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Roots
Mountain climber
SoCal
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Jun 10, 2013 - 12:56pm PT
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Has anyone heard the story of the diver ? or surfer ? who got sucked into the ocean water intake of the power plant ...
... I always wondered if that was urban legend or true.
Urban legend as far as I know.
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Jennie
Trad climber
Elk Creek, Idaho
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Jun 10, 2013 - 01:42pm PT
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Sea lions have been drowned in the San Onofre cooling water intake system, apparently no humans...most damage to marine life has been eggs, larvae and small fish...
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Jun 10, 2013 - 03:27pm PT
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Your correct Jennie. The DOE was not dismantled as Reagan wanted it to be; apparently congress would not allow it. although Regan did cut renewable energy R&D by 85%.
I found the following on the web: make of it what you will.
As for energy, Reagan almost single-handedly killed America’s global leadership in renewable energy (see “Who got us in this energy mess? Start with Ronald Reagan“).
President Reagan is the “culprit in chief” when it comes to the “current energy debacle” explained Richard Cohen in his 2008 piece “Wish Upon a Pump.” I could not agree more.
Reagan is a key reason we have only about one-sixth of the soaring global market for windpower “” an industry we once dominated: “President Reagan cut the renewable energy R&D budget 85% after he took office and eliminated the wind investment tax credit in 1986. This was pretty much the death of most of the US wind industry” (see “Anti-wind McCain delivers climate remarks at foreign wind company“). Same for solar power.
Indeed, Reagan gutted Carter’s entire multi-billion dollar clean energy and energy efficiency effort. He opposed and then rolled back fuel economy standards. Reagan turned all such commonsense strategies into “liberal” policies that must be opposed by any true conservative, a position embraced all too consistently by conservative leaders from Gingrich to Bush/Cheney to John McCain to the entire Tea Party-driven GOP.
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labrat
Trad climber
Auburn, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 10, 2013 - 06:55pm PT
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The video seems to show a really great reason to Stay Out Of The WATER!
The shark just keeps coming back.........
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Curt
climber
Gold Canyon, AZ
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Jun 11, 2013 - 01:58am PT
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The cost per KW is $5561, which they say is between what coal and what nuclear plants cost. This per Synapse Energy Economics. Ivanpah won the CSP (concentraing solar power) Project of the Year by solar Power Generation USA.
That's pretty high--almost twice as high as a utility scale photovoltaic plant, which can currently be built for less than $3,000 per kWp.
Curt
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Jennie
Trad climber
Elk Creek, Idaho
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Jun 11, 2013 - 02:15pm PT
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Nuclear power is the principal fount of electrical power in France.
Though Americans often malign the French...France's nuclear power industry is a manifest success story. That nation is well ahead of the world in providing inexpensive, CO2-free energy. Of the industrialized nations, France has the lowest carbon dioxide production per unit of GDP in the world.
78.8% of France's electrical power comes from nuclear reactors...and it sells many thousands of kilowatt hours to neighboring nations. French power rates are 6th lowest in the European Union.
France did not follow the United States' government lead in abandoning fast breeder reactor research. Theoretically breeder reactors can extract all of the energy contained in uranium or thorium, decreasing fuel requirements by a factor of 100 compared to traditional once-through light water reactors (which extract about 1%).
One of the few countries in the world with an active nuclear reprocessing program, France already extracts considerably more energy from fuel...with new fast breeder facilities coming online and reactor technology adapting to the world's vast stores of thorium, the French could come to be that continent's wellspring of electrical power for centuries (perhaps millennia) to come...
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Jun 11, 2013 - 02:17pm PT
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The end of that outlet pipe was always a good place to fish. I'm not being fish-cetious!
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gunsmoke
Mountain climber
Clackamas, Oregon
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Jun 11, 2013 - 05:30pm PT
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Too bad my dad's not around to see this day. Back in 6th Grade, for extra credit, I got him to attend an informational meeting held at my school and sponsored by Edison. Edison was promoting a proposed expansion of San Onofre. In the Q&A my dad asked "Are you familiar with the term half-life?" I've never forgotten that day.
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Camster (Rhymes with Hamster)
Social climber
CO
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Jun 13, 2013 - 12:57am PT
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Thanks, Riley, for posting that piece I did way back.
I haven't looked into nukes in a while, but there's not a lot of news about new plants, etc., so I suspect the economics and other issues remain.
Thanks,
Cam
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Jun 13, 2013 - 02:38pm PT
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How do Nukes do during wars? I imagine very similiar to Fukushima. Power companies love them because they are subsidized by the government and have the potential to create enormous profits; they are blind to the enormous consequences if something bad happens and the non existent waste disposal options.
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Jennie
Trad climber
Elk Creek, Idaho
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Jun 13, 2013 - 08:06pm PT
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the non existent waste disposal options.
Hi PSP,
there are well thought out options to handling radioactive waste...but politicians have obstructed making use of them.
What do you think of fast neutron breeder reactors? With regard to fuel...this technology can theoretically extract all, or nearly all energy from fuel and the end result is a stable, non-radioactive element.
The U.S. undertook serious breeder reactor research in mid twentieth-century but study was discontinued in the political backwash of terrorism and the prospect of nuclear proliferation.
France has operated breeder reactors with technical facility to extract 75% of fuels energy rather than 1% extricated from common water reactors. Japan, India, China, South Korea, and the UK are persuing breeder reactor technology.
Our present stores of used fuel could be recycled, a greater portion of the available energy used and leaving a so-called waste material with very little or no radioactivity.
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Jun 14, 2013 - 12:43am PT
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"this technology can theoretically extract all,"
The key word there is .................. starts with a t, it is not this or technology.
Everyone would love to have a safe nuke plant with no waste. we would also like to work less and climb when ever we want.
I think I recall Hartouni writing something about the thorium plants not working out.
He is smart and not bias so I believe him.
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Jennie
Trad climber
Elk Creek, Idaho
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Jun 14, 2013 - 01:38am PT
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No argument about Dr. Hartouni's intelligence, sir...but the Chinese and Indians are smart, also. And they're going forward with thorium reactors. Thorium reactors do work.
But my last post wasn't about Thorium reactors, PSP...rather fast neutron breeder reactors.
Our conventional power reactors utilize Uranium 235 and extract about 1% of the fuels energy. These "water reactors" cannot utilize Uranium 238. Uranium 238 is 140 times more plentiful in the Earths crust than Uranium 235.
A fast neutron breeder reactor transforms Uranium 238 into Plutonium 239 which is a more useful nuclear fuel, bestowing much more energy with much more innocuous spent fuel.
And an upshot of breeder reactor technology is present stores of spent fuel (from our present water reactors) can be reprocessed and much more of their contained energy released. Prototype breeder reactors were built in Idaho in mid-twentieth century and proven to work. The most efficient have been built by the French.
Certainly, other nations will proceed with breeder reactors...
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jun 17, 2013 - 02:40am PT
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Thorium fuel cycle is a technical possibility that probably cannot overcome regulatory requirements with enough certainty to attract the high level of capital investment to realize a commercial power plant in the US...
that is what I said.
It's possible that other countries could pursue this technology, whether or not they succeed in commercializing the technology will be very interesting. Whether or not it becomes a part of the US energy mix is another question. I'd bet not.
The "energy crisis" will have to be solved with technologies we already have in hand. Conventional nuclear (Gen IV or Gen V?) is possible... everything else nuclear will require R&D time periods longer than the onset of the needs.
This is my opinion.
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i'm gumby dammit
Sport climber
da ow
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Jun 17, 2013 - 04:12am PT
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while i admit i am biased towards nuclear, it seems Jennie is the only one here using facts and science as the base of her arguments.
in regards to water outlets, my dad did a lot of surveying and engineering work with the outlets of the St. Lucie plant in south florida. yes it was a great place to fish, but the guys with binocs and high powered rifles on the shore made it less so.
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