From The National Review
By Robert Bryce
May 30, 2019 4:21 PM
Climate change is the No. 1 issue for Democrats, with a recent poll showing 82 percent of Democratic voters listed it as their top priority. To appeal to those voters, contenders for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination routinely call climate change an “existential threat” to the nation and the world. But amid all their rhetoric and promises of massively expensive plans to tackle the problem, these same Democrats — with the notable exception of Senator Cory Booker — steadfastly refuse to utter two critical words: nuclear power.
The Democrats’ disdain for nuclear energy deserves attention, because there is no credible pathway toward large-scale decarbonization that doesn’t include lots of it. That fact was reinforced Tuesday, when the International Energy Agency published a report declaring that without more nuclear energy, global carbon dioxide emissions will surge and “efforts to transition to a cleaner energy system will become drastically harder and more costly.”
How costly? The IEA estimates that “$1.6 trillion in additional investment would be required in the electricity sector in advanced economies from 2018 to 2040” if the use of nuclear energy continued to decline. That, in turn, would mean higher prices, as “electricity supply costs would be close to $80 billion higher per year on average for advanced economies as a whole.” […]
In 2013, when Michael Bloomberg was mayor, his office issued a report that estimated closing Indian Point and replacing it with gas-fired generation would “increase New York City’s greenhouse gas emissions by approximately 15 percent.” It also said the city “depends on Indian Point for reliability as congested transmission lines limit power imports from more distant locations.” But current mayor — and Democratic presidential hopeful — Bill de Blasio steadfastly refuses to acknowledge Indian Point’s importance, or the potential of nuclear power in general. Last month, de Blasio unveiled his $14 billion NYC Green New Deal plan, which aims to cut New York City’s emissions by 30 percent by 2030. With the looming loss of Indian Point, that 30 percent goal will effectively become 45 percent.
Another Democratic contender, Beto O’Rourke, has dubbed climate change “our greatest threat” and says he will “mobilize $5 trillion” to cut domestic greenhouse-gas emissions to zero by 2050. The word “nuclear” does not appear anywhere on his website, just as it’s absent from nearly every other Democratic presidential candidate’s site. That’s a shame, because the IEA’s report is just the latest in a long line of scientific papers pointing to the need for nuclear energy. In 2014, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change declared that achieving deep cuts in emissions will “require more intensive use” of low-emission technologies “such as renewable energy [and] nuclear energy.”38
This is, frankly, one of the biggest and longest-running disconnects in American politics: The leaders of the Democratic party insist that the U.S. must make big cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions because of the threat posed by climate change, but for nearly five decades, they have either ignored or professed outright opposition to nuclear energy. The last time the party’s platform contained a positive statement about nuclear power was way back in 1972.
Full article here
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Leftists can not approve anything that might actually enrich mankind.
Democrats Curious Disdain for Capitalism ought to be the title of a follow up piece. That’s what it was all about.
Exactly right. Cheap energy is the lifeblood of capitalism.
If splitting atoms delivers cheap power then the left has no choice but to be against it. Pathetic really.
They tilt at windmills.
They also prefer to remain ignorant of the facts, science, physics, reality.
You are 100% correct Mark.
I would add that they have no idea how economics work and they seem to think that the government has unlimited money to throw at every windmill .
They are not aware that the governments depends on strong economies to provide taxes to fund all government spending .
A significant increase in the cost of energy, either electricity or fuel has to be passed on and cannot be absorbed by businesses.
This leads to rapid inflation or a slow down in business activity which generates far less revenue for the government and substantial cost supporting workers who are made redundant .
Leftist bedwetters live in fear.
They fear plant food CO2. They fear a little beneficial warmth. They fear our industrial present. They fear an unknown future. They fear overpopulation. They fear both people & progress.
They are ridiculous: all the above fears are baseless.
Far from being “progressives”, in truly Orwellian fashion they are a millstone around the neck of humanity, a barrier to progress.
They promote fear of nuclear power, which is totally ridiculous: a nuclear power station no more resembles a nuclear bomb than a baby gazelle resembles a charging bull elephant: they are completely different beasts. Nuclear power is way safer & cleaner than coal, for example. I was staggered to read in Robert Zubrin’s book Merchants Of Despair that a Chernobyl type catastrophe would need to happen every day to rival the toll on humanity that coal imposes. Zubrin is a PhD nuclear engineer with 9 patents to his name or pending. He refers heavily to Julian L. Simon’s great 1998 book The Ultimate Resource 2. Simon took money off the brain-dead doomster Paul Ehrlich in a bet.
Truly humanity is falsely served by our fake news MSM & their Bankster owners.
JD.
They can just keep pretending wind, solar, and hydro will carry a significant portion and the rest of the energy will be supplied by unicorn farts.
The warmistas give nothing but praise to James Hansen – going so far as to praise the accuracy of his model results that are woefully inaccurate – then plug their ears and pretend he never advocated for nuclear power, let alone said it was a necessary part of the solution.
I have to disagree with you there, Michael. This very issue IS where the Greens and Leftists turned on James. Indeed, the Climate Faithful were so incensed at Hansen for breaking rank on the Renewables issue that one of the various and sundry Climate Naomies (can’t remember which off the top of my head, and honestly what’s the difference) felt it necessary to write a whole article on how this made him a new kind of ‘Denier’, and putting the rest of the Faithful on notice that even the slightest bit of heresy would not be tolerated.
And frankly, that’s probably the main reason so few Democrats even mention the word Nuclear. It doesn’t matter if it’s the only real chance of bringing ‘Decarbonization’ to something close to a reality. The Left’s True Masters have declared it forbidden, so it’s off the board.
~¿~
They must quit with their radiation craze.
Kerala for example, one of the most naturally radioactive places on earth is not known for it’s mountains of dead bodies.
Furthermore, I have news for the radio-phobic crowds. The earth we’re currently on is a gigantic cooling pool for radioactive elements.
Decaying radio elements are responsible for up to 50% of earth’s geothermal energy.
Do not forget the bananas we eat for our potassium balance, because potassium is radioactive. Not very, but radioactive. And our nervous systems *need* potassium.
Oddly, while there is a Banana equivalent dose (BED), potatoes have more K than bananas.
Right John + Ellen , the ultimate weapon could be a military grade bananas and potatoes cake. Fear, we’re doomed !
But there’s more. Flight crews should be zombies with the excess of cosmic radiation that we take at the job.
And finally, last but not least, none of the foretold mass graves after Fukushima can be accounted for. I wonder where are the numerous *experts* that fueled the panic back then.
Would have a couple of questions for them. If however they dare to show.
There is little to no accountability for the tens of thousands of Fukushima cleanup contractors. Many were/are from the margins of society; some were/are victims of crime syndicate labor rackets. There’s no way to account for what happens to them when they just disappear and die.
The paranoia is strong with this one.
The reason why we can’t find anyone who was hurt by the Fukushima radiation, is because the government made them all disappear.
icisil your comment is pure adult male bovine fetal mater. All the workers on that site are closely monitored for radiation dose , as are all nuclear workers on first world nuclear reactor sites.
Believe whatever you want to believe
Special Report: Help wanted in Fukushima: Low pay, high risks and gangsters
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-fukushima-workers-specialreport/special-report-help-wanted-in-fukushima-low-pay-high-risks-and-gangsters-idUSBRE99O04320131025
http://newagora.ca/mako-oshidori-in-dusseldorf-the-hidden-truth-about-fukushima/
Potassium has a huge half-life of thousands of years!!!! Wonder how banana sales will be affected oncethe meeja get hold of that little gem?
Go talk to the dozens (hundreds?) of sick sailors that were on-board the USS Reagan when it sailed through a radioactive plume off of Fukushima (can’t talk to the dead ones). I don’t think you’ll find much sympathy from them. It took almost 2 years to decontaminate that aircraft carrier.
[??? .mod]
Yeah, just saddle up your unicorn and ride over and chat with them.
You really are capable of swallowing some real whoppers, aren’t you.
This is yet another myth.
Stars & Stripes likes Whoppers too!
https://www.stripes.com/news/16-us-ships-that-aided-in-operation-tomodachi-still-contaminated-with-radiation-1.399094
Within the very article you cited: “The radioactive contamination found on the ships involved in Operation Tomodachi is at such low levels that it does not pose a health concern to the crews, their families, or maintenance personnel,”
Right. That’s the official government version, and we know that the government never lies.
icisil, it seems you has a little bit of difficulty with logic. Do you say that, therefore, governments always lie? Did they lie this time by “adjusting” the dose?
From the Stars and Stripes article
I see that you are one of those fools who actually believes that any detectable radiation is deadly.
“This issue is the comment that I initially I responded to gives the impression that radiation is harmless. I’m really sick of that type of gross exaggeration that undermines public support for nuclear energy because any reasonably well-informed person knows that nuclear radiation can be lethal when it is released into the environment.”
It all in the dose, as a child of the fifties living down wind from the open air nuclear test, I can tell you most early deaths of my high school class are dead from drugs and alcohol, don’t think we lost any due to the Vietnam war we were young enough when we became of age the war had wound down. One did die directly from radiation it was melanoma cancer due to the sun exposer, according to you we should band the sun since every day it radiates radiation every day on us from its nuclear fire , thank good there is night so we can escape that evil radiation.
your source?
Search Reagan + Fukushima. It’s all over the place. I’ve just been going through these because I’ve never seen them before. They’re pretty good.
https://www.counterpunch.org/search-results/?cx=000357264939014560440%3Aicshsy4bfu0&ie=UTF-8&q=uss+reagan
My, my. CounterPunch? Which is somewhat to the left of Granma. I am trying to figure if they are Maoists or Trotskyites.
What is Stars & Stripes? Left or right?
I am still not getting the point they are soldiers they signed up to do a dangerous job including getting shot at and dying. If they have been exposed to unsafe levels of radiation it was by accident or lack of information … unless you are trying to claim they were deliberately irradiated.
On the other end of the stick they could have been sent to a war zone and ordered to do something with near certain death.
Like all surviving military personal they have a right to the best post action care but with the actual events I don’t see the issue.
This issue is the comment that I initially I responded to gives the impression that radiation is harmless. I’m really sick of that type of gross exaggeration that undermines public support for nuclear energy because any reasonably well-informed person knows that nuclear radiation can be lethal when it is released into the environment.
When you have to lie about what others have said, you have just admitted that even you know you don’t have any evidence to support what you want to believe.
He never said that radiation is harmless, he said that low levels of radiation is harmless and that not enough radiation leaked from Fukushima to reach harmful levels.
Both statements are 100% true.
One thing is perfectly clear, Mark: You don’t know this issue if you can make statements like “not enough radiation leaked from Fukushima to reach harmful levels”. As one small example, the 300 m exhaust chimney by reactors 1 and 2 suffered damage from the hydrogen explosions and is in danger of collapsing in an earthquake. They can’t get close to the chimney, though, because it is so radioactive at its base – 25 sieverts. That would kill a person quickly.
I found this and a lot more by simple searching USS Reagan.
It was not just the Reagan 15 other ships were in thee plume. Radiation is not one size fits all. Some people can be effected sooner and by less.
It does not appear to be a myth, While there are the usual ambulance chasers there are also a growing number of crew members with radiation like symptoms.
Oh and I am for nuclear power plants. Sometimes you just have bad luck, plan or build improperly.
Accept the good with the bad.
https://www.stripes.com/news/16-us-ships-that-aided-in-operation-tomodachi-still-contaminated-with-radiation-1.399094
michael
Aircraft, too. Every time I go down this rabbit hole I keep finding things I didn’t know. 4 sieverts per hour is insanely radioactive.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2014/02/27/fukushima-dangerously-contaminated-the-uss-reagan/
“Go talk to the dozens (hundreds?) of sick sailors that were on-board the USS Reagan when it sailed through a radioactive plume off of Fukushima (can’t talk to the dead ones).”
Or, you could read the Congressionally-mandated report on the matter by Dr. Jonathon Woodson, found here, which has the actual data in it: https://www.health.mil/Reference-Center/Reports/2014/06/19/Radiation-Exposure-Report
Here’s a significant quote from the report:
“Only two adverse health conditions (three cases) were identified among the RONALD REAGAN sailors that are radiogenic. These include one case of non-chronic lymphocytic leukemia (non-CLL) and two cases of thyroid cancer. These numbers of cases are not unusual or unexpected among a population of nearly 5,000 individuals. With respect to these three cases, it’s important to understand that all radiogenic diseases have what is called a “latency period” between the time of exposure and the appearance of health effects. According to the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR 2013), the minimum latency period for radiation-induced leukemia is 2 years and 5 years for solid cancers (including thyroid cancer). Additionally, the World Health Organization, in a health risk assessment of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident (WHO 2013), conservatively assumes the minimum latency period for radiation-induced leukemia is 2 years, 3 years for thyroid cancer, and 5 years for all other solid cancers. The dates of diagnosis for these three cases strongly suggest that these disease processes were initiated well before OT and therefore, are not causally related to low-level radiation exposures during OT.”
There is a pile of dead bodies attributed to normal coal, gas or petroleum power generation as well as well as direct deaths to industrial accidents.
I don’t get the point?
The point is don’t build a modern nuclear power plant in a tsunami zone and that goes for a wind or solar farm with lithium battery backup too. We’re clever like that in learning from our mistakes just like infrasound and building windmills too close to people and threated species along with their need for reliability. Now do you get icisil’s point?
Actually the modern nuclear power plants that were in the tsunami zone did just fine. It was the 40 year old ones that had problems.
And personally, this is why I don’t have much problem with them shutting down the older 60’s and 70’s era Nuclear power plants. A lot of governments jumped on the Nuclear band wagon too soon. We didn’t NEED Nuclear power, because there were plenty of easier ways to make electricity. Better to let the technology mature first, then build out when we start to really need it.
~¿~
Old/modern had nothing to do with it. It was because TEPCO engineers lowered the Fukushima facility to be closer to the water in order to lower pumping costs. A nuclear plant up the coast did fine because it was built high enough. The point is that really bad things can happen when people make dumb mistakes with nuclear energy based on things like greed because nuclear energy is very deadly and unforgiving. The attitude that nuclear radiation is harmless or not that bad just exacerbates these kinds of stupid, regrettable mistakes.
And yet politicians insist that nuke power plants be built in unsuitable places, like oceansides and earthquake zones as in Japan and California.
The other reactors at Fukushima survived the tsunami without any problems.
There you go, lying about what others have said.
Why don’t you just admit that you can’t defend what you believe, so you have to build strawmen.
Nobody said that nuclear radiation isn’t dangerous. What they have said, and all the data supports, is that low levels of radiation aren’t dangerous.
But that’s exactly the problem with nuclear accidents – they can release very high doses.
Mark, you think high levels of radioactivity weren’t released at Fukushima. What could I possibly say to such an uniformed person.
licisil, I suggest you read the report I cited. There were no “high doses” of radiation from Fukushima.
And that’s just it isn’t it. The regulatory environment needs to shift from one that discourages the construction of nuclear power plants to one that encourages and enables their construction. It is time for rigorous good sense to return to the field instead of this superstition of LEN and all the other bogeyman stuff that surrounds nuclear energy.
My estimate is based on Molten Salt SMR reactors, whichcost roughly half as much per M as current light waer reactors. Commercialization expected late 2020’s. Inherently safe, power predicted to cost 4 cents per KWhr, can be located virtually anywhere. I estimated eoughly $900 billion to replace all of the carbon power generation, and would provide enough power for an electric auto fleet. Cost might run a bit over $1 trillion.
Trump needs to pound home the need for nuclear power and upstage the Global warming crowd with respect to reduction carbon emissions.
The (D) / Liberal objection to nuclear power, in part, traces back to their complaint that nuclear power is used in nuclear weapons. [drop mike]
[pick up mike] While the plutonium side of nuclear power is involved in nuclear weapons, thorium is not. Thorium is more plentiful than plutonium, and is difficult to weaponize.
Several groups are working on thorium power. One has prototypes of a suitcase sized reactor that will fit in and power a car for 50+ years. Think of not stopping for gas or a “tesla” recharge, ever.
Another group is developing thorium reactors suitable for powering hospitals, eliminating the need for backup generators for emergencies. Supplying thorium reactors to hospitals and other critical infrastructure would allow them to completely disconnect from the power grid, eliminating their vulnerability to anyone interfering with US electric power.
We need to support the development of thorium power, and promote its wide-spread use. (I have only scientific interest in thorium power. I have no conflict of interest issues to the industry.)
Sadly, to many Greenies, mentioning nuclear power causes their genuflect response with an irrational (no thought) hatred of the whole topic.
Open minded debate is needed, but Greenies are not known for open minds.
Newt-
Would love to read more about the thorium projects you describe. Could you supply some references?
There aren’t any thorium reactors in existence but there is some research. There are some significant challenges to the use of thorium.
https://ieer.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/thorium2009factsheet.pdf
Molten salt cooled reactors make a lot of sense and if we reprocess existing nuclear waste, and start burning up warheads, we’ll have plenty of fuel without needing thorium.
There are approx. 176 million lbs of spent fuel rods sitting in cooling pools at US reactors. That would last a long time.
You are quite correct in making this statement. What you may not realise, and you may not care if your mission is to try and demonize nuclear energy, is that this large quantity of fuel rods is the result of the very peculiar American ban on reprocessing of “spent” nuclear fuel, which still has much (most?) of its energy-generating potential.
And this doesn’t even start to talk about breeder reactors, which multiply the energy available from uranium fuel by a factor of (I think) 70.
And the volume of low-level nuclear waste from all the medical and industrial uses of radioactive isotopes – not to forget the smoke detectors in your home – (all produced in nuclear reactors) is many times greater than that of the “spent” fuel.
Spent fuel rods have only about 5% recoverable energy used, they are “spent” because decay products that poison the neutron economy have built up in them. That is what reprocessing is all about, removing the poisons and recycling the useful fuel.
The Oak Ridge MSR experiment had an integral reprocessing stack (basically a distillation column). Multiply the years of operation that those “spent” fuel rods accumulated over by 19, that’s centuries worth of fuel. MSRs are breeder reactors, we can use the depleted uranium stocks to fuel them after the “spent” fuel runs out. The time horizon is now measured in millennia. Without mining another gram of uranium.
That’s because idiots got the politicians to ban reprocessing.
Maybe I should keep this quite, coal fired plants put out more radiation than nuclear plants. Yet people heated there homes with coal years ago.
“You are quite correct in making this statement. What you may not realise, and you may not care if your mission is to try and demonize nuclear energy…”
That’s not my mission at all. I would love to see gen 4 be successful and become pervasive. IMO it’s the sensible thing to do.
Old engineer:
“Thorium: energy cheaper than coal”. by Robert Hargreaves would be a good place to start. It is a very interesting technology which needs development and investment. Sadly not forthcoming at the moment. China and Korea could well beat us on this. Huge potential .
Same old problem – facts are boring so the MSM keeps us all in the dark and feeds off our fears of the unknown.
I find it frightening and funny that the people hating nuclear power seem to totally be ignoring that it’s not the odd nuclear power plant malfunction that’s near going to be as devastating as a correctly functioning thermo nuc. Yet we continue to antagonize Russia and China (bi-partisan) which at least increases the chance for a mistaken light off.
I’m surprised that Europe is having any of the United States blustering after the destruction of the world wars. However, I believe most Americans don’t really realize that modern warfare can reach out and touch us and it won’t be pretty. Particularly if China and Russia combined, the United State could lose a conventional war rather rapidly. The missiles can get here and the US has no defense against a substantial volley. Destroy a few power plants, ports, and petrol plants and the American Just In Time economy won’t. I suspect the US would not consider losing gracefully and we’re back to nuc exchange. Detente used to be considered a successful strategy. If you want to protest for something peace is my vote.
It really amazes me how people manage to define not doing everything they demand of us, as “antogonizing”.
No such word: “antogonizing”
Is that really the best you can do? If so you should hang your head in shame.
On the other hand taz1999 we could just remind the Chinese that we saved their butts so behave, we still have a hot line to Moscow.
https://www.scmp.com/article/714064/nixon-intervention-saved-china-soviet-nuclear-attack
michael
It appears the common theme in that article is that negotiations backed by power prevented nuclear war; and that’s a good thing.
Cold war v1 the US was generally afraid of the USSR. They had beat the US in space up until the late 60’s. I think this fear generated some restraint.
Cold war v2, I think generally the US does not understand the current military capability of Russia and for whatever reason doesn’t consider that the US has been pinned down in the middle east for almost 20 years; unable to get out. Russia and China both play a long game. If your enemy is in the process of committing suicide, don’t get in the way.
“I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” – Albert Einstein.
Perhaps Europe saw the result of appeasement and “Peace in our time.”
>While the plutonium side of nuclear power is involved in nuclear weapons, …
Plutonium can be extracted from fuel rods used in power reactors, but that plutonium cannot be used in weapons.
Bomb grade plutonium must have a very high content of Pu-239 and a low content of Pu-240. Fuel rods from power reactors have way too much Pu-240. Bomb grade Pu is made in reactors designed for that purpose, which are quite different from power reactors. And because of the small mass difference between 2300 and 240, separating the isotopes is very difficult.
Pu from power reactor fuel rods can be mixed with uranium and burned as reactor fuel.
They’ve learned to gain power through crises. This strategy used to involving waiting for a crisis and then taking full advantage of it. Now they create them when possible. Not only do they rejoice in bad things happening, they try to make them happen. They rejoice when shootings, hurricanes, floods, fires, etc. occur. They want more homeless, illegal immigrants, abortions, cop killings, etc. etc. etc. Solving problems would put allies out of work as well as diminish their power.
You can’t fix stupid!! In the fifties nuclear was the rage and I went to MIT to be a nuclear engineer. Never did achieve that goal but still had a satisfying career in medical instrumentation. Took a great tour of Indian Point in the late 60’s or early 70’s. That is before everyone became afraid of their own shadow.
Back to the Cave! It’s for the children!!
Not caves. Caves generally are surrounded by rock, which gives off radiation.
Granite Countertops are made from – – – wait for it;
3, 2, 1 . . . rock!
Now that is why we need an “up” button. Excellent comment.
The Democrats and their media shills basically used the “radiation alarmism” tactic against nuclear by trying to buy votes from the uninformed based on politically contrived schemes that were nothing but distortion, deception and dishonesty regarding how radiation risks were addressed at nuclear power plants.
They grossly exaggerated risks at nuclear plants by dishonestly exploiting the Chernobyl nuclear disaster with this reactor design having no resemblance to reactor designs used elsewhere in the world.
They grossly exaggerated impact of the Three Mile Island nuclear accident which had a core meltdown yet had no impact at all on nearby populations because the containment building retained the radiation resulting from the accident. This accident also had no impact on plant personnel.
They grossly exaggerated the Fukushima nuclear accident which resulted from improper government plant siting criteria where the occurrence of a great offshore earthquake with resulting tsunami was disregarded.
They totally ignored the risks to society associated with other forms of power which when evaluated on a rational basis show that nuclear power risks are in fact much more manageable and of less consequence.
They manufactured concerns about storage of the completely manageable long term radioactive waste which compared to other power generation wastes is many times smaller in volume and ability to safely handle.
The media which relentlessly pushes radiation alarmist issues does so in a completely incompetent and ignorant manner and cannot even distinguish the key difference between the concepts of “exposure” and “dose” which are critical to understanding radiation risk.
The Democrats have through their politically contrived and invalid schemes with the media as their alarmist shills have destroyed the ability to use nuclear power in the U.S.
Just as it is with wind and solar, going with nuclear power is strictly a public policy decision. In the absence of government intervention in the energy marketplace, as long as natural gas is cheap, plentiful, and easily available through transportation systems such as pipelines and even rail transport of LNG, power generation and marketing will move strongly towards gas-fired generation.
That said, if public policy decision makers want nuclear as a highly reliable and safe backup for gas-fired generation and for the renewables, this cannot happen unless the nuclear construction industry can get its capital costs under control.
The massive failure of the VC Summer and the Vogtle 3 & 4 power reactor projects to meet their original cost and schedule commitments demonstrates that building the large AP1000 size reactors is not a smart move in the United States.
The problem here is that if the construction job involves nuclear, an excellent job must be done in every phase of the project if the NRC’s quality assurance standards are to be met. The VC Summer and the Vogtle 3 & 4 projects paid only lip service to meeting their QA commitments, much of the work was not done to acceptable standards, and so the projects ended up paying for everything twice, doubling the cost and schedule for completing the plants.
As it stands today, going with the Small Modular Reactors (SMR’s) and their highly standardized technology is the only pathway the nuclear construction industry now has for keeping its costs under control, thus making it easier for public policy decision makers to choose nuclear over other alternatives in the face of stiff competition from natural gas.
The NuScale SMR team out of Portland, Oregon is by far the furthest along in getting a working reactor into production. They have financial backing from Fluor, they have access to Fluor’s extensive EPC experience, they have a customer in Utah for their SMR design, they have a construction site identified in eastern Idaho, and they have an experienced reactor operator, Energy Northwest, on their team.
If the talk I am hearing among nuclear construction professionals is on the mark, all hope for a nuclear revival in the US now hinges on NuScale being successful with their SMR design in keeping their capital costs under control at a projected $4,200 per kWe. We should know by 2027 if that’s how things turned out.
Most of the cost problems with nuclear are due to excessive and constantly changing regulations.
If you think the people who killed nuclear will stand by while a new generation of nuclear is being developed, your smoking something illegal.
The problem is the fundamental natural technical issues with PWR reactors and PWR and BWR safety/cost record, not fission.
Build a better fission reactor if we want the public to support the installation of fission reactors.
The key issues are safety, fuel efficiency, time to build, ease of processing and storing spent fuel, and so on.
In a normal competitive industry we would not be using a design that is 70 year old that has failed multiple times. The nuclear ‘industry’ is not interested in a design that would obsolete the fuel rod reactors. We do not have a nuclear industry, we have a fuel rod industry which successfully lobbies for fuel rod, reactors.
Better yet build the best theoretically possible fission reactor.
The Democrats or most Republicans have no idea that there is a six times more fuel efficient fission reactor that has no natural catastrophic failure modes, that operates at atmospheric pressure, that is sealed, that stores the spend fuel in thick vessels, air cooled.
Pressure water, fuel rod, fission reactor’s cost problems all stem from the fact that fuel rod, water cooled reactors can meltdown for dozens of reasons, can exploded for dozens of reasons, and operate at high pressure. They also have leak radioactive gases and radioactive water soluble elements.
There is only factory in the world that can blend the 8-inch plate which they are made of.
A massive containment building is required.
“your smoking something illegal.”
Whew! That’s a relief! If you had said “you’re smoking something illegal”, then there would be a problem.
Since the only complaint you have with my comment revolves around a spelling issue, can I assume that you agree with everything else I said?
Well if you want an nit picking issue: NuScale is based in Oregon where smoking marijuana is legal so you might need to clarify your statement to smoking something federally illegal or smoking something illegal in Oregon.
Otherwise I fully agree with your statement. We actually could learn from the French where they approved just a couple types of reactors. Want to build a reactor? Choose plant A or plant B.
MarkW, in 2012, the estimated capital costs for the VC Summer and Vogtle 3 & 4 projects were roughly 12 billion dollars each. Those estimated costs included full compliance with all of the NRC’s quality assurance and regulatory requirements.
By 2017, the two projects were five years behind schedule and their costs had climbed to roughly 25 billion dollars each. VC Summer was cancelled in 2017 and Vogtle 3 & 4’s project management team was replaced. Here in 2019, the Vogtle expansion project’s capital cost is now roughly 28 billion dollars.
The NRC’s current requirements are little different today than they were in 2012. What was it that happened in those five years between 2012 and 2017?
The reason why the capital costs for VC Summer and Vogtle 3 & 4’s doubled in five years time is that the owners and project managers made every mistake there is to make in running a large nuclear construction project. It’s almost like they went down a checklist of classic nuclear project mistakes and made sure each and every one was fully covered.
For those of us who went through the wrenching experiences of the 1980’s in learning how to do nuclear projects on cost and on schedule, watching what was happening at VC Summer and Vogtle 3 & 4 was deja vu all over again.
The NRC and its QA requirements are not going away. The NuScale project team is working closely with the NRC to make certain that all regulatory bases for their SMR design are being properly covered. As SMR development efforts go, NuScale is roughly a decade ahead of anyone else in getting a working design into production operation.
What about the large unitary reactors such as the AP1000 design and its similar cousins?
IMHO, the two AP1000’s now being built at Vogtle 3 & 4 will be the last of their kind built in the United States. If nuclear construction does make a comeback in the US in the 2030’s and beyond, SMR designs of various flavors will become the foundation of the industry.
“long as natural gas is cheap, plentiful, and easily available through transportation systems such as pipelines and even rail transport of LNG, power generation and marketing will move strongly towards gas-fired generation.”
That is funny to the greens gas is not a solution either since it does emit CO2. Add in the Demorats and their allies are keeping pipeline from being built.
There is a faction of the greens that opposes nuclear power precisely because it can sustain industrial civilization, which they oppose.
Remember, Paul Ehrlich stated that having cheap and unlimited power “would be like giving a machine gun to an idiot child”.
Beto O’Rourke, has dubbed climate change “our greatest threat”
Biggest threat are people like O’Dork & his ilk.
The key to understanding the left’s aversion to nuclear, or anything else that might actually work, comes from our old buddy, Paul Ehrlich.
So, the problem for Ehrlich is the prescription problem. If you’re writing a prescription, you’re predicting that it will work. Given Ehrlich’s abysmal record of failed predictions I would rephrase his quote.
Sadly, the left ignores Ehrlich’s ignominious record of failed prognostications.
It isn’t ‘curious disdain’ the socialist democrats suffer from. It is irrational fear. Their fear of nuclear energy is created by the same methods as their irrational fear of Climate Change, Neutron Sterilization, and Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO’s).
Consider GMO corn. The agitator alarmists call GMO corn ‘Frankenfood’ because the corn plants (a type of grass) have a glyphosphate-resistant gene from another grass plant spliced into the corn genes. The GMO corn plants do not have any glyphosphate in them or in their corn kernels! The GMO corn plants are simply made more resistant to the glyphosphate herbicide, allowing the young corn plants to continue to grow robustly when herbicide is applied to kill weeds in the corn fields. The glyphosphate herbicide is applied and naturally dissipates long before the corn plants are ‘in silk’ and setting ears of corn. The result is higher yields of healthy, nutritious, all natural corn!
However, if the agitator alarmists have been effective with their ‘Frankenfood’ scare mongering, the gullible public is made sufficiently fearful to reject the healthy result. This is true for GMO corn. The ‘Frankenfood’ story of ‘GMO Golden Rice’, with a gene spliced into the rice to enhance production of Vitamin A, is exactly the same!
The methods and techniques used by the environMental alarmists are the same Rules For Radicals Saul Alinsky taught Barack Hussein Obama.
“Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” There is no defense. It’s irrational.
“Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”
“The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.” Imagination and ego can dream up many more consequences than any activist.
“Keep the pressure on. Never let up.”
By these techniques, a gullible public can be driven by irrational fear in any direction the environMental alarmists desire.
After researching the decommissioning on US Naval nuclear vessels, and then reading this article, I wonder what the remaining usable life expectancy of the reactors would be, and if they could be converted to sited electrical power stations.
Apparently the problem with the decommissioning is how to remove and store the older reactor designs that are no reused. Apparently many reactors from decommissioned vessels are reused in newer ships.
Of course the biggest problem is the use of highly enriched uranium in naval reactors. Greatly more efficient, but currently not allowed for civilian nuclear plants. The reactors are also more energy dense and the newest designs can go 25 years without refueling.
Regulations need to be rewritten to allow highly functional high enriched uranium reactors to be used for civilian electrical generation needs.
Imagine siting the small efficient reactors at existing retired coal plant locations. If the steam generators and cooling towers were still functional, you would only be replacing the heat source.
Recycling anyone?(for the envirowacos)
How long does it take to build a nuclear reactor for an aircraft carrier?
Tom Abbott June 1, 2019 at 12:41 pm
“How long does it take to build a nuclear reactor for an aircraft carrier?”
Depends on how long they take to build the CVN.
Five to seven years. Both the USS JFK and the USS ENTERPRISE!! are under construction. ENTERPRISE completion was 2025 but may be moved up to 2027.
michael
One to three years. Depends on which part, and whether that part is on a regular-delivery “assembly line” basis, or if it is a special hand-made assembly.
They don’t build many aircraft-carrier sizes reactors, for example, so it takes longer to make a reactor pressure vessel than it does a smaller part like a valve or pump. But if the whole carrier takes several years to build, you need to put the reactor vessel right at the beginning, then wait several years to make the next carrier. A sub reactor is smaller, and so more can be made in a year. Anything repeated gets built faster, better the next times.
I see the Russians have put two nuclear reactors on their newest ice breaker, the Urals. Combined output is 350 MW on a 35 000 tonne ship. Now that sort of SMR would run a town quite effectively.
For comparison the USS Abraham Lincoln weighs in at around 100 000 tonnes and has about 164 MW from its two reactors.
Big progress is possible.
The new carriers have reactor power of 300 MW. The extra power is for laser and rail gun weapons.
300 MW would power a small city quite easily. How easily would depend on what kind of commercial and manufacturing base (if any) it was also supporting.
Reactors from the USN are not reusable in other ships or anywhere else unless metallurgy has improved since I served as a nuclear machinist mate back in the 90’s. The problem is after burning through two fuel loads over 50 years is embrittlement of steel. The vessel no longer meets safety standards and must be replaced but after 50 years the rest of the ship is worn out also. That’s why the ship is decommissioned.
I think the misunderstanding here is basic reactor design is reused within the same class of ship, not the vessel itself.
As for efficiency, the amount of Plutonium in a 550mw reactor is about the size of a softball so from that standpoint it’s good. Bad part is that’s roughly enough to go 25,000 EFPH (effective full power hours) which is no problem when shut down in ports quite a bit and when running only doing ~30% power. Drop it in a civilian plant running 24/7, 365 at 100% power and that’s ~3 years of operation with a very expensive/time consuming refueling ahead. That’s why civilian plants use fuel rods which are easy to replace. It also means a totally different design of reactor is required for operation.
The “fear” of nuclear by the left is it lets us out of the global gov box they want to lock us into. It gives us cheap reliable energy (cue to the high-cost-of-nuclear Luddites to jump in) and doesnt harm our economies, marginalize and impoverish we Deplorables and doesn’t block economic prosperity to African and underdeveloped Asian countries.
Do we have to keep reminding that all the CO2 climate fuss isn’t for saving the planet. It’s truly the last big opportunity for breathing new life into the mouldering body of of the global néomarxiste central-control ideology.
Population growth is attenuating toward a peak of 9B, the planet is greening toward a bountiful “Garden of Eden Earth^тм”, prosperity is spreading with such countries as Bangladesh topping 6% annual GDP growth. The Malthusian rationale for destroying Western civilization and its economic engine is dissolving away. They know it. Africans and the poor Asian countries aren’t fooled anymore. If America doesn’t stand up to it after Trump (thank God Hillary didnt get in or it would either be over or we would be in another Civil War against the Democrats), then India would be leading at least the English speaking world and preserving the wonders of the Age of Reason, the Industrial Revolutions, the beleaguered Scientific Method, the Political Economy of Prosperity.
Both the World Nuclear Association and MIT review of lifecycle emissions from nuclear and renewable generation showed that lifecycle emissions from renewables (solar, wind, biomass, hydroelectric) and nuclear were similar with Nuclear less than 1/2 that of Solar PV. This was for stand alone generation of equal amounts of generated electricity and did not analyze the needed uses of fossil fuel for backup. The ONLY CO2 backup for Renewables that will not increase the amount of CO2 emissions is Nuclear.
Worse, to get to 90 – 100% renewable means that there needs to be thee to five times the name plate generation units to produce that power, Then there needs to be even more to have capacity to charge up whatever storage device is going to be used. This is because if all of the renewable generator units are being used to provide needed power then they can not be charging up the storage unit. And doubling down on WORSE is the fact that all of the calculations I have seen show the number of units needed based upon annual daily averages. That is pure lack of common sense, If you only have enough generating capacity for the daily average or even the Average of the Peak use you do NOT have enough for the typical 20 to 30 days of peaks during the coldest or hottest periods, Because most of the surrounding area will also be going through a PEAK. You can not bring that power from the midwest to either coast during those periods, not without MASSIVE infrastructure – like 10 to 20 1,500 mile DC Transmission lines.
Answer:
Because those policymakers are nothing more than “sales and development” pushers of “renewables.”
They do not care about ANYTHING but moving solar or wind or like s.c.a.m.s. — market share by fiat, bilking taxpayers and rate payers.
Cui bono.
Hi dear Janice! Haven’t heard from you in a long time. Because of technical glitches with this site, or maybe because I’m under some kind of mischief watch by WUWT mods, you aren’t likely to read this greeting anytime soon.
Hi, Gary,
Thanks for the shout out. You are not alone RE: the technical difficulties, here. I can’t post images or videos anymore and it takes sometimes HOURS to get a comment published. WUWT is one big glitch, these days.
All that and lack of wifi where I am living makes commenting harder.
Glad you and all the rest are still holding the fort.
Hope all is well with you and yours, back there.
Janice
” WUWT is one big glitch, these days.”
Yes, it is. A real pain sometimes. One wonders why the management doesn’t do something about it since they have been getting complaints about it for months. Maybe they don’t read the comments.
WUWT installed new commenting software about a year ago and it was just what the doctor ordered. It did just about everything a commenter would want. Then, for unknown reasons, the software developed a problem and was disabled.
Since that time we have the mess we have now. At least before the new software was installed, one could post pictures to WUWT, but now that the new software was disabled, we were not even reverted back to the old software because the old software allowed pictures to be posted and the current version does not.
I’m a little surprised that Anthony has not addressed this problem before now. It should be as easy as possible to use WUWT as it can be made. That is not the case now. Why?
Yes, indeed, Tom —
Crickets.
*sigh*
Mods,
A little help? A comment I made at 11:38am has not posted.
See:
J Mac
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
June 1, 2019 at 11:38 am
[No items are in the moderation queue. .mod]
And yet, it didn’t show up on the web page until after 1:07pm…. WUWT?
Leftists tend to distrust anything high tech, unless it’s made by Apple.
Conservatives tend to distrust any high tech company such as Google, Twitter, Facebook, etc.
Twitter and Facebook are “high tech” in your world? Wow.
That conservatives aren’t treated fairly may have something to do with it. And their biased search engines and biased selection for censorship. You toe the line politically obviously so you wouldn’t notice. It takes skill to compose a search that doesn’t ring their policing alarm if you aren’t sinistrally bent. They already have your favored sites lined up for you and protect you from getting a holistuc education.
If Google, Twitter and Facebook didn’t actively discriminate (by their own admisstion) against conservatives, they would be more trusted.
BTW, since so many of you get such a kick out of spotting spelling errors, Ive decided to put one in each of my posts.
First, a story:
About ten years ago I was at an event with Ted Strickland, then the Governor of Ohio. Ted is a Democrat, but an old fashioned labor union man not at all crazy. He had been elected in 2006 after 16 years of Republican rule flamed out amidst some petty scandals.
I was then, and have been at all times in my life a strong advocate of nuclear energy. I was talking to Ted about the economic problems of the day, which included soaring energy prices. And, of course, the usual suspects were ringing their hands about Global Warming, Al Gore’s movie had been released in 2006.
I told Ted that he could solve the energy and CO2 problems, and obtain thousands of jobs and give Ohio based manufactures a big boost by securing plentiful cheap energy. All he needed to do was promote the construction a bunch of nuclear power plants in southeastern Ohio along the Ohio river.
It is the ideal location for such a project. First. The land is geologically stable. There are no active faults and there have not been major earthquakes in the area for thousands of years. Second, The mountains shield the area from hurricanes and the rough ground breaks up tornadoes. Third, the river provides a limitless quantity of water. Yes, the river floods, but it is not hard to find high ground that has no flooding risk. Fourth, there are no nearby major centers of population. Indeed the whole area is sparsely populated. Fifth, The eastern metropolitan grids and the Great Lakes grid are all within easy reach.
He listened politely, and did nothing. He lost in 2010. But, the idea is still valid. Free to anybody who wants it.
Second, Analysis:
The anti-nuclear prejudice of the watermelon Democrats is a key proof that they are really a leftist political movement, not at all concerned with anything other than imposing a socialist regime featuring themselves as the nomenklatura. Their opposition to nuclear power is the shadow of a Soviet dezinformatsiya campaign aimed at crippling the US’s nuclear weapons capabilities in the 1950s and 60s. It is also a graphic illustration of how they have abandoned the proletariat they once claimed to champion. One might think that the union movement would champion an energy source that created hundreds of jobs for skilled craftsmen. The union movement has been taken over by the government employees, and is indifferent, or even hostile, to the interest of the proletariat.
Third, Explanation:
The fear of nuclear power is irrational. So what. Environmentalism and Warmism are not rational, they are religions. Their acolytes hope to convert the unwashed by scaring them. It is one of the oldest tactics in the books. So why not scare people with nuclear reactors, how else are you going to get them to live in the poverty and degradation that the destruction of industrial civilization will cause. The whole hope of the environmentalists and warmunists is that people will sit in their mud huts in the cold and dark and say to each other: “Well, thank Gaia that we don’t have to worry about warmth or nuclear power anymore.”
Agree completely. The Democrats’ complete dismissal of nuclear power as the solution to their Climate Change boogeyman belies their true motives.
It’s all about the Socialism and government power over the Individual.
The Democrats’ plan is to crush the individual and his/her rights as embodied in the US Constitution.
And a wind turbine farm is their path to power.
Janice, it’s great to see you commenting again.
This is recent news out of Canada:
https://edmontonjournal.com/news/national/david-staples-fear-not-new-nuclear-reactors-can-solve-canadas-climate-change-crises
Thank you, Sommer! How very kind of you to say so. 🙂
Janice Moore June 1, 2019 at 3:34 pm
Glad you are back
michael
Hi, Mike!
Good to see you, too 🙂
It is just a PAIN trying to communicate here, now.
Hope you and your family enjoy lots of your usual highly educational outings this summer.
Take care.
Janice
This is not suprising. Having arrived at the conclusion that human CO2 emissions have created a “crisis” through the application of just about zero critical thinking, why would anyone expect Democrats to have a rational approach on how to solve it?
I understand people want to push for nuclear power, but telling a climate activist that we need nuclear power to reduce CO2 only re-enforces their belief that climate is a crisis they need to solve.
YES!
Granting their underlying premise, that human CO2 is a problem is NOT helpful.
At least, it would be wise to begin every article about a “solution” to the non-existent problem of CO2 emissions with the qualification:
************************
“There is no data proving that CO2 causes significant shifts in the climate zones of the earth. Thus, there is no need to reduce CO2 emissions. That is, there is no problem to solve, here.
Nevertheless, granting ad arguendo that the unsupported conjecture about CO2 is correct, nuclear power plants are an excellent solution. Yet, Democrats reject nuclear power — why?”
***********************************
And that is what I answered in my “Answer: …” comment above (i.e., they don’t care about CO2, etc., they just want to push all their solar, wind, battery car, etc., junk).
I know I have said it many times in the past but states such as New York should be uncoupled from the rest of the US energy wise. Make them bear the consequences of their stupid choices. One thing is sure – people will start asking questions when either power is out for some times during the day or it becomes even more expensive and I am not talking about a 10% price rise. You can’t explain this – people need to feel it on their bodies. A night with candles makes a certain impression. Choosing between having heating or food also has a way to eternalize itself in a mind. We are coddled little babydogs. We have grown up knowing that some cute looks and wagging our tails always gets us what we want. This certainty needs crushing and considering at what point we are now, this will hurt. But those scars will have an impact. Nothing else will. Certainly not facts and logic.
Rolls Royce are working on Small Modular Reactors which in theory could provide electricity from small scale units that are cheaper than large single units and reduce the need for large scale inter-connectors.
https://www.rolls-royce.com/products-and-services/nuclear/small-modular-reactors.aspx#/