Posted on 11/14/2021 4:41:20 PM PST by Kevmo
Yes. It's called fission reactors. And the left pretty much killed it. They'll do the same with fusion if it becomes a large scale reality.
With fission, when the SHTF, you get thermal runaway and multi$Billion cleanup operations that never happen, such as the still-unsafe 3Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima. When there is an actual and doable PLAN in place for the radioactive cleanups, that’s when the real cost of fission will be known.
These creepozoids hated the massive amount of energy unleashed by Trump. We were exporting LNG to Europe.
Before Trump, Obama tried as much as he could to hinder all forms of energy production. It was only the spread of fracking and horizontal drilling (on private lands) that allowed an increase in overall oil and natural gas. Once Trump set free the entrepreneurs, drillers etc. we had more natural gas than anyone.
The creepozoids know that energy is freedom, and low cost energy spreads more freedom. People have more disposable income, which spawns more enterprise.
The other destruction under way is language. Just like Alinsky taught the left to focus and concentrate on individuals, the left has bastardized the word carbon, focusing and concentrating on it as something evil. We used to teach the The Carbon Cycle, and beautiful and natural process. In actually, more carbon equals more life. We all know that leftist opinion of life.
I wish I could be there for the next Ice Age, and watch most of the world chuckle at AlGore and his minions.
Uuhhh no. Primarily because every 6 months they talk of a breakthroug h and........nothing. Headline whores!
It seems that, for the last three or four decades, fusion energy has remained “twenty years away.”
The Cold Fusion/LENR Ping List
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Keywords: ColdFusion; LENR; lanr; CMNS
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Vortex-L
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Best book to get started on this subject:
EXCESS HEAT
Why Cold Fusion Research Prevailed by Charles Beaudette
https://www.abebooks.com/9780967854809/Excess-Heat-Why-Cold-Fusion-0967854806/plp
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Something is going on in this segment of science. There are a considerable number of research groups studying the matter. -Sidebar Moderator
LENR experiments have often done so...the problem is getting the reproducibility high enough for engineering practicality. The scientific reality can no longer be legitimately questioned.
"There may come a day when we can do fusion, but I don’t think we will be able to sustain it very long, because of the energy requirements to get it going."
I think this will be the case for all the different approaches to brute force hot fusion. Not at all true for LENR/"Cold Fusion". Also apparently not true for SAFIRE/Aureon "warm fusion", which is plasma based, but not brute force.
Apparently, one is currently being built in Finland, as they have realized that in their climate, nuclear is the only available non-carbon technology currently available.
Supposedly, the French also have one, but I have not researched it. The Finnish info was a YouTube explanation I ran across yesterday.
the only available non-carbon technology currently available.
***Well, yeah, available. But we’re talking about the next round.
Okay...did some more research. France has not yet completed its “permanent” disposal site...they have their spent fuel reprocessing and intermediate storage running, but the geologic disposal does not come online until 2025.
Finland’s geologic site is due to come online in 2023.
Well, I would prefer that the "next round" succeed, but fission's problems ARE solvable.
What’s the solution for storing radioactive waste for 20,000 years? And why haven’t they rounded up the waste from Fukushima, Chernobyl, and 3 Mile Island & done it?
Oh, FAR longer than 20,000 years...solutions lasting millions of years are technologically possible.
> "And why haven’t they rounded up the waste from Fukushima, Chernobyl, and 3 Mile Island & done it?"
Because government is in charge, and governments simply cannot innovate.
ping
get added to the cold fusion ping list
Oh, FAR longer than 20,000 years...solutions lasting millions of years are technologically possible.
***Yeah, POSSIBLE. But not FEASIBLE. It would drive the cost of fission to the stratosphere. Even now it can barely compete against cheap natural gas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_States
... five aging reactors were permanently closed in 2013 and 2014 before their licenses expired because of high maintenance and repair costs at a time when natural gas prices have fallen: San Onofre 2 and 3 in California, Crystal River 3 in Florida, Vermont Yankee in Vermont, and Kewaunee in Wisconsin,[12][13] and in April, 2021 New York State permanently closed Indian Point in Buchanan, 30 miles from New York City.[13][14]
....
Competitiveness problems
In May 2015, a senior vice president of General Atomics stated that the U.S. nuclear industry was struggling because of comparatively low U.S. fossil fuel production costs, partly due to the rapid development of shale gas, and high financing costs for nuclear plants.[76]
In July 2016 Toshiba withdrew the U.S. design certification renewal for its Advanced Boiling Water Reactor because “it has become increasingly clear that energy price declines in the US prevent Toshiba from expecting additional opportunities for ABWR construction projects”.[77]
In 2016, Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo directed the New York Public Service Commission to consider ratepayer-financed subsidies similar to those for renewable sources to keep nuclear power stations profitable in the competition against natural gas.[78][79]
In March 2018, FirstEnergy announced plans to deactivate the Beaver Valley, Davis-Besse, and Perry nuclear power plants, which are in the Ohio and Pennsylvania deregulated electricity market, for economic reasons during the next three years.[80]
In 2019 the Energy Information Administration revised the levelized cost of electricity from new advanced nuclear power plants to be $0.0775/kWh before government subsidies, using a 4.3% cost of capital (WACC) over a 30-year cost recovery period.[81] Financial firm Lazard also updated its levelized cost of electricity report costing new nuclear at between $0.118/kWh and $0.192/kWh using a commercial 7.7% cost of capital (WACC) (pre-tax 12% cost for the higher-risk 40% equity finance and 8% cost for the 60% loan finance) over a 40-year lifetime, making it the most expensive privately financed non-peaking generation technology other than residential solar PV.[82]
In August 2020, Exelon decided to close the Byron and Dresden plants in 2021 for economic reasons, despite the plants having licenses to operate for another 20 and 10 years respectively. On September 13, 2021, the Illinois Senate approved a bill containing nearly $700 million in subsidies for the state’s nuclear plants, including Byron, causing Exelon to reverse the shutdown order.[83][84]
....
Economics
George W. Bush signing the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which was designed to promote US nuclear reactor construction, through incentives and subsidies, including cost-overrun support up to a total of $2 billion for six new nuclear plants.[244]
US nuclear power plants, highlighting recently and soon-to-be retired plants, as of 2018 (US EIA).
The low price of natural gas in the US since 2008 has spurred construction of gas-fired power plants as an alternative to nuclear plants. In August 2011, the head of America’s largest nuclear utility said that this was not the time to build new nuclear plants, not because of political opposition or the threat of cost overruns, but because of the low price of natural gas. John Rowe, head of Exelon, said “Shale [gas] is good for the country, bad for new nuclear development”.[228]
In 2013, four older reactors were permanently closed: San Onofre 2 and 3 in California, Crystal River 3 in Florida, and Kewaunee in Wisconsin.[12][13] The state of Vermont tried to shut Vermont Yankee, in Vermont, but the plant was closed by the parent corporation for economic reasons in December 2014. New York State is seeking to close Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant, in Buchanan, 30 miles from New York City, despite this reactor being the primary contributor to Vermont’s green energy fund.[13][245]
The additional cancellation of five large reactor upgrades (Prairie Island, 1 reactor, LaSalle, 2 reactors, and Limerick, 2 reactors), four by the largest nuclear company in the U.S., suggest that the nuclear industry faces “a broad range of operational and economic problems”.[246]
In July 2013, economist Mark Cooper named some nuclear power plants that face particularly intense challenges to their continued operation.[246] Cooper said that the lesson for policy makers and economists is clear: “nuclear reactors are simply not competitive”.[246]
....
In August 2012, Exelon stated that economic and market conditions, especially low natural gas prices, made the “construction of new merchant nuclear power plants in competitive markets uneconomical now and for the foreseeable future”.[250] In early 2013 UBS noted that some smaller reactors operating in deregulated markets may become uneconomic to operate and maintain, due to competition from generators using low priced natural gas, and may be retired early.[251] The 556 MWe Kewaunee Power Station is being closed 20 years before license expiry for these economic reasons.[245][252][253] In February 2014 the Financial Times identified Pilgrim, Indian Point, Clinton and Quad Cities power stations as potentially at risk of premature closure for economic reasons.[254]
Timeline of state subsidies for nuclear power as of 2019
As of 2017, the U.S. shale gas boom has lowered electricity generation costs placing severe pressure on the economics of operating older existing nuclear power plants.[255] Analysis by Bloomberg shows that over half of U.S. nuclear plants are running at a loss.[256] The Nuclear Energy Institute has estimated that 15 to 20 reactors are at risk of early closure for economic reasons.[257] Nuclear operators in Illinois and New York have obtained financial support from regulators, and operators in Connecticut, New Jersey, Ohio and Pennsylvania are seeking similar support.[255] Some non-nuclear power generating companies have filed unfair competition lawsuits against these subsidies, and have raised the issue with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.[256]
Not to worry....the Democrats will see that natural gas, oil, or coal rapidly become more expensive, and nuclear even more so. Nuclear’s expense problems are all due to government already, fostered by propaganda originally funded by the KGB and then by their leftist US spinoff anti-nuclear groups.
I look at the technical solutions. Right now there is NO technical solution for long term radioactive nuclear waste storage, and yet those fission plants can’t even compete against natural gas effectively. Cleaning up a natural gas or coal plant doesn’t require a 20,000 year solution against radioactivity.
When [well, really IF] LENR breaks out, this will be one of the salients of the technology.
Finland's comes online in 2023, France's in 2025. And fission, properly designed, most certainly can compete. The reasons it cannot are all due to artificial, government imposed barriers not technically valid, but imposed due to political pressure.
I would prefer fusion, but...if that doesn't work out (note that I fully expect one or more to work), there "is" a possible solution.
Kevmo: “Right now there is NO technical solution
WW: Finland’s comes online in 2023, France’s in 2025.
***So we both agree. Right now there is no technical solution, especially for America.
Kevmo: “Right now there is NO technical solution for long term radioactive nuclear waste storage, and yet those fission plants can’t even compete against natural gas effectively.
WW: Finland’s comes online in 2023, France’s in 2025. And fission, properly designed,
***What makes it “properly designed”, shouldn’t that standard have been applied all along? And doesn’t that show a gigantic weakness in the technology, that there has been no good “properly designed” solution until, uh, 2024?
most certainly can compete.
***Based upon its past performance I would say it most certainly cannot compete.
The reasons it cannot are all due to artificial, government imposed barriers not technically valid, but imposed due to political pressure.
***Storage of radioactive nuke waste for 100k years is NOT sumthin artificial, not a guvminbt imposed barrier, not technically invalid to look at, and to be candid, there hasn’t been nearly enough political pressure to generate a solution.
I would prefer fusion,
***Same here.
but...if that doesn’t work out (note that I fully expect one or more to work), there “is” a possible solution.
***We have enough solar weenies and wind turbines and ocean wave experiments and geothermal and fracking cheap natural gas and other energy things to provide for our energy needs for generations.
There "was" one, under construction. Blocked by a Nevada politician.
"What makes it “properly designed”, shouldn’t that standard have been applied all along? And doesn’t that show a gigantic weakness in the technology, that there has been no good “properly designed” solution until, uh, 2024?
What wasn't "properly designed" was the political process necessary to design reactors. Every installation was custom-built from scratch instead of producing a standardized design and mass producing it. Fission needed the Elon Musk solution...mass production, which is now being seriously proposed.
:Storage of radioactive nuke waste for 100k years is NOT sumthin artificial, not a guvminbt imposed barrier, not technically invalid to look at, and to be candid, there hasn’t been nearly enough political pressure to generate a solution.
Sure it is. I already know how to do it, and the solution is mega-year, not mere hundreds of thousands, and far cheaper than the Finnish or French approach.
I will work up a description, and we can discuss it on Freepmail.
"We have enough solar weenies and wind turbines and ocean wave experiments and geothermal and fracking cheap natural gas and other energy things to provide for our energy needs for generations.
Actually, Elon Musk will probably provide the ultimate solar solution. He is already mostly there. It isn't all that far from Starlink to powersats.
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