Nuclear Townhall - Latest Comments

Re: LLEWELLYN KING: How to Move the Nuclear Project Forward

stevek9 — Sat, 11 May 2013 12:31:22 -0000

The reason most reactors are being built in China and elsewhere is those nations are developing and need more electricity. At the moment there is no need for large-scale additional electric generation in the US. That will change as coal and nuclear plants are retired and when the speculative boom from fracking is over, and NG soars in price.

Re: WILLIAM TUCKER: How to Ruin an Electric Grid — Germany Shows Us How

Bill_Woods — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 16:55:14 -0000

Well, over the course of the day, wind & solar generated 473 GW-h, for a respectable average of 19.7 GW. Over the whole week, they generated 1810 GW-h, for an average of 10.7 GW. Of course, they bottomed out at 1.1 GW....

The economics are worst for Germany itself. They're paying FiT rates of more than 10 eurocents/kW-h for power which in the midday and weekends is worth a small fraction of that.

Re: WILLIAM TUCKER: How to Ruin an Electric Grid — Germany Shows Us How

stevek9 — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 15:27:53 -0000

Yes 3 hours. That doesn't get a lot of press does it? That's the problem.

As far as exporting ... that is now wrecking the grids and economics of Poland and the Czech republic. They are getting ready to install switches to prevent that dumping, on those rare instances when the wind is blowing hard and the sun is shining in Germany, to protect their own grids from instability. Germany's problems are only going to increase.

Re: WILLIAM TUCKER: How to Ruin an Electric Grid — Germany Shows Us How

Bill_Woods — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 12:05:45 -0000

My comment seems to have gotten lost in moderation, but wind & solar produced 35+ GW for three hours on April 18. Total production was almost 70 GW during that period. Total consumption was less than 60 GW, with the difference exported; the spot market price was less than 3 eurocents/kW-h.

Re: WILLIAM TUCKER: How to Ruin an Electric Grid — Germany Shows Us How

Glaucus — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 10:52:39 -0000

15 seconds.

Re: WILLIAM TUCKER: How to Ruin an Electric Grid — Germany Shows Us How

stevek9 — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 12:42:18 -0000

"Renewables set record in a Germany," says the headline this week. "Windmills and solar panels produced 35,905 megawatts, the equivalent of 26 nuclear plants."

It would be interesting to know how long that lasted .... 15 minutes?

Re: WILLIAM TUCKER: Bad Week for Biofuels

Chris — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 14:17:42 -0000

"If your solar system fails (which, of course, it should not do"

Like if the earth fell out of orbit, and plummeted into the sun? Yeah, that shouldn't happen.

More seriously, I don't share Lovins wishful thinking that renewables are actually reliable. Even in ideal conditions they fail to provide power on a regular basis, to say nothing of the robustness of the collection systems and attached electronics.

Re: WILLIAM TUCKER: Bad Week for Biofuels

uzurbrain — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 16:26:27 -0000

I quit using the 10% ethanol in my car when I discovered that my gas mileage went down by 10%. Even though they sell the stuff for 10 cents less per gallon, that is only a 3% savings in price per gallon and does not offset the loss in mileage. Maybe if I was driving a vehicle that got 50, 60 MPG it might be worth the 10 cents less, but not now.

Re: WILLIAM TUCKER: Bad Week for Biofuels

gcowan49 — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 11:38:44 -0000

"Amory Lovins’ doll-house view of the world that we didn’t need the big bad oil companies ..." -- the very companies he acknowledged having worked for for many years in a Democracy Now interview on July 16, 2008.

Re: WILLIAM TUCKER: Bad Week for Biofuels

Ken Madsen — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 10:27:13 -0000

putting your lunch in your gas tank leaves you with poor mileage, and no lunch.

Re: WILLIAM TUCKER: Bad Week for Biofuels

Mark Nic — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 08:53:31 -0000

using our food for fuel is the stupidest thing there is, now we can choose toe either have a stable, affordable food supply of a tank of gas to go to work,either way we are going broke.

there are ways to have alternatives without wreaking our food supplies but the government seems to show little interests, hydrogen, algae oil.and the tried and true nuclear power come to mind none of which mess with our food supplies

Re: WILLIAM TUCKER: Surprise! Surprise! Nuclear Saves Lives!

stevek9 — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 10:56:43 -0000

The important name on this report, by far, is Jim Hansen. Why you would get in a few digs is beyond me. This report could be very helpful indeed.

Re: WILLIAM TUCKER: Surprise! Surprise! Nuclear Saves Lives!

Brian Mays — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 15:25:09 -0000

Apparently, Hansen is now retiring from NASA.

Re: WILLIAM TUCKER: Surprise! Surprise! Nuclear Saves Lives!

RB — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 11:16:46 -0000

Attaboy, Bill. Great piece

Re: WILLIAM TUCKER: Ted Rockwell, RIP: Nuclear’s Cockeyed Optimist

M. Dale Reaves — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 10:39:56 -0000

William: Thank you so much for the piece on Ted Rockwell. He was indeed an optimist and the last of a breed we may never see the likes of in our milquetoast culture. I am sad to say that I am not surprised that his obit was not reported. This is yet another example of how the oil and coal industries have successfully lobbied the people in power, from the Clinton and Carter administrations to the ivied halls of academia, to spread lies, fear, and misinformation to keep the American people ignorant of the truth about nuclear energy in general and specifically the Generation IV Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) that can use all the used fuel rods in storage as fuel to generate safe, pollution free, terrorist proof electricity with reserves enough for thousands of years. ( And it's free) fossil fuel (coal) fired power plants are the primary contributor to air pollution causing 24,000 deaths each year in the USA and 2,000,000 deaths each year globally.

Despite the fact that the Clinton administration stopped its final development, issued gag orders to the 2000 scientists and engineers and sold the American people down the river, The IFR will, in the final analysis, be one of the greatest technological achievements in history.

Re: WILLIAM TUCKER: Ted Rockwell, RIP: Nuclear’s Cockeyed Optimist

stevek9 — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 12:51:05 -0000

Only saw a few of his recent testimonies and enjoyed them a lot. Thanks for the quick bio and the info on the film.

Re: WILLIAM TUCKER: Living in the Nuclear Past

Atomik Rabbit — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 16:43:51 -0000

South Koreans want to pursue pyroprocessing - are being held back on rediculous non-proliferationist claims. But it's also true they don't want to damage their relationship with US, and could always move into more dry cask storage, as we have had to do, also for political reasons.

Re: WILLIAM TUCKER: Living in the Nuclear Past

stevek9 — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 11:44:15 -0000

You are right about Dem's, Repubs, and Libertarians. But not 100%. Each of those tribes have supporters for nuclear power. It may take China to show us we are being idiots, but it won't take a lot for that support to increase to the point we do something ... that and the speculative bubble of fracked methane to blow up.

Re: WILLIAM TUCKER: Living in the Nuclear Past

stevek9 — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 11:35:36 -0000

I agree we should not block the South Koreans from reprocessing. The reason S. Korea doesn't just tell us to take a hike is a complicated situation between the US, S. Korea and a country called North Korea. Even if the South doesn't reprocess it is not that big a deal. They are running out of storage space? ... uhh build some more. It's not like it is expensive or difficult. To say the country is too small or crowded is absurd, we are talking a few acres. Current reprocessing will disappear anyway, when breeders are built in this century, so it's not so bad just to keep the spent fuel around.

I wouldn't be so pessimistic about the US and nuclear. We have been the leaders in so many areas for so long it's treated as a catastrophe if it doesn't continue in every field. Yes, China may become the world leader in the nuclear renaissance. Once they show the way, it won't take us long to catch up (I mean we are building 4 AP1000's). So, we may end up following this time ... big deal. It's not like we have suddenly lost the edge in everything ... materials science, medicine, electronics, etc., etc. Plenty of countries have done well following us. I'm glad someone is picking up the slack here since the world needs nuclear power.

By the way, China has not completed the first AP1000, although that should happen this year.

Re: WILLIAM TUCKER: Living in the Nuclear Past

Brian Mays — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 11:09:52 -0000

Well, currently it's just vaporware, and as we all know from the IT world, vaporware can do anything!

Re: WILLIAM TUCKER: Living in the Nuclear Past

Atomik Rabbit — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 10:25:03 -0000

Ok, but then you are also introducing a lot of unwanted material (zirconium cladding, steel structural materials, non-volatile fission products) that will have undesirable chemical and neutronic effects. Most of these, including the uranium dioxide fuel itself, will neither melt nor dissolve in the molten salt at reactor temperatures. Also, when the 12 foot long SNF assemblies are broken up to add to the salt, volatile fission products are released. An NRC licensed pre-processing plant will be required if SNF is to be part of the feedstock.

I think LFTR is worth investigating - I just don't like seeing it promoted with unjustified claims.

Re: WILLIAM TUCKER: Living in the Nuclear Past

cjstevenson — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 13:10:09 -0000

True. This would require a fundamental shift in the popular perception of nuclear power, though.

Re: WILLIAM TUCKER: Living in the Nuclear Past

cjstevenson — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 13:08:14 -0000

The high-level idea is to dissolve (a piece of) the spent fuel rods into molten salt, and let the nuclear reactors hammer away at the transuranic material until all you have left is fission products. These products are continuously processed out of the fuel flow of the reactor (which is possible since everything is dissolved in liquid salt).

Re: WILLIAM TUCKER: Living in the Nuclear Past

George Carlin — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 11:05:48 -0000

I think ideally the libertarians would not spend any government money on energy but would be much better at getting rid of idiotic regulations that strangle innovation. The governmental regulatory stranglehold on nuclear is a big reason why nuclear has stagnated for so many decades.

Re: WILLIAM TUCKER: Living in the Nuclear Past

Atomik Rabbit — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 04:28:42 -0000

Elect different leaders. The problem is the Dems are renewables-infatuated, Repubs are fossil-fuel lovers, and Libertarians don't want government funding for energy.

I would also say public outcry, but a recent White House petition to revive the Integral Fast Reactor project killed by Clinton/Kerry couldn't even garner 5000 votes.

This is how great powers atrophy and become irrelevant.