Experts say switching to nuclear may be expensive

Oakland Tribune ^ | 4/4/07 | Ian Hoffman

[HangnJudge]

Things got so expensive because the Environazis kept throwing roadblocks up in front of the utilities companies. This is now being shown to be an extremely expensive and destructive decision. Spineless leadership permitted the bloodletting to continue.

Stop this lunacy and get on with what has to be done

[expatpat]

It may be expensive but, if we want to be self-sufficient, it is mandatory. If you worry about CO2 (I don't), it's good for that, too.

Disposal? Put it back in the ground, where it camefrom.

[yldstrk]

Not switching is making us vulnerable to foreign games. Pay now or pay later.

[xcamel]

Experts also said:
“The earth is flat”
“The moon is made of cheese”
“The sun rotates around the earth”
“The earth will freeze”
“No sane person will ever need or want an auto”
“Mars has canals an life on it”

well... you get my point..

[cryptical]

I'm interested in Pebble Bed Reactors, they sound like a step forward. Technology is half the game, the other half is changing the legal and regulatory enviroment so anti-nuke whackjobs can't gum up the process.

I'm for regulation, don't get me wrong.

[streetpreacher]

It may be expensive but, if we want to be self-sufficient, it is mandatory. If you worry about CO2 (I don't), it's good for that, too.

Exactly. Cost is not the only variable to consider.

[HangnJudge]

Not switching is making us vulnerable to foreign games. Pay now or pay later.

Bingo

[DBrow]

“the Environazis kept throwing roadblocks up in front of the utilities companies.”

To deliberately drive costs up, yup they did.

Once you are done with a seismic design and have started to install piping and seismic dampers and all, some professor “finds” a new fault near the plant- stop work, re-do the 3D finite element seismic models, validate them, redesign the piping. Then there’s an endangered moss near where the cooling tower goes, and on and on.

Jimmy Carter was part of the problem, and people misusing IEEE-323 and -650.

[SMM48]

Hold on! Look where the story originated. Oakland, Kalifornia. That state is anti-everything so it should not surprise anyone that nuclear power or coal or natural gas or wind farms or rubbing two sticks together would be too expensive and harm the environment.

[loreldan]

So? Switching to ethanol and all these global-warming fixes are expensive too and I don’t hear any leftists complaining.

[JasonC]

It tells one only that the left simply wants to destroy the modern world, and every environmental concern is only a pretext. They can't even allege that nuclear power costs are actually high, so they allege that they vary widely. Unlike those notoriously stable oil prices which have been entirely flat at $5 a barrel since 1973.

[Wheee The People]

I hate to say it, but the French are ahead of us on the Nuclear energy side.

[NormsRevenge]

Just follow the money and see where the trail leads when it comes to who will benefit most when it comes to the ‘greenpush’, it will help explain why some are so hot to declare global warming all man caused ,,

It helps their efforts to be the latest version of “political elite” robber barons maximizing their own personal fortunes at the expense of a gullible electorate.

Not saying alternative energies should not be pursued but what we are witnessing is equivalent to tossing the baby and the bathwater out and trying to substitute a ‘sacrifice is necessary to save the planet’ mantra in its place.

[KyHammer]

Let the french design em, the chinese manufacture em and use mexican labor. That ‘ll be cheap. Now all we need is insurance.

[Wheee The People]

Now all we need is insurance.

I know a Nigerian Prince who can get you some.

[GoldCountryRedneck]

Dan Kammen, professor... University of California, Berkeley.

B.S. - I rest my case....

[NorthernTraveler]

My brother is a civil engineer who used to build nuclear power plants in the late ‘70’s.

He said they used to spend two weeks installing some piping, then the regulations would change and they would spend the next week tearing out the piping they had just installed.

They then spent the next two weeks installing piping to the new regulations. Guess what? The regulations would change again, so they would spend a week tearing out THAT piping... only to install new piping to the original design.

He worked on a plant in northern Virginia for five years... he finally left the business as it was driving him crazy!

Here in Michigan they had the Midland plant something like 98% done - just needed to be fueled - when they stopped work. They eventually converted it to some other source of energy, but we still get stuck in our electric bills with the costs for that plant.

This ‘could’ be why the price of the plants varied so widely... /s

[NormsRevenge]

I probably visited that plant in Virginny, Surry. Shoreham on Long Island also got cuaght amidst regulation snafus by the wheel barrel full. It’s nuts.

We need cookie cutter designed plants, standardization of technologies and streamlining of permitting processes..

China will be building new plants, why aren’t we?

[jordan8]

France does it.