Prediction: Coal has fallen. Nuclear is next then Oil.

[mspohr]

Plunging Prices Mean Building New Renewable Energy Is Cheaper Than Running Existing Coal

Solar PV and wind are cheaper than anything else. Less than half the cost of coal. Nuclear continues to get more expensive.

 

[CSFTN]

1,700 tons to store most consider storage needed for about 10 half lifes
Cs 30 x10 = 300 years
Sr 29 x10 = 290 years
Pu 24,000 x10 = ~240,000years
Current trends we aren't sure our USA will last 300 years.
We only have about 150 such sites in the US. Jobs program for decades. Is this considered a "dead end job"?
Seems storage/cleanup will cost tax payers many times original atomic reactor construction costs.

Sorry to ask .. not an expert. Is 10 half lives a standard calculation? That would mean 1/1024 original radiation levels yes?

 

[nwdiver]

Sorry to ask .. not an expert. Is 10 half lives a standard calculation? That would mean 1/1024 original radiation levels yes?

That's the standard for something to have effectively decayed to ~0. I've also seen 5 half-lives used as effectively gone.

Radioactive isotopes are incredibly common. Most people get more exposure to ionizing radiation from the Earth than they do from the sun. I worked at a Uranium Enrichment Plant. When I set off the contamination alarms ~90% of the time it was something I tracked IN from outside. Once the rad levels of waste are less than background it's ~gone. Background is pretty high all things considered...

 

[SageBrush]

That would mean 1/1024 original radiation levels yes?

Yep

 

[Brando]

Sorry to ask .. not an expert. Is 10 half lives a standard calculation? That would mean 1/1024 original radiation levels yes?

Yes

 

[mspohr]

Dr Dust: the man who discovered a hidden black lung epidemic

Looks like we have another black lung epidemic due to continued coal mining and failure of regulation.

 

[mspohr]

Looks like China is losing its enthusiasm for nuclear. No new plants started in the past two years.
The usual reasons:
Experts, including some with links to the government, see China’s nuclear sector succumbing to the same problems affecting the West: the technology is too expensive, and the public doesn’t want it.

China’s losing its taste for nuclear power. That’s bad news.

MIT says this is bad news... others might differ.

 

[nwdiver]

Looks like China is losing its enthusiasm for nuclear. No new plants started in the past two years.
The usual reasons:
Experts, including some with links to the government, see China’s nuclear sector succumbing to the same problems affecting the West: the technology is too expensive, and the public doesn’t want it.

China’s losing its taste for nuclear power. That’s bad news.

MIT says this is bad news... others might differ.

If China can't make it work no one can...

The key point I think most nuclear zealots miss is that nuclear has a negative learning curve. The operators and engineers at Chernobyl thought the odds of an accident were 1:10M... turns out they were very wrong. Every time something that was thought to be improbable turns out to be very probable engineering solutions are implemented and that costs $$$.

Here's a real example. Where I worked we used Activated Carbon to capture HF that was a byproduct of UF6 when it decomposed. The company did this for ~30 years with no problems. Then in ~2010 there was an explosion. Turns out that under the right conditions you can get an exothermic reaction between the carbon and the HF. So to prevent this they had to spend millions designing and upgrading the plants. There are hundreds of examples like this.

 

[mspohr]

What to do about the epidemic of nuclear plant closings? | PennLive letters

Interesting that he proposes
Aren’t there any other ways to avoid this catastrophe? Is there a plan out there to dramatically convert our aged energy infrastructure to a clean, efficient and reliable marvel while creating thousands of guaranteed jobs? Yes, there is. It’s called the Green New Deal. The work done by the NEC should be applauded because it points to the problems that our old policies cannot address but they don’t have the solution. We need a Green New Deal.
Green New Deal

 

[mspohr]

SCE&G customers to pay another $2.3 billion for failed nuclear project, regulators decide

More money burned for failed nuclear power. Of course, consumers pay this... god forbid that the idiots running the power company should suffer.

 

[SageBrush]

SCE&G customers to pay another $2.3 billion for failed nuclear project, regulators decide

More money burned for failed nuclear power. Of course, consumers pay this... god forbid that the idiots running the power company should suffer.

Are you suggesting that SCE&G customers were against nuclear in 2007 ? Almost certainly not.
Would the customers have voted to close the project earlier and eat the losses that had accrued with impartial information ? Who knows, but my money would have been on 'no.'

 

[mspohr]

Are you suggesting that SCE&G customers were against nuclear in 2007 ? Almost certainly not.
Would the customers have voted to close the project earlier and eat the losses that had accrued with impartial information ? Who knows, but my money would have been on 'no.'

The customers have been paying for this nuclear plant for years. I doubt any of them were happy about paying for the power that might be delivered sometime in the future. I think they all realize now that they got screwed.

 

[nwdiver]

In case anyone missed my post a few months back. Here's a reminder; It's not just Trump that digs coal. Nuclear does too. Here's an except from testimony my wonderfully former employer URENCO filed with our PRC trying to save a local coal plant 'Tolk Generating Station' from an early retirement in 2032 vs 2040. #Nucleardigscoal #Nuclearpowersucks

A few months before this they tried to kill 900MW of wind over a 'possible' rate increase of ~$0.0025/kWh. So yeah... nuclear sucks. The entire industry is rotten.

Full testimony available. PM me if you're really that into legal docs

 

[mspohr]

Big surprise here. UK taxpayers on the hook for billions to clean up nuclear plants

Sellafield boss warns on nuclear clean-up
Sellafield boss warns on nuclear clean-up

 

[SageBrush]

Big surprise here. UK taxpayers on the hook for billions to clean up nuclear plants

Sellafield boss warns on nuclear clean-up
Sellafield boss warns on nuclear clean-up

Billions every year

The externalized costs of nuclear are truly horrendous.
What a con job. No wonder the Trump moron is on board

 

[mspohr]

http://www.atimes.com/article/sun-setting-on-japans-nuclear-export-sector/

Japan’s nuclear export industry could be dealt a fatal blow if Mitsubishi Heavy Industries pulls out of a massive project to build four large power plants on Turkey’s Black Sea coast, as reports have suggested.

 

[mspohr]

Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) comes up periodically as a "solution" to keep us burning more fossil fuels.
Here's an interesting perspective on CCS that debunks the myth. Unfortunately, like nuclear, it's too expensive and just doesn't work.
Al Gore’s right about carbon capture and sequestration

... disposing of just 10 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions with CCS would require building an industry as large and sophisticated as the global oil sector — in reverse. To put the scale in perspective, global oil production now totals about 100 million barrels per day. A VLCC supertanker holds about 2 million barrels. Therefore, getting rid of 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions would require burying the equivalent of 50 VLCC loads of worthless waste gas every day.

Note that they even went out of their way to say that Al Gore is right about CCS

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Billions every year

The externalized costs of nuclear are truly horrendous.
What a con job. No wonder the Trump moron is on board

Another example of incomplete decommissioning.

 

[mspohr]

European Union agrees to end coal subsidies by 2025

Amazing that the EU will be subsidizing coal until 2025 (longer for Poland).
Get a clue, folks.

 

[mspohr]

Investors Are Turning Their Back On Coal | OilPrice.com

And some better news here. Institutional investors are putting electric utilities on notice that they need to get rid of their coal plants ASAP.