WP: Uncertainties Slow Push for Nuclear Plants

[DeepModem Mom]

Uncertainties Slow Push for Nuclear Plants
Cost of Building New Facilities, Concerns About Waste Disposal Are Cited

By Shankar Vedantam
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 24, 2005; Page A06


When the nuclear industry looks at the Bush administration's initiatives to promote a new generation of nuclear power plants, it sees a giant dollar sign. Critics see a giant mushroom cloud. For investors and taxpayers, who will have to pony up the cash, the sign may be a giant question mark.

No one has placed an order for a nuclear plant since 1973, but a House-Senate conference committee is weighing an energy bill that includes a clutch of proposals to revive the moribund industry. No matter what bill comes out, however, financial experts and the companies that would order such plants predict that regulatory hurdles and economic risks mean the launch of new plants is at least a decade away -- if ever....

***

Virginia-based Dominion, which serves nine states and operates four nuclear plants, is among the handful of companies considered most likely to want to build a plant. Capps said the nation should invest more in such plants, but he held out little hope that that would happen without greater incentives than those being discussed on Capitol Hill.

The Department of Energy splits with industry the cost of selecting sites for new plants. Various proposals in the energy bill would have taxpayers share the cost of licensing the first generation of new plants, offer loan guarantees and set caps on industry liability in an accident. A proposal by the White House would protect investors against regulatory holdups by defraying the cost of certain types of delays. Some legislators would give the industry protection against fluctuations in the price of electricity....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/23/AR2005072300752.html

[NorthernSpy]

1. nuke plant = gigantic instant 'dirty bomb'...

... just add jumbo jet, a la 9/11:

Some believe the WTC jets could have collapsed or breached either of the Indian Point containment domes. But at very least the massive impact and intense jet fuel fire would destroy the human ability to control the plants' functions. Vital cooling systems, backup power generators and communications networks would crumble.

(...)

The assault would not require a large jet. The safety systems are extremely complex and virtually indefensible. One or more could be wiped out with a wide range of easily deployed small aircraft, ground-based weapons, truck bombs or even chemical/biological assaults aimed at the operating work force. Dozens of US reactors have repeatedly failed even modest security tests over the years. Even heightened wartime standards cannot guarantee protection of the vast, supremely sensitive controls required for reactor safety.

Without continous monitoring and guaranteed water flow, the thousands of tons of radioactive rods in the cores and the thousands more stored in those fragile pools would rapidly melt into super-hot radioactive balls of lava that would burn into the ground and the water table and, ultimately, the Hudson.

Indeed, a jetcrash like the one on 9/11 or other forms of terrorist assault at Indian Point could yield three infernal fireballs of molten radioactive lava burning through the earth and into the aquifer and the river. Striking water they would blast gigantic billows of horribly radioactive steam into the atmosphere. Prevailing winds from the north and west might initially drive these clouds of mass death downriver into New York City and east into Westchester and Long Island.

Super-hot radioactive balls of lava? I don't think we want any of that stuff!

:think:

[HockeyMom]

2. Original intent of 9/11 hijackers

was to hit Indian Point. That came out from the 9/11 Commission, although very, very little media attention was given to this fact.

Upon realizing on 9/11 that it would no accident, this WAS my immediate reaction, "Oh, my God." "It could have been Indian Point." If they had succeeded in their original plan, myself and millions and millions of others, would not be sitting in front of our computers today.

[SquireJons]

3. I don't think that is correct

I'm fairly green minded, but I see the critics of nuclear power as naive. It is my understanding that the nuclear plants were designed to withstand not only a plane crash, but a conventional bombing as well. The nuke plants are a lot safer than people think. France is practically run by nuclear power and no one bats an eye. Unless we all want to start using flint rocks and wearing animal hides by 2050, we better come up with something, cause the lights are going out in about 50 years. If that happens, I figure about 75% of the industrialized worlds population will die either from hunger, exposure or violent conflict that those little devils will instigate.

I know many are worried about radiation, I am too not the least because I live in Va where we have several nuke plants (Dominion Power Co, as mentioned in the article). But there are a lot of other things worth worrying about first. Liquefied fuel is exceedingly dangerous and it's everywhere, with far fewer safety procedures. It's time to make a break with fossil fuels and I don't want to live in a cave.

[HockeyMom]

8. I got my threads mixed up

The above is not the thread I meant to post to. The one I am referring to was specific to Indian Point.

I am not a donor (can't afford right now) so I cannot link you to it. I suggest you search the specific thread on Indian Point and read the problems with this specific reactor. There have been many, many problems over the years. Even Pataki has called on Federal Government intervention concerning it.

[Ezlivin]

4. Nah, we're not running out of oil

When will someone in Bush's administration speak clearly and truthfully to the American public? All they want to do is cloud the issues and put up distractions.

We will need to build hundreds of nuclear power plants to keep our standard of living as oil peaks and declines. Or we could attack the problem with a multi-faceted approach: conservation, alternate energies and aggressive R&D.

Nuclear power could be made fairly safe, but it will never be completely safe nor non-toxic to the environment. The nuclear reactor that powered my submarine was overseen by a cadre of trained personnel; we never had a problem. But a military operation is not the same as a civilian operation by any means, particularly when the scale of the powerplant is so much larger.

[NNadir]

5. Nuclear power "could" be "made" safe?

No one has ever died from the operation of a commercial US nuclear plant - save two people killed in a steam explosion (non-nuclear portion) at Rancho Seco. If this isn't safe, I don't know what is. It is difficult to "make" nuclear power safer than the fossil fuels we so rely upon.

In fact, watt for watt, worldwide, including Chernobyl, the number of deaths attributable to nuclear operations is relatively trivial - especially when compared to its alternative options. I note that NO form of energy exists that is "completely safe nor non-toxic to the environment." In fact, there is none, save possibly wind power, that is as completely safe nor non-toxic to the environment as nuclear power.

We need to build nuclear plants, as many as we can, as quickly as we can. In terms of demonstrated power, they are cleaner and safer than any other option we have. Otherwise we will not have much time left.

[Timmy5835]

6. One question

What are you going to do with ALL the radioactive waste????????

[NNadir]

9. What are you going to do with ALL the coal waste, oil waste...

carbon dioxide, etc?

Can you name someone somewhere in the United States who has ever been harmed by the storage of so called "nuclear waste?"

You can't?

I didn't think so.

[WhiteTara]

13. good question

we still haven't figured out what to do with all the waste that we have NOW. Yucca mountain seems to be out. Maybe we could shoot it out into space with chimpy and friends? BTW welcome to DU Timmy5835 :hi:

[mbperrin]

7. OK if you weren't at Chernobyl, right?

As long as somebody else dies, it's good.

BTW, all the filthy nuclear waste from a leaking dump is now being deposited 30 minutes from home into my drinking water, although there isn't a plant located anywhere in West Texas.

I will believe this is safe when the owner of the company in New York moves here.

[NNadir]

10. The number of people who died at Chernobyl is fewer than 1000.

This represents the total number of people killed for the entire history of nuclear power.

The number of people who die each year from filthy air pollution numbers in the millions, about 20,000 per year in New York.

I note that everybody on the planet is at risk from global climate change. I guess in the ethics of some people everybody has to be killed in order to make it right.

My area, New Jersey, has the highest Mercury pollution from coal fired powered plants in the United States. That, I would assume is OK for you.

I will believe that coal fired power is safe when every man woman and child on the planet doesn't contain mercury.

[WhiteTara]

12. what about the survivors?

weren't there many cases of birth defects, etc? Not to mention the fact that the earth there is uninhabitable for the next 125,000 years or so? The birth defects are still occurring in Japan 60 years after we dropped bombs there.

[WhiteTara]

11. about two months ago there was

a containment leak at the Chernobyl site, but I have not heard a word about it again anywhere. Maybe I am naive, but I think the meltdown at Chernobyl should be an object lesson of why it is not safe. You note that sun and wind are both clean and safe. THey are also great. I lived in a solar home for 10 years and it was wonderful. I think we should try to live life with fewer impacts on the earth, instead of hoping that nuclear power will save us.