Industrial wind farms

[soda72]

I work in the Nuclear Industry Skuzzy.  
There is great care taken in the very few reactors that have been shut down, they are very far from being left to rot where they stand.  

I didn't realize that nuclear reactors only had a limited life. 

Why can't they just remove any contaminated material and refurbish the reactors?

[warhed]

I didn't realize that nuclear reactors only had a limited life. 

Why can't they just remove any contaminated material and refurbish the reactors?

As of now, they do not have a limited life.  Licenses for most plants are coming up on expiration, but they keep getting extended.  There's no real reason other than cost to shut down a plant.  All of them were built pre-1970.  We can fix, maintain, and build to keep the current plants running, but that is no cheap task.  Off the top of my head, there have only been two, maybe three civilian power plants to ever have been shut down.
As the plants age however, reliability starts becoming an issue.  The companies have to keep putting more and more money into the plants to keep them efficient. 
We need to start building newer, more efficient, smaller and cheaper nuclear plants (like the rest of the world).

[Skuzzy]

They do have a limited life.  There is absolutely no way you can maintain them for an indefinite period of time.  They do reach a point where they cannot be maintained with any degree of safety.  The materials simply start breaking down due to the caustic environment they endure.

Today's estimated cost for shutting down/decommisioning a plant is around $300M U.S.  Plant owners are required to keep that money set aside in order to get a license to build/maintain a nuclear facility.  They are allowed up to 60 years to dismantle, store, and entomb the remains of the plant.

There have been 17 civilian nuclear plants decommisioned, so far.  There are 3 more currently closed and scheduled for decommissioning.  Of course, there are many others, but those are the civilian numbers that are currently published.

[warhed]

Yes warhed, I was exaggerating about the "rot" comment.  The point being, they are dead and nothing else can be built there.  They are no longer making power.  Has anyone re-built a nuclear power plant to replace one of the many that have been shut down?  How many more are going to be shutdown in the next 50 years?

Cost per watt, nuclear is the most expensive solution available.  Again, if it were not for government subsidies, the companies running the plants would go bankrupt.  Even then, we have seen substantial increases in the cost of electricity, which have all been cited due to the cost of the nuclear plant we have here.

I am not advocating abandoning nuclear, nor am I against it, but I also do not see it as a panacea to the problems involved with supplying electricity to the masses.  It has its own downsides.  The spent fuel and fuel rods are a huge downside as far as I am concerned.  The cost per watt, to maintain the plants, seem to be out of control as well.

Because of airtight government regulations (we have two resident NRC inspectors at every plant 365 days a year), aging plants, an aging grid, and an aging nuclear workforce, the cost for nuclear is going up.  This is rather easily solved however by the government signing off on new licenses for smaller, cheaper, more efficient nuclear plants.  Companies have funds and workers all ready to go to work building, and have for the last decade.  

Three Mile Island really ruined the American nuclear industry, especially in the public's eye.  Politicians used it to practically kill the industry.  We are now far more self-regulated than government-regulated.  The safety around operation and protection of the plants now is absolutely amazing.  But the nuclear industry has not reached out to the public, I have been a little angry with that fact for the last 10 years.  After 9/11, security around plants was increased tenfold, unfortunately that has now completely shut out the public to what we do and how we do it.

Yucca Mountain is a must, at least the idea of it is a must.  Not for immediate public safety, for the simple fact that right now we have over 100 sites in this country with spent fuel on their premises.  As I mentioned earlier, all of out plants have ALL the spent fuel they have EVER produced still within the plant.  There are a few plants who were forced to construct new spent fuel containment pools to accommodate the growing inventory.  The problem with all this is security, whether by terrorism or natural disaster, it just sounds like a bad idea to have all this spread out over the entire nation.  Whether or not you agree with nuclear power, this is a problem that needs to be solved.  Even if we never build a nuclear plant again, we still have this issue to deal with.  Yucca Mountain has become the lightning rod for anti-nuclear sentiment, irony if you ask me.

I am pro wind\solar\water power, I would love to start shutting down coal plants.  The problem is, the size of wind and solar farms would need to be so large, they would need a mini-grid just to connect them to the main grid.  Our current grid just cannot take it.  

Even today if our grid was magically rebuilt to today's needs, our current energy situation is basically this, an hour glass running out of sand.  Wind\solar\hydro-power plants would be like taking a pinch of sand, and tossing in the hourglass one pinch at a time.  You're still going to run out of sand.  If we could approve the pending licenses for new plants, we could start refilling the hourglass.  Renewable power sources just is not going to keep up with our increasing demand.

What's the cheap and easy option?  Coal and gas.  Monetarily.  
Do we want clean and safe energy and that can keep up with our demands?  Or do we just want to keep mining coal and keep building those dirty plants?

[warhed]

They do have a limited life.  There is absolutely no way you can maintain them for an indefinite period of time.  They do reach a point where they cannot be maintained with any degree of safety.  The materials simply start breaking down due to the caustic environment they endure.

Today's estimated cost for shutting down/decommisioning a plant is around $300M U.S.  Plant owners are required to keep that money set aside in order to get a license to build/maintain a nuclear facility.  They are allowed up to 60 years to dismantle, store, and entomb the remains of the plant.

There have been 17 civilian nuclear plants decommisioned, so far.  There are 3 more currently closed and scheduled for decommissioning.

So, in order to keep power flowing to the grid as nuclear plants would shut down, you would have us mine more coal and build more coal plants?  It only costs money to keep a nuclear plant running, it costs health and lives AND money to keep the coal industry alive.

[Skuzzy]

I did not say that.  I am not against nuclear energy, but its current incarnation lacks a lot to be desired.  Smaller plants just spread the problem out.  Logically, anytime you have that caustic of an environment to deal with it is going to be expensive to maintain the safety of the operation for an indefinite period of time.

I have no issue with the Yucca burial site.  It has to be put somewhere.

No offense warhed, I am only playing the devil's advocate here because nuclear is not as rosy a solution as some would paint it to be.

[warhed]

I did not say that.  I am not against nuclear energy, but its current incarnation lacks a lot to be desired.  Smaller plants just spread the problem out.  Logically, anytime you have that caustic of an environment to deal with it is going to be expensive to maintain the safety of the operation for an indefinite period of time.

I have no issue with the Yucca burial site.  It has to be put somewhere.

No offense warhed, I am only playing the devil's advocate here because nuclear is not as rosy a solution as some would paint it to be.

No offense taken sir, there is not enough real discussion going on with the public about nuclear.  As I alluded to, I place almost all of the blame on the nuclear industry for that.  They have not done enough to make their case.  

As far as new plants and safety...We are running huge plants right now with technology developed in the 1950s and 60s.  The designs for the new plants (being built all over the world) is like comparing a F1 racecar to a Model-T.  

Right now, at least at my plant, we run between 30-40% efficient, almost 60% of the heat we create is wasted.  The newer designs are around 80%.  The newer plants are also much much smaller than the beasts we have now.  Smaller, more efficient, cheaper.  

A nuclear plant in operation, even with our current plants, basically runs itself.  A control room is manned, most of their work is constant checking of safety and proper running.  All other systems and employees are for efficiency and security.  A new plant would be even more automated, even more clean (in the radiation sense of the word).  No American employee has ever died due to radiation.  We are the safest form of energy to human health at this time.

Shutting down a nuclear plant is expensive because of regulations (not a bad thing.)  If we had a central site to start sending our spent fuel to, a nuclear plant could be shut down and brought to a completely safe state as far as public health goes.  

I understand the concern about spent fuel being with us for so long, but we already have it and have had it for 40 years.  We need Yucca.  

I honestly do not believe this country is ever going to have a strong nuclear industry again, it's just not in our blood anymore.  The rest of the industrialized world is far ahead of us already.  I can't see anything other than the status-quo for the next few decades:  Costly repair to a failing grid, mining more coal, building more coal plants, and talk of free\clean energy that is never going to replace coal.
Nuclear Power these days has a lot of hurdles to overcome, and I just don't think the powers that be or the American people are going to invest in it.  

Imagine a country with a new high tech grid, small efficient nuclear plants supported by clean renewable power plants, with a small number of coal and natural gas.  That would be something to be proud of.  Our current situation is a failing grid soon to be drawing more energy than is being put in (put in by a majority of polluting power plants, with almost Zero renewable resource plants.)

[sluggish]

I've been looking into installing one myself. It is a small one, but would deliver approx 25.000 KW-hours a year, which is all the hot water we use and some extra. That power costs me about 2.500 $. The machinery makes about 8000$, so there you go, all returned in some odd 4 years.
There have been som odd claims that the energy put into the mechanism will never be returned. It is complete rubbish, since it would mean that the manufacturer would be losing a lot of money on the selling 

Only one thing makes it viable at this time : government subsidization. 

[ridley1]

A little windmill in your backyard is a different thing. Charge up your battery, then run your dryer off of it when you need it. 

But, the industrial farms don't make sense. check out  http://windpowerfacts.info/

As alluded to earlier, the aging grid is a problem: the losses in transmission  is huge.  Imagine what could be done if they're able to produce superconductors?

[john9001]

the Japanese and Europeans can/are recycling spent fuel rods into new fuel rods.

[soda72]

They do have a limited life.  There is absolutely no way you can maintain them for an indefinite period of time.  They do reach a point where they cannot be maintained with any degree of safety.  The materials simply start breaking down due to the caustic environment they endure.

Are you sure there isn't a way for them to remove the Materials and replace it?

I didn't realize thiis was the case with nuclear reactors....

[druski85]

Imagine a country with a new high tech grid, small efficient nuclear plants supported by clean renewable power plants, with a small number of coal and natural gas.  That would be something to be proud of.  Our current situation is a failing grid soon to be drawing more energy than is being put in (put in by a majority of polluting power plants, with almost Zero renewable resource plants.)

Good timing on an interesting article in the NYT this morning.  What are your thoughts on this one war? http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/19/business/energy-environment/19minireactor.html?ref=business   (please read the article, not just the title )

[HPriller]

the Japanese and Europeans can/are recycling spent fuel rods into new fuel rods.

Not that I'm against nuclear (personally, I see it as the only viable long term solution),  but this is a joke, the recycling process used creates more radiactive/toxic waste than just storing the spent rods in the first place.   It's merely a political stunt that basically does more harm than good for the sake fooling uninformed into thinking it's better because it involves *recycling*.

Social and political pressures are what drove nuclear into the ground more than anything.  The reason we have all this aging nuclear tech is that newer designs won't get government approval in the first place.  It all overlooks the simple reality of the situation.  In terms environmental damage, public health, and deaths caused nuclear power beats out coal/gas in every category by a wide margin.  But as it stands, we're stuck with it.

What's the bright side?  The advantage of coal is it's cheap and plentiful, and this will be true *well* into the future.   US coal reserves won't tap out any time soon (easily over a hundred years), and hopefully in that time new power generation technologies will have time to mature and take root.

[Skuzzy]

Are you sure there isn't a way for them to remove the Materials and replace it?

I didn't realize thiis was the case with nuclear reactors....

soda, you are talking about tearing down the containment vessel and rebuilding it.  After a nuclear facility is shut down, it can take the rods about 2 years to cool down enough to open the vessel.  During that time, you are offline.  It simply is not practical to try and rebuild a nuclear reactor and maintain the degree of safety required to operate one.

[ridley1]

in regards to coal, what's the technological stand on 'scrubber'?  i.e. post combustion treatment of the exhaust gases? Isn't there some way to run it through a catalyitic converter much the same way as cars?