Hansen goes nuclear and I agree

and putting it in the same sentance as a yugo is just not right.

 

That point I do agree with and have said so many, many times in past postings. Having a total sustainable solution is the only viable power approach. Keep in mind that the US commercial reactors have lots of room for improvement by following US Navy Reactor design techniques. But that is a minor point in a big picture with more serious problems with the whole industry. All said, I see commercial solar being a better solution all around.

It probably could be made safe......however, I don't see any way it could ever be cost efficient. Storing the Nuclear waste properly would make plant cost look minor. Meanwhile, the technical problems of making solar, wind power, and other future sustainable solutions are quite solvable and affordable.

 

The problem with long term storage is that is must (until the waste can be made "harmless" in fact!) include the human element. As I have said oh so many times before, 1000 years from now can you imagine some post industrial terrorist coming across a long forgotten and abandoned waste dump? Can you ensure that you can bribe or over power security at such site?

The reality as I noted above, is the Soviets couldn't keep thier crap safe for one generation, and how much is missing?

Icarus

 

We already have more nuclear power than we know what to do with. The massively powerful reactor's located at a safe distance, and spent fuel storage is not a problem.

 

but uv rays are.

 

Yes, but those can be managed locally without too much effort or expense. At least as long as the ozone holds out.

 

(Whatever happened to multiple quoting?...)

It's not just non-trivial, that's the deal killer. For any fair and true cost analysis, nuclear storage costs should be included, for as long a time frame as needed. With radioactive decay being what it is, that time frame could be thousands of years. Suddenly, all other energy sources look much better in comparison.

The real problem, as I see it, is that we don't price energy according to its cost. It's anything but a level playing field. We subsidise the heck out of petroleum, both directly and indirectly, and then get sucked in by reporting that suggests 'alternative' fuels can't stand on their own merits. Eliminate all subsidies, count in all the externalities, extrapolate over several hundred years, and then see which is best. Even without doing the math, I highly doubt the correct answer is either petroleum or nuclear.

 

The Kursk was recovered.
She was (or is) an Ocsar-II SSGN (NATO designation - they called her something else) which means that she had two reactors. Both were recovered.

Oh yeah...and the Russians (or Soviets - depending on which flag is on the mast) typically call their ships "he" instead of she.

The Kursk did suffer a weaps failure. Given the large number of folks in the water during the aborted rescue attempts and salvage ops, and the fact that nobody was dressed out in NBC gear, I'm thinking that all of her torpedoes had conventional warheads. Her missile and reactor compartments were intact when she went into drydock following her salvage - so there's little to worry about radiologically speaking from this hull.

The K19? (Project 658x)
She did kill about 10 of her sailors with reactor problems...according to open source materials....but she was a DANG unlucky boat!!
IIRC, three or four sailors died before she was even commissioned - badly, the movie got that ONE detail right....and 30 (reported) sailors died in a fire in 1969.
She (he) was also severely damaged by an alleged collision with an alleged non-Soviet submarine, that allegedly nearly sank him (her) in the Barents Sea...
What a lot of people don't realize is that the K-19 went on be be upgraded twice and served for 29 years before being scrapped in the early 90s.
Upwards of four times the number of sailors died in K19 from "conventional" accidents that those which were irradiated from the plant.

There are 7 (reported) hulls sitting on the ocean floor. Worry about those if you must...

 

Peak uranium.

 

I tried to do the math once. Basically, it is impossible to get a number for Nuclear. The price is so high that no one will even consider it on their own dime. Find an insurance company willing to underwrite it, and get a price, then we can begin to talk about it. The time to empty isn't that great either.

I live less than 5 miles from a stockpile of nuclear waste that was promised to be removed. No new plants should even be considered until it is safely stored.

 

Thorium - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It is actually a by product from mining rare earth metals.

We also shouldn't discount the possibility of recycling the spent fuel rods.

 

Now that San Onofre is closed down and generating no revenue Southern California Edison will be paying Billions of dollars to store and provide security for the spent rods, monitoring, taxes on the property, etc. This is a cost that never goes away. However there is no income being generated. From a pure financial point of view Nuclear is horrible. They get 40-50 years of revenue generation, and 1,000 years of expenses. What happens if Edison goes bankrupt?

 

The state of CA inherits the problem.

 

Thorium has potential, but it would not be a magic bullet solution to our problems. Replace our current fuels with it, and the time to empty might save us, but not our kids. Look up the known reserves and do the math yourself, based on a reasonable energy growth curve; don't take anyone else's word on it. Nor is it a mature technology even compared to PV solar.

I understand everyone is in love with the large friendly energy companies, but it may be that we just have to be a bit self-sufficient.

 

I only see nuclear as a transitional/base power source. It is far better solution than coal. We need to get serious on the waste, but it is a small amount compared to coal ash, and it is contained. Unlike the mercury, sulfur dioxide, radio active isotopes, etc. just spewing out of a coal plant.

 

I hear the coal filtering systems are very advanced . However I'm not an expert. Natural Gas and Solar seems to be prefered in California. Nuclear is the least preferred

 

This pattern of privatising profits and socialising losses will bankrupt us all.

 

Exactly. The only way to make the nuclear option look economically feasible is to ignore all those pesky little 'imaginary' numbers.

A similar method of labelling costs as 'externalities' is also used to make fossil fuels look profitable. The numbers come out very differently once you realise that clean air, water, and soil are essential to life and therefore priceless - quite the opposite of the 'worthless' value of zero they are given now.

 

Advance Coal Filtering Systems only work if installed and not grandfathered out of being installed. And even then the ash gets dumped somewhere. (Shifting pollution from air delivery to ground/water delivery is not unheard of.)