Posted on 11/26/2022 9:16:00 PM PST by SeekAndFind
The United States' 92 nuclear reactors currently in operation have a mean age of 41.6 years, the third oldest in the world.
As Statista's Katharina Buchholz reports, the only nuclear fleets that are older are those of Switzerland (46.3 years) and Belgium (42.3 years). Also older are the singular reactors in use in Armenia and the Netherlands.
You will find more infographics at Statista
The U.S. was among the first commercial adopters of nuclear energy in the 1950s, explaining the number of aging reactors today. A building boom between the 1960s and 1970s created today’s nuclear power plants in the United States. The five reactors completed in the 1990s and the one finished in 2016 were all holdovers of delayed construction projects from the 1970s experiencing roadblocks due to regulatory problems and mounting opposition to nuclear energy. The most recent construction start date of a completed U.S. reactor today is 1978 - one year before the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island, which further cemented the public's rejection of nuclear energy and the challenges of updating nuclear reactor infrastructure today. However, two reactors started at Vogtle power plant in Georgia in 2013 will join the grid soon as the newest additions to the U.S. fleet. They too experienced many regulatory and other delays, culminating in the bankruptcy of the reactor construction company. The U.S. government stepped in with a loan so that the project can now be finished almost 17 years after its initial proposal.
The U.S. today is one of only 15 countries which the World Nuclear Industry Status Report lists as actively pursuing nuclear energy. This includes new nuclear programs in the United Arab Emirates, Belarus and Iran that were started in the past decade only, as well as a younger program in China that started producing power in 1991 and today has a mean reactor fleet age of just nine years. India, running a nuclear energy program since 1969, nevertheless saw much more recent construction than the U.S., achieving a current mean reactor age of 24.2 years. Many European countries which were early adopters of the technology are meanwhile phasing out their programs, at times before the end of reactors' expected lifespans.
Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing energy crisis, interest in nuclear energy has been renewed in many countries, but challenges for nuclear reactors construction persist today. One solution could be a pivot to small reactors like the ones company NuScale is expected to build in Idaho by 2030 using a new modular technology.
Not to worry. The generations of people following us will be thrilled to work at managing the nuclear waste we bequeath them
So build some new ones.
“So build new ones.”
________________________
Absolutely.
Ever heard of re-cycling?
They are better at it these days.
Just got to keep the Karens ignorant of that.
They aren’t too bright.
Have you ever read Larry Niven's and Jerry Pournell's treatise on recycling nuclear waste? Its a real hoot.
1 - Mint coins out of it. Bank robbers could be apprehended before the crime because they would enter the bank wearing a protective suit.
2 - Following the coin idea, we could pay international debts using ICBMs.
It was a long list.
No clue.
I think of the half life of nuke waste. Tens of thousands of years.
Of course they would be...the USA was first to start building any.
Glad to live in Georgia where we will have a new one come on line in 2023, and another in 2024.
We made a mistake at Chernobyl. We'll probably make another mistake like that in 100 years from now. That said, environmentalists want us to stop using fossil fuels. Nuclear energy is the only way it works that can make everyone happy.
No! Link? I love those guys.
Pournelle should have been in charge of Bush’s response to 9/11. We’d be massively energy independent, we’d have built dozens of nuclear plants and space power satellites, and drilled, baby, drilled!
Yup. The woketards make it really, really hard to make a new reactor. The thorium salt ones would be awesome to replace if we could. However the best would be the semi truck sized reactor the folks at Rolls-Royce are developing for powering England for the commercial market. We already have the tech but the United States navy controls those reactors and don’t play well with others.
Imagine if the greenies hadn’t been radically anti-nuke for a generation. How much less carbon would’ve been released?
bttt
Climate cult wants them shutdown ?
The leftards won’t let us build new ones.
“think of the half life of nuke waste.”
But the volume is miniscule. Our total amount since the 1950’s would cover a football field to 10 feet high.
The thorium salt reactors can expend the current pile of nuclear waste. Without risk of going critical or meltdowns. And the thorium is currently cheaper than worthless, yet abundant. Mine it and you get valuable ‘rare earth’ minerals. Currently the US equation is flipped: mine rare minerals and you’re stuck with radioactive waste (the thorium) which under our greenie rules costs more to store than the alternative of buying rare earth minerals from the Chicoms.
The photo is of cooling towers, not nuclear reactors
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