More Nukes

Yes!

President Barack Obama is endorsing nuclear energy like never before, trying to win over Republicans and moderate Democrats on climate and energy legislation.

Obama singled out nuclear power in his State of the Union address, and his spending plan for the next budget year is expected to include billions of more dollars in federal guarantees for new nuclear reactors. This emphasis reflects both the political difficulties of passing a climate bill in an election year and a shift from his once cautious embrace of nuclear energy.

He’s now calling for a new generation of nuclear power plants.

I agree! 

Oh wait…

During the campaign, Obama said he would support nuclear power with caveats. He was concerned about how to deal with radioactive waste and how much federal money was needed to support construction costs. Those concerns remain; some say they’ve gotten worse.

Crap!  As usual, the devil is in the details.  One can say they support nuclear energy all they want, but if the crushing regulatory environment that has prevented the building of a new nuclear plant in decades is not eased, it’s all just posturing.  It’s like Governor Doyle’s global warming bill that supports more nuclear power in Wisconsin if if if if if if if until it doesn’t actually change anything. 

1. Its all lip service.  There is reactor technology out there that would take the spent fuel and recycle (not reprocess) it.  The guys have been up to Washington to speak to the DoE ad nauseum and they ain’t biting….

   Much better explanation of the technology here….

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on January 31, 2010 at 1121 hrs




2. pay no attention to what he says…....pay close attention to what he does

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on January 31, 2010 at 1126 hrs




3. And these questions do not concern you, Owen? We are talking about federal tax money and waste disposal….at least one of those items seems to be very near and dear to your heart, no?

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on January 31, 2010 at 1145 hrs




4. This is the only reasonable answer to our energy needs. I think the timing might be right.
   And, Neomom is right, there are working reactors in other parts of the world that could use spent rods. I would, however, recommend against relying on Esquire for technology news.
   Finally, Yucca mountain is a perfect place to store waste -  yet another reason I can’t stand Harry Reid.

   Posted by Charlie Hillman on January 31, 2010 at 1217 hrs




5. Charlie -

   At the risk of full disclosure and losing some anonymity…  I know Eric Loewen and work at the same place.  The Esquire article is a little heavy on the fluff (save the planet!), but explains PRISM pretty well.

   The only facility in the world that reprocesses spent fuel rods is in France.  However, that technology is not terribly efficient - it can only glean about another 20% out of the rods and you can end up with Plutonium at the end of it.  The US won’t allow export of our spent rods to that facility over non-proliferation concerns.  So instead, they are sitting in pools and dry casks at all the nuke plants all over the US.

   With PRISM, a Yucca Mountain type facility isn’t required.  PRISM takes those spent fuel rods and can more efficiently get the power out of the remaining uranium leaving a much smaller amount of something that has a much smaller half life.  It’s really rather cool.

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on January 31, 2010 at 1236 hrs




6. Didn’t Obama quash the Yucca Mountain storage site once he took office?  That seemed to be the best solution and didn’t we stick a couple billion in it already?

   Maybe with Dingy Harry losing his Senate seat in November, Obama will wisely re-open that site.

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on January 31, 2010 at 1303 hrs




7. Charlie-you and neomom get this figured out.

   looks like you speak the same language

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on January 31, 2010 at 1313 hrs




8. Steve -

   Yes, the Obama Admin/Chu DoE killed Yucca Mountain as a big sloppy wet one to Reid. 

   Chu may be “brilliant”, but he is in way over his head and getting rolled on a regular basis. 

   Hence the reason I say that as nice as Obie’s words were on nuclear, it was nothing more than his usual lip service/shell game to pretending to throw a bone to his opponents.

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on January 31, 2010 at 1332 hrs




9. I know Eric Loewen and work at the same place..

   In my past I’ve done a bit of consulting for GE Nuclear. It was sad that their efforts have had an impact only outside of the US.

   it was nothing more than his usual lip service/shell game

   Perhaps, but if we look at the socialist nation that all the conservatives love to hate (hint: they like accordian music), we see that they have embraced nuclear energy and are thus independent of Mideast oil. Color me naive, but I’d hope that it could happen here.

   Posted by Charlie Hillman on January 31, 2010 at 1537 hrs




10. Charlie - that is truly the odd thing about the entire “green” energy movement.  The French have proven quite clearly that nuke is the way to go, but our fearless leaders (sarc) want us to use Spain as our “green” example.  The same Spain who lost 2.2 jobs for every 1 “green” one created.

    There is more at work here. 

    IMHO - Outside of the redistributive nature of the current crew, I think it is that the environmental establishment here in the US is still very much mired in the old hippie version of nuclear is evil and still think of 3-Mile Island and “The China Syndrome”. 

    I joined Nuclear because I believe in it.  And yes, I find it truly sad that our best prospects for growth and opportunity are outside of the US.  The Turkey Point Florida expansion that Westinghouse would have had just got killed.  South Texas, postponed indefinately.  Dominion in Virginia - the decision is being pushed out again.  Detroit Edison is years away… 

    Meanwhile India and China are pushing and building like crazy.

    The takeaway - yes, it could happen here, but it won’t with Obama in charge.

    Another thought…  Building a new plant takes about 5-6 years.  It creates about 3500-5000 construction jobs.  It also requires all sorts of raw material and components to be purchased and manufactured creating a couple thousand more jobs down the supply chain.  At the end, the prize is a producer of base load, inexpensive, clean energy to help fuel economic growth that requires about another 600-700 permanent, good-paying jobs to run and maintain it.  Instead, the “shovel-ready infrastructure” jobs that were put into the stimulus were largely small repair jobs (as one of our mayors put it - filling potholes) or funding ridiculous wind farms purchasing the turbines from China.  Imagine if $35B or so of that $787 had been set aside for loan backups for 5 or more new nuke plants…..

    Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on January 31, 2010 at 1559 hrs




11. NeoMom - you are preaching to the choir - I was a member of the Fusion Society back in the early 70’s.
    Very odd that one movie could truly change the course of history. Without Ms Fonda et. al., we might not have been required to protect our oil interests in the Mideast. 911 might never have happened. Starting to flash on Fringe.
    With all that being said, the short term fix is nuclear but it is still centralized, bureaucratic, and prone to externalities. We must push ahead with numerous technologies to make energy abundant and virtually free.

    Posted by Charlie Hillman on January 31, 2010 at 1704 hrs




12. Well, Charlie and NeoMom, I like the idea of my old (now deceased, RIP) nuker-pal:

    Sell the used fuel rods to homeowners, who will install a permanent hot-water-heating system in their yards.

    Double-walled concrete container, internal container sealed w/nuke rods, pump for water circulation, external container w/hot water and recirculating pump, pipes leading to home hot-water heating system and hot-water for household use.

    Best part:  the free yellow-and-black “NUKES HERE” sign to put in the yard.  Keeps the riffraff out.

    Drawback:  the $250K NRC operating license.

    Posted by dad29 on January 31, 2010 at 1917 hrs




13. Very nice dad, very nice!!

    

    Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on January 31, 2010 at 1945 hrs




14. Ah yes, fusion, the future of power now and always. I got interested in that in grad school, but the more I looked into it the bigger the engineering difficulties became. Maybe polywell stands a chance, but everything else I’ve seen looks 30+ years out on the material science side.

    As to fission, the US is completely brain dead. The common man has been convinced by Jane Fonda and company that everything that mentions the word nuclear is deeply dangerous and to be avoided, so we’re stuck with Depts of Nuclear Medicine dropping the word “nuclear” in Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging, renaming it to an MRI to keep people from panicking.

    Will we ever get a reasonable nuclear energy policy? I doubt it, at least until we have another real energy crisis.

    Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on February 01, 2010 at 0045 hrs




15. we see that they have embraced nuclear energy and are thus independent of Mideast oil. Color me naive, but I’d hope that it could happen here.

    Posted by bathroom fitter in manchester on February 22, 2010 at 0442 hrs




16. It also requires all sorts of raw material and components to be purchased and manufactured creating a couple thousand more jobs down the supply chain.

    Posted by stock charting software on February 22, 2010 at 0649 hrs




17. We must push ahead with numerous technologies to make energy abundant and virtually free.

    Posted by dining room furniture on February 25, 2010 at 0146 hrs