The Reactor Relapse Takes 3 Hits to the Head

[ensho]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/11/12/1261/2936


The much-hyped "Renaissance" of atomic power has taken three devastating hits with potentially fatal consequences.

The usually supine Nuclear Regulatory Commission has told Toshiba's Westinghouse Corporation that its "standardized" AP-1000 design might not withstand hurricanes, tornadoes or earthquakes.

Regulators in France, Finland and the UK have raised safety concerns about AREVA's flagship EPR reactor. The front group for France's national nuclear power industry, AREVA's vanguard project in Finland is at least three years behind schedule and at least $3 billion over budget.

And the Obama Administration indicates it will end efforts to license the proposed radioactive waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. After more than fifty years of trying, the nuclear industry has not a single prospective central dump site.

"If history repeats itself as farce, then the nuclear power industry represents the most incompetent jester of all time," says Michael Mariotte of the Nuclear Information & Resource Service. It "seems intent on repeating every possible mistake of its failed past—from promoting inadequate, ever-changing reactor designs to blowing through even the largest imaginable budgets. If the computer industry followed the practices of the nuclear industry, we’d still be waiting for the first digital device that could fit in a space smaller than a warehouse and cost less than a family’s annual income."

Nuclear sites throughout the world sit on or near earthquake fault. Ohio's Perry reactor was damaged by a tremor in 1986, just before it went on line. In 1991 Hurricane Andrew did $100 million in damage to Florida's Turkey Point, causing a critical loss of off-site communication. In 2007 a massive earthquake shook Japan's Kashiwazaki, shutting seven reactors ( http://www.freepress.org/...

And radioactive waste continues to build up at sites throughout the world, including some 50,000 metric tons here in the US.

-long snip-

At this point, the only certainty about the future of reactor construction is that still more shoes will drop on an industry whose decomposed credibility has become legend.
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no to nuke plants

[fascisthunter]

1. nuke plants are not even necessary

they are dangerous, expensive, faulty and wasteful.

[notesdev]

2. Reminds me of criticism of democracy

the worst system out there except for all others

The irony is that nuclear power is the most environmentally friendly source of power we have, on the scale necessary to power modern civilization.

[glitch]

3. Too bad that isn't true.

If it were nuclear power proponents might have an argument.

[notesdev]

6. It is true

The upsides to making concentrated toxic waste are that a) concentrated waste can be isolated rather than dispersed into the environment, and b) technology advances make today's waste into tomorrow's fuel.

It's fine and dandy to bash nuclear power, but what alternative can you propose that is better?

[bananas]

10. No, it isn't true

Either wind or solar can power the world: http://www.landartgenerator.org/blagi/archives/127
Here's what we'll be doing over the next few decades: http://journals.democraticunderground.com/bananas/826

You're ignoring the environmental problems from mining, refining, and enriching uranium,
and you're ignoring the environmental problems of disposing of high and low level waste.

[Tikki]

4. Maybe we could use more nuclear waste to...

clean up the nuclear waste that has contaminated environments, already? :crazy:

That sounds both commercial and capitalistic...


Tikki

[fascisthunter]

7. no it isn't... the waste alone makes it one of the worst

all nuclear power plants could be replaced by wind, tidal and solar... a combination. The only reason nuclear is even considered, is because it is heavily invested in.

[notesdev]

8. Combine all three

and you get an insignificant contribution to human energy consumption. It's primarily a matter of scale, although I should point out that the environmental effects of wind power (noise, bird slaughter), solar (changing weather patterns through albedo) and tidal (coastal modification) mean that they cannot be considered consequence-free, either.

But the real problem is in terms of raw numbers. The US average electricity use is over 3 TW (that's TERAwatts, or trillions of watts) of power. None of those proposed alternatives come even close; for example, the largest tidal power installation currently in existence is 240 MW, or less than 0.01% of the power needs of the US alone. (for comparison, Hoover Dam produces 2 GW maximum)

So until we make a nontrivial, major technological leap in the production of energy, our choices for the vast majority of our power needs are: coal, oil, and nuclear (hydro too, but we've pretty much maxxed that out in the US already). Sure you have more choices on the local and personal scale, but for society as a whole, those are the options. Of the three, nuclear is by far the cleanest, it's no contest. When not burdened by excess red tape they are also among the cheapest sources of energy available today. That's why France relies on them as the primary generators of their electricity, and why we should, too.

[bananas]

11. That's a bunch of misinformation. nt

[SidDithers]

5. Nope. No agenda from the author of that KOS diary...

"Harvey Wasserman is author of SOLARTOPIA! OUR GREEN-POWERED EARTH"

Sid

[deaniac21]

9. They are going great in Iran.