Interesting articles on EV, utilities, renewables and their impacts

[kwilcox]

... If we want power something nasty has to be done.

I disagree.

[bcroe]

There are no guarantees in life. If we want power something nasty has to be done.

Lets not confuse unavoidable risks, with those that can be prevented. And to note
potential improvements, just look at how much safer todays cars and airplanes are,
than the first produced. No one has shown that the Nukes can't be better; since I
want Nukes, I want safe ones.

Illinois drivers manage to kill about 1000 people every year. After a million and a
half miles of driving, I have seen a lot of stuff. That is totally irrelevant to the Nuke
issues. Bruce Roe

[russ]

I would ban planes trains and automobiles before I would ban a nuke plant.

Sunking - You are asking people to use common sense - what a terrible thing to suggest!

[Sunking]

I would ban planes trains and automobiles before I would ban a nuke plant. Records are sketchy because they are Russians, but to date only 4000 people have been known to die from nuclear power plant malfunction, All are from Russia Chernobyl and Kyshtym which the public knows nothing about as it was kept secret. Both of those accidents were intentional man made meltdowns.

So how many people have been killed by planes, trains, and automobiles? Bet a dollar it is more than 4000. I would say worldwide 4000/day.

[russ]

I DON'T see why anybody thinks that describing what has happened, does ANYTHING to solve
the problem. And never mind arguments of failure frequency, I don't want ANY FAILURES.
Bruce Roe

There are no guarantees in life. If we want power something nasty has to be done.

[SunEagle]

My concern is more general; I would like nuke to be much less of a safety issue, so we
could get on with building them without such serious (and justified) debate.

Even if that happens, it won't help me. The Byron plant 6 miles away will be there longer
than me. If it blows, we are all out of here or worse. I figure of all the plants in the world,
with a major problem every 20 years, chances are pretty low it will be my plant in my lifetime.
Otherwise, I didn't have to buy this property. They did blow a couple transformers in recent years.

That dual reactor plant delivers a lot of power. We can see when one unit is being refueled,
when one cooling tower stops steaming; a not infrequent event. What I would like to know,
is exactly what the function is of those big steel "bird houses" with a hooded opening pointed
straight at the plant. They are on utility poles, in a circle several miles in diameter. Maybe
they are to report a catastrophic event that killed everyone in the plant? Nobody is talking
about them. Bruce Roe

I found a one of your "bird houses" East of the Plant. I first thought it might be an air "sampler" but then it could be an alarm of some kind.

I know that just North of me where the Crystal River nuke is located there are "sirens" on poles all up and down Rt 19 which is the main N/S roadway that goes past the plant. No question they were installed to sound the alarm. No problem now since they shut that puppy down yet I am still paying for it.

[bcroe]

Three Mile Island didn't release enough radioactivity to bother with.
Fukishima was a design stupidity - where some old guy who was boss was chattering rather
than listening - part of the yes man culture. Your 20 years is BS.

I DON'T see why anybody thinks that describing what has happened, does ANYTHING to solve
the problem. And never mind arguments of failure frequency, I don't want ANY FAILURES.
Bruce Roe

[russ]

Three Mile Island didn't release enough radioactivity to bother with.

Fukishima was a design stupidity - where some old guy who was boss was chattering rather than listening - part of the yes man culture.

Your 20 years is BS.

[bcroe]

I believe those new smaller package units are much safer than the older technology and can be built in much less the time.
I also understand your concern about nuclear since you seem to live in the shadow of one.

My concern is more general; I would like nuke to be much less of a safety issue, so we
could get on with building them without such serious (and justified) debate.

Even if that happens, it won't help me. The Byron plant 6 miles away will be there longer
than me. If it blows, we are all out of here or worse. I figure of all the plants in the world,
with a major problem every 20 years, chances are pretty low it will be my plant in my lifetime.
Otherwise, I didn't have to buy this property. They did blow a couple transformers in recent years.

That dual reactor plant delivers a lot of power. We can see when one unit is being refueled,
when one cooling tower stops steaming; a not infrequent event. What I would like to know,
is exactly what the function is of those big steel "bird houses" with a hooded opening pointed
straight at the plant. They are on utility poles, in a circle several miles in diameter. Maybe
they are to report a catastrophic event that killed everyone in the plant? Nobody is talking
about them. Bruce Roe

[SunEagle]

The usual argument, everyone talks about if we should have Nuke, but nobody talks
about cleaning it up its design. Bruce Roe

I believe those new smaller package units are much safer than the older technology and can be built in much less the time.

I also understand your concern about nuclear since you seem to live in the shadow of one.

[bcroe]

The usual argument, everyone talks about if we should have Nuke, but nobody talks
about cleaning it up its design. Bruce Roe

[SunEagle]

huh? BS? Since 1979 there have been three major PWR disasters:

3 Mile Island 1979
Chernobyl 1986
Fukishama 2011

In total, since 1979, there have been 8 PWR accidents in the US alone. One, (the Yankee plant in VT) resulted in radioactive tritium being released into the groundwater supply.

If anything, I'm being conservative. On average, they are occurring more frequently than every 20 years. Taken by themselves, the longest duration between major disasters has been 25 years and the shortest 7 years.

Each of those three major disasters also caused a major meltdown in public acceptance while reversing the proliferation of nuclear power.

I believe it takes about 30 years to build a nuke today in the US. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about the state of investment here:

Wikipedia - Nuclear Power in the United States

It pretty much sums up what 3 mile island and fukishama did and reflects is my primary point on Nukes.

Again, let me re-iterate that I'm not against them; they pollute far less than their coal fired counterparts and can be a solution to global warming. But, they scare the peejeebes out of the public and because of that will never become the primary source of baseline electricity. We need to spend the considerable investment on something else. I'm in with renewables. If we had a large enough footprint, there would always be a solar module getting sunlight and a wind-turbine turning. We just need more agile traditional generation capabilities to fill in the gaps.

That's what I see Germany doing.

Except that Germany is not getting all their power from renewables. What they do not generate from RE comes from fossil fuel, the few nukes still in service and power purchased from other countries. Sure they have a lot of solar but they can't store it or can use it 24/7. And they use a lot less power then what is consumed in the US.

People who believe that RE is the answer are sticking their heads in the sand. I don't care how big a footprint is built there will never be enough power generated from renewables in the US to cover what we use 24/7. Sure some people will have power but not all or even half. You will always need some type of base generation which will continue to be from fossil fuels until people stop being scared of nuclear.

I am all for renewables. We need them as part of the power generation portfolio. We also need fast response base generation to cover the times when RE isn't working. I vote for nuclear because I am not afraid of it.

[Sunking]

3 Mile Island 1979
Chernobyl 1986
Fukishama 2011

Chernobyl was no accident, not from Mother Nature, but caused by man deliberately from ignorance and stupidity. They shut off the dang cooling water to see what would happen. It went BOOM!

[kwilcox]

huh? BS? Since 1979 there have been three major PWR disasters:

3 Mile Island 1979
Chernobyl 1986
Fukishama 2011

In total, since 1979, there have been 8 PWR accidents in the US alone. One, (the Yankee plant in VT) resulted in radioactive tritium being released into the groundwater supply.

If anything, I'm being conservative. On average, they are occurring more frequently than every 20 years. Taken by themselves, the longest duration between major disasters has been 25 years and the shortest 7 years.

Each of those three major disasters also caused a major meltdown in public acceptance while reversing the proliferation of nuclear power.

I believe it takes about 30 years to build a nuke today in the US. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about the state of investment here:

Wikipedia - Nuclear Power in the United States

It pretty much sums up what 3 mile island and fukishama did and reflects is my primary point on Nukes.

Again, let me re-iterate that I'm not against them; they pollute far less than their coal fired counterparts and can be a solution to global warming. But, they scare the peejeebes out of the public and because of that will never become the primary source of baseline electricity. We need to spend the considerable investment on something else. I'm in with renewables. If we had a large enough footprint, there would always be a solar module getting sunlight and a wind-turbine turning. We just need more agile traditional generation capabilities to fill in the gaps.

That's what I see Germany doing.

[russ]

pwr = disaster every 20 years.

bs !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!