Nukes for Peace
Information
Nuclear proponents for energy independence.
Members: 25
Latest Activity: Jan 8
Swords to plowshares.
Welcome to a discussion forum focused on reviving nuclear power building on America's legacy of nuclear innovation and safe, reliable experience. As a former US Navy nuclear operator and experienced developer in conventional power generation, I think it's about time we talk about the "nuclear option" to our domestic energy crisis.
I started this group because American ingenuity forged nuclear fission and nuclear power and, in the convergence of energy, national security and climate change, nuclear power simply must be back on the table.
Nuclear power is a true American original--props to our German scientific community we conscripted to lead the charge and to those brave souls who gave their life in furtherance of the art and science of nuclear energy.
America gave birth to nuclear power. We have a 50 year track record of running commercial nukes and longer, equally impressive record running a fleet of seagoing nuclear plants in some of the harshest operating environments imaginable. The number of reactors we’ve put to sea in our Navy submarine fleet has exceeded the number in our commercial fleet by a factor of two. Taxpayer dollars financed a nearly $1 trillion nuclear power program over the last half-century and it's time we leveraged this investment into something more than military power projection.
America, for better or worse, also gave birth to the grassroots eco-political agenda. The "no nukes" movement developed a unique ability to scare the living daylights out of Americans by spreading fear and anxiety about the theoretical risks to humanity, spreading fear among average citizens most of whom (as an unfortunate consequence of the American condition of neglecting math & science) have no hope of ever comprehending the science. When a “scientist” speaks out against the system, we tend to listen keenly, especially where threats to our health and safety are the core message. Why not err on the safe side, right?
Through the 50’s and 60’s, the technology thrived and plants sprang up across the American landscape. To be sure, nuclear power was not without its fits and starts. Not without risks and particularly high consequences for failure. Alas, good old American ingenuity prevailed, and we grew an industry that produces 20% of America's electricity…before nuclear power here was stopped dead in its tracks.
The feature thriller China Syndrome hit the silver screen just weeks before the Three Mile Island incident. Perfect timing for an upstart anti-nuclear grassroots movement. (Makes a conspiracy theorist wonder about the timing.) Unfortunate timing for an industry poised to radically transform the way America generated its electricity. For an incident that, to date, has not resulted in a single fatality or long-term illness related to effects of the incident (direct or indirect), talk of TMI still strikes fear in most Americans who are old enough to remember the media "aftermath".
Rather than devote the last 30 years to advancing and perfecting the science of nuclear energy, American's continue to fight and bicker and bog-down promising technological advances with red tape and litigation. The same movement that opposed nuclear power has now brought us the “consensus science of man-made climate change, in hopes they can kill off fossil fuels like they did nuclear power, starting with coal.
The no-nukes strategy runs directly contrary to America's energy and economic security interests.
Imagine the productivity curve we would have had if we kept building, innovating, competing, striving since 1979. America the nuclear pioneer has lost 30 years of progress. Imagine, if you will, how many billions (trillions?) of tons of CO2 emissions America might have avoided if we instead built nukes rather than coal and even natural gas power plants for the last 30 years. If we had kept up the pace of investment and innovation, just imagine how sophisticated America’s spent-fuel reprocessing and hi-rad waste handling systems could have been in 2008.
As a former US Navy nuclear operator, I am advocating that America has a massive, untapped resource in the form of compact nuclear power--small nukes using the proven PWR concept that evolved through the cold war and continue to power the US sub fleet of the tomorrow. Built on a more manageable scale using modern "modular" manufacturing processes that have been a boon to other sectors, America should be able to build multiple small nukes at a fraction of the cost and schedule of the behemoths our fathers designed.
America’s commercial nuclear industry was besieged by cost overruns primarily because the monstrosities involved 8-10 year construction programs funded by fickle ratepayers and politically-appointed utility oversight boards. During these 10 year programs, even the most sensible nuke projects were attacked by all manner of procedural delay and litigation tactics by those intent on stopping them. The side-effect was that America’s nukes cost many times what they might have, had they been built to plan. The no-nukes movement succeeded and choking commercial nukes in red tape and drowning them in red ink.
We can watch the same scenario playing out in the current day fight to kill coal power: build fear and play on the anxieties of an otherwise uninterested general public. Bog down individual projects with permit challenges. Then when all else fails, sue. During the delay, developers will accumulate debt on their expenditures that, if protracted sufficiently, will drown the project and it might just die. If it doesn’t die, the ultimate cost-overruns will be used in arguments against the next wave of plants.
If America were to mass-produce nukes in bulk, deploying hundreds of individual units built on a highly manageable scale (e.g. multiple, modular reactors in smaller containment buildings), using pre-approved designs just as we do in the conventional power generation (i.e. gas-turbine combined cycles) there can simply be no real argument that nuclear costs will again balloon out of control. We can build nukes more cost effectively if regulations are sound and public policies (low cost energy, domestic energy, low carbon energy) are supportive.
America’s dying foundries and shipyards have the current skill, machinery and know-how to mass produce reactor plant components derived from well-tested navy designs. The navy for decades has been cranking out qualified operators who can run their land-based cousins with equal superiority.
Worried about physical security? Well why can’t these power-generating nukes be housed on our military bases? If you don’t worry on a daily basis that terrorists will breach security on installations that house our ballistic missiles and conventional armaments, is it realistic to fear an attack on a 6-ft thick concrete containment dome at the same place???
The time has come for a nuclear renaissance. Bite sized.
I started this group because American ingenuity forged nuclear fission and nuclear power and, in the convergence of energy, national security and climate change, nuclear power simply must be back on the table.
Nuclear power is a true American original--props to our German scientific community we conscripted to lead the charge and to those brave souls who gave their life in furtherance of the art and science of nuclear energy.
America gave birth to nuclear power. We have a 50 year track record of running commercial nukes and longer, equally impressive record running a fleet of seagoing nuclear plants in some of the harshest operating environments imaginable. The number of reactors we’ve put to sea in our Navy submarine fleet has exceeded the number in our commercial fleet by a factor of two. Taxpayer dollars financed a nearly $1 trillion nuclear power program over the last half-century and it's time we leveraged this investment into something more than military power projection.
America, for better or worse, also gave birth to the grassroots eco-political agenda. The "no nukes" movement developed a unique ability to scare the living daylights out of Americans by spreading fear and anxiety about the theoretical risks to humanity, spreading fear among average citizens most of whom (as an unfortunate consequence of the American condition of neglecting math & science) have no hope of ever comprehending the science. When a “scientist” speaks out against the system, we tend to listen keenly, especially where threats to our health and safety are the core message. Why not err on the safe side, right?
Through the 50’s and 60’s, the technology thrived and plants sprang up across the American landscape. To be sure, nuclear power was not without its fits and starts. Not without risks and particularly high consequences for failure. Alas, good old American ingenuity prevailed, and we grew an industry that produces 20% of America's electricity…before nuclear power here was stopped dead in its tracks.
The feature thriller China Syndrome hit the silver screen just weeks before the Three Mile Island incident. Perfect timing for an upstart anti-nuclear grassroots movement. (Makes a conspiracy theorist wonder about the timing.) Unfortunate timing for an industry poised to radically transform the way America generated its electricity. For an incident that, to date, has not resulted in a single fatality or long-term illness related to effects of the incident (direct or indirect), talk of TMI still strikes fear in most Americans who are old enough to remember the media "aftermath".
Rather than devote the last 30 years to advancing and perfecting the science of nuclear energy, American's continue to fight and bicker and bog-down promising technological advances with red tape and litigation. The same movement that opposed nuclear power has now brought us the “consensus science of man-made climate change, in hopes they can kill off fossil fuels like they did nuclear power, starting with coal.
The no-nukes strategy runs directly contrary to America's energy and economic security interests.
Imagine the productivity curve we would have had if we kept building, innovating, competing, striving since 1979. America the nuclear pioneer has lost 30 years of progress. Imagine, if you will, how many billions (trillions?) of tons of CO2 emissions America might have avoided if we instead built nukes rather than coal and even natural gas power plants for the last 30 years. If we had kept up the pace of investment and innovation, just imagine how sophisticated America’s spent-fuel reprocessing and hi-rad waste handling systems could have been in 2008.
As a former US Navy nuclear operator, I am advocating that America has a massive, untapped resource in the form of compact nuclear power--small nukes using the proven PWR concept that evolved through the cold war and continue to power the US sub fleet of the tomorrow. Built on a more manageable scale using modern "modular" manufacturing processes that have been a boon to other sectors, America should be able to build multiple small nukes at a fraction of the cost and schedule of the behemoths our fathers designed.
America’s commercial nuclear industry was besieged by cost overruns primarily because the monstrosities involved 8-10 year construction programs funded by fickle ratepayers and politically-appointed utility oversight boards. During these 10 year programs, even the most sensible nuke projects were attacked by all manner of procedural delay and litigation tactics by those intent on stopping them. The side-effect was that America’s nukes cost many times what they might have, had they been built to plan. The no-nukes movement succeeded and choking commercial nukes in red tape and drowning them in red ink.
We can watch the same scenario playing out in the current day fight to kill coal power: build fear and play on the anxieties of an otherwise uninterested general public. Bog down individual projects with permit challenges. Then when all else fails, sue. During the delay, developers will accumulate debt on their expenditures that, if protracted sufficiently, will drown the project and it might just die. If it doesn’t die, the ultimate cost-overruns will be used in arguments against the next wave of plants.
If America were to mass-produce nukes in bulk, deploying hundreds of individual units built on a highly manageable scale (e.g. multiple, modular reactors in smaller containment buildings), using pre-approved designs just as we do in the conventional power generation (i.e. gas-turbine combined cycles) there can simply be no real argument that nuclear costs will again balloon out of control. We can build nukes more cost effectively if regulations are sound and public policies (low cost energy, domestic energy, low carbon energy) are supportive.
America’s dying foundries and shipyards have the current skill, machinery and know-how to mass produce reactor plant components derived from well-tested navy designs. The navy for decades has been cranking out qualified operators who can run their land-based cousins with equal superiority.
Worried about physical security? Well why can’t these power-generating nukes be housed on our military bases? If you don’t worry on a daily basis that terrorists will breach security on installations that house our ballistic missiles and conventional armaments, is it realistic to fear an attack on a 6-ft thick concrete containment dome at the same place???
The time has come for a nuclear renaissance. Bite sized.
Discussion Forum
Liquid Floride Thorium Reactors 1 Reply
Started by mike fallwell. Last reply by mike fallwell Aug. 2, 2008.
Comment Wall
Add a Comment
-
Comment by Eric Koch on January 8, 2009 at 9:07am -
Rulgert is freakin ON with the CNG!!!.....(Kim A pitch....she broke my crazy to a new level)
Let's do this....Flip the freakin' fertilizer and damn the torpedoes...whatever it takes !!!!!
(sniffle snork......i might as well call it hug a nuke day wile i'm at it)
-
Comment by Ida-Russkie on November 9, 2008 at 2:14pm -
Build nuclear power plants.
It should not take10 years and cost 2.2 billion to build a light water nuke plant.
There are more reactor types then just LWR.
Checkout
http://thoriumenergy.blogspot.com/ Learn about LFTR reactors( liquid fluoride thorium reactor)
It is a simple concept using a liquid fuel consisting of a uranium 233 dissolved in a fluoride salt with a thorium blanket. Which breeds U 233 from this thorium blanket. Most of the safety systems are not required because the reactor cannot melt down. It already is melted. it burns more of the fuel because the fission products are removed and reprocessed as you go along. this leaves you with waste that have a half life of a few hundred years. Thorium is cheap in fact we have enough already stockpiled in Nevada to fuel the world with electricity for 3 years. in some designs you can burn some spend nuclear fuel by just dissolving it in some fluoride fuel salt. Trans mutates that bad old plutonium and other so called waste into energy. If it is transmuted it can not be used to make a bomb.
-
Comment by Matt H on October 11, 2008 at 8:04am -
Please folks, I set up this group to advocate for nuclear as a meaningful solution to America's energy conundrum, not to trash it.
Factually inaccurate material presented as data or fact only distracts from real, productive discussion.
A previous post suggested that there has been no nuclear construction in America in 25 years. On the contrary, there have been numerous nuclear plants constructed in America through the 1980's and well into the 1990's. Application for licensing of new reactors halted after TMI, thanks in part to poorly run crisis-management by TMI's owner, and a largely ignorant general public that to this day continues to feed on and breed mistrust and misinformation. Projects that persisted in the post-TMI environment were plagued by deliberate legal challenges by increasingly divisive opposition groups (under the guise of environmentalism--same folks who now bring us "global warming") which did nothing but wrap these projects up in red tape and create billions of cost overruns due to accumulating interest on debt while legal dramas played out in the courts, ultimately costing American ratepayers.
As a matter of record, EIA lists a total of 71 operational reactors in 1980, rising to a peak of 112 reactors by 1990. TVA Watts Bar came online in 1996.
If anyone is concerned about global warming, we should be damned worried about the ultimate expiration of licenses for our nuclear fleet. DOE/NRC has re-licensed 49 of our 104 operating nukes. This is a 20-year life extension. We are about halfway through re-licensing and by the time the remainder are issued, the earliest of these will begin retirement and decommissioning. Today, nuclear power produces around 20 percent of America's electric power. Replacing that with fossil generation will surely doom any efforts to curb the rise in greenhouse gas emissions--domestic and globally.
My own state of New Jersey derives 51% of its electricity from nuclear...from four reactors. Yet the environmental movement that compelled our governor and legislature to enact a law that would cut CO2 emissions by 80% is also actively lobbying those same politicians (dupes) to oppose relicensing our nukes. Forget about cutting CO2. Meanwhile, our governor is floating the concept of a new reactor in the state--how cynical--he knows that it will not be possible for this to become reality on his watch. So he is doing nothing but throwing a bone to the 800-lb gorilla utility.
And for anyone that thinks it will be practical and or cost effective to capture CO2 from the stacks of coal fired power plants...and then bury it somewhere...I think we would be far better off with nuclear power. The volume of waste generated pales in comparison to the billions of tons per year of carbonate salts we will need to landfill or compressed CO2 we will need to pump into below-ground storage caverns (and somehow keep there for eons).
I signed-on to Mr. Pickens Plan because I think he has it half right. Wind turbines will add to the supply of kilowatts and can displace flexible, load-following generation such as gas-fired combined cycle and simple-cycle turbines. However, at the present pace, America's demand for electricity is growing at 20 percent every 10 years. The wind farms being built and planned throughout the windswept plains will only provide part of the overall demand, it will not, in the end, supplant any of the existing conventional and nuclear generation we rely on.
Therefore, if one considers the eventual loss of our 100 gigawatts of nuclear power plants within the next 30 years (beginning in the next 10), we will get nowhere on energy independence if the only power plants we build are gas-fired. LNG importation will create an entire second tier of dependence. We've done nothing to overhaul our transportation system and the oil dependence we loathed in the 70's is unabated. Soon we could be strung-out on imported LNG.
So like the treble-hook is the ultimate weapon in man's dominance of fish, the three prongs of dependence set to doom America are Debt, foreign oil and (soon) LNG will complete the tri-fecta.
GO NUKES!
-
Comment by Warren Reynolds on October 5, 2008 at 12:30pm -
Sir: As an ex-nuclear engineer for GE, I know "nuclear's dirty secrets". However, the dumbest thing our Government is doing is backing the loans for nuclear power plant construction through DOE at some $8 bn per power plant.
I have done exhaustive cost analysis for a solar-hydrogen storage power plant (24/7) of equivalent size. It costs only 35% of constructing an equivalent nuclear power plant. So, the questions is: In this down economy, why even build a nuclear power plant with all its nuclear waste, etc. ? It just doesn't make practical and economic sense.
Dr. Warren Reynolds
-
Comment by Dwight Nager on September 14, 2008 at 7:37am -
Great discussion folks. I was educated in California public schools, and the authoritative voice of 1950's film narrators intoning "low cost, clean energy" accompanied by black and white film is a memory that holds to today. Then 3 mile island, Chernobyl, the No Nukes Concert, and the mighty Mr. NIMBY.
The results are in. Nuclear fuel has stood the test of time. It has won back people's trust based on a very admirable track record.
Here's what I see as the big question facing us PickenHeads, particularly in reasoned groups like this:
Do we want to gather our forces as an army, pool and poll our thinking, and then send some policy requests up the ladder to Mr. Boone for his consideration of emerging organizational ideas? And/or turn our own commentary into proposals and focused individual action?
According to me, getting energy independent is going to take a frontal attack on NIMBYism. My hunch is that we need to invert our thinking: Americans should be proud and boasting about having the integrity of living next to their energy sources.
It would be good to see NIMBYism attacked at the national movement level as the selfish and infantile human impulse of wanting the good while putting the responsibility off on others. We all have this impulse; but its on us to think it through.
If the Obamaniacs and McCainiacs want to talk about public purpose and duty, a big part of that is having the dignity to embrace proven energy systems in the vicinity, including the eyesore, byproducts, and incremental risks.
Mr. Boone has got a bully pulpit from which to pound in the name of common sense and American integrity.
I'd welcome any comments from folks. Bottom line, it seems to me our challenge is to go from neat chat to focused and smart action. Whether up the chain to Boone, out in our diverse individual efforts, or (my preference) both!
Thanks for your time!
-
Comment by Matt H on September 11, 2008 at 6:27pm
-
http://www.epa.gov/r02earth/energyworkshop/overview.html
Energy and Environmental Sustainability in a Carbon Constrained Future Workshop
September 11, 2008
-
Comment by Matt H on September 11, 2008 at 5:50pm
-
Today I attended a joint EPA-DOE conference on Energy & Environmental Sustainability hosted by EPA Region-2 in New York City. The event included discussion groups including one focused on nuclear. A superlative day-long gathering of NY and NJ policy chiefs and regulators leading the charge to transform our energy supply while boosting our domestic economy and combating pollution and climate change.
The concept that I'm advocating on this blog has, apparently, been evolving for many years. I learned more today about progress with novel and promising modular reactor designs. One of which is dubbed the "nuclear battery"--10 MW--designed to be buried and left with absolutely no maintenance until the core is depleted in 10-12 years!
Some of the modular designs include NuScale, Toshiba 4S and Hyperion. There is even talk about using proven US Navy PWR technologies, low-tech, reliable and rugged enough to withstand combat conditions at sea. Lots happening. Momentum is building.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/analysis/nucenviss2.html
http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com/
http://www.nuscalepower.com/
We also discussed the conventional utility mindset of building bigger to capture economies of scale. This raises the stakes--and the cost--and the utilities are looking to the taxpayer to indemnify them. $5 to $10 billion apiece. The utility giants are putting all the eggs in one basket.
There has got to be a better way. Scale down, optimize manufacture & logistics, go for volume-based economies of scale. Reduce financial exposure involved per project and they won't sink under their own weight.
I called today for a public campaign to dispel unreasonable fears that have swirled around nuke plants for decades. Like Pickens is raising awareness through this grassroots movement, the American public will likewise benefit from a more open and inclusive "democratic" debate about nuclear, and not the US-THEM fights stoked by NIMBY's.
If we are going to do anything to overcome manmade contributions to climate change, we need nuclear. We need to build them quickly and in large volume--safely. And we can.
-
Comment by Matt H on September 10, 2008 at 6:09pm
-
I found out about a very promising firm today called NuScale Power www.nuscalepower.com From their website...
NuScale Power Inc. (NSP) was formed in 2007 as a private consortium of nuclear vendors, suppliers, and manufacturers with the mission of commercializing safe and proven small-scale, light-water reactor technology.
NSP is challenging the economy of scale argument with a new approach - economy of small-scale mass production. This paradigm shift towards small-scale mass production offers numerous benefits over traditional large-scale reactors.
-
Comment by Matt H on September 4, 2008 at 6:02am
- Allen, great points on the efficiency of pumped-storage hydro. Given that wind energy produced can be readily consumed, and that even where installed in relatively large capacity, I find no practical justification for storage. Whereas backing-down fossil fueled generation is simple and provides needed reliability and stability, storage in all but the most unique of configurations, isn't too practical. Other than as a financial arbitrage between the peak/off-peak real time pricing in the wholesale power market, there's not much justification. When you consider the practical implications of permitting, building, and operating a set of pumped storage reservoirs, it's difficult (for me anyway) to conceive why this makes commercial sense.
-
Comment by Matt H on September 4, 2008 at 5:56am
-
America doesn't necessarily need to consult the French--we pioneered the technology and they ran with it when OPEC rose to prominence, while Greenpeace killed our domestic nuclear energy program. It's all about NIMBYism, local politics and the grassroots enviro-scare movement. Until we rectify this (sane federal leadership on the matter, for example) nukes will be fringe with an additional reactor built here or there at existing sites. Sadly, that's not enough if we are to displace any appreciable amount of fossil generation.
America has put more nuclear reactors to sea in 50 years than all the land-based reactors in the US, Canada, UK and France combined. Our domestic engineering firms are out there in the market with the technology in countries that are bidding/building nukes.
What's simply amazing to me is how the folks that killed our nuclear industry at home are the same folks bringing us the global warming argument. How counter-productive was it to build all the fossil-fueled generation instead of nuclear all these years!?! How counter-productive is it to continue to resist new nukes on the basis of one US incident which, after 30 years, has produced no record of human health impact whatsoever. Chernobyl is an anomally as far as the US industry is concerned--Russian lack of safety concern is legendary (civilian and navy nuclear programs rife with danger).
Featured Action
Twitter Feed
© 2009 Created by PickensPlan
Badges | Community Guidelines | Report an Issue | Privacy | Terms of Service
You need to be a member of Nukes for Peace to add comments!