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My dad worked in nuclear plants for over 20 years, and I use to tout the pro-nuclear line. Our reactors were safer than Chernobyl was even at the time it was bu
by djsumdog 7y ago
My dad worked in nuclear plants for over 20 years, and I use to tout the pro-nuclear line. Our reactors were safer than Chernobyl was even at the time it was built (Chernobyl was an uncontained reactor. US reactors are encased in a shell of concrete).
Safety is still a concern, and don't let anyone tell you it isn't. Simply look at Brownsferry Nuclear Plant. One of their three reactors was shut down for decades due to a fire, another reactor had a turbine blade break off and hit the reactor wall in the 2000s, and the reactors themselves are an old Boiling Water design where the radioactive water runs the turbine (newer Pressurized Water Reactors use transfer pipes for heat so the steam generator isn't radioactive). Newer reactors like Bellefonte were almost complete, but never went online after Three Mile Island brought the industry to a standstill. TVA also has bought up more land around Wattsbar nuclear to hide the fact that they couldn't find where a tritium leak was occurring.
The biggest problem with nuclear reactors is the waste. Most of it is still stored at nuclear sites. I use to think the protesters at Yucca Mountain were being overzealous and non-nonsensical, until I stayed a week with a friend of mine who was a newspaper editor out in Vegas. They had published several stories about existing facilities leaking radiation into the environment.
There are a lot of reasons to avoid nuclear. Honestly if we want to be serious about pollution in general, we have to consume less power. Each renewable takes metal, dirt, oil and various hydrocarbons to make. We can't consume out way out of, not only CO2, but all the other massive amounts of pollution that go into all our construction effort. We can't buy ourselves out of environmental disaster. We have to consume less; and that takes much bigger changes in the way we live our lives and look at the world.
- tstrimple 7y agoHow are long shutdown times factored into the costs of nuclear power? The nuclear power plant by me is shutting down early due to being too expensive compared to renewables. It's shutting down next year, but will be slowly cutting staff until 2025 and will require a maintenance contingent of about 50 people after that for the "indefinite future". https://www.kcrg.com/content/news/Cheaper-wind-gas-energy-leaders-to-earlier-closing-at-DAEC-nuclear-plant-489368221.html https://www.kcrg.com/content/news/Cheaper-wind-gas-energy-le...
- sitkack 7y agoAll existing nuclear plants that are running or could easily be made to run should be nationalized and brought under control of the DoE. We need them all for base load. But new ones should not be built, we simply don't have time and the resources should be better spent on a massive increase in solar and wind. Batteries, hydro and pumped hydro can follow the demand curve, nuclear should be viewed as strategic. Solar is so ridiculously cheap and easy to run, we should drop a trillion dollars and build as much as we can, as fast as we can.
- manfredo 7y ago> The nuclear power plant by me is shutting down early due to being too expensive compared to renewables. This seems inane. Keep the nuclear plant running, even if it's more expensive, and shut down a gas plant instead.
- tstrimple 7y agoThese decisions are made based on private profit motives. What's good for the environment or the country never even factor into it.
- manfredo 7y agoNot true. France built nuclear plants even though they weren't as cost effective as fossil fuels because they wanted to be energy independent from Germany. Sure, it was a nationalistic rather than altruistic motive but it has paid off in the long run.
- maroonblazer 7y ago>The biggest problem with nuclear reactors is the waste. Most of it is still stored at nuclear sites. Compared to what though? Sending it up into the atmosphere - in far larger quantities - like we do today with the alternatives? https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4639510/user-clip-richard-rhodes-nuclear-power https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4639510/user-clip-richard-rho...
- Andrex 7y ago> We have to consume less; and that takes much bigger changes in the way we live our lives and look at the world. Asking an expanding population to "consume less" is a nonstarter. This is a human problem that doesn't have a human solution. It has to be a tech one. Edit- This comment is not meant to be pro or anti-nuclear.
- greedo 7y agoExpecting developing/advancing countries like India/China to restrict their quality of life will never happen. Neither will countries in Africa decide that improving their citizen's lives should take a back seat to climate change. We need more power, as carbon clean as possible. Any talk of reducing usage is naive at best.