Experts say switching to nuclear may be expensive

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

[<1/1,000,000th%]

You mean if the government makes nuclear power more expensive, then nuclear power will be more expensive??

Who would’ve thought that???

[Reeses]

the French are ahead of us

How so? The US has more nuclear power plants and generates more nuclear power than France. It's only because they have a stunted socialist economy and a lack of natural resources that the percentage generated is more nuclear.

Why don't we build new experimental nuclear power plants in China instead, perfecting the process? That would drive down the price of oil for us just the same. If we make an oopsie at least we won't be destroying 1,000 square miles of real estate on this side of the planet.

[DBrow]

“and I don’t hear any leftists complaining.”

Odd, but leftists compain loudest about things that reduce our requirements for foreign oil.

Kennedy and wind power, anybody and domestic oil production, nuclear, hydro.

[Zon]

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.

Good differentiation. The real robber barons wherein bed with the government. Getting subsidies and regulations that gave them an unfair competitive advantage. Unfortunately the true value creators and job creators often get lumped in with the political entrepreneurs. The misses.org web site has a good article that explains the difference between the two. Using real examples from days past.

How to build a profitable rail road -- James J. Hill did it without government subsidies. Yet it was the government parasitical elites that bankrupted Hill.

A Massive Injustice -- Birth of Parasitical Elites in America

[HamiltonJay]

I worked briefly at Westinghouse Electric, they had an entire floor of people still engineering and designing nuclear plants even though they hadn’t sold one in well over a decade or more.

At the time they were banking on open trade relations with China so they could start building there. Took longer than they expected, but they are hiring like crazy now because they can now build there.

[lexington minuteman 1775]

If we had continued to build these plants for the last 30 years it would not be so expensive. I think it was enviromental issues that blocked construction and fear of another three mile island incident.Now we have to pay a price. I would sooner pay more for electrical service than to have to bow to middle east oil intrests holding us hostage..oh excuse me...detainee issues...

[Our man in washington]

I had a friend who was explaining to me how global warming would destroy the earth. I said “okay, let’s build a lot of nuclear power plants.”

“Oh no, we can’t do that.” she said. “What if they haul the nuclear waste and there’s an accident? A whole town could be contaminated!”

“You just said the earth was going to get destroyed and you’re worried about the small chance of destroying one town?” I said.

I sometimes wonder that if we ever did come up with a solution to global warming, the greens wouldn’t like it because they couldn’t feel morally superior any more.

[sefarkas]

Four of the new Chinese plants are of a Westinghouse design (AP1000). Many of the new applications moving forward at the NRC intend to use this same design. The NRC design certification that goes with AP1000 limits the opportunity for individual licensees to deviate from what the NRC has approved.

Note that the differences in plant designs you refer to happened over 15 years or so as the plant sizes were raised from the 500MWe range to 900MWe to the 1100MWe range. Four companies, GE, Westinghouse, Combustion Engineering, and B&W took various approaches to achieving those three power levels. When you group the plants by electric power production size and reactor vendor, they are remarkably similar. The French use the Westinghouse designs for the 900 and 1100 series plants.

A similar situation is developing today with the GE ESBWR, the WEC AP1000, the AREVA (B&W) EPR, the Mitsubishi APWR. With the legal structure of the US economy, it would be unusual for these four companies to have the same design. Only in a socialist system could the government control the breadth of commercial offerings. The licensing simplification today is that each of those designs will be set before construction begins, thus checking the ability of opponents to challenge the "safety" of the plant once it is already built in conformance with the certified design.

[NormsRevenge]

Thanks for sharing that information.

[mad_as_he$$]

Agree. The story is full of half from one menu and half from the other. As I understand it the plan is to have cookie cutter facilities that are all the same. Should cut down on overhead and confusion about licensing.