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Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

nytimes.com

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Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#181

Post by opo »

kpil wrote: post #45
hackuser wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it seems the real reason, as in all things, is economics The economics might be different if we paid for the real cost of carbon-based energy, instead of imposing that cost on the world as an externality.

The total cost for storing and securing shit for 100.000 years is also 'externalized.' Both costs are more or less impossible to establish upfront.

Right now waste can and should be recycled which would reduce the amount of waste. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste

Soon it will be possible to use most of the waste as fuel:

"...Fast reactors can "burn" long lasting nuclear transuranic waste (TRU) waste components (actinides: reactor-grade plutonium and minor actinides), turning liabilities into assets. Another major waste component, fission products (FP), would stabilize at a lower level of radioactivity than the original natural uranium ore it was attained from in two to four centuries, rather than tens of thousands of years"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_fast_reactor

How does coal waste compare to that?

"Coal ash – the waste material left after coal is burned – contains arsenic, mercury, lead, and over a dozen other heavy metals, many of them toxic."

http://www.psr.org/environment-and-health/code-black/coal-as...

"The study found that levels of radioactivity in the ash were up to five times higher than in normal soil,"

https://phys.org/news/2015-09-radioactive-contaminants-coal-...

How much coal waste is produced per year?

"According to the American Coal Ash Association's Coal Combustion Product Production & Use Survey Report, nearly 130 million tons of coal ash was generated in 2014."

https://www.epa.gov/coalash/coal-ash-basics#03

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#182

Post by btilly »

badloginagain wrote: post #154
btilly wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pollution from fossil fuels kills relatively quickly. Pollution from nuclear fuels remains dangerous for thousands of years. The deadliness of all forms of power depend strongly on regulations. The jury is still out on which will kill more in the end. Though so far nuclear is looking really, really good. See https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-d... for some statistics on how dangerous things ar…

> The deadliness of all forms of power depend strongly on regulations. If this your contention, then you immediately want to stop all coal and oil plants pending regulatory overhaul. Coal plants release 100x more radioactive material than any other source in the world. And that's not even to mention the operating dangers, from poor work environments to accidents. And that's not even mentioning the environmental disas…

If this your contention, then you immediately want to stop all coal and oil plants pending regulatory overhaul.

You have a rather large flaw in your logic.

The statement that you are quoting is directly supported by the data in my link. Fatality rates in the US are generally an order of magnitude lower than in the rest of the world, because of US regulations. This is a statement of fact, and not an argument for any random regulations that you just thought up.

On your statement about radioactivity, coal plants distribute more radioactive material than nuclear, but nuclear produces more nasty waste per gigawatt than coal. So far nuclear has been astoundingly safe, but the eventual damage from nuclear depends on our ability to safely store that waste for longer than human history.

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#183

Post by ben_jones »

killjoywashere wrote: post #132
badloginagain wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living in a world where technology seems outdated after 3-4 years, having reactors reliably serving up power for several decades is kind of amazing. On the other hand, this does keep the number of people in the industry small. Sure, demonization of the power source, and regulatory standards that inhibit the development of new technologies also help, but it seems like this would be a problem regardless. I've always wo…

The ones I know, ex-Navy, are living pretty high on the hog.

There most be an increasing amount of hardware/software with egregious business value (hundred million+) with a decreasing number of surviving/available designers etc. Rationally if these people were required to fix or maintain such systems their yearly value would be in the millions wouldn't it?

For some reason I get the feeling that such people are not paid in the millions. Maybe double or triple a traditional salary but not in the executive-bonus tier. Do they deserve to be?

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#184

Post by nbanks »

kpil wrote: post #45
hackuser wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it seems the real reason, as in all things, is economics The economics might be different if we paid for the real cost of carbon-based energy, instead of imposing that cost on the world as an externality.

The total cost for storing and securing shit for 100.000 years is also 'externalized.' Both costs are more or less impossible to establish upfront.

This cost would be much easier to calculate if every country reprocessed spent nuclear fuel like France does instead of storing it. Reprocessed MOX fuel costs almost ten times as much as enriched uranium, but the left over waste products decay to levels similar to natural uranium in 300 years instead of 10,000. Molten Salt reactors would probably make reprocessing cheaper.

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#185

Post by jlarocco »

killjoywashere wrote: post #125
cmdrfred wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the only viable fix we have currently, and if I were elected god king of a nation I would push initiatives to build not only enough capacity with atomic power to meet demand but excess to keep costs very low. People are worried about automation, the nation that can cheaply power automated factories and server farms in the future will prosper.

Solar and wind have no catastrophic downside, and storage is a tractable problem. A chronically small, grey-haired workforce that the population depends on both to power their lives and prevent catastrophe makes that workforce too powerful. It becomes a governance problem. I highly recommend The Dictator's Handbook for more insight on this.

Is large scale energy storage any better than just using nuclear energy?

They don't have the "nuclear" tag scaring people away, but modern batteries and capacitors are still very dangerous and have a lot of environmental hazards to go along with them.

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#186

Post by cookiecaper »

Nrsolis wrote: post #51
cookiecaper wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fossil fuel emissions and other pollutants build up gradually and can be controlled. You're not going to get kicked out of your home and neighborhood forever because of a malfunction at the coal plant. And nuclear power generation also emits a very dangerous pollutant: nuclear waste.

I think you have a different definition of the word "emit" than I do. Nuclear waste is stable, does not migrate when handled properly in containment pools, and can be reprocessed if required. All existing spent nuclear fuel in the united states is stored on-site. It's been that way since the beginning of the industry. In contrast, particulate and greenhouse gas (including CO2) emissions from coal-fired plants migrate…

>when handled properly

That's the crux of the nuclear issue. Everything works great in the theoretical world where everything is handled properly, all factors are properly accounted for, and all tradeoffs were wisely made. That is simply not how the real world works, and Fukushima reminds us of that.

No matter how many failsafes you put in place, they will, at some point or another, be breached. The question is then "What happens when every failsafe fails, and is that risk acceptable compared to the alternatives?"

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#187

Post by lostlogin »

opo wrote: post #130
MichaelApproved wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Newer reactor designs can avoid these issues. I have a fundamental mistrust of the industry and our government's ability to properly regulate it. That mistrust is based on historical facts. Even with newer designs, I think human error and regulatory capture is too dangerous to make nuclear viable.

>...That mistrust is based on historical facts What historical facts would those be? Historically nuclear has been about the safest form of mass power when looking at accidents: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents Anything at all related to nuclear is covered by the media orders of magnitude more than other power sources so people have an understandable perception that it is much more dangerous than the re…

It's a little dishonest to state a casualty rate when the spent, toxic fuel going to be deadly for a few hundred thousand years yet. That problem is so very far from solved, and it's a massive problem.

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#188

Post by cmdrfred »

killjoywashere wrote: post #125
cmdrfred wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the only viable fix we have currently, and if I were elected god king of a nation I would push initiatives to build not only enough capacity with atomic power to meet demand but excess to keep costs very low. People are worried about automation, the nation that can cheaply power automated factories and server farms in the future will prosper.

Solar and wind have no catastrophic downside, and storage is a tractable problem. A chronically small, grey-haired workforce that the population depends on both to power their lives and prevent catastrophe makes that workforce too powerful. It becomes a governance problem. I highly recommend The Dictator's Handbook for more insight on this.

I'm not sure what the comment about "grey haired workforce" is in regards too, but "storage is a tractable problem" is often said without evidence. I'd need to see a smaller nation decommission all of its base load generators before that claim can be considered valid.

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#189

Post by Chaebixi »

ben_jones wrote: post #183
killjoywashere wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ones I know, ex-Navy, are living pretty high on the hog.

There most be an increasing amount of hardware/software with egregious business value (hundred million+) with a decreasing number of surviving/available designers etc. Rationally if these people were required to fix or maintain such systems their yearly value would be in the millions wouldn't it? For some reason I get the feeling that such people are not paid in the millions. Maybe double or triple a traditional sala…

> There most be an increasing amount of hardware/software with egregious business value (hundred million+) with a decreasing number of surviving/available designers etc.

See COBOL.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COBOL

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