Every nuclear explosion since 1945

[LastPoet]

I'm a fusion guy, but untill then we must hone our skills with fission, so I guess I'm a nuclear guy . What will be the next energy source beyond that I really don't know.

[Creed of Heresy]

And the industry won't invest in Gen 4.

So we're stuck with aging Gen 3 and Gen 2 infrastructure that is incredibly expensive to maintain and remove. That produces highly toxic waste.

What? You mean the free market ISN'T finding a way? Color me unsurprised.

Sounds to me like the industry needs to invest in 4Gen. Seems like a pretty basic solution. How do we go about fixing that? By completely dropping all demand for nuclear power? HOLY SHIT HOW COME I DIDN'T THINK OF THAT- oh right, it's because I'm not a fucking waterhead...


The MSR guys at Xerox Parc mentioned that the reactor could use thorium or spent fuel. From our older reactors. Which would be better than letting it mound up in storage tanks along the Great Lakes.
[/quote]

PWRs currently used wouldn't pay for their damned selves if the US government stopped subsidizing them.

In other words they're currently paying for themselves via subsidies... How am I full of crap, again? Or are you just trying to impress me? Get the crayons out, I wanna be colored something else...

Oh, wait, I forgot about this little article:

http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2011/04/29/...wanted=all

The Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's main trade organization, ranks current nuclear plants as the cheapest source of U.S. electricity, with operating, maintenance and fuel costs of just over 2 cents per kilowatt-hour in 2009, compared to 5 cents for electricity from natural gas-fired plants and 3 cents for coal generation. Exelon said its generating plants returned average margins of 3.76 cents per kilowatt-hour last year, despite lower power prices, and two-thirds of Exelon's overall generation capacity comes from nuclear plants.

"These [nuclear] plants, which are fully depreciated, were purchased at a discount and are, in fact, cash cows," said industry critic Mark Cooper, a senior fellow at Vermont Law School's Institute for Energy and the Environment.

Yeah, OK, Moros, I'M the one full of crap, hahahahaha!

But yes, the toxic waste bit is still not a very pleasant result. As far as the storage issue goes: Then it's not just Nevadans who are idiots. Big shock, this nation is full of idiots. Considering this nation is full of born-again evangelicals who send their gay/bi children to "Faith Healing" camps, I never expected otherwise but I WOULD hope that people pull their heads out of their buttpuckers on the subject. If indeed these storage facilities were not as airtight, figuratively speaking, as I have read that they were designed to be then rather than axing the project they should've figured out ways to make them so.

The MSR guys at Xerox Parc mentioned that the reactor could use thorium or spent fuel. From our older reactors. Which would be better than letting it mound up in storage tanks along the Great Lakes.

Ok we seem to be arguing about how to agree: If it solves the waste problem then WHY AREN'T WE FUCKING USING IT.

[StatCrux]

Why the hell we do still arrogantly fool ourselves into thinking we can control nuclear power and play with its waste as if it were putty?

Bullshit. We can control nuclear power and even make it "safe".

The thorium reactors that use molten salts are exceptionally safe. Unfortunately, ask yourself, who sells reactors.

You'll find it is GE and they still hawk Gen 1 and Gen 2 PWR's, which are so uneconomical that if you compared the cost of operation and production with the cost of installation and clean up, they NEVER fucking pay for themselves. They're also ridiculously unsafe compared to what we can do now.

However, big money has another way of talking.

Well said. I was involved up at Dounreay with the UK first fast reactor. A new reactor is now planned about 10 miles from where I live, hopefully be involved with that too.

[Anomalocaris]

The Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's main trade organization, ranks current nuclear plants as the cheapest source of U.S. electricity, with operating, maintenance and fuel costs of just over 2 cents per kilowatt-hour in 2009, compared to 5 cents for electricity from natural gas-fired plants and 3 cents for coal generation. Exelon said its generating plants returned average margins of 3.76 cents per kilowatt-hour last year, despite lower power prices, and two-thirds of Exelon's overall generation capacity comes from nuclear plants.

"These [nuclear] plants, which are fully depreciated, were purchased at a discount and are, in fact, cash cows," said industry critic Mark Cooper, a senior fellow at Vermont Law School's Institute for Energy and the Environment.

That is meant to misinform. The operative word in the entire passage is "fully depreciated". In other words, during the nuclear doldrums of 1990s, the utilities that own nuclear plants used accounting tricks to effectively write off the initial construction cost of those plants, while at the same time convincing many public utility commissions to raise electric rates to compensate them for the "loss". This is what is meant by these plants being "fully depreciated". These plants on carried on their books as having fully paid off initial construction cost using funds that were gleamed from the general electric rate, not their specific power sales. So by this accounting trick, nuclear plants only had to pay their fuel and operating cost, and no longer has to keep paying back loans on their construction cost.

Hence they look so good.

If they must honestly repay their original construction cost, which per MW of capacity or total MWh of energy is amongst the most expensive of any large scale power source, their overall economics looks worse by some margin and is hopeless compare to natural gas fired power plants at current gas prices.

[Gooders1002]

Well at least we will evolve to become used to the radiation.

[Autumnlicious]

Sounds to me like the industry needs to invest in 4Gen. Seems like a pretty basic solution. How do we go about fixing that? By completely dropping all demand for nuclear power? HOLY SHIT HOW COME I DIDN'T THINK OF THAT- oh right, it's because I'm not a fucking waterhead...

I disagree. While not a waterhead, you certainly act like one.

Let's look at an interview with Alvin M. Weinberg, a major developer of MSR technology and noted nuclear scientist, who was fired for political reasons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_M._We...l_Research).

From ORNL's interview with him ( http://ornl.gov/ornlhome/news_items/news_061018.shtml ):

Q: In your book The First Nuclear Era: The Life and Times of a Technological Fixer, you come across as a man of integrity. You have spoken out on your beliefs, even when your views were, as we say today, politically incorrect. Should researchers at government laboratories speak out truthfully about their findings and concerns even if their careers could be jeopardized?

Weinberg: Karl Morgan, once director of ORNL's Health Physics Division, disagreed with the way reactor development was going. He thought the thorium cycle (breeding uranium-233 in a reactor by neutron bombardment of thorium) should be pursued because the waste disposal problem was simpler to handle. We had some difficult times there. The problem that Laboratory management always faced was that our survival depended on our ability to get money, mostly from the Atomic Energy Commission's Reactor Division under Milton Shaw. Karl Morgan's dissenting views on reactors placed ORNL in an awkward position, but Karl's career didn't suffer. He's going strong even though he's close to 90. Milton Shaw had a singleness of purpose. In many ways I admired him, and in many ways he drove me nutty. He had a single-minded commitment to do what he was told to do, which was to get the Clinch River Breeder Reactor built. My views were different from his. I think the Commission decided that my views were out of touch with the way the nuclear industry was actually going.

Q: Which views were these?

Weinberg: I wasn't a great believer in the liquid metal fast breeder reactor (which was designed to breed plutonium using neutrons from the plutonium fuel). I pushed for the molten salt breeder reactor, which used the thorium cycle. Also, I was outspoken on how much effort should go into developing safety systems for reactors.

So we see a man whose work has been included into our text books on nuclear physics, grew ORNL's workforce significantly, was tossed out for, in his own words, being "out of touch."

Which is funny, given that his support for waste disposal sites is steadfast and his earlier work being quite similar to existing nuclear industry designs.

Let's let Wikipedia assist here ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_M._We...l_Research ):

Weinberg was fired by the Nixon Administration from ORNL in 1973 after 18 years as the lab's director because he continued to advocate increased nuclear safety and Molten Salt Reactors, instead of the Administration's chosen Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor (LMFBR) that the AEC's Director of Reactor Division, Milton Shaw, was appointed to develop.[13] Weinberg's firing effectively halted development of the MSR, as it was virtually unknown by other nuclear labs and specialists.[14] There was a brief revival of MSR research at ORNL as part of the Carter Administration's nonproliferation interests[b], culminating in ORNL-TM-7207: 1980–07, "Conceptual Design Characteristics of a Denatured Molten-Salt Reactor with Once-Through Fueling", by Engel, et al. It is still considered by many, to be the "reference design" for widespread, commercial Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs).[15][16]

So a technology that both can breed and burn nuclear materials, be compatible with existing nuclear fuel and waste, and is built by a man whose work is prestiguous and self-admitted focus on safety [b]that he maintains two decades later, was nearly lost and only revived as part of a nonproliferation program.

---

Yes, CoH, please. Tell me all about investing in Gen 4 and other innovative technologies...

---

PWRs currently used wouldn't pay for their damned selves if the US government stopped subsidizing them.

In other words they're currently paying for themselves via subsidies... How am I full of crap, again? Or are you just trying to impress me? Get the crayons out, I wanna be colored something else...

Oh, wait, I forgot about this little article:

http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2011/04/29/...wanted=all

The Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's main trade organization, ranks current nuclear plants as the cheapest source of U.S. electricity, with operating, maintenance and fuel costs of just over 2 cents per kilowatt-hour in 2009, compared to 5 cents for electricity from natural gas-fired plants and 3 cents for coal generation. Exelon said its generating plants returned average margins of 3.76 cents per kilowatt-hour last year, despite lower power prices, and two-thirds of Exelon's overall generation capacity comes from nuclear plants.

"These [nuclear] plants, which are fully depreciated, were purchased at a discount and are, in fact, cash cows," said industry critic Mark Cooper, a senior fellow at Vermont Law School's Institute for Energy and the Environment.

Chuck already criticized your selection as being misleading. Also...

You never fucking considered the cost of decommissioning the plants.

Idiot.

Nuclear reactors, especially Gen 2,3 are not "upgradable" to Gen 4.

They have to be decommissioned. Unless, of course, you wish to maintain an less safe designs with aging components that produce waste a known rate (with no method of destroying said waste or reducing it to less radioactive forms.

Yeah, OK, Moros, I'M the one full of crap, hahahahaha!

Prophetic.

But yes, the toxic waste bit is still not a very pleasant result. As far as the storage issue goes: Then it's not just Nevadans who are idiots. Big shock, this nation is full of idiots. Considering this nation is full of born-again evangelicals who send their gay/bi children to "Faith Healing" camps, I never expected otherwise but I WOULD hope that people pull their heads out of their buttpuckers on the subject. If indeed these storage facilities were not as airtight, figuratively speaking, as I have read that they were designed to be then rather than axing the project they should've figured out ways to make them so.

Nevada is going to be the big loser. All of that so-called waste will turn into a gold mine when you have to use it for MSR technology. It's going to be worth a fortune and they didn't even want it.

But that's Nevada. Always with their fatal lack of vision.


Oil was once a waste product. Never forget that.

Ok we seem to be arguing about how to agree: If it solves the waste problem then WHY AREN'T WE FUCKING USING IT.

Because they'd say to you "fuck you, we have reactors already and we're keeping this design". Alvin Weinberg can attest to that.

[Anomalocaris]

Well at least we will evolve to become used to the radiation.

Radiation increases rate of mutation, so a nonlethal level of radiation will also increase rate of evolutionary adaptation.

[Welsh cake]

Well at least we will evolve to become used to the radiation.

Yes though it depends on the levels. Like with extreme temperatures, life is too pitifully fragile to endure, and complex multi-celled organisms definitely cannot withstand very high doses of radiation.

Single celled organisms may survive, but I don't rate our chances once our blood turns to water.

[Anomalocaris]

Well at least we will evolve to become used to the radiation.

Yes though it depends on the levels. Like with extreme temperatures, life is too pitifully fragile to endure, and complex multi-celled organisms definitely cannot withstand very high doses of radiation.

Single celled organisms may survive, but I don't rate our chances once our blood turns to water.

Some multicellular animal life of targigrade variety, fairly high on the ladder of complexity as far as these things go, have proven remarkably resistant not only to heavy doses of hard radiation, but also temperature above boiling point of water, below freezing point of saturated salt water, and hard vacuum. They in short can survive a trip to mars on the outside of a spacecraft.

[Taqiyya Mockingbird]

Interesting interpretation.

Funny, my first big "AHA!" moment about the research power of the internet came when my father asked me if I there existed a list of all nuke shots with date, time, location, etc. He had been on some super-secret missions with the AF (the Speedlight Delta missions) that involved secret filming some of the Russian tests at Novaya Zemya (including the infamous "Tsar bomba"), and wanted to help one of his crewmates document which tests they had filmed (the crewmate was suing for compensation for cost of treatment for medical complications due to radiation exposure attendant to the S-D missions). To my amazement, I had a printout in my hand in a matter of hours, and from there on out I have always described the internet to n00bz as sort of the Library of COngress-ZILLA, sitting on your desk. (or, nowadays, in your satchel or in your phone).