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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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 Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 7:26 pm Post subject: Why America needs Atomic Anne |
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It's not often that I find myself recommending a French state-owned industry as the answer to major U.S. problems, but I guess there's an exception to every rule.
In this case the exception is the French nuclear energy company Areva, which provides about 80 percent of the country's electricity from 58 nuclear power plants, is building a new generation of reactor that will come on line at Flamanville in 2012, and is exporting its expertise to countries from China to the United Arab Emirates.
Contrast that with the United States, where just 20 percent of electricity comes from nuclear plants, no commercial reactor has come on line since 1996, no new reactor has been ordered for decades, and debate about nuclear power remains paralyzing despite its clean-air electricity generation in the age of global warming.
Areva is headed by Anne Lauvergeon, a brilliant product of France's top schools. She's earned the sobriquet "Atomic Anne," a stylish "Vive les Nukes" saleswoman. The United States needs her equivalent to cut through its nuclear power hang-ups.
Those hesitations have been evident in this election year here in the United States. Among Democrats, Barack Obama has shown most willingness (albeit guarded) to back nuclear power, with Hillary Clinton multiplying caveats and John Edwards opposed. Republican candidates are favorable, but the campaign suggests costly nuclear muddle will persist.
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It's time to look to the French. They've got their heads in the right place, with nuclear power enjoying a 70 percent approval rating. The Germans, by contrast, have gone silly-Green and are shunning nuclear power. The British, more smart-Green, are reviving their plants.
I know, that word "nuclear" still sends a frisson. Images multiply of Hiroshima and Chernobyl and the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979 and waste in dangerous perpetuity, not to mention proliferation and dirty bombs.
But the lesson of the post-9/11 world is that we Americans have to get over our fears, especially irrational ones.
Nuclear power has proved safe in both France and America - not one radiation-related death has occurred in the history of U.S. commercial nuclear power. It constitutes a vital alternative to the greenhouse-gas spewing coal-power plants that account for over 50 percent of U.S. electricity generation. Thousands of people die annually breathing the noxious particles of coal-fire installations.
Of course, wind and solar power should be developed, but even by mid-century they will satisfy only a fraction of U.S. energy needs, however much those needs are cut. Hundreds of square miles of eyesore wind farms barely produce the electricity you get from a nuclear plant on less than a square mile.
"Nuclear power is the most efficient energy source we have," said Gwyneth Cravens, author of "Power to Save the World: The Truth About Nuclear Power." "Uranium is energy-dense. If you got all your electricity from nuclear for your lifetime, your share of the waste would fit in a soda can."
Cravens once feared this waste so much that she demonstrated against nuclear power plants, but she's come around. Like Patrick Moore, a founder of Greenpeace who once lambasted nuclear power as "criminal" and now advocates its use, she's been convinced by the evidence. That's called growing up.
Greenpeace remains opposed to nuclear power and Jim Riccio, a nuclear policy analyst for the organization, told me building more plants in the United States would be expensive, wasteful and dangerous. "Why in God's name would you want to build more targets for terrorists?" he asked.
Fair question, to which the answer is that jihadist terrorists should only dictate our energy policy to the degree we try to cut dependence on Middle Eastern oil.
Where Riccio has a point is that wild cost overruns on several nuclear power plants and on the planned Yucca Mountain Repository in Nevada for radioactive waste, which will cost some $30 billion to open, have suggested there may be better ways to spend money on energy diversification and saving.
But again the French, with the cleanest air in the industrialized world, have an answer. Their standardized design, expedited approval process, and improving technology (evident in the third-generation Evolutionary Pressurized Reactor) offer streamlined routes to cost-saving. They have also drastically reduced waste by reprocessing most of it into fuel, a long-term answer to the disposal issue. |
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/01/23/opinion/edcohen.php |
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Czarjorge
Joined: 01 May 2007
Location: I now have the same moustache, and it is glorious.
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| Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 4:42 pm Post subject: |
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It really is too bad the constant threat of nuclear war for almost 50 years has made a number of US citizens completely averse to nuclear energy. There are risks, and serious ones at that, but to ignore an entire energy option is ridiculous.
I wish the laissez-faire attitude that supposedly runs through our economy was also an expectation in our scientific institutions. Why we are banning certain techs/lines of research in the name of morality boggles me. |
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Pluto
Joined: 19 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 4:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Czarjorge wrote: |
I wish the laissez-faire attitude that supposedly runs through our economy was also an expectation in our scientific institutions. Why we are banning certain techs/lines of research in the name of morality boggles me. |
You mean nuclear energy? I'm all for it.
Would you golf here?
I'd have no problem with it.
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 5:41 pm Post subject: |
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Ultimately, the hippies have to let their dreams of a modern industrial economy run on the farts of sparrows and burps of free range chickens die. Wind farms wont do it. Solar won't do it (yet). The only solution is nuclear energy and electric cars.
Hell, if France can do it.. They can't even clean up the dog crap in Paris. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 5:52 pm Post subject: |
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| thepeel wrote: |
Ultimately, the hippies have to let their dreams of a modern industrial economy run on the farts of sparrows and burps of free range chickens die. Wind farms wont do it. Solar won't do it (yet). The only solution is nuclear energy and electric cars.
Hell, if France can do it.. They can't even clean up the dog crap in Paris. |
Well, there's the on-going question of which state gets the nuclear waste.
Nevada was slated for it, but since NV is a swing state, it hasn't happened. I say a Democratic President should stick Utah with the waste. Utah won't be voting Democratic anyways. |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 6:01 pm Post subject: |
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| Stick it in carbon nanotubes and shoot it into the sun. |
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Czarjorge
Joined: 01 May 2007
Location: I now have the same moustache, and it is glorious.
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| Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2008 11:10 am Post subject: |
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| Why not find a better way to use the "waste." For years gas was a waste product. We can't be sure there isn't something useful to do with it. That's why maintaining the research is necessary. The US is desperately short on nuclear engineers though. We'll have to poach them from other countries. |
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Justin Hale
Joined: 24 Nov 2007
Location: the Straight Talk Express
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| Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2008 8:31 pm Post subject: |
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Cool article. Cool stupid-green and smart-green distinction.
| Czarjorge wrote: |
| Why not find a better way to use the "waste." |
97% of plutonium and uranium is recovered and recycled into new fuel. Actual waste (as opposed to spent fuel) is just 3%.
There is no technical problem in handling various kinds of nuclear waste in the short, medium or long-term. Nuclear waste is used as a scare tactic by stupid greens to stop the development of nuclear power (even though it produces next to no greenhouse gases). Such people simply aren't serious about trying to stop climate change.
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| John Edwards [is] opposed |
I'm not his friend any more then! To oppose nuclear power is confirm oneself a dolt.
McCain is pro-nuke |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2008 8:44 pm Post subject: |
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| Justin Hale wrote: |
| Quote: |
| John Edwards [is] opposed |
I'm not his friend any more then! To oppose nuclear power is confirm oneself a dolt.
[/url] |
Edwards is pissed about the Oconee nuclear reactor they built in his hometown of Salem, SC. |
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djsmnc
Joined: 20 Jan 2003
Location: Dave's ESL Cafe
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| Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2008 9:24 pm Post subject: |
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Ford Nucleon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Ford Nucleon was a nuclear-powered concept car developed by Ford Motor Company in 1958. No operational models were built. The design did not include an internal-combustion engine, rather, a vehicle was to be powered by a small nuclear reactor in the rear of the vehicle. The vehicle featured a power capsule suspended between twin booms at the rear. The capsule, which would contain radioactive core for motive power, was designed to be easily interchangeable, according to performance needs and the distances to be traveled.
The passenger compartment of the Nucleon featured a one-piece, pillar-less windshield and compound rear window, and was topped by a cantilever roof. There were air intakes at the leading edge of the roof and at the base of its supports. An extreme cab-forward style provided more protection to the driver and passengers from the reactor in the rear. Some pictures show the car with tailfins sweeping up from the rear fenders.
The drive train would be integral to the power module, and electronic torque converters would take the place of the drive-train used at the time. It was said that cars like the Nucleon would be able to travel 8000 km (5,000 miles) or more, depending on the size of the core, without recharging. Instead, at the end of the core's life they would be taken to a charging station, which research designers envisioned as largely replacing gas stations. The car was never built and never went into production, but it remains an icon of the Atomic Age of the 1950s.
The mock-up of the car can be viewed at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.
According to Bob Gale, producer of the film Back to the Future, the Nucleon's rear nuclear reactor was one of the design inspirations for the De Lorean time machine.
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agentX
Joined: 12 Oct 2007
Location: Jeolla province
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| Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2008 12:47 am Post subject: |
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Nuclear power is to safety as igotthisguitar is to sanity.
Has everybody forgotten 3 Mile Island? Chernobyl? Bikini Atoll?
Not only that, Nuclear Power does emit a large amount of GHGs. Just not in the form you think of. The GHGs come from mining the uranium needed to run the plant. Throw in the amount of GHGs used in production of the plants themselves, and you've got quite a whopper.
Fusion power is still a ways off, but has made some progress in the past year. It's also far safer and less a terrorist target than fission plants. Now, if the US can stay interested...
http://www.reformer.com/localnews/ci_8031741
This article seems to have the right ideas. Which don't include Nuclear Power.
Nonetheless, cutbacks and improved efficiency would do a lot better job in the short run than building Nuclear plants. Improve the power grid's transmission lines and systems, cut waste in the grid, get rid of energy inefficient appliances and do something about the Servers and you'll see far more benefits than can be provided with nuclear power.http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Europe/US_suspends_nuclear_fusion_participation_ITER/articleshow/2709521.cms |
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Justin Hale
Joined: 24 Nov 2007
Location: the Straight Talk Express
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| Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2008 4:04 pm Post subject: |
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| agentX wrote: |
| Nuclear power is to safety as igotthisguitar is to sanity. |
Well, IGTG must be perfectly sane, because of the 440 electricity generating nuclear stations around the world, none has caused radiation or other damage to its surrounding environment or local population. The Chernobyl incident was caused by wilful negligence on the part of its operating staff, which resulted in a steam explosion, fire and nuclear meltdown (not a nuclear explosion) and was, in the first place, built to a design that would not have been licensed for operation outside what was then the USSR. In fact, 700 UN scientists crawling over the consequences of Chernobyl have so far been prepared to certify only 45 deaths as a result of the disaster. Read the UN Chernobyl Forum Report. That�s slightly more than the numbers of daily road accident deaths (in just Thailand).
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| Has everybody forgotten 3 Mile Island? |
TMI hurt nobody. The site was specifically designed to contain the damage and it was successful in doing so.
To hold up a Russian reactor that could never have been licensed in the West because of its deficiencies (and in which a steam explosion and fire, not a nuclear explosion, was caused by irresponsible experiment) as a reason for avoiding the development of nuclear power is perverse, foolish and juvenile.
Nuclear weapons tests. Not relevant.
| Quote: |
| Not only that, Nuclear Power does emit a large amount of GHGs. Just not in the form you think of. The GHGs come from mining the uranium needed to run the plant. Throw in the amount of GHGs used in production of the plants themselves, and you've got quite a whopper. |
it�s less straightforward than you suggest. Co2 emissions from nuclear power are tiny.
http://nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/WebHomeGreenhouseEmissionsOfNuclearPower
Thanks for the articles though. |
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Czarjorge
Joined: 01 May 2007
Location: I now have the same moustache, and it is glorious.
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| Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 3:13 pm Post subject: |
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| AgentX, the crux of your argument against nuclear power could also be used to argue that we should eliminate commercial airlines. Fission is an option now, and fusion would be a great replacement but until it's here we should work with what we have. |
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chris_J2
Joined: 17 Apr 2006
Location: From Brisbane, Au.
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OneWayTraffic
Joined: 14 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2008 6:10 am Post subject: Re: Atomic |
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| chris_J2 wrote: |
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| of the 440 electricity generating nuclear stations around the world, none has caused radiation or other damage to its surrounding environment or local population. |
How's the technology progressed, since Three Mile Island, in 1979? The movie "China Syndrome" is loosely based on this event. There were also a couple of nuclear accidents in Japan, much more recently. |
The technology has come on a lot. There are designs that aren't capable of melting down, no matter how hard the operators try.
I think that you'll find that the nuclear accidents in Japan released less radiation than that released by the average coal plant in a day. And how many people died? |
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