Could Nuclear Energy be the Answer?

S

Seahawk

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California power grid braces for heat wave, blackout potential

California's power grid operators warned homes and business on Monday to conserve electricity as rising demand for air conditioning stoked by a record-setting heat wave across the U.S. Southwest tested the region's generating capacity.

The so-called Flex Alert was posted until 9 p.m. Pacific time during a second day of triple-digit temperatures expected to strain Southern California's energy production, creating the potential for rolling blackouts on the first official day of summer.

The alert was the first big test of power generators' ability to meet heightened energy demands in the greater Los Angeles area without natural gas supplies normally furnished by the now-crippled Aliso Canyon gas storage field, effectively idled since a major well rupture there last fall.

The blast-furnace-like heat prompted the city of Los Angeles to keep its network of public "cooling centers" - libraries, recreation centers and senior centers - open for extended hours as a haven for people whose homes lack air conditioning.

Area home improvement and hardware merchants were doing a brisk business in fans and AC window units.

Brett Lopes, 31, a freelance lighting technician, stopped in a Home Depot outlet near downtown to buy supplies for a homemade air conditioner he called a "swamp cooler" to use while he waited for his landlord to repair his broken AC unit.

"It's brutal," he said of the heat, explaining that he looked up directions on YouTube for assembling the makeshift cooling device. "It doesn't work as well as AC, but it's better than sitting in 100 degrees."

Others flocked to public swimming pools.

"It was really refreshing today, but more crowded than usual," said Paul Stephens, 31, a pastor who was swimming laps at the Rose Bowl Aquatic Center in Pasadena, where the mercury climbed to 108 degrees.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/californ...ckout-potential-200150576--finance.html?nhp=1

If California had more nuclear energy, would this be a problem?
 
Of course it is the answer. It is clean, safe, with minimal CO2 output. France is 75% nuclear and exports a lot of it, due to its low cost. Despite Chernobyl and Fukushima, there is quite a long safety record in France.

But it just won't sell, here. Eco freaks would protest. Democrats would over study it, over regulate it, then cave-in to the protesters. Republicans would ignore the protesters, ignore the regulations, and then cave in to big energy. Oh well, let's make America dirty again.
 
Nuclear fusion reactors could be the answer. Breeder reactors produce no nuclear waste, rather they produce fuel for other breeder reactors. That's the beauty of fusion.

Fission reactors are archaic and problematic with the waste they generate.
 
Mircea said:
Nuclear fusion reactors could be the answer. Breeder reactors produce no nuclear waste, rather they produce fuel for other breeder reactors. That's the beauty of fusion.

Fission reactors are archaic and problematic with the waste they generate.
Click to expand...

I agree w/ this assessment.

Nuke waste is a big problem.
 
mogur said:
Of course it is the answer. It is clean, safe, with minimal CO2 output. France is 75% nuclear and exports a lot of it, due to its low cost. Despite Chernobyl and Fukushima, there is quite a long safety record in France.

But it just won't sell, here. Eco freaks would protest. Democrats would over study it, over regulate it, then cave-in to the protesters. Republicans would ignore the protesters, ignore the regulations, and then cave in to big energy. Oh well, let's make America dirty again.
Click to expand...

Your sarcasm and non answer is reported to the authorities.

I hope you don't die with your lack of energy. I made a serious topic and you mocked it. Makes me think you don't take energy seriously.
 
Mircea said:
Nuclear fusion reactors could be the answer. Breeder reactors produce no nuclear waste, rather they produce fuel for other breeder reactors. That's the beauty of fusion.

Fission reactors are archaic and problematic with the waste they generate.
Click to expand...

Sorry to burst your bubble, but your physics sucks. Fusion is the process by which very light atomic weight reactants such as deuterium and tritium fuse together. It would be a break-through technology, and one that we currently are very far away from achieving, despite trillions in research.

A breeder reactor is a fission reactor, based on the splitting of very heavy atoms such as U235, plutonium, and most commonly, thorium. It simply means that they are more efficient than first generation reactors, creating extra energy from the byproducts of the initial fission. Their nuclear waste is not non-existent. It is still substantial.

Fourth generation fission reactors can offer 100 to 300 times the energy from the same amount of nuclear fuel, use the waste products from other reactors, and produces its own nuclear waste that remains radioactive for only centuries, instead of thousands of years.
 
Seahawk said:
Your sarcasm and non answer is reported to the authorities.

I hope you don't die with your lack of energy. I made a serious topic and you mocked it. Makes me think you don't take energy seriously.
Click to expand...

Are you being sarcastic? I was dead serious, Seahawk. I was certainly agreeing with your OP, and I can't quite see how my agreement is mocking you. I was only lamenting on the futility of the most sensible energy solution available now, due to politics and lame-ass eco freaks.
 
mogur said:
Are you being sarcastic? I was dead serious, Seahawk. I was certainly agreeing with your OP, and I can't quite see how my agreement is mocking you. I was only lamenting on the futility of the most sensible energy solution available now, due to politics and lame-ass eco freaks.
Click to expand...

My apologies.
 
To expand on this topic, Seahawk, my father was the head of the Aquatic Radioecology Department of the Univ of Wash. In 7th grade, I gave a talk about the peaceful uses of atomic energy. I won my 6th grade science fair by building an atomic cloud chamber. I think I take energy seriously, and I think that I have a right to complain that this country doesn't seem to want nuclear energy as part of out future.

I have witnessed the stupidity of anti-nuclear scare mongers my entire life. And I have witnessed the fiasco called 'Whoops' (WPPSS), where the pork barreling politicians and nuke protesters caused one of the largest municipal bond defaults in history- $2.25 billion. After $25 billion was spent for 5 reactors, only one became functional. My power rates doubled due to this boondoggle, so I think I have both the concern and right to speak about it.
 
mogur said:
To expand on this topic, Seahawk, my father was the head of the Aquatic Radioecology Department of the Univ of Wash. In 7th grade, I gave a talk about the peaceful uses of atomic energy. I won my 6th grade science fair by building an atomic cloud chamber. I think I take energy seriously, and I think that I have a right to complain that this country doesn't seem to want nuclear energy as part of out future.

I have witnessed the stupidity of anti-nuclear scare mongers my entire life. And I have witnessed the fiasco called 'Whoops' (WPPSS), where the pork barreling politicians and nuke protesters caused one of the largest municipal bond defaults in history- $2.25 billion. After $25 billion was spent for 5 reactors, only one became functional. My power rates doubled due to this boondoggle, so I think I have both the concern and right to speak about it.
Click to expand...

Thank you for extrapolating.

Today's nuclear power is the answer. I am not a physicist, but my buddy from college, who is way smarter than me (and who is a physicist) , says with todays nuclear tech, nuclear tech is the answer.
 
Seahawk said:
Thank you for extrapolating.

Today's nuclear power is the answer. I am not a physicist, but my buddy from college, who is way smarter than me (and who is a physicist) , says with todays nuclear tech, nuclear tech is the answer.
Click to expand...

Yes, sir. 4th gen is exciting, albeit more than 5 years down the road. If only fusion, maybe in 2 or 3 decades. Small Modular Reactors are also a path to a better future, and hopefully 10 years or so out.
http://www.energy.gov/ne/nuclear-reactor-technologies/small-modular-nuclear-reactors
 
mogur said:
Of course it is the answer. It is clean, safe, with minimal CO2 output. France is 75% nuclear and exports a lot of it, due to its low cost. Despite Chernobyl and Fukushima, there is quite a long safety record in France.

But it just won't sell, here. Eco freaks would protest. Democrats would over study it, over regulate it, then cave-in to the protesters. Republicans would ignore the protesters, ignore the regulations, and then cave in to big energy. Oh well, let's make America dirty again.
Click to expand...
The problem the GOP has on energy is free market zealotry. They do not want to recognize the direct connection of energy production and pollution. Their platform of undermining environmental laws by giving authority to the States would simply be the equivalent of eliminating environmental laws all together. That would simply not work. It would create a race to the bottom and pollution laws would become a thing of the past. The current system, where the Federal Government creates minimum standards with States free to create more rigid standard has worked extraordinarily well and has been a shining example of successful government programs. Not only that but they are well regarded in industry with the exception of the fossil fuel sector.

I'm old enough to remember what it was like in the country before the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act became the law of the land. Want to know what it was like? Go visit, Mexico City, Manila, Beijing or Moscow. You'd have to be insane to want to go back to those conditions. The GOP's deregulate energy and shift authority to the States would essentially eliminate those protections we now enjoy.

So what's my point? As has been observed nuclear energy has proven to be safe, clean and cost affective but that has only been accomplished in a highly regulated environment. One cannot forget the extraordinary dangers and hazards of working with nuclear power. Do you honestly think turning nuclear energy over to the tender mercies of a deregulated free market that it would be either clean or safe? Given the horrific consequences of fucking up I'm not willing to take that chance.

One must also consider that nuclear energy would compete directly with fossil fuels. From an economic stand point nuclear is a drop in the bucket compared to the vested interest of the fossil fuel industry. Who do you think would win that fight with the GOP?

The Democrats, on the other hand, simply do not have a coherent energy policy. Where as the GOP, to their credit, do. The Democrats focus is primarily on pollution. Specifically green house gases and global warming. That would probably create a more favorable market environment for nuclear as it would reduce carbon dioxide emissions but it's not the same as having a sound nuclear energy strategy.

Ultimately though advancing nuclear power in the US boils down to the nuclear waste issue. The technical issues of managing nuclear waste have been solved. Waste vitrification, transporting by rail in lead containers and deep well injection work. The problem in nuclear waste management is political in nature. No one want nuclear waste vitrified, transported or stored anywhere near where they live and for nuclear energy to be viable the infrastructure for those waste management technologies would have to be greatly expanded. Unless that political issue can be resolved nuclear energy is dead before it can get out of the gate in this nation. Other nations have resolved that issue and before we can get serious about expanding nuclear energy we will need to too.
 
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Seahawk said:
Thank you for extrapolating.

Today's nuclear power is the answer. I am not a physicist, but my buddy from college, who is way smarter than me (and who is a physicist) , says with todays nuclear tech, nuclear tech is the answer.
Click to expand...
I think it can be an important bridge technology but not the answer for one simple reason. Nuclear technology has extraordinary hazards. They can be managed but will always be there.
 
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