replaced many times over.

It has only been 3000 years since the Egyptian Empire, yet some high level radioactive waste will take over 20,000 years to decay.

link

Can you imagine if the Egyptians left a legacy of nuclear waste ...

Archaeologists would look like this



I suppose it will be a case of build the nuclear plants and hope we figure out how to deal with the waste, sooner rather than later.

It will generate approximately 18 billion kw/h a year, the equivalent of 4650 1.5 megawatt wind turbines, or approximately every single wind-farm in Texas. All of that, in practically two buildings on one site. Capital cost should be about 30% less than wind, excluding the back-ups that wind needs. The plant with the already existing units 1 and 2, and units 3 and 4, will generate as much electricity as every single wind-turbine in Spain. And it only needs to refuel every 18 months.

Nuclear waste is now "safe and clean" ??????

It's toxic and radioactive. It's safe and clean because it's minimal in volume, and with great care, it can be very safe and very clean. For example, the Kingston Fossil Plant coal fly ash slurry spill, is impossible with Nuclear waste. Currently, Nuclear waste is sealed in very strong concrete casks, which can last many decades. If that's not safe then I don't know what is.

Wind, solar and hydroelectric are clean.

Yet each has significant drawbacks. All need significantly more raw materials compared to nuclear (i.e. concrete, steel, rare-earths). Last time I checked, manufacturing solar panels created waste also. Of course, it's not as toxic as nuclear waste, but then again it is not loaded into concrete / steel containers.

It's a green energy company, producing polysilicon destined for solar energy panels sold around the world. But the byproduct of polysilicon production -- silicon tetrachloride -- is a highly toxic substance that poses environmental hazards.

www.washingtonpost.com...

GUYUN VILLAGE, China — Some of the greenest technologies of the age, from electric cars to efficient light bulbs to very large wind turbines, are made possible by an unusual group of elements called rare earths. The world’s dependence on these substances is rising fast.

Just one problem: These elements come almost entirely from China, from some of the most environmentally damaging mines in the country, in an industry dominated by criminal gangs.

www.nytimes.com...

I especially think that we can find ways to reduce and elliminate nuclear waste. With current systems we can use up to around 90% of nuclear fuel, i belive, dont quote me on that i dont have a source right now!

A 1000 megawatt current nuclear reactor, will each year, need about 170 tons of natural uranium. It gets enriched to a few percent, and 20 tons goes through the reactor. The 150 tons remaining is discarded as depleted Uranium. That 20 tons of spent fuel contains 18.73 tons of Uranium, 0.25 tons of Plutonium, 1.02 tons of other fission products. The spent fuel is radioactive for a very long time. Basically, due to various reasons, we extract less than 1% of the energy available in the material we mine with current reactors. Fast Reactors, like the Integral Fast Reactor, and the Molten Salt Reactor, are able to extract almost 100% of the energy from the fuel, are over 150 times more efficient, and leave much less waste that only lasts a couple of hundred years (Which is very easily accomplished). That means we can take the waste from current reactors, and get a few hundred years of energy from it. Some parts of the technology have been demonstrated (40 years ago...), however it still needs development and could be available by 2030. A number of countries (e.g. Russia, Japan, France) are developing it. If people are concerned about nuclear waste, then they should support research and development of these technologies.

what i really dont understand (and i was going to start a thread on this question but have not reached my 20 post limit!) is whyy is obama pushing nuclear power while cutting funding for nuclear waste facillities?! i really dont see what kind of advantage there is to these simultaneous actions! is it political?

Campaign promises, political, and apparently we have learned much since Yucca mountain was planned. The government formed a panel that should decide what to do with the waste. We can store the waste for many decades using the current method, so technically it's no real rush. Politically, I think it is. Waste is a massive concern about Nuclear energy.

I would like to ask Obama if it would be alright to store the waste, from these new power plants, in his children's closets. If the answer is no, then don't build the plants. Simple.

There are plenty of wastes that are created by many things we use in our lives. But that doesn't mean we're going to stop using petrol, for example. If the waste repository is carefully designed, I don't believe any reasonable person would have a problem with it. It's remarkable that after 20 years and $9 billion spent on Yucca Mountain, it's suddenly stated that it's "not an option".

Ummm the US has SO much nuclear "waste" already that they could build hundreds of thousands of bombs if they wanted.

It's extremely difficult to turn reactor grade plutonium into a weapon. There are far more easy ways to build a nuclear weapon. No nuclear weapon has ever been made from reactor grade plutonium. However, plutonium from nuclear weapons can be added to nuclear fuel. The United States gets a massive amount of electricity from disassembled nuclear weapons...

A) why is the government funding the projects? Isn't there an energy company somewhere in the country ready to build one anyways? Plus the Government never does anything right! B) Why now? I don't get the flip flop on the issue...

A loan guarantee is a promise by a government to assume a private debt obligation if the borrower defaults. Meaning this project is privately financed unless the owners default on financing (recent estimates have placed this a 50% probability). Of course, if the project goes to plan, these loan guarantees turn into a source of government revenue, while helping the plant to open. It's great news this happened. First Nuclear plant in 30 years to start construction. Nuclear today is the 2nd cheapest source of electricity in the United States (after hydroelectric) and supplies 75% of its fossil-fuel electrical energy. Many things have changed since they were last built, which should prevent some of the issues in cost that Nuclear previously had. But it still needs to be demonstrated that this works. I suspect that if this project concludes on-time and on-budget, then we will see reactors built with no government support. I really hope that happens. Short answer: It wouldn't be able to attract investors unless it had a loan guarantee. Nuclear is somewhat risky for investors as one has not been built in 30 years. I suspect many more plants will follow, over 30 new nuclear plants have applied for licensing in the US. Many more will be built, it it needs a jump-start.

This world does not need any more nuclear power plants, any more dirty, depleted uranium waste.

Depleted Uranium is pretty much harmless unless you're introducing it into the environment. DU is pretty much exactly the same stuff as was dug out of the ground.

Solar, wind, GEOTHERMAL, never anything fossil fuel or nuclear. Say no, by watever means it takes.

You're living in an idealogical dream-world that is not reality. Wind energy is not even on-track to supply 20% of the energy in the United States by 2030. Neither it, nor solar can supply electrical energy on demand, they are both very expensive, and require extensive natural gas backups. Geothermal has massive difficulty scaling upwards. Do you really think people suggest Nuclear because they enjoy dealing with radioactive materials? No. They suggest that there is a need for nuclear energy, the alternatives are incompetent, and the problems, such as waste can be sufficiently dealt with by building a waste repository similar to Yucca Mountain. Design it well enough to enable minimal radiation leakage even over thousands of years. We are already disposing of similar (but military) materials at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. The salt caverns the materials are disposed of in have been stable for over 250 million years.

Send it to the Sun instead. I wonder how heavy nuclear waste is? We need fuel to blast off, it might be wasting more energy than we would be creating to send it into space. Also, Aliens might get really mad at us.

Or turn it into a few hundred years worth of energy in an IFR / LFTR...

The really funny thing is that he doesn’t have any intention of letting the plant ever come on line , so he wont have to worry about the spent fuel storage problem.

According to whom? and why? Once the plant gets the license (which is also when it gets the loan guarantee) in 2011, there's not much that can be done to stop it (thank god).

Nuclear Energy doesn't sound so good now, unless we can make a technological breakthrough to dispose of the waste.

We don't need a technological breakthrough. We need the political will to open Yucca Mountain, or build alternative options, like fast reactors, and salt caverns. We are already using salt-caverns for military waste. Why not civilian nuclear "waste"? Also, without a large amount of technology, it would be impossible for future generations to get 2000 feet deep to reach the repository.

This section of the text you linked, should make everybody think twice before leaving this gift to those that follow.

With the IFR free spent-nuclear fuel would truly be a gift. The capacity of Yucca mountain (70,000 tons) could power the United States for approx 150 years.

[edit on 19/2/2010 by C0bzz]

reply to post by C0bzz


Well done! I agree Nuclear Energy gives us the most energy out of all alternative power sources. But, I do still see the long-term storage of Nuclear waste on the planet as very hazardous.

Currently, Nuclear waste is sealed in very strong concrete casks, which can last many decades. If that's not safe then I don't know what is.

How many decades? High-level radioactive waste is suppose to last hundreds to thousands of years.

Yucca Mountain. I would read the whole link.
en.wikipedia.org...

80 miles northwest of the Las Vegas

Yucca Mountain is part of the Nellis Military Operations Area in Nevada. It neighbors the Nellis Air Force Base bombing range and the Nevada Test and Training Range. The Nevada Test and Training Range was home to 904 atomic bomb tests between 1945 and 1992

The formation that makes up Yucca Mountain was created by several large eruptions from a caldera volcano and is composed of alternating layers of ignimbrite (welded tuff), non-welded tuff, and semi-welded tuff. Tuff has special physical, chemical and thermal characteristics that some experts believe make it a suitable material to entomb radioactive waste for the hundreds of thousands of years required for the waste to become safe through radioactive decay.

What if we stockpile all of our country's nuclear waste in Yucca Mtn and the caldera erupts again or any volcanic activity for that matter? Wiki says, the last caldera erupt was 12 million yrs ago, but 8 volcanoes erupted within 50 km of the proposed repository in the past million years.

There are also many fractures and faults in the bedrock in the Yucca Mtn area. Plus, Nevada ranks 3rd in the nation for current seismic activity.

I wouldn't even put my house there, let alone nuclear waste.

[edit on 19-2-2010 by tooo many pills]

that is going to be one massive target.

reply to post by C0bzz


I totally agree. The amount of waste currently would not even fill a Walmart distribution center. There are natural deposits that are much more dangerous.

The current approved designs are based on thermal (not fast fission) w/ a negative coefficient of reactivity meaning if you take away the coolant (thermal moderator) the reactor shuts down. There is no human interaction required.

I operated and maintained Nuclear Power Plants in the Navy for several years and see them as one of the safest and cleanest forms of power currently available. This is something we should have been exploiting all along. Perhaps if we were, instead of fighting and dying in the sands of the middle east, we could just thumb our collective noses at the big oil producers and be self sufficient w/ just domestic production.

Texas nuclear renaissance moves ahead with lure of loan guarantees

The development of two new reactors at the South Texas Project now appears to be headed for a much less contentious financial future with the apparent settlement of a legal dispute between the municipal electric utility for the city of San Antonio and Nuclear Innovation North America (NINA).

This move opened the way for support from CPS for the crucial federal loan guarantee. NRG said repeatedly without it the utility could not proceed with the project.

Costs will now come under control. NRG CEO David Crane said Toshiba has backed off its earlier estimate of costs in the range of $13 billion. Now, Crane says, the firm is "…on track for a number below $10 billion."

STP 3&4 is a two-unit nuclear project being developed at the existing South Texas Project site in Matagorda County, TX. A combined operating license for STP units 3&4 is expected in 2012, with the units anticipated to come online in 2016 and 2017, respectively.

www.theenergycollective.com...

(note, this is a different nuclear project compared the the OP. The above is about two planned nuclear reactors in Texas. The OP was about two nuclear reactors in Georgia.)

If they do get the cost below 10 billion for two 1350 megawatt units, then it will be significant. That's $3700 per kilowatt, which for Nuclear in the US, is damned good. However, previous Nuclear projects in the US have been characterized by massive delays. Although some of the reasons for these delays have since been eliminated, it remains to be seen whether it actually works. Let's hope they don't mess it up. Wind is approximately $7000 per kilowatt, and natural gas is under $1000 per kilowatt of capacity. These are capital costs which do not include operating costs (which is very low for nuclear and wind, but high for natural gas).

Here's a good fair article on the loan guarantees:

But carbon tax or no, the president is right to signal that he will unfreeze the regulatory process, which, in concert with public discomfort, has stymied the industry for decades. And there is a reasonable argument that nuclear should get this federal push. Though nuclear may well be more cost-efficient than its critics allege, huge upfront construction costs scare off investors. If loan guarantees for the first batch of new plants help demonstrate that reactors can be built without the delays and cost overruns that have characterized some nuclear projects, capital will come to nuclear without as much governmental support in the future and without taxpayers actually spending much.

www.washingtonpost.com...

How many decades?

We can store fuel in dry-casks, like we are now, for many decades. It's not as if it's unsafe in this time-frame even if we do not build a repository.

High-level radioactive waste is suppose to last hundreds to thousands of years.

Radioactivity of some things lasts practically forever. Uranium-238 which is contained in unprocessed spent-fuel, has a half-life of a few billion years. That being said, elements with half-lives that long are not very radioactive. Uranium-238 for example, is just as radioactive in spent fuel as it is in the rock that we mined. As time goes on, radioactivity decreases exponentially, and my understanding that the fuel as a whole is pretty safe after 10,000 to 100,000 years.

There are also many fractures and faults in the bedrock in the Yucca Mtn area. Plus, Nevada ranks 3rd in the nation for current seismic activity.

I don't think it's relevant that Nevada has seismic activity. It's more relevant if the structure can survive the earthquakes with minimal risk, and whether an eruption is likely to occur in the future. If the answers to those show that Yucca is not the best solution, then perhaps we should go down a different path. My understanding is Yucca was chosen for many political reasons, and not as many technical reasons. For example, salt caverns that have been stable for millions of years, and represent a much better waste disposal option. And as previously stated, it's possible to burn down the waste using fast-spectrum reactors, but they need to be developed first.

Thanks.

The current approved designs are based on thermal (not fast fission) w/ a negative coefficient of reactivity meaning if you take away the coolant (thermal moderator) the reactor shuts down. There is no human interaction required.

If there is an incident at a generation 3+ Nuclear Reactor then the control rods will be completely deployed within a couple of seconds. From what I understand, cooling is still required - but this is accomplished through passive systems which use things like gravity, conduction, evaporation and convection to cool the core. They're supposed to be hundreds of times safer than current plants.

The AP1000™ pressurized water reactor works on the simple concept that, in the event of a design-basis accident (such as a coolant pipe break), the plant is designed to achieve and maintain safe shutdown condition without any operator action and without the need for ac power or pumps. Instead of relying on active components such as diesel generators and pumps, the AP1000 relies on the natural forces of gravity, natural circulation and compressed gases to keep the core and containment from overheating. However, many active components are included in the AP1000, but are designated as non safety-related.

www.ap1000.westinghousenuclear.com...

(this is the same type of reactor that received the loan guarantee)

Other types of reactors under development, such as the Pebble Ped, are completely impossible to melt down so they don't really need any safety systems.

[edit on 23/2/2010 by C0bzz]

begin quote
The current approved designs are based on thermal (not fast fission) w/ a negative coefficient of reactivity meaning if you take away the coolant (thermal moderator) the reactor shuts down. There is no human interaction required.


If there is an incident at a generation 3+ Nuclear Reactor then the control rods will be completely deployed within a couple of seconds. From what I understand, cooling is still required - but this is accomplished through passive systems which use things like gravity, conduction, evaporation and convection to cool the core. They're supposed to be hundreds of times safer than current plants.


The AP1000™ pressurized water reactor works on the simple concept that, in the event of a design-basis accident (such as a coolant pipe break), the plant is designed to achieve and maintain safe shutdown condition without any operator action and without the need for ac power or pumps. Instead of relying on active components such as diesel generators and pumps, the AP1000 relies on the natural forces of gravity, natural circulation and compressed gases to keep the core and containment from overheating. However, many active components are included in the AP1000, but are designated as non safety-related.

www.ap1000.westinghousenuclear.com... end quote.

Talking about two different things here. What you describe is a NLOC or Non Loss of Coolant accident which results in a scram of the reactor control rods which places the reactor in a sub critical state and shuts it down. These types of incidents are more common and occur as safety measures for electrical faults, pump shutdowns, over temp faults, etc.

An LOC, or Loss of Coolant accident is very serious and results in uncovering of the core. Typically many bad things happen inside the reactor vessel which prevent the unit from operating again (plate warpage, fuel matrix decomposition, cracked rods, fuel plate separation, among others). Thermal reactions require Thermal neutrons which require a moderator to slow them down. This is a critical design factor in all US PWR reactors that make them ultimately safe from the most dangerous of all reactor accidents, a loss of coolant.

[edit on 2/23/2010 by rleexray]

[edit on 2/23/2010 by rleexray]

Originally posted by Nomad451


I call for immediate and hard hitting sanctions against the United States. I believe with their already massive nuclear stockpile they are aiming to create more bombs under the guise of Nuclear Power.

America should be immediately surrounded with a coalition of countries militaries and we should start selling arms as a "defensive" measure to Canada, Mexico and South America.

Yadda Yadda Yadda. What a hypocritical government.

news.bbc.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

We don't need a guise of Nuclear power... We have enough Nukes to blow up the entire planet a few times over.......

Oh I get it, it's sarcasm... Over the whole Iran thing...

In that case here, have a star!

[edit on 23-2-2010 by DaMod]