Posted on 01/12/2005 5:33:11 AM PST by Brilliant
President Bush says the nation needs advanced nuclear-power plants, calling them a clean, "renewable" energy source for the future...
New Mexico Republican Pete V. Domenici... said he welcomed Mr. Bush's remarks. "Without any question," he said, the long-term electricity-generating alternative to the nation's dwindling supplies of natural gas "will have to be nuclear power. If America is afraid of it, the world will use" advanced nuclear technology. Sen. Domenici is expected to offer an energy bill that will include financial incentives for the first new nuclear-power plants.
Nuclear power now supplies 20% of the nation's electricity, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, while coal-fired plants provide 51% and natural-gas-fed plants generate 17%. Unlike other major sources of electrical energy, nuclear-power plants don't pollute the air or produce carbon dioxide, which is thought to cause global warming. But nuclear wastes must be disposed of in a way that protects people from radiation.
Mr. Rowe said the industry needs Congress and the White House to help remove the legal and regulatory obstacles to using Yucca Mountain, the federal repository for nuclear wastes in Nevada. The industry is also looking for government help in building and licensing prototypes for a new generation of nuclear plants with safety systems that would be relatively immune to accidents... For the first prototype, the engineering and design work alone are expected to cost $520 million...
Environmental groups were quick to challenge the president's use of the word "renewable," which they have reserved for wind and solar-energy projects. "Most people's idea of renewable energy is not anything that produces toxic wastes that you have to keep isolated for hundreds of thousands of years," said Carl Pope, president of the Sierra Club...
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
The EU has relied heavily on nuclear power for decades. This is one case where I agree with the Europeans.
For Years now we have been tiptoeing around Nuclear power, Its time we used more of it, Hopefully we can develop ways to get rid of the waste in a better fashion.
You mean the enviro-wackos are opposed to something which would help prevent global warming? (Shocked!!)
Certainly far better than those days of "Hillary-Care" starting the tone for the Clinton administration.
Wasn't there a recent discovery of a process that significantly reduces the half-life of nuclear waste?
I believe the "Green" party in Germany forced through a phaseout of nuclear power last year.
Insanity, given the fossil fuel demands that are increasing in the developing world, imo.
Looks like they will have a hard time meeting their Kyoto obligations.
'Better'? Perhaps you could describe the 'less than better' in the current disposal protocol. I haven't ever tiptoed around nuclear power and only retired from it as a career when my facility was BRACed.
Half-life reduction can come only by changing the nuclear composition which takes energy comparable to the original nuclear re-arrangement. It has been done.
It's called a pebble bed reactor ... now get to work.
"Renewable" was a poor choice of words.
What he really meant was the nuclear energy is not going to be used up, as oil and coal are.
Actually, the fuel is used up, it's just that there's so much of it available that we aren't going to run out.
Good for him.
The day after his inauguration, the President needs to PILE IT ON with about seven or eight major initiatives that the media and Dems (synonymous, I know) would have to try to combat at once...the legislative version of the Clintoons famous document dumps that would bury the feckless Ken Starr.
Germany: Nuclear Power Argument
THE LONG-LIFE CORE ENCAPSULATED NUCLEAR HEAT SOURCE GENERATION IV REACTOR
E. Greenspan (University of California)
The Encapsulated Nuclear Heat Source (ENHS) is a small innovative reactor suitable for use in developing countries. The reference design is a 50 MWe lead-bismuth eutectic (Pb-Bi) cooled fast reactor. It is designed to meet the requirements of Generation IV reactors including sustainable energy supply, low waste, high level of safety and reliability, competitive busbar cost of electricity and acceptable risk to capital. Unique features of the ENHS include 20 years of operation without refueling; no fuel handling in the host country; no pumps and valves; excess reactivity can not exceed $1; very small probability of core damage accidents; autonomous operation and load-following; very long plant life. In addition it offers a close match between demand and supply, large tolerance to human errors, public acceptance via demonstration of superb safety, lack of need for offsite response, large tolerance to human errors and superb proliferation resistance.
Two types of long-life cores have been designed for the ENHS; one fueled with Pu-U and the other with enriched uranium. The fuel material is metallic alloy with 10 weight % Zr, clad with HT-9 and cooled with molten Pb-Bi eutectic or with Pb. Both core types are of a uniform composition and do not use either internal or external blankets. The long life is achieved by designing the core to have a nearly constant keff with burnup. In case of the Pu-U fuel this is achieved by designing the core to have a breeding ratio slightly above unity – just to compensate for the negative reactivity effect of the fission products. In case of the enriched uranium cores the constant keff is achieved by designing the core to have a conversion ratio of approximately 0.7; at this conversion ratio the reactivity effect of the Pu produced just compensates for the reactivity worth of the consumed 235U. The design domain has been defined for nearly constant keff cores that can deliver 125 to 250 MWth when operating with an average linear heat rate of 60 w/cm, 80 w/cm or 120 w/cm. The core geometry design variables considered were core height and lattice pitch-to-diameter ratio. The fuel was assumed to be 1cm in diameter and to have a 0.1cm thick clad. Radiation damage to the clad was found to limit the average linear heat-rate of a core that is to operate for 20 effective full power years to 60 w/cm. The corresponding peak burnup of these cores is approximately 100 GWD/tHM. Selected neutronic and thermal-hydraulic characteristics of the nearly zero burnup reactivity swing Pb-cooled cores will be presented along with the feasibility of designing these cores to have the coolant flow with 100% natural circulation. ...
We've simply got to go to nuke and get out of the loop with environmental nazis controlling the fate of the nation.
As "Carl Pope, president of the Sierra Club" well knows, wind-farms are being challenged by NIMBYs such as Teddy Kennedy (re: the proposal in Martha's Vineyard) and by PETA (re: the condors being sliced and diced by wind-farms in California).
There is no hope for energy independence with these whacko lefties strangling the nation of logical solutions.
About Time!
Pebble bed reactors are too small. The baseload replacement plants needed will have to be in the 1000-1400 MW range. A 200 MW pebble bed demonstrator has not been completed yet, though i have been hearing that it is just around the corner (since 1998).
I read your Germany links.
There's no mention of any concrete plan to replace nuclear power with any alternative source.
Was it reprocessing?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.