Nuclear Power - your thoughts? (survey)

I think it was just your inclusion of emission outputs and it didn't seem to link with your criticism of Ms C. I'm too tired to string it together right now.
I'd just say...Ms C wasn't particularly wrong and you were not particularly right.

 

Would you tell us what reality you're talking about?

 

Sun comes up, sun goes down. We eat and drink and work and play and rest and procreate.
We make all kinds of claims about what should or must be, without having the slightest clue of any basic requirement. Most profoundly there is no baseline metric called human happiness.

 

What?

 

So anyways, current state of nuclear power:


Dark blue- Operating reactors, building new reactors
Light Blue - Operating reactors, planning new build
Dark green - No reactors, building new reactors
Light Green - No reactors, planning new build
Orange - Operating reactors, stable
Red- Operating reactors, considering phase-out
Black - Civil use is illegal

 

Where in the U. S. are they building new reactors?

 

http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/col.html

I think it's 26 reactors approved, there's another 9 I think under review

Or for an actual map:

http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/col/new-reactor-map.html

 

Oh, I see. They are not building any new reactors. They just submitted their applications. That means they still have to secure financing and approvals. So, the map is misleading.

 

To a point, but they basically are approved at this point, now they just need the capital, which probably won't be hard. I know it caused a big debate but Georgia is using public funds to build the one there.

 

According to the Rocky Mountain Institute, securing financing will be hard, not easy.

 

I doubt it'll be that hard, the stimulus itself I believe has money dedicated to loans for new nuclear reactors. A power plant is generally a pretty sound investment for people giving out loans, it's long term and you can assume people will always be buying electricity. When trying to find that map I found a news article about a new factory in Virginia being built that will in turn build the materials for some of the plants, so they must be pretty certain at least some of these will be built.

 

There is no stimulus money for nuclear financing:

 

Taking out the carbon capture was a really bad idea.

 

Well, no one even knows if carbon capture will even work. It's pretty speculative.

 

I'm in favor of nuclear only if they use thorium instead of uranium. Thorium is much more abundant and there is virtually zero waste or chance of meltdown. The only negative is that it doesn't produce plutonium that can be used in nuclear weapons.

 

But we need for it to work, so we shouldn't be quick to give up on it.

You honestly consider that a negative?

 

Two people familiar with the Department of Energy budget for 2011 have told the Bloomberg wire service that the President’s budget for 2011 will include a request to add $36 billion to the nuclear energy loan guarantee program. Bloomberg also reported that Southern’s Vogtle plant, which plans to build two Westinghouse 1,150 MW AP1000 reactors, will be the first loan guarantee approved in 2010.

“to create more of these clean-energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives, and that means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country.”

http://djysrv.blogspot.com/2010/01/obama-to-triple-nuclear-loan-guarantees.html

 

Oh, thanks for the update. Regarding "clean coal", I agree that even tho it doesn't yet exist, it is deserving of a lot of research funding.

 

Just to add to what has been said...
http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/what_we_do/uk_supply/energy_mix/ccs/ccs.aspx
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/25/carbon-capture-storage-emissions-coal

We'll probably know if it works on a large scale in approx 20-30 years...
...sooner if countries become less hesitant.
It's not surprising since it's in its tentative stages.

 

Honestly, no. That's really the main reason the government chose to use uranium in the first place instead of thorium. Here's an article about it if anyone is interested.

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/ff_new_nukes/