Nuclear power ‘far from dead’ as U.S. sees startup of first reactor in 20 years

marketwatch.com ^ | June 14, 2016 4:32 p.m. ET | Myra P. Saefong

[Smittie]

We have a 500 year supply of natural gas in known reserves, which is a conservative estimate.

Concerning Fukushima:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/over-2-trillion-becquerels-of-radioactive-waste-flowed-from-fukushima-plant-into-pacific-in-just-10-months/5401946

[secret garden]

This is fascinating, reading about how they work.

[Boiler Plate]

My daughter is working on TerraPower.

http://terrapower.com/

[PreciousLiberty]

"We have a 500 year supply of natural gas in known reserves, which is a conservative estimate."

I'd be interested to see your source for that. From the EIA:

The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that as of January 1, 2013 there were about 2,276 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of technically recoverable resources of dry natural gas in the United States. At the rate of U.S. dry natural gas consumption in 2013 of about 27 Tcf per year, the United States has enough natural gas to last about 84 years. The actual number of years will depend on the amount of natural gas consumed each year, natural gas imports and exports, and additions to natural gas reserves.

Note the assumption that consumption would continue at the current level over that interval. That means no energy use increase (wrong) and no increase in the percentage of electricity generation done using natural gas (very likely wrong).

"Concerning Fukushima: http://www.globalresearch.ca/over-2-trillion-becquerels-of-radioactive-waste-flowed-from-fukushima-plant-into-pacific-in-just-10-months/5401946"

WOW!!! 2 trillion Bq, eh? That's very little, the units were chosen to be alarming. That is 2 trillion decays per second. To put that in perpective, there are 6.02e23 molecules in 18 grams (less than an ounce) of water. That is about 300,000,000,000 times two trillion. Diluted in the ocean that level of radioactivity is negligible at any significant distance from the source.

To put it another way, one gram of Cobalt-60 produces 44 trillion becquerels of radioactivity.

All that said, reactors designed using modern technology and liquid fuel are absolutely immune to meltdown. If power is cut off, the fuel simply flows into a tank and cools down. No drama.

[PreciousLiberty]

That’s excellent! I’m curious to see if the traveling wave concept works out...

[Boiler Plate]

Stay tuned!