First new nuclear reactors OK'd in over 30 years

CNN Breaking News ^ | 2/9/12 | Steve Hargreaves

[kidd]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved licenses to build two new nuclear reactors Thursday

[GraceG]

Yup, and you could use that “Waste natural Gas” to basically run you refinery and to GTL as well.

[kidd]

Not cold feet. Money.

TEPCO was the main investor in the project. Then Fukushima happened.

Now TEPCO is broke.

To the best of my knowledge, the project is officially in limbo, but it is as good as dead.

[montomike]

Actually, there are a few reasons...

There are no American manufacturers of the large components necessary for a nuclear power plant. The components all have long lead times for specifications and fabrication.

They all went away because of lack of demand and will need a few years to get to where the components can be manufactured in the US on a large scale of ten nuclear power plants a year. I am talking about the reactor vessel, the pressurizer, and the steam generators and last but not least, the large steam turbines and generators. You can’t jest go to Grainger and order a few.

San Onofre recently replaced four steam generators. They were made in Japan by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. And they are showing evidence of excessive wear and leaks after one fuel cycle. Made in Japan.....Google that.

Where are you going to get the engineers and the skilled craft to put together a nuclear power plant? This country isn’t producing engineers at the moment. Most of the engineers and craft that built the 120 or so power plants in the US at the moment are retired or retiring or trying to train the young skulls of mush before they get to retire. My personal experience with the new engineers was that they didn’t want to work that hard, didn’t have any fundamentals, were more interested in spending the large salaries they got coming out of college, and moved onto something easier as soon as they could plus they had no respect for their elders.

Building a nuclear power plant isn’t like mowing a lawn. There is a huge beaurocratic nightmare involved. Have you eseen the personnel required by regulations to work at a nuclear power plant? It isn’t just engineers, maintenance, and operators. A lot of people are needed to ensure compliance with the black hole of federal regulations. Take a look at the CFR’s for nuclear power plants. Mind boggling in their arcane complexity.

This country has a long ways to go, a few light years, before we will be able to build ten nuclear power plants a year.

[newsbot]

NIMBY Alert!

[kidd]

Georgia Baby, Georgia is the answer..

I think you're right.

[wallcrawlr]

Fear of “climate-change” has benefits.

[nuke rocketeer]

I know people that work at STP. Units 3 and 4 are dead. NRG cannot get any money to build them, and natural gas is cheap now.

[taildragger]

CE used to have the facilities in what was it Monongahela where they made stuff for their "Bowl Mills" and was that where they also made the Reactors Vessels as well?

I know they sold their ability to make these large parts...

[nuke rocketeer]

I work for Westinghouse. We are owned by Toshiba. Toshiba had considered building a heavy forging plant to make reactor vessels, but the environmental permitting is a nightmare designed to never allow such facilities to ever be built in the US again.

Bettis Labs, who makes Navy reactors also looked into expanding their facilities to make large civilian reactors and also were turned off by the permitting requirements.

[goseminoles]

Fishing ouround the on in Crystal River, Fl is great fun!!!!

[MrB]

Read my virtual lips: THEY WILL NEVER BE BUILT.

I was going to take bets (for ANY amount) from anyone who thought these would be built.

FReepers are too smart for that, though.

[nuke rocketeer]

CE made their reactor vessels and pressurizers in Chattanooga TN. That facility was long de-comissioned and scrapped long before Westinghouse bought them.

[taildragger]

Thanks it was Chattanooga...

[nuke rocketeer]

Trivia, Westinghouse was so backed up with orders in the 70’s they contracted CE to make vessels for them too. The RV’s at Comanche Peak were made in Chattanooga.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Propaganda, Spin and B.S. Just so Obama can claim he is not totally anti-energy.

Since Yucca Mountain is still closed, where are we putting the spent fuel?

These will never be built.

[nuke rocketeer]

Yes they will. 0 can longer stop it.

[Moonman62]

I know people that work at STP. Units 3 and 4 are dead. NRG cannot get any money to build them, and natural gas is cheap now.

Fossil fueled energy plants are much more economical. All nuclear does is add diversity to our energy sources.

[bagman]

I think that you will find that Westinghouse never made reactor vessels. Steam generators and perhaps pressurizers were built at the Westinghouse facility in Pensacola (have no idea what happened to it).

The US reactor vessel vendors were Combustion Engineering and Babcock&Wilcox at its Mount Vernon, IN, works. There was talk a few years ago about the Mount Vernon works being started back up. I don’t who owns it now - McDermott or the newly revived B&W, or even someone else.

[Unrepentant VN Vet]

...My personal experience with the new engineers was that they didn’t want to work that hard, didn’t have any fundamentals, were more interested in spending the large salaries they got coming out of college and moved onto something easier as soon as they could...

Possible amplification: Not only don't have the fundamentals, but are so completely dependent upon computer design aids that if CTRL C / CTRL V was disabled (or, worse yet, a loss of power) they wouldn't be able to function.

.....Possibly including an inability to feed themselves.

[DNA.2012]

Nuclear power plants should be stopped.

They are a health hazard.