What Is the Most Efficient and Safest Method to Generate Electricity?

[tom aaron]

Actually they may be economical, one of the reasons the NS Savannah was decomissioned is because of how cheap shipping fuel was back then, apparently even by the 70s fuel costs had risen enough that Savannah would have been cheaper:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah#Economics_of_nuclear_propulsion

Not at all. The capital costs, decommissioning, shipping restrictions make it completely uneconomical. A money pit compared to conventional energy use.

Where do you see it being used today? Why not?

 

[SMPS-PHYSICS]

What is the best way to produce electricity?
Nuclear : people are afraid of leaks and waste storage problems.
Coal: People are afraid of smoke pollution, and it may run out soon.
Oil same as above.
Wind inefficient and to costly.
Wave renewable but again too costly
Solar: it takes up to much land.

What do you think?

I'm tracking for some years the developments made by Dr Randell Mills, Chairman of Black Light Power [crackpot link deleted]

Dr Randell Mills specifically has developed a commercially competitive, nonpolluting source of energy that forms a predicted, previously undiscovered, more stable form of hydrogen called “Hydrino”.

 

[russ_watters]

However, I read the article on nuclear decommissioning, and that seems to be a farce. The old plants are just sitting there for decades. They aren't cleaning them out. Part of every plant's profit is supposed to be put aside to pay for the cost of dismantling them, so it should not be a matter of money.

I think that's part of the Yucca mountain politics: you can't decom a nuclear reactor if there is nowhere to put the waste.

A big potential fly in the ointment is accidents. Fukushima, I've been reading, played havoc with Japan's economy...

Not exactly.

It's a little known fact that in a crazy coincidence, one of the largest earthquakes and largest tsunamis in recorded history happened on the same day as the plant failure. What are the odds?

In seriousness, the earthquake/tsunami caused $16-$35 billion in direct damage. The total economic impact is estimated at $235 B.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Tōhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami

The cost of the accident itself is expected to be about $105 billion, with half of that going to compensating affected residents and the other half for clean-up of the plant and surrounding areas.
http://rt.com/news/183052-japan-fukushima-costs-study/

Shutting down the rest of the nuclear plants in the country is expected to increase energy costs by $32B per year, so that's actually a bigger economic disaster than the earthquake itself. And that doesn't even include the $500 billion required to actually phase-out nuclear power over the next 20 years.

The costs of the accident itself are a small fraction of the costs associated with the earthquake and political decisions resulting from the accident. Summarizing:

-Total cost of the earthquake: $235 B (assuming that does not include the nuclear plant disaster)
-Total cost of the political decision to phase-out nuclear power: $600 Billion (includes estimated $100B for temporary shutdown associated costs)
-Total cost of the nuclear disaster itself: $105 B

So as you can see, of the $940 B total impact of the events that day, more than half ($600 B) is based on personal choice instead of need (I call that a self-imposed calamity) and only 11% is directly attributable to the nuclear plant accident, which is still less than half of the damage of the earthquake.

A bigger potential fly is countries like Iran, who say they want nuclear power but are almost certainly going to use it to also make bombs. They're simply not going to not make bombs. Every one who can has. They won't be any different. Since breeder reactors can produce weapons grade products, it seems to me no one should be building any breeder reactors.

What does the US or UK or even China building breeder reactors have to do with Iran getting nuclear weapons?

 

[zoobyshoe]

I was aware of all that, not that the links are not interesting. The fact is, nuclear accidents are an incendiary subject and Japan leaned way over backward to present the image of proceeding as cautiously and responsibly as possible. You call that a "self-imposed calamity," but I think it was in their best interest to do so, and it probably placated a lot of people. Regardless of the cause, any large nuclear accident like that is going to be a huge mess on every level.

Anyway, I read yesterday that they're thinking of bringing their nuclear back online. At least, there are rumors to that effect in the uranium market.

What does the US or UK or even China building breeder reactors have to do with Iran getting nuclear weapons?

I didn't put that well. I just meant to express the sentiment that, given the fact a country like Iran is probably up to no good in wanting nuclear power, I wish breeder reactors didn't exist (along with all things nuclear). I feel very ambivalent about them now, authentic love-hate.

 

[russ_watters]

I'm tracking for some years the developments made by Dr Randell Mills, Chairman of Black Light Power http://www.blacklightpower.com/

Dr Randell Mills specifically has developed a commercially competitive, nonpolluting source of energy that forms a predicted, previously undiscovered, more stable form of hydrogen called “Hydrino”.

Welcome to PF.

That's generally regarded to be a hoax/fraud.

 

[russ_watters]

I was aware of all that, not that the links are not interesting. The fact is, nuclear accidents are an incendiary subject and Japan leaned way over backward to present the image of proceeding as cautiously and responsibly as possible. You call that a "self-imposed calamity," but I think it was in their best interest to do so, and it probably placated a lot of people.

That's an awful lot of money to spend on advertising if all they really get out of it is "placating people". It's a complete waste of an enormous sum of money that their economy could really use. In either case, I don't want to quibble about the difference between "havoc" and "calamity", but surely you agree that it is self-imposed, right?

I didn't put that well. I just meant to express the sentiment that, given the fact a country like Iran is probably up to no good in wanting nuclear power, I wish breeder reactors didn't exist (along with all things nuclear). I feel very ambivalent about them now, authentic love-hate.

I still don't really understand. Are you saying you wish breeders didn't exist because you think Iran might build one to make bomb fuel? They're already making bomb fuel the conventional way (centrifuges), so there is no breeder reactor in their critical path/pipeline to getting nuclear weapons.

 

[zoobyshoe]

That's an awful lot of money to spend on advertising if all they really get out of it is "placating people". It's a complete waste of an enormous sum of money that their economy could really use. In either case, I don't want to quibble about the difference between "havoc" and "calamity", but surely you agree that it is self-imposed, right?

Yes, I agree it is self-imposed, but that's the way a nuclear accident played out in their culture. Ignore my editorial comment that it might have been in their best interest, which is a side issue. The bigger point was that nuclear accidents are a fly in the ointment.

I still don't really understand. Are you saying you wish breeders didn't exist because you think Iran might build one to make bomb fuel? They're already making bomb fuel the conventional way (centrifuges), so there is no breeder reactor in their critical path/pipeline to getting nuclear weapons.

Don't worry about it. My original impulse was to express my ambivalence as a kind of literary trope I've seen used a few times: to start out making an assertion, but end up directly contradicting it.

Consider the Japanese (since we're on that subject) saying, "Those who eat fugu are crazy. And those who don't eat fugu are crazy." Those who eat it are crazy because it can kill you. Those who don't eat it are crazy because it tastes too good not to eat. I was just reaching for an effect like that.

 

[gmax137]

... A bigger potential fly is countries like Iran, who say they want nuclear power but are almost certainly going to use it to also make bombs. They're simply not going to not make bombs. Every one who can has. They won't be any different...

Source please? As far as I know, not one of the countries with nuclear weapons has done it with uranium or plutonium that came out of a power generating reactor. Not one.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Source please? As far as I know, not one of the countries with nuclear weapons has done it with uranium or plutonium that came out of a power generating reactor. Not one.

Right, sloppy characterization on my part. The route taken is to claim they are refining the uranium for use in electricity generation by nuclear reactor.

 

[gmax137]

Right, sloppy characterization on my part. The route taken is to claim they are refining the uranium for use in electricity generation by nuclear reactor.

So your argument is, we here (in the US, or China, as examples) shouldn't build breeders, because the Iranians are enriching uranium in their centrifuges?

 

[zoobyshoe]

So your argument is, we here (in the US, or China, as examples) shouldn't build breeders, because the Iranians are enriching uranium in their centrifuges?

See my post #112.